The Lone Wolf

(See page 61)

[i]

Days Before History

[ii]

[v]

Preface to the New Edition

IN a book of this kind nothing more will be expected than an outline sketch of some phases of the life lived by the prehistoric dwellers in our land. The known facts are few; yet there must have been, even in those far-away times, well-defined differences of habit and custom due to local circumstances; so that details more or less true of one tribe or group would possibly be quite untrue of others.

But, for all that, there are various conclusions upon which the learned may be considered to be in agreement; and, working from these and from the descriptions of primitive life in our own times, there is brought within our reach the possibility[vi] of constructing a picture of man in early Britain which, without leaving the lines of reasonable conjecture, need be neither meagre nor misleading.

An attempt has been made here to introduce only descriptions which can in some degree be vouched for; and as much of such authenticated detail as possible has been included. Some licence has been taken in bringing together events which in nature were, no doubt, separated by long intervals of time and space; in suggesting, for instance, that a man of the newer stone age might have heard some vague tradition of the makers of the old stone weapons, and yet, in his lifetime, have witnessed the incoming of the first weapons of bronze: yet, for the sake of picturesqueness, such licence may be considered to be not only permissible but, in a book with the purpose of this, actually desirable.

When first it was suggested to the writer that he should undertake this task, there was only one detail of the necessary equipment which he could[vii] feel to be his own—a childhood’s interest in the subject, never forgotten. There was the recollection of a chapter in an old lesson-book, much pored over, with its two or three simple woodcuts showing the skin-clad “ancient Briton” hollowing out his log canoe, or shooting at the deer in the forest. There was the memory of a reputed “British village,” with its pits and mounds, situated on a distant hill in the neighbourhood of his old home, often talked about, but too remote to be visited. There were recollections of a village philosopher, an amateur bird-stuffer and collector of fossils and antiquities, who carried in his purse and would show a treasure beyond gold, a barbed flint arrow-head. One he was who did not resent the companionship of an inquisitive little boy, but took him fishing and taught him something of the old country lore.

The road into fairyland lay open before that boy in his childhood. With home-made bow and[viii] arrows he stalked the deer on the open hill-side, or, armed with the deadly besom-stake for spear, tracked the wild boar to his lair among the whins. A running stream bounding the distant fields was for him a river to be forded with caution; the woodland pool was a forest lake, deep and mysterious; the grove of oaks on the hill-side was a woodland, and the more distant woods a forest vast and impenetrable.

And the skin-clad hunters of the bygone time peopled those hills and woods. The rabbits became red-deer, the hovering kestrel a flapping eagle, a chance fox galloping over the hill a ravening wolf, and the shy badger (only that one could never get more than the hearsay of him) a fierce old wild-boar. Then there were huts to be built, fires kindled, and weapons fashioned, marksmanship to be practised, hunting expeditions to be carried out, and ruthless warfare waged with unfriendly tribes.

Thus when the writer began the welcome task[ix] of setting down something about the life of a time so remote that only the indestructible fragments of its framework are now to be recovered, he had for his guidance these memories of childish games and wonderings; games that were never played out, and wonderings that have never been satisfied. And it was his hope that others, whether or not situated as fortunately as he once was, might perhaps catch a hint of the joy of playing the old games and following the old ways of life out-of-doors, as our forefathers followed them in the days before history. We have not all forgotten them yet.

A glance at the Contents will show that the chapters fall into two groups; those headed The Story of Tig, which are meant to be a story and nothing more; and those headed Dick and his Friends, which aim at explaining parts of the story and giving further details and comments from the standpoint of a later time. For anyone who finds these chapters dull, nothing is easier than to skip them.

[x]

A longish list might be made of the various books which have been read or consulted in the preparation of these chapters. They are all well-known standard books, such as would be readily found by anyone who might wish to follow the subject further. This edition includes six chapters that are new—numbers six, nine, and fifteen to eighteen—besides various paragraphs and oddments scattered throughout the book; the chapter-headings have been altered in most instances, and the illustrations are nearly all new.

The author wishes to offer his sincere thanks to Professor W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., who generously consented to look over the proofs of the original book; and to Professor J. J. Findlay and Miss Maria E. Findlay for their invaluable help and kindly encouragement.

[xi]

The Contents of Chapters

[xv]

List of Illustrations

[1]

DAYS BEFORE HISTORY

Chapter the First

How Dick and his Friends heard a Story

I KNOW a boy called Dick. He is nine, and he lives near London. Last spring Dick’s father and mother moved house. All their furniture and things were taken in the vans, and Dick and his father and mother went in a cab.

When they got to the house, Dick ran in at once to explore. It was not really a new house, because people had lived in it before; but Dick was disappointed to find it very much the same as the house they had just left. There was the drawing-room on one side of the hall and the dining-room on the other, and all the rooms upstairs, and the bath-room, and the box-room, just the same as in their other[2] house; and there was a garden with walls round the three sides, very like their last one. And Dick was sorry that there was nothing new to see. So he said to his father that he did not like the new house because it was just like the old one. But his father said: “You must not grumble at that. Lots of houses are very much alike, of course. There are so many people in these days who want the same sort of house built for them.”

That summer Dick went to pay a visit to his uncle, a long way off in the country. Dick’s uncle lived in a very old house; part of it was more than four hundred years old, and Dick had never been in such an old house in his life. His uncle took him all round it, and showed him many strange things. The oldest part of the house was a square tower with very thick walls and long, very narrow windows. Dick’s uncle told him that the windows were made like slits so that the men inside the tower could shoot their arrows out at their enemies; while the enemies[3] would find it very hard to shoot their arrows in and hit the men inside. And he said, also, that in the old days before people could make glass for windows, it was better to have little windows than big ones in very cold weather.

And Dick’s uncle took him to the top of the tower and showed him the remains of an open fireplace, in which the men of the tower used to light a beacon fire to give the alarm to people in the villages and towns when enemies were coming.

And outside the tower he showed him part of a deep ditch, and told him that once this ditch went right round the house and was called a moat, only that now it was nearly all filled up with earth and stones. But at one time it was always full of water, so that no one could get at the tower without crossing the moat. And the people in the tower used to let down a bridge, called the drawbridge, because it was drawn up and down by means of chains. So that when they or their friends wanted to go out or[4] come in, the drawbridge used to be let down for them, and pulled up afterwards.

And Dick’s uncle told him that all these things used to be done to make houses safe to live in, because once upon a time long ago there were a great many thieves and robbers in the land, and there were no policemen to keep them in order; also that the people used to fight among themselves a great deal; and his uncle showed him some old pieces of armour, and a helmet and a battle-axe and some swords, such as the knights and men-at-arms used in battle long ago.

Dick’s uncle’s name was Uncle John. He was very much pleased to see that Dick liked his old house and his old swords and armour; but he said: “I know where there are the remains of some houses a very great deal older than mine. If you would like to see them, we will go for a walk to-morrow and try to find them.”

The next day they set out for their walk—Dick[5] and his uncle John and a collie and two terriers—and Uncle John said: “We will call for Joe first.”

“Is Joe a dog?” Dick asked.

“No,” said his uncle; “Joe is a boy. He is nine, like you, and he lives in the house with the green gate.”

But Joe said he was afraid he could not come for a walk, because his cousin David had come to spend the holidays with him, and they had made a plan to go fishing. So Uncle John invited David, too, and they all set off together.

After they had gone about a mile along the lane, they came to a heath. It was a large open heath on the top of a hill, looking down a slope into a valley. The slope of the hill was covered with bushes, and there were trees in little groups here and there. The hills beyond were mostly covered with woods, and there was a stream in the valley down below. Uncle John led the way until they came to a flattish place on the hill-side. Then he said:

[6]

“Now close to us here is a place where people lived long ago, before ever they could build towers or houses at all. Who can find where these old-time people lived?”

And the boys all searched round among the bushes and the rocks; and after a while Joe called out: “Was it here?”

Uncle John went to look, and he laughed at Joe. For what he had found was a little rough shed that the rabbit-catchers had put up.

Then Dick called out. He had gone further down the hill, and had come upon an old limekiln with a little opening, like a doorway, at the bottom of it.

But Uncle John said: “No, I don’t think that the limekiln is even half as old as my house. What we are looking for is something not built with stones and without walls of any sort.”

Then David ran away, and he shouted out; and when they went to where he was, they found him[7] standing in a sort of pit dug in the ground, about the depth that David could stand in up to his shoulders, and about twice as wide across as Uncle John’s walking-stick could measure.

And Uncle John said: “Yes, that is one place; but, if you look about, you will find several more.”

So the boys hunted about, and they found nine or ten more of the pits; and then they came back to where Uncle John was sitting and asked him to tell them about these old dwellings. But he said they must wait a little while, because he had something else for them to see first.

As they walked homeward over the heath, they came to a place where the cart-tracks went down to the sand-pits, and the way was bare and rough. And Uncle John said: “Now which of you boys has got eyes in his head? Within a dozen yards of where we are standing I have dropped something which once belonged to one of the men of the pit-dwellings. Sixpence for the boy who finds it!”

[8]

Then they all began to hunt round, but no one could find anything. So Uncle John said: “It is something made of flint-stone. The man to whom it belonged used to shoot with it.” And he kept on saying, while they were looking about: “Dick is hot” or “Joe is warm,” just as if they were playing at Hide the Thimble.

At last Joe called out, “I’ve got it!” and he came running up with an arrow-head chipped out of grey flint; and the others crowded round to look at it. And Uncle John showed them how carefully it had been chipped, and how sharp the point and edges were, although it was hundreds and hundreds of years old.

And he cut a strong little shoot off a hazel tree, and shortened it, and split it at the end, and showed them how he supposed the man who made the arrow all that long time ago had fixed it to its shaft.

Then he took out sixpence, and said to Joe, “If[9] you might choose, which would you rather have? The sixpence or the arrow-head?”

And Joe said, “The arrow-head, ever so much rather!”

But Uncle John said, “You mayn’t choose now, so take your sixpence. But I’ll tell you what: if you three boys would like to know more about the pit-dwelling people, and about their houses, and how they hunted and all that, I have a book at home in which there is a lot about these things; and I think it would be a good way of filling up some of your spare time these holidays if we were to have some reading out of the book now and then. You might try your hands at building a hut, to see if you could do it as well as the pit-dwelling people did. And you might make some bows and arrows, and even have a try at chipping out flint arrow-heads. We might have a shooting match with the bows and arrows, with another sixpence for the prize. Or, better still, we might have for a prize this flint[10] arrow-head of mine that Joe is so fond of; and give it to the boy who knows most about what we have been reading, when we come to the end of the holidays.”

They all agreed that that would be rather a good way of amusing themselves, if the book were interesting. But by the time they got home it was too late to begin; so the reading had to be put off until the next day.

On the next day Joe and David went up to Uncle John’s house. As it was a wet afternoon they sat indoors. On the table there was a large brown book; and as soon as they had settled themselves, Uncle John took up the book and began to read.

[11]

Chapter the Second

THE STORY OF TIG: Tig’s Birthday and his Home

ONCE upon a time, a very long time ago, there was a boy called Tig. When the story begins, Tig was only a baby; he was four, or nearly four. To tell the truth, he did not quite know when his birthday was. He did not have a proper birthday every year. Nobody kept birthdays when Tig was little, because people had not any names for the months, as we have now.

They talked about the hot-time and the cold-time, two times instead of four seasons; and if you could have spoken their language, and had asked Gofa, Tig’s mother, when Tig’s birthday[12] was, she would have said, “One day in the cold-time.”

When Tig was born, he lived first of all in a little house which had only one room in it. It was rather like a cellar, because it was dug out of the ground.

There were no windows in the house. There was only one doorway, and it was a hole, like the mouth of a burrow; and Tig’s father and mother, and any of their friends who came to visit them, had to crawl in and out on all-fours. At night, when the family were all inside, Tig’s father used to set up a big stone against the entrance-hole. He used to say in fun that this was to keep out the wolves and the bears. But neither bears nor wolves had much chance to get in, because there was a high paling of posts that surrounded all the huts. The big door-stone was always kept inside the hut, so that it was handy if ever they wanted to block the doorway against anybody during the daytime.

The fireplace was in the middle of the floor, and[13] there was a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. In the daytime the hole in the roof made a kind of window. The roof was made of branches of trees. These were supported on the ground by a foundation of thick flat stones and pieces of turf, and were overlaid with smaller branches and turves and a rough thatch of reeds.

Here Tig’s father, who was called Garff, and Gofa, Tig’s mother, lived nice and snug in the cold-time. They had no bedsteads nor tables nor chairs nor chests of drawers. But they had plenty of skins of wild horses and cows and deer, and wolf-skins and bear-skins, instead of beds and chairs; and Tig’s own sleeping-cot was a skin of a little bear that Garff had killed on purpose for him. Their other belongings were of a useful sort, not large and heavy like furniture, but such things as cooking pots, the mealing-stone for crushing corn, and the big wooden mortar in which grain or acorns could be pounded into flour.

[14]

In summer-time they used to find the dug-out hut too hot to live in, and besides, they had to take their cattle out to fresh pastures. So they, and their friends who lived in the other huts close by, used to pack up their skin rugs and all their other belongings, and travel to another part of the hill country. Some of the men used to march on in front, with their spears and bows and arrows ready, in case they were to meet any wild beasts. Then came the rest of the men and the boys with the dogs, driving the cattle along; and after them the old men and the women and children, with more armed men to bring up the rear. The women carried the skins and the cooking pots and the food; and almost every one had a baby bound on to her back. The food was carried in baskets, and the bigger children helped to carry the baskets. The smaller children had no loads to carry, except their dolls and playthings which they hugged in their arms as they walked along beside their mothers.

[15]

The people left the huts and marched down the hill. Then they crossed the river, wading into the water at a shallow place. But the little children had to be carried over; and Tig was carried over by his mother every time until after he was seven.

The tribe used to take a whole day in travelling to the camping-place; and when they got there at last, they used to make a new fire, and light bonfires in the open, and cook their supper, and sleep in tents and booths about the fires.

Up on the hill-side, at the edge of the forest, where the ground had been partly cleared, was the place of the first summer camp. The summer huts were built above ground, of branches of trees, wattled with withies and twigs, and daubed with clay. Sometimes a man had only to repair the hut that he had lived in the summer before. But even if he had to build a new one, it was not such hard work as to build a winter hut. Before a man began to build his summer hut, he picked out a tree with a straight[16] trunk to act as the main support of his hut. He used the tree as a centre pillar to hold up his roof-beams. If he built his summer hut in the open, away from the trees, he set up a pole for a roof-tree. We still talk of living under our own roof-tree, just as those people did long ago.

The fireplaces were made out-of-doors. If they had been indoors, the huts would often have been burned down. Probably they often were burned down even then. So whatever cooking Tig’s mother wanted to do in the summer camps she did at a big fire outside the huts.

The winter village of dug-out huts was high up on the hillside at the upper end of a sheltered valley, and the summer camps were set up at different places upon the hills, as the people moved about with their cattle; and wherever they were, they always put up a stockade of posts around the huts, to keep themselves and their cattle safe from wolves and bears.

But besides their dwelling-places, the people had[17] a fort, which was meant to be used only in time of war for the tribe to retire to, if their enemies should attack them. It was built at the top of a high hill, in the form of a ring, with a mound of earth and stones, and a stockade all round, and a deep ditch outside. The fort was big enough to take in all the people and their cattle in case of necessity; but when Tig was a baby, it had not been used for a long time and nobody lived in it.

[18]

Chapter the Third

Tig’s Mother, and the Lessons that she taught him

TIG’S mother was called Gofa. She was the mistress of the house and the housekeeper. She did not keep any servants, but did the work herself; she minded Tig and his little brothers and sisters, and cooked their meals and made clothes for Garff and all the family. Their clothes were mostly made of skins, and Gofa always prepared the skins for the clothes with her own hands. To make a suit out of a deerskin was a long business. The hide had to be dried in the open air, and then scraped all over with flint scrapers until all the hair was taken off. Then it was smeared with the animal’s brains and fat, and allowed to dry again; [19]and then thoroughly washed in wooden tubs and tanned with the bark of oak-trees. When at last it was cured and dried, it was cut into pieces and the pieces sewn together with sinews. Gofa’s needles were made of bone, and they were not very sharp: she used to pierce holes in the leather with a little bodkin made of flint stone before she could put in the stitches. But once the stitches were made, they held firmer than any that are sewn with thread.

Whenever a deer was brought home or a cow killed, Gofa always kept the big sinews from the legs and dried them in the sun or under the roof of the hut indoors.

Then she took a flint knife and scraped the sinew and shredded it into threads, and drew the threads separately through her fingers, and put them away in a pouch made of deer-skin. This was her store of thread.

Dressing a Skin

The suit that most people wore was a sark; it was[20] a sort of shirt which came down to the knees, and was girded with a belt at the waist. This was generally made of dressed hide; but almost every one had besides a thicker dress for cold weather, with the hair left on; and the richer people had these trimmed with different sorts of fur. Some wore cloaks besides, and caps made of skin with the hair on.

When the men went hunting they wore shoes made of hide, and leather bands wrapped round their legs for leggings. The people let their hair grow long; and they often used to spend much time combing and dressing it.

Most people, unless they were very poor, had also finer garments of cloth, which the women span and wove. But cloth was much scarcer than skins, besides being more easily worn out; and so the clothes for everyday wear were always of dressed hides. Men who spent a great part of their time hunting and creeping about in the thickets of the forest, wanted[21] a suit which would turn the wet and not tear easily among the thorns and briars.

Tig had his first little sark and belt when he was seven years old—it was made of deer-skin; but he had neither cap nor leggings; for, like all the other children, he used to run about barefoot and bareheaded.

Gofa taught her children many things, but she did not teach them to read or to write: she could neither read nor write herself, nor could any of her neighbours.

People had no books and no writing in those times. Tig did not learn to do sums or to say the Multiplication Table; but he did learn to count, by saying the numbers on his fingers. However, as it is such a long time since he lived, and as no one ever wrote down exactly how people counted in those days, Tig’s names for the figures are not known for certain. But it is very likely that they were something like this. On the fingers of one hand,[22] instead of One, Two, Three, Four, Five, he said what sounded like

and then on the fingers of the other hand,

for Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten; and that was as far as he got in the way of counting at first.

But there were many things that Tig learned from his mother out-of-doors; for Gofa used to do a great deal of work with the other women, preparing the ground for corn and reaping the crops at harvest time; and Tig used to go with his mother to the fields, or to the river when she went to cut osiers for making baskets, or into the woods to gather firewood. He learned to be always on the look-out; always to listen for every sound—even so little a noise as the snapping of a twig; and always to bear in mind what he was going to do in case of sudden danger, and where he should run to for[23] safety if he had to flee from a wild beast. Tig did not know many things that most boys and girls know in these times; but he could do one thing that hardly any boy or girl can do nowadays—he could move his ears backward and forward just as he wished, when he was listening very carefully to any slight sound in the woods.

Tig liked the summer-time best. It was much better fun playing in the forest near the huts and lying basking in the hot sun than crawling about in the dark, smoky winter pit-hut. He used to climb about in the trees, even when he was quite little. While his mother was busy with her work out-of-doors, she used to put him up into a tree and let him play about among the branches by himself; and sometimes she even made a sort of little crib for him with bands of hide, and left him to sleep safe and sound in a big oak tree. This was to keep him out of danger from wild animals. For in those days it was dangerous for children to be out in the open or[24] in the woods away from the huts, because there were often wolves or other savage beasts prowling about.

But round Tig’s home there was less danger, because the wild beasts had learned to fear men and their weapons and their fires. But still, wolves and bears were seen sometimes close to the village; so the children were safer playing up in the trees than on the ground; and they all learned to be very good climbers.

From the boys with whom he played, when he grew older, Tig learned many other useful things. He learned to swing himself down from one branch of a tree to a lower branch, and catch hold with his feet; to dive without splashing, and swim under water right across to the opposite bank of the river; to save his breath when running, so as to last out on a long race. He and the other boys practised shooting with bows and arrows, which their fathers helped them to make. And they had stone-throwing[25] matches, too; and no one was considered to be any good unless he could throw hard and straight with both hands. Tig and his friends all longed to become hunters, and their favourite game was to play at hunting; and as they grew older, they used to go out in parties into the woods to hunt and fish. But they did not often bring home any game.

Flint Scrapers

[26]

Chapter the Fourth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: The Hut that the Boys built

AS soon as Uncle John had finished reading, he asked the boys if any of them could guess why Tig’s father’s winter hut was partly dug out of the ground.

Dick thought because of wild beasts; and Joe said: “Because it would be warmer underground.”

Uncle John said that those were very good reasons, but he thought the chief reason was that in those early times people could not build walls. They had no tools such as masons and carpenters have nowadays. They had no iron to make pickaxes and[27] saws and planes with; they had only stone axes that were not much use for splitting or shaping beams. And so they had to live in houses not much better than foxes’ dens or rabbit-burrows.

They went to the heath next day, and looked at the pits again. Dick and Joe were talking about the pit-dwellings. Dick said they must have been very damp places to live in; but Joe said no—rabbits and foxes and badgers live in burrows underground, and their fur is always dry. They asked Uncle John’s opinion. He said that he thought in very wet weather the huts would be damp, because the rain would soak in through the roof. But as the village was on the top of the hill, no water would lie about the ground; and, anyway, the men probably dug trenches to carry off the water down the hill.

David said he thought the huts must have been very small; he wondered how the people managed to live in them.

“Yes,” said Uncle John, “they must have been[28] small. But you see, the people who lived in them had no furniture, and they did not mind crowding. It is very likely, too, that they did not lie down full-length when they went to sleep. There was no room for that in the winter huts. They slept sitting, with their hands clasped over their feet and their chins on their knees. We should not find this a comfortable position to sleep in; but it was the way they were used to. And besides, if a man had tried lying at full length in one of these huts, he would soon have found his toes in the fire.

“Before the people learned how to build huts they lived in caves. Why was it better to live in huts than in caves?”

None of the boys could think of the answer, so Uncle John said:—“If a man could find a cave that was roomy and dry, it would be a pleasanter place to live in than a dug-out hut with a leaky roof. But if he wanted to live in a cave, he would have to go where the cave was; though if he could build a hut,[29] he might live wherever he pleased. In the whole of a countryside there might not be more than two or three caves fit to live in, so that relations and friends could not live near to each other. But once men had learned to build huts, whole families could live together, and, what is more, they could build a wall or a stockade round the huts, as we have read. There is safety in numbers too, and in many ways it was much more comfortable for them than living scattered over the country in caves.”

The boys wished very much to build a hut. But as it was summer-time, they thought they had better try to build a summer hut. Besides, it would have been too big a piece of work to dig down four or five feet into the ground. They were a long time before they could find a place for their hut, because, as they said, they must pretend that it was not one hut that they were going to build, but a whole village of huts. They talked over with Uncle John the things that the people had in mind when[30] choosing a site for a village. They decided that, no doubt, it must be on high ground, with a clear view of the country round about on every side, so that the dwellers in the village could see if their enemies were coming to attack them. Then they would be better able to defend themselves if they stood above their enemies, than if their enemies stood above them.

There was another reason for having the village up on the hill rather than down in the valley, and it was this. The valleys were thick with forests, in which were bears and wolves, so they were dangerous for men and cattle. But on the open hill-sides the cattle could be driven out to feed every day in safety; and if wolves came out of the forest, the men could see them in the open and keep them in check.

Joe said they must have water for the village, so they must be sure of being close to a stream or a spring.

[31]

Uncle John said that water was very necessary, of course; but that if you went to live on the top of a hill for safety you could not expect to have water in abundance, for there are no streams about the tops of hills, and not often springs. However, he said, the people managed to overcome this difficulty, as the book would tell.

David wanted to know about firewood; wouldn’t they need to be near the forest for that?

They certainly would want firewood, Uncle John said, and they must always depend on having to make many journeys to the forest to get wood. But the ground must be cleared and kept open round about the village, so that there might be pasture for the cattle and ground for growing corn and other crops.

At last the boys found a very good place. It was high up, beyond a grove of oak trees, and there was a little spring close by: they called the grove of oak trees the forest. They had not very good[32] tools to work with. David had a big clasp-knife with a spring at the back, to prevent it shutting up on his hand, and Joe had a little hatchet that was not very sharp. But Dick wrote to his mother in London, and his father sent him a little axe like an Indian’s tomahawk.

It took them three days to build the hut. Although the trees were Uncle John’s, he could not let them cut down branches. But he let the woodman bring them some cut boughs from the wood-yard.

This was how they built the hut. They chose a young tree with a straight trunk. Around this they fixed the longest and straightest of their boughs upright in the ground. Then they cut smaller pieces of willow and birch and hazel, and laced them in and out of the uprights, until they had got a wattled wall all round, except between two of the uprights, where they left a space for the door-way. The roof they made by tying sticks[33] across from the uprights to the centre tree, and lacing these with twigs and brushwood. Then they plastered the outside with clay and earth. They made a door, with two light poles for the sides and two shorter ones for the ends, tied cross-wise at the corners, and the whole interlaced, like the walls, with hazel shoots and willows.

When the hut was finished, they brought Uncle John to see it. The boys could all get inside quite comfortably by squeezing a little; but there was not room for Uncle John. So, as it was a very hot afternoon, they all sat outside under an oak tree, and read the next chapter from the brown book.

[34]

Chapter the Fifth

THE STORY OF TIG: The Food Supplies

TIG’S father, Garff, was one of the chief men of the village. He was very strong and a clever hunter, and the people used to look to him to take the lead in the big hunting expeditions. He was a rich man, too; but that does not mean that he had much money, because he had no money at all. Nobody had money in those times: they had cattle instead, and if a man had to pay a great deal to another man, he gave a cow or a bullock; but if he had to pay only a little, he gave a joint of meat, perhaps, or a skin or part of a skin, or a basket of nuts, or a jar of corn, or a piece of honeycomb.

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Garff had a herd of about twenty small shaggy cows like Welsh cattle. They used to be driven out to feed on the pasture grounds on the hills in the daytime with other people’s cows, and some of the old men and boys with the dogs used to look after them. But at sunset the cowherds drove the cattle inside the stockade of the village for the night, to keep them safe from wild beasts; and then the women used to come out to milk the cows.

Garff used to spend most of his time hunting in the forest. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes two or three of his neighbours went with him. They were not often away from home for more than a day or two. But now and then it happened that they had to follow the game far afield, and then they were absent for a longer time. They hunted the deer mostly; but sometimes they killed the great wild cattle and wild horses and boars. They shot birds, too, of all kinds, and caught fish in the lakes and streams. They used to bring home[36] anything they could catch that would serve for food. Sometimes it happened that all the hunters were unlucky for many days, and meat became scarce. Then the killing of a bison or a wild horse was a great event. Everybody in the village came for a share of the meat, and either carried it home or made a fire and cooked it on the spot. The meat was eaten up to the very last morsel, and the people used even to smash the bones with pieces of stone to get the marrow.

The Stags

When Tig was a boy, the flesh of wild game was the favourite food of most people, and it was generally the commonest and the most plentiful. But it is easy for us to understand that, as the people multiplied and spread about over the country, all kinds of wild game became scarcer. The more the animals were hunted, the more difficult it became to get them. So it was well that there were other things for food. In the autumn the people used to gather all the wild fruits they could get, and store them[37] up for use in the winter—nuts and acorns and wild apples. There were other things, too, that could not be stored, such as pignuts and blackberries and other sorts of berries.

But the best food of all was corn, of which two kinds, wheat and barley, were grown. Corn was nicer and more wholesome than acorns, and much more useful, because, with care and good management, the stock could be increased; but of the wild fruits and nuts men could gather only what natural supply there might be.

Of their corn, the people made porridge and flat cakes of bread, first pouring the grain upon a flat stone and rubbing and grinding it with a long bar-shaped piece of stone, to make it mealy. Also they pounded their corn and acorns and nuts in mortars of wood or stone. This was the women’s work: and it might be said that the women were the millers and bakers, and even the butchers to the households in those days; for whenever the men brought home[38] a deer or any other game, the women always came out to skin it and cut it up and to dress the meat for cooking.

The people used not always to have regular times for meals, as we have nowadays. They generally had a morning and an evening meal, but otherwise, while there was food, they ate when they were hungry, and only at the feast times did they eat together in company. Gofa generally used to make a bowl of porridge for breakfast, and for supper she cooked whatever game Garff had brought home with him; for Garff, as we have said, was a clever hunter, and could generally provide better food than roots and acorns for his family.

There were times, of course, when everybody had to go short. In some years, when the crops had been scanty, food became very scarce before the end of winter, and then the people used to suffer greatly from hunger. At such times, men[39] used to hunt longer and more keenly than during the summer and autumn months; and if a boy could snare a hare or catch a hedgehog, or creep up along the bank of a pool where the wild ducks rested, and fling a couple of stones hard among them as they rose, he would be warmly welcomed at home when he took in his game.

Of course, when food became very scarce indeed, men killed their own cattle. But they did not do this so long as there was wild game to be got. Some men were not such skilful hunters as others; and so it sometimes happened that a man would have to kill all his cows, one after another, for food during the cold time, and a long winter would make many men poor. The women and children suffered terribly, and everybody got very thin. We sometimes say nowadays that the spring is a trying time to live through; but it was very much harder when there were no shops where food could be bought, all the year round alike.

[40]

The dogs had a bad time, too: and they used to scratch up buried bones and gnaw them over again, till they had gnawed away all the softer parts. Everybody longed for the summer and the time of plenty again; and there were always great rejoicings when the crops were ripe, and the time came to get in the harvest.

Before he was seven years old, Tig had learned in many ways to be useful to his mother. He used to go with her to the field and pull weeds out of the corn, or to the woods and help her to gather dry sticks and fir cones for fuel; and when she went to milk the cows, Tig went too and carried one of the milk jars; so he always earned his supper.

There was one thing Tig never tasted: he never had any kind of sweets. Of course he used to have honey at home, and he used to pick and eat all kinds of wild fruit, wild strawberries and raspberries and blackberries, but he never had sweets. There were not such things in those days. Nobody had sugar[41] because it was not made then. Even salt, which is so common with us that you can buy as much as you can carry for sixpence, was very scarce among Tig’s people. The Medicine Men of the tribe always had some which they got from some other Medicine Men, who got it from some other Medicine Men who lived by the sea-shore. But they were not willing to part with it except in little pieces; and for a handful of salt a man would have to give something valuable in exchange.

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Chapter the Sixth

How Gofa sold some Meal to a Hungry Man

ONE night, after the cold-time was over, Gofa and Tig and his little brother Ban and his little sister Fearna and Sona the baby were in the hut waiting for Garff to come home from hunting. Gofa was making porridge for supper, and Tig and Fearna and Ban were waiting to have theirs, for they were hungry. By this time Gofa’s store of corn was low, and she used to put a handful or two of pounded-up acorns with the corn-meal when she made porridge or bread.

Gofa was stirring the porridge when she heard a noise outside the hut. She jumped up and snatched [43]a club and stood ready to strike if there should be an enemy at the door. Then she called out:

“Who is there?”

Gofa Alarmed

“It is I, Tosgy,” said a voice outside. So Gofa laid down the club and pushed aside the stone at the doorway, and then Tosgy crept into the hut. Tosgy was not a strong man like Garff. He had had his feet frost-bitten in the cold-time, and he could not run and so he could not hunt. The people called him Tosgy because he had big teeth.

“See,” he said, “I have brought you a beautiful fox-skin—a fine one, a rare, fine one; and I beg you give me some meal for it, a little meal for my children. It is now five days, nay, six days since we have eaten bread. We have had naught to eat but the green buds and leaves that we have plucked from the trees and boiled—and oh, but they are poor stuff! There is no goodness in such food, and my little ones are ailing. I beg you take the skin and give me meal.”

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Gofa took the skin and looked at it; and she said:

“My man brings me many skins as good as this one; but you shall have the meal for the little ones—mixed meal, look you, such as we have to eat ourselves. We have no better.”

Then she went to a jar that was standing beside the fire and took out a handful of baked corn and gave it to Tosgy and said:

“Munch that, while I put up the meal—it is hard fare, but thy teeth be good.”

“Ay, ay,” said Tosgy, “my teeth be good! would that my feet were as sound!” So he munched the parched corn.

Then Gofa threw some more meal into the porridge pot, and told Tig to go on stirring the porridge. And she took Tosgy’s jar which he had brought and filled it up to the brim with meal; and then she took a smaller pot and filled it up with porridge from the pot beside the fire; and gave it to Tosgy to take home to his children. And Tosgy[45] thanked her many times and made haste to go home with the provender. As he crept out at the doorway, Gofa shouted after him:

“Mind how thou goest! Spill none, and see that my bowls are brought safe back when they are empty—which they soon will be methinks with all those hungry mouths to fill!”

Very soon after this visitor had gone, Garff came home. Gofa did not pick up a club to brain him with. She knew who was coming before he got to the hut, for she heard his whistle; and Flann his dog came to the door and whined and scratched outside. Then Garff crept in and threw down on the floor the game that he had brought home—a squirrel and two water-rats.

“Poof!” he said, “I am tired! Up hill and down dale all day long and never a sight of game. As for the deer, there is no getting near them, and what we shall do if this goes on I cannot tell. But the wolves! why, they be as bold now as ever they were[46] in the cold-time. There were five at least prowling about a bowshot from the gate.”

“Ah!” said Gofa, “and thou all alone!”

“Nay, I was not alone,” said Garff. “Darach was with me and he let fly at one and shot it through the body—a rare long shot—and the rest, as their way is, fell upon it and pulled it down and tore it to pieces. We went round to see that the cattle be all safe within walls. I never knew the wolves so fierce save when there was snow on the ground. But the cattle be safe; that’s one good thing; the cattle be safe. Give me some of that porridge, I am hungry.”

So Gofa brought him some porridge and a bowl of milk, and he sat by the fire and ate his supper, and afterwards ate some parched corn, munching a few grains at a time, while Gofa set to work to strip the fur from the squirrel and the water-rats to make them ready for cooking the next day.

By this time Tig and the other children had gone to lie down to sleep in the part of the hut where[47] they slept. Then Gofa told Garff about Tosgy and how he came to ask for meal.

“I fear there will be many hungry mouths among our folk,” said Garff, “before the fruits are ripe and the harvest fit to be gathered in; and with game getting so hard to kill too! I am glad thou couldst spare some meal.”

“But I shall give him back his fox-skin,” said Gofa, “for they are very poor. See now, I will tell his wife to send one of the children for it next time she is making a coat!”

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Chapter the Seventh

The Harvest of the Fields and of the Woods

ALTHOUGH the people had learned how to grow corn, they could not raise large crops. They tilled the ground only in patches, and they had no ploughs or harrows, nor had they any horses to work the land with. All the work was done by hand, and mostly by the women, although sometimes the old men and the boys helped them. They cleared the ground beyond the edge of the forest, and turned up the soil with their hoes.

When a woman wanted to make a hoe, she chose a bough of a tree that had a bend in it. Then she cut and trimmed this to the shape of [49]the letter L, and, last of all, bound a flint, which had been chipped to a broad point, to the shorter limb of the bough with strips of hide; and so she had a useful tool for tilling her plot of ground.

Going to the Fields

In the spring the people sowed their corn. They worked in parties, and as they moved across the field plying their hoes, they used to sing songs to keep in time with one another, one singing the verses and the rest all joining in the chorus. They were fond of singing, whether they were at work or at play; they had songs and choruses for the different occupations, marching songs and harvest songs and songs about hunting the deer; and at the feast-times they sang these songs and the choruses over and over again.

When the time came to gather in the corn, the people often found their crops very short, for pigeons and rooks and other birds came and ate the corn, and the wild deer sometimes broke through[50] the fences and trampled down even more than they ate.

But for all that, the harvest was always a busy time. The women cut off the heads of the corn with their flint knives and carried it home in baskets. They stored it up in the store-houses in the winter village, and when the last of the crops had been gathered in, the people went back to the village for the winter. Then for many days they kept the feast of the harvest. There was plenty to eat and drink, and everybody ate and drank a great deal; and they sang and danced and offered sacrifices, and gave thanks to their gods for the crops that they had gathered in.

The pit-hut, which was Gofa’s store-house for her corn, was near the hut in which she and Garff lived. Like her neighbours she stored up the ears of the corn, and only rubbed out the grain when she wanted a supply for making cakes or porridge.

[51]

Besides the harvest of the fields there was the harvest of the woods to be gathered in. Tig used to enjoy more than anything else the days when they gathered the acorns. The women used to go in large parties, with some of the children and some of the young men, all singing and shouting. Then, if a savage old wild boar was routing about among the fern, and munching the fallen acorns, he would listen to the noise of the party coming up, and grunt angrily at being disturbed, and move away into the deep forest; for he feared men, and never attacked them unless they chased him and brought him to bay.

It was splendid for Tig and the other boys—climbing into the oak trees, and getting as far out as they could upon the branches to shake down the ripe acorns. Sometimes they gathered a handful of fine ones and threw them at one another or pelted the women who were gathering underneath; and then Gofa, or some one else’s mother, would look[52] up and say: “Have done now, little badling! or surely we will leave thee in the forest here to-night, and Arthas the She-bear will catch thee and carry thee to her den to make a supper morsel for her little ones!”

And they gathered blackberries and nuts and wild strawberries, and sat down all together to eat the fruit with the corn-cakes that they had brought; and those who had not had enough to eat, nibbled at the acorns. But nobody ate many of these, because they were meant to be carried home for storing, and not to be eaten raw at any time. They were to be dried beside the fire in jars, and then pounded up and mixed with corn-meal to make it go further.

At sunset the people all joined into a company again to go home. Every one had a load. There were big baskets that took two to carry, and smaller baskets for one, and little baskets for the children: and some of the lads and women had wallets made of deer-hide slung over their shoulders.

The Wild Boar

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And so they carried home the harvest of the woods, day by day until all the trees were bare—and you may be sure that the squirrels had to be astir very early in the morning to get a share of acorns and nuts for their own winter stores.

[54]

Chapter the Eighth

How Crubach became a Sower of Corn

IN Garff’s village there lived an old man named Crubach. The people called him Crubach, the Lame One, because when he was a young man he had had a dreadful fight with a bear, and had been nearly torn in pieces. The bear clawed his face all down one side and tore his arm, and would speedily have killed him, but that two or three brave men dashed in with blazing firebrands and thrust them in the bear’s face; and among them they killed the bear and saved poor Crubach. In time he recovered; but he was never able to hunt again, because he was lame and could not hold either a bow or a spear. But he was strong[55] and clever, and he did not mean to have to beg his daily bread. So he became a grower of corn; and in time he was the greatest grower of corn in the village. He tilled his plot of land more carefully than the women, and always saved his best corn for seed; and his seed was so much better than other people’s that they used to go to him at the time of sowing, and take meat or skins or firewood to exchange for seed-corn.

Then the men began to see that after all Crubach had done well, even though he was not a hunter; and in course of time, some of them took to working among the crops and laying up more corn for the winter store.

Besides his crops of barley and wheat, Crubach grew flax, of which the fibres were dressed and spun into thread. He used to keep a supply of sticks trimmed and ready for making bows and arrow shafts and spear-shafts; he also made wooden cups and bowls and wooden tubs. And he used to gather[56] wild plants of different sorts and use them for medicine; and it was said in the village that nobody except the Medicine Men knew more about plants than Crubach.

When Tig grew big enough to run about by himself, he became great friends with Crubach. The old man was generally to be found working on his piece of land, or sitting to scare away the birds from his crops. He used to teach Tig the names of the animals and birds, and tell him things about them—such as why Broc the badger never walks out except at night; why Graineag the hedgehog wears a prickly jacket; where Gobhlan the swallow goes in the cold-time; why Seabhac the kestrel hawk hangs in the air beating her wings; and who it is that haunts the reedy marshes, crying: “Boom-boom!” And when Crubach gathered in his harvest, he bound a little sheaf of corn for Tig, and gave it to him, and said: “This did I promise thee on the day when we were in the field together scaring the birds.”

[57]

Chapter the Ninth

The Story of the Wolf that hunted alone

THIS is one of the stories that Crubach told to Tig. No one now could tell it exactly as Crubach told it, but it was something like this:

Once upon a time there was a wolf that hunted alone. Why did he hunt alone? Now listen, and I will tell thee.

One night he went out with his brother wolves; and they found the trail of a stag and hunted him in the forest. And the stag stood at bay in a rocky place and thrust with his antlers and killed three wolves, and another he killed by leaping upon it suddenly, with his feet altogether, and breaking its[58] neck. So this wolf, who was a coward, said: “I have no mind to be killed. I will not hunt stags.” So he went home to his den and got no supper that night.

On the next night he went out again with the pack, and they found the trail of a wild bull and hunted him in the forest. And the wild bull stood at bay in a thicket, and tossed four wolves and trampled them underfoot and gored them with his horns. So this wolf said: “I have no mind to be tossed by a wild bull. I will not hunt wild bulls.” And he went home to his den and got no supper that night.

So on the next night he went out to hunt alone. By and by he saw Sinnach, the old fox, trotting home with a wild duck that he had caught, slung across his shoulders. So he called out:

“Ho, there! Deliver up that duck!”

But Sinnach was not afraid when he saw that the wolf was alone, and he ran to his den, which was in[59] the rocks close by, and he dropped the duck inside, and then he came to the door and called out to the wolf: “Ho, there, friend! Go and catch a duck for thyself!” And then he went back into his den.

And the wolf went on, and soon he came to the village of the Beavers. The village of the Beavers was in a pond; but the pond was frozen over, because it was the cold-time; and the wolf walked on the ice and came to the hut where the grandfather beaver lived. The grandfather beaver was at home with his family, all sitting snug in the house; and the wolf knew that all the beavers were at home because he could smell them. So he came up close outside, and he called out to the grandfather beaver and said:

“Let me in! Let me in!”

The grandfather beaver knew the wolf’s voice, and he answered:

“Where are thy manners, friend? Come to the door!”

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Now the door of a beaver’s hut is under the water; and the water was frozen over with thick ice; and the grandfather beaver knew that the wolf could not dig through the ice, so he laughed, and the other beavers laughed too.

When the wolf heard the beavers laugh, he was very angry, and he snapped out and said:

“I am coming in through the roof!”

So he began to scratch and dig with his paws at the roof of the beavers’ hut. But the roof of the beavers’ hut was made of boughs well laid in and plastered with mud and gravel, and it was all frozen as hard as the ice on the pond. So when the wolf scratched, he only hurt his claws and made his pads very sore; so after a while he had to leave off and go home, limping on his sore pads. And when the beavers heard him leave off and go away, they laughed again, down in their snug house.

So the wolf went home to his den, and he got no supper that night.

The Wolf at the Beaver’s Hut

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The next night he went out again and hunted by himself. And he was so hungry that he sat on his tail and howled at the moon.

Gearrag, the young hare, heard him, and she peeped at him from behind a tuft of grass; but she was not afraid of a wolf that hunted alone, and she ran off to feed.

And Mulcha the owl heard him; she perched in the fir tree overhead and cried out: “Whoo-whoo-whoo! Who heeds a wolf that runs by himself? Whoo-whoo-oo!”

And Broc the badger heard him. He came up out of his burrow at the roots of a big oak tree to go on his midnight prowl; he went on his way, grunting to himself: “I always go out without a mate, for that is the way of us badger-folk, but it is not the way for him; it is not the way of his folk. No, no!”

By and by the wolf went on again; and he hunted all the night and found no trail. But towards[62] morning he smelt the scent of dead game. And he nosed about and presently he found in a thicket the body of a hind that had been caught in a trap by its foot. A man had set the trap, but he was at home lame with frost-bite in his feet, and he could not go to his trap. The hind was dead, and Bran the raven had found it; Bran was sitting aloft on a bare branch, calling out “Kroagh, kroagh, kroagh!”

When the wolf found the dead hind in the trap, he was very glad. He said to himself: “Now I will have a feast all to myself. It is a good thing to hunt alone!”

But Arthas the she-bear was near. She too had smelled out the dead hind, and she meant to make a meal of it. She saw the wolf, but she was not afraid of a wolf that hunted alone. So she came up very quietly behind him and said:

“Humpff!”

The wolf jumped, for he was very frightened.[63] But he snarled and showed his teeth. Then he said:

“Go away! This is mine.”

But Arthas said, “Nay, friend, it is mine!”

And the wolf said, “It is mine, for I killed it!”

But Arthas answered: “If thou didst kill it, what is this thing upon its foot, and what meaneth Bran yonder, crying carrion? Thou art a liar and I shall cuff thee!”

So Arthas lifted her great paw and cuffed the wolf over the head, and he fell down dead. And Arthas took the body of the hind and dragged it home to her den for breakfast for her little ones. But as for the carcase of the wolf, she saw that it was nothing but skin and bone; so she left it there in the thicket for Bran the raven, who sat in the tree crying carrion, and for Feannog the crow, who will eat anything. And that is the end of the story of the wolf that hunted alone.

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Chapter the Tenth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: A Talk about Cattle and Crops

WHEN the chapter was finished, the boys talked about the plan for making a dug-out hut, if they could all be together in the next winter holidays. Uncle John said he would not stop them, but he thought they would find it too hard a task when they came to dig down into the ground, unless they could find a place where the soil was deep and sandy.

Dick wanted to know what tools the people of the old time used when they dug out their winter huts.

Uncle John took down another book, and showed[65] them a picture of an old pick-axe made out of a deer’s antler. But, he said, he did not know what the men used to do for shovels; perhaps they scooped up the soil in their hands, and carried it up to the top of the pit in baskets.

Anyway the boys thought that with their spades they would be able to dig down fairly deep; and then, if they were to lay the soil around the top as they dug it out, they would make the walls higher.

Joe said it would be great fun to have a real fire and collect acorns and roast them to see how they tasted. But Uncle John said they would not find many acorns in the Christmas holidays: the rooks and the squirrels would have taken care of that. But David said they could have some chestnuts from home and pretend they were acorns. He said he thought they would be nicer to eat than acorns, anyway. “Acorns are so bitter,” said he, “I wonder anyone could eat them at all.”

[66]

“Yes,” said Uncle John. “But if they were pounded up and put into a vessel with water, the water would take out much of the bitter taste; and then the water could be poured off and the acorn meal dried and mixed with corn meal, as we read, for either corn-cakes or porridge.”

Then David asked why the people didn’t keep larger herds of cattle, so that in the long winter, when there was no other food, they could be sure of having beef in plenty.

“Well,” said Uncle John, “now that’s a question—who can think of an answer?”

Dick said that wolves would come and kill the cattle; and Joe said that enemies would come and steal them.

“Those are both likely answers,” said Uncle John, “for, of course, it is harder to guard a large herd than a small one—but, can’t some one think of a better?”

David said he expected it was hard to keep cattle[67] in the winter, if the people had no byres for them, and no hay to feed them with.

“That is a good notion,” said Uncle John, “the people couldn’t take a cow down the passage into a pit-hut, though no doubt they built cowsheds of some sort inside the wall of the village. But cows can’t live on nothing but fresh air, any more than human beings can; and it must have been a difficult matter to collect winter forage for even a small herd in days when nobody made hay. And then, I daresay, it was not easy to rear large herds, for the cattle which the people had were only partly tamed; and some would be apt to stray away into the forests; and the more a man had, the more he would lose, both in this way and from the attacks of wild animals, as Dick says.

“It is more likely that most men had only a few cattle at first. Then they naturally tried to keep for use and for breeding those that were the tamest[68] and the best; and you may be sure that a man would not kill a cow that was gentle and gave good milk, unless he were driven by starvation.

“But, of course, as time went on, men became more skilful in rearing cattle and sheep, just as they became more skilful in growing corn. And so it came to pass that people had always food at home, without needing to hunt the wild deer, except for amusement; but that was not for a very long while after the time we have been reading about.”

Then Dick wanted to know about the corn that Crubach sowed. Where did it come from? Was it wild corn? Uncle John said that was a hard question, and one that even learned men had never been able to answer completely. There is no wild corn in this country, he said, and the original stock of the corn that Crubach and his neighbours had must have been brought from some other country a great many years before Crubach lived.

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“What are pig-nuts like?” Dick asked.

“You dig them up in fields, with an old knife,” said Joe, “a white flower grows up from them, earlier in the summer than this. They don’t have a shell; they are like little potatoes, and taste like a nut but are rather tough.”

“Yes,” said Uncle John, “I don’t suppose the people thought much of pig-nuts, which probably were not very plentiful in times when there were fewer meadows; and not easy to get, besides being rather poor things when you get them, as Joe says. But the wild fruit that they gathered in the autumn—we have read of acorns, nuts and blackberries—what other kinds can you think of?”

“Wild strawberries,” said Dick.

“And raspberries,” said Joe.

“Cranberries,” said David, “and blaeberries.”

“What are they?” Dick asked.

“You say bilberries, or perhaps ‘whorts’—go on.”

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“Hips and haws.”

“Very likely.”

“Rowanberries?” David asked.

“Yes, very likely: but think of something else—not berries at all.”

“Not crab apples?” said Joe, “they didn’t eat crabs surely?”

“I expect they did. Not that we need guess about it, for to a certain extent we know. A good many years ago, the remains of several villages of about the period of this story were found beside the shores of some of the lakes in Switzerland. There was hardly anything of the huts to be seen, because they had been burned down. But the fire which had destroyed the huts had preserved some of the things inside. For instance, jars were dug out of the silt containing what had once been food, all charred by the fire but whole and perfect in shape. There were nuts and acorns and corn of different kinds, but also crabs or wild apples that[71] had evidently been split and dried. Some of these things are in the British Museum now; and if we could go and see them, I daresay you would think them very interesting.”

Pickaxe

[72]

Chapter the Eleventh

THE STORY OF TIG: How Tig got his First Bow and Arrows

WHEN first Tig and his friends played at hunting, they mostly had bows and arrows of their own making. Tig had made his own bow, but it was not a good one. He made it of a hazel sapling which was not a very tough piece of wood, and not well balanced, as one end was thicker than the other. His bowstring was one that his father had thrown away, and it was old and frayed.

But one day Garff was sitting outside the hut shaping a shaft for a spear with his flint knife, and he saw Tig trying to shoot with his weak little[73] bow. So he called him, and said: “Bring it hither to me, little son. It is a poor thing, this bow of thine. One of these days we must make thee a better.”

And Tig said: “Make it now, Dad.”

So Garff laid aside his spear, and he went into the hut and brought out several lengths of wood from his store, and he looked them over carefully. He chose one—a piece of a tough ash sapling, about four feet long. Then he set to work to whittle this with his knife until he had shaped it to the right form—thickest in the middle and tapering towards the ends, rounded in front and flattened at the back; and he scraped it smooth all over. Then he worked some notches at each end, using for this a little saw made of flint; and he fitted a new bowstring to it, and gave Tig his first real bow. Of course this was not done all in a day, but Garff worked at it between whiles when he had time.

[74]

And he made the arrows, too, taking from his stock of arrow-sticks six of the shorter ones. These he trimmed and scraped, and made a deep notch at the top of each, to take the bow-string. Then at the tip he made a deep cut, lengthwise, with the saw, and fitted in a bit of the leg bone of a deer, shaped and pointed. Then he cut a very fine strip of fresh hide and bound it around the base of the bone point; and afterwards laid the arrows one by one in the sun, so that the hide might dry and shrink, and hold the arrow-head tight in its place.

And Garff took some wing-feathers of a wild goose and split them; and to each of the arrows he bound three strips of the feathers a little below the notch, to make them fly straight. And he made a quiver of birch bark, bound with bands of hide, for Tig to carry his arrows in. And he cut a mark upon the quiver, and the same mark on each of the arrows, so that Tig might always know his[75] own; and he told him to be very careful about his arrows, not to waste them on chance shots, and always to recover them after shooting, if possible.

None of the boys had a better outfit than Tig’s. Among them they made a target out of an old skin, stuffed with dry grass, and practised shooting at it. The men taught them how to aim, standing sideways, on to the target, with feet well apart, firmly set, and to draw the bow by hooking the first two fingers of the right hand into the bowstring, not by pinching the arrow between thumb and finger. Every boy in the village wanted to practise and become a good marksman. The boys who could shoot well and run well were always thought much of; and sometimes they were allowed to go hunting with the men.

[76]

Chapter the Twelfth

How Tig visited Goba the Spear-maker

ONE day, not long after this, Tig was bringing in a faggot of sticks for his mother, when he saw his father getting ready for a journey. He had a wallet, with food packed into it, slung over his shoulders; also his bow and a quiver full of arrows. He carried a spear in his hand and had his stone axe slung at his side.

Tig had never been away with his father, and he wished very much to go. He asked his father where he was going, and Garff said:

“I am going away over yonder, to get some arrow-heads from Goba, the spear-maker; but it is too far for thee to travel. We shall be three days[77] or more about our journey, and we shall sleep out at night. Thou art better at home.”

But Tig begged hard; so Garff said he might go, if his mother would let him; and though his mother said she feared it would be too far for him, yet he might go, for he was getting a big boy and must learn to march like a man.

Four or five men of the village were going with Garff, and at last they set out. They left the open ground where the cattle were feeding, and made their way into the forest, going downward until they came to the river. They marched along the river-bank, going up the stream, and then crossed the water and mounted upward by a track through the thick forest until they reached the high ground on the other side of the valley. Here they were on the open moor; and the men began to practise shooting for a match. One man shot an arrow ahead, and then the others, each in turn, aimed at the first man’s arrow. Then they walked on,[78] and as soon as they were near enough to see how the arrows lay, they sent Tig to pick them up. But Tig did not have to ask whose arrow each one was, because every man had his own mark on his arrows, and Tig knew the marks just as well as one of us nowadays knows his own initials on a pocket-knife.

After sunset they came to a sheltered spot near a clump of oak trees, and here they camped for the night. Garff and another man then gathered up dry grass and dead leaves and twigs, and set to work with their fire-stick to make a fire. This they did by setting the fire-stick upright, with its end sunk into a hole in a little slab of wood that they had brought with them. Then one pressed his hand lightly on the top of the upright stick, while the other brought out a kind of bow with a loose bow-string, and looped the string around the middle of the upright stick. Then he worked the bow backward and forward and so made[79] the fire-stick spin in its socket, which after a while became so hot that it set fire to the dry leaves and twigs that had been laid around it.

Meantime the other men had collected dry brushwood and had cut logs, so that they soon had a good fire. They sat round the fire and ate of the dried meat and corn-cake that they had with them, and then lay down to sleep. The men watched by turns to keep the fire up; for so long as there was a good blaze they need not fear the attack of wild beasts. Tig lay close beside his father; and when one of the men wakened Garff to take his turn of the watch, Tig wakened too, and saw the darkness all about them and the sparks flying upward towards the stars, and he heard the wind rushing in the tops of the trees around them, and far away the howling of the wolves hunting through the night.

After three days of such marching and camping,[80] they came to Goba’s village. Goba’s village was in the hill country and at the top of a low, rounded hill. There was a wall set with stakes all round the village, and the huts were mostly larger and better built than any Tig had seen before. Goba and his sons never went away from their village. When the people moved off in the summer and went camping with their cattle, Goba and his sons stayed at home, working at their trade. They were all busily working when Garff and his party arrived.

The Spear Maker

All about Goba’s hut there were great heaps of flint stones, and the floor of the sheds where they worked was covered with broken pieces and waste chips. Goba and the other men all had different pieces of work on hand. Goba was making a spear-head; he had laid it on a large stone between his knees and kept striking it sharply and delicately with a small stone which he held in his right hand, to finish chipping the edge and make it [81]sharp. Tig stood by and watched; and when Goba saw that Tig was watching him, he let him take the spear-head in his hands and look at it and feel the sharp point. It was made of beautiful yellow flint stone.

“Did you make it out of one of those stones?” Tig asked.

“Yes,” said Goba, “out of such a one as they have there, see,” and he pointed to where two men were fixing a large grey flint stone into a groove between two great logs. Then one of the men took a large stone and struck the flint at the top and knocked off a long flake. This they did six or seven times; and then they gathered up the flakes and took them into the shed.

And Goba showed Tig some of the things the other men were making. Two of them were at work upon arrow-heads, chipping them very slowly and carefully; and while Tig was watching, one man made an unlucky stroke and broke his arrow-head[82] in two. So he spoiled all his day’s work at one blow, and there was nothing for it but to take another flake and begin all over again. But the other man took a bone tool like a chisel, and pressed it along the edge of his arrow-head all the way along, flaking off tiny chips and making the arrow-head very sharp.

Another man was making a stone axe. He had shaped it out by hammering it with stones of different shapes and sizes, and was then busily grinding the cutting edge by rubbing the axe-head backward and forward, backward and forward all the time, upon a large grooved slab of hard sandstone.

“With such as this we can cut,” said Goba; “we can fell trees and hew them in pieces. There is nothing like my axes for cutting. Now see, I will show thee how the men of the old time made their axes—they that were in the land before our fathers came hither;” and Goba picked up a heavy lump[83] of flint stone that had been roughly chipped into the shape of an axe-head. “Even such as this were the axes of those rude folk! Ho! ho! right enough to brain a wolf withal, but good for naught when it comes to felling of trees or hewing of timber. We must have our axes well ground to an edge for felling timber, little son.”

“Why doesn’t my father make spears for himself?” Tig asked.

“Thy father is a hunter, boy,” said Goba. “Look at me! Can I chase the deer? Nay! Too heavy and slow am I for hunting. Set thy father’s leg against my leg and his arm against my arm: then thou wilt see.

“But set thy father’s hand against my hand, his eye against my eye! He can spy the deer when they are many paces distant among the fern, where I should see naught. But can he see, as I can see, into the heart of the stone, and can he handle it aright to shape an arrow or an axe? Nay, he cannot. Now[84] I was born to love the good stones, and these my sons follow after me. It is not born in thee to handle stones: thou wilt grow up to be a hunter, like thy father.”

“I should like to be a spearmaker, and make spears and arrows like these of yours,” said Tig.

“Then thou must come and learn our craft,” said the old man, “and that is a long matter. Start young, that’s the only way. The hand must learn, and the eye must learn, and many a likely piece of stuff be spoiled before a craftsman is made. But thou wilt not come. Thy father likes better for thee to learn how to hunt deer and slay wolves, with the good stones that I and my sons will make for thee. It is not born in thee to follow our craft, little son.”

Inside his hut Goba had his store of all kinds of weapons made of stone—axes and spears and arrow-heads and daggers; he also had knives and chisels, and scrapers to scrape hides with, and little saws, and many other such things all of flint stone.

[85]

Then Garff and his men unpacked the goods they had brought with them—fine skins, and pickaxes made of deer’s antlers (of which Goba was always in want, for digging out the flint), and a fine buck that they had killed in the forest that morning, and as much of the crushed corn out of their stock as they could spare. And these things they exchanged with Goba for flint arrows and spears and two or three axes. And Goba gave Tig a javelin or little spear for his own; because he said that the party had a long way to travel before they could get home, and Tig must have his weapon like the rest, in case they should fall in with wild beasts and be attacked.

[86]

Chapter the Thirteenth

Arsan’s Story about Grim the Hunter

ARSAN was the oldest man in Garff’s village; he was so old that no one knew how old he was. He could remember things that happened before anyone else in the village was born; and he was very fond of telling stories about the old times. The people liked to listen to Arsan’s stories, when they were gathered round the fire in winter, or when sitting out of doors on a summer evening.

One day in winter, when the snow was thick outside and the people were keeping at home out of the storm, many of them gathered together in Garff’s hut. Old Arsan was there, and the people[87] asked for a story, and Tig crept near so that he could hear it. And Arsan said:

“Once, when I was a child, about the bigness of this youngling here, or less, I beheld Grim the Hunter. Well do I remember the day when I beheld Grim the mighty hunter.”

Then the people said: “Tell us a story of Grim the mighty hunter.”

So Arsan began his story, and he said: “In the days long ago men were great hunters. There be none now that are hunters like them of the old time. For in the old time there were beasts more and mightier than there be nowadays, and the men who hunted them were mightier likewise. There was Laidir who once tracked out the great wild ox and slew him in the swamp. And there was Curad who wore about his neck a necklace of three rows of the fang-teeth of wolves that he had slain with his own hand. But greater than Laidir and greater than Curad was Grim, the mighty hunter.

[88]

“When Grim was but a little more than a babe, he took a spear and killed a wolf-cub that his father had brought into the hut alive. And it was said of him, by them that were wise among the folk, that he would live to be a slayer of beasts.

“Now when he was grown a tall youth, it befell one day that he went forth into the woods to kill meat. He carried his bow and arrows at his back, and in his hand a spear. By his side hung his trusty axe, a stone of the best. So he went, armed like a man, but without the wit of a man, and heeding naught.

“For by and by he spied a bear-cub moving among the fern in an open space of the woods. Now Grim greatly desired to have the skin of a bear-cub, so, without more ado, he shot at the bear-cub thrice with his arrows and wounded it; and then ran after it and smote it as it ran, and slew it. And then, since it was too heavy a beast for him to carry off, he fell to skinning it there [89]and then, so as to load himself with the hide and come again for the meat. But suddenly he heard a terrible roar behind him, and turning round he saw a great big she-bear, that was the mother of the cub, coming upon him out of the forest.”

The Bear

Then some of the people cried out: “Nay, tell us now—surely she slew him not!”

And Arsan said: “Nay, she slew him not. For Grim was but a youth then, and as ye know he was thereafter an old man dwelling among the people. Nay, she slew him not. But the she-bear came upon him with a terrible roaring. She was dreadful to look upon, of a vast bigness, her eyes like hot fire and her jaws dripping foam. And Grim turned and ran for his life; but she ran faster than he, and would surely have caught him, but that he won to a tree, and climbed up instantly out of her reach.

“Then the she-bear climbed up into the tree after Grim. So he crept out upon a long branch, and the bear made ready to follow him. Then Grim[90] fitted an arrow to his bow and took steady aim and shot, and shot again, and wounded her in the body. But she came on, nevertheless, growling, and mowing with her great jaws. Then Grim worked himself along to the end of the branch and held by his hands, and swung and so dropped to a branch below. And the she-bear turned herself about and climbed down to that branch and came along towards him as before. And, again, Grim drew two arrows on her and wounded her twice again, and the blood came streaming from the wounds. Then Grim saw that he had only three arrows left. So again he swung from the branch and dropped, and thence to the ground; and he stood up and shot all three arrows into the bear from beneath, with all his might and main. And she turned to climb downwards, and ripped the tree with her great claws, and fell to the ground; and though she was stricken to the death, she reared herself on her hind legs and made as though to set upon him. Then, being eager[91] to kill, he picked up his spear and hurled it, so that it pierced the bear’s breast, and she fell forward, tearing and biting at the spear. Then Grim ran in upon her with his axe, and clove her skull and made an end of her. And he cut out his arrows from her carcase and struck off her four paws and took them; and he took the skin of the bear-cub. And then, because it was near to nightfall, he hastened home.

“And he and some of the people came on the next day to the place, and, lo! the wolves had devoured the carcases of the she-bear and of the bear-cub in the night, and there remained not even the bones of them.

“And Grim made him a necklace of the claws of the she-bear that he slew on that day; and it was ever about his neck. This have I seen. And it was meet that he should wear her claws for bravery and strength; for he slew her with his own hands.

[92]

“Thus was Grim great and famous among the people; and far be it from me to name his name to his hurt. Howbeit, he was a mighty hunter!”

And the people all said: “Aye, surely that was he—he was a mighty hunter!”

[93]

Chapter the Fourteenth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: A Talk about Stone Weapons

AS soon as he had finished reading the chapter, Uncle John went to a cabinet and took out a box in which were a number of flint arrow-heads of different shapes and sizes. Some were not longer than one’s finger-nail, and some were two or three inches in length, long enough to be used as heads for a javelin, such as Goba gave to Tig. Some were oval in shape like the leaf of a privet bush, others were shaped like the ace of diamonds; some had barbs at each side, and some a tang between the barbs for fixing the head to the shaft of the arrow.

Uncle John asked David if he could tell why[94] some of the arrows were barbed and some not. Joe said that perhaps only the cleverest men could make the barbed arrows; the others were easier to make.

“No doubt that was so,” said Uncle John, “but all the same, they made a great many of both kinds.”

Dick said perhaps the plain arrows were for shooting at a target, but the barbed ones for killing things.

“I expect,” said Uncle John, “that the barbed arrows were used in battle. A barbed arrow cannot be plucked out of a wound, and so it is more deadly than the other. The plain arrows were generally used in hunting. When a man had shot a deer or a hare, he wanted to be able to pull out his arrow at once and use it again, but a barbed arrow sticks in the wound and cannot be pulled out.”

Dick wanted to know if one of these little arrow-heads would really kill a big animal like a deer. David said, “Yes, of course it would. It is as big as a rifle bullet.”

[95]

“But it wasn’t shot as hard as a rifle bullet is,” Dick said.

“However, these arrows were shot quite hard enough,” said Uncle John. “Some years ago the skeleton of a man was found in a cave in France. The man had evidently been killed in battle in the old times that we have been reading about, for sticking in his backbone was the head of a flint arrow, which had been shot at the man with such force that it had pierced his clothing and his body, and had half buried itself in his spine.”

Then Uncle John opened another drawer in his cabinet, and took out a stone axe-head, beautifully ground and polished, shaped to a cutting edge both back and front, and with a hole drilled through for the shaft. The boys all looked at it and handled it, and Joe said:

“How could men cut down trees with an axe like that? It would never be sharp enough to cut wood with, surely.”

[96]

“I think this one was a battle-axe,” Uncle John answered, “because it is small and very carefully finished, as you see, and ornamented with these lines at the top. Axes for cutting wood were larger and plainer, I daresay. But even then, of course, they weren’t such useful tools as our steel axes that we use nowadays. Has anyone of you ever heard what else the men of those old times used, when they wanted to fell a big tree?—Why, fire! They lighted a fire at the foot of the tree, and when it was burnt out, they hacked away the charred wood and lighted the fire again—and so on, until they got the tree down. Then they had to chop and chop with their axes to trim the trunk; so it was a long business. But they managed it all the same; for they needed hewn wood for many purposes, of which, no doubt, the book will tell us later on.”

The next day, out on the heath, the boys gathered flint stones and tried to make some arrow-heads. They found it very hard work. It was easy[97] to knock off pieces that had a cutting edge or a sharp point; but it was very hard to chip these flakes into anything like the proper shape. They all tried for a long while, and banged and cut their fingers, without producing a single good specimen; and this they found a little disappointing. But, as Uncle John reminded them, Goba and his men were old hands at the business, and no doubt they had had to spend a long time learning and practising it before they could do it well. “And even then,” said Uncle John, “how long do you think it would take a skilled man to make a single arrow-head?” The boys all guessed about an hour or two. “Well, of course, we don’t know,” said Uncle John. “But I can tell you this. Some years ago two Englishmen, who were travelling in the wild parts of North America, came across a tribe of Red Indians who had nothing but stone weapons. And the Indians told them that even the cleverest workman of the tribe could not make more than one arrow-head[98] in a whole day’s work. So a dagger, or a long spear or a stone axe, especially of the sort that was ground to an edge at both ends and polished all over, must have taken weeks or even months to make.

“In the British Museum,” Uncle John went on, “there is a large collection of very wonderful flint weapons. Some day we will all go to London, and Dick shall take us to the Museum to see them; and besides these we shall see the hammer-stones that were used for chipping flints with, and the grinding stones on which the stone axes were rubbed and ground to an edge.”

[99]

Chapter the Fifteenth

THE STORY OF TIG: The Village Pond

THE pond from which the women of the village used to get water for drinking and washing and cooking was outside the village on the top of the hill. It was always full of good water, even in dry weather. The women dipped their jars there, and the cattle drank from it, but there was always plenty of water. No one had ever known the pond to run dry.

However, one day when the men had all gone hunting, some of the women went to the pond to fetch water. But soon they came back and ran about among the huts, crying out, “Oho, oho! The pond is dry! The pond is dry, oho! oho!”

[100]

Then the other women came out of the huts, and some of the old men and boys with them, and they all made haste to go to the pond. When they got to it, they found that what the first woman had said was true. There was not a pond at all, but only a puddle where the pond had been. And the women tossed up their arms and wailed, “Oho-ho-ho! the pond is dry!”

Then during many days the people were sadly troubled for want of water close at hand. The women had to go in parties down to the river in the valley and carry the heavy jars of water all the way up the hill to the huts. And the men had to beat a track through the woods and take the cattle down to drink at the stream, and guard them carefully going and coming for fear of wolves, every man carrying his weapons: and this kept the men at home and hindered them from hunting.

So they sent for a wise man, called a Medicine Man, to come to tell them what they might do to[101] bring back the water. And the Medicine Man said, “Make a feast and dance and sing and call upon the gods, praying them to send rain; and the rain will come and fill up the pond.”

So the people made a feast, and they danced for many hours and sang all their songs over and over again, and yet no rain came. However, after three days there was a thunderstorm, and much rain fell; but it did not fill up the pond.

Then they asked the Medicine Man again, and he said: “Let the people dance and sing and call upon the gods again. And afterwards let the women take jars and go and fill them at the river and bring them up and pour out the water upon the pond. Then the spirits of the water will return, and the pond will be filled.” So the people did all this; and the women carried up jars and jars full of water from the river and poured it into the pond. But the water sank away faster than they could pour it in, and there was nothing left but a puddle.

[102]

Then they asked the Medicine Man again. And he went and brought two other Medicine Men, and they walked round and round the pond with their wands in their hands. Then they said: “The gods are angry and have taken away the water. They will not send it again unless the people offer sacrifices. Let an ox be sacrificed.”

So the people took an ox and led it out of the fold and brought it on to the hill-side and killed it for a sacrifice. And they made fires and cooked the meat, and feasted and danced, singing their songs and calling on their gods. They kept up the dancing all night long; and every hour during the night they sent men with torches to see if the pond was filling up. But every time the men returned and said, “Nay, there is no water!” And in the morning they went again, but there was no water and nothing but a puddle. And all the people were very sad.

[103]

Chapter the Sixteenth

What Arsan said about the Old Pond

THAT day it happened that Tig found Arsan, the old man, sitting in the sun outside his hut; so he came near and the old man called him and bade him sit down. Tig had often heard people say that Arsan knew many things, so he made up his mind to ask him about the pond.

“How is it that our pond has gone dry?” Tig asked.

“What is it that the wise ones say?” said the old man.

“They say that the water-spirits are angry and have gone away,” Tig answered; “and they have[104] bidden my father and all the folk to offer sacrifices and to dance and sing. And all has been done as they have said; but the spirits do not come back. Will they come back, thinkest thou, grandfather?”

“Nay, I do not think they will come back,” said Arsan.

“Then shall we have no water to drink?” asked Tig.

But Arsan answered: “Now heed and I will tell thee! ’Tis not the first time I have known the water-spirits to go away. Once before I have seen this thing happen: not here, seest thou, but in another village where I dwelt once. Oh, ’twas dire! The water dried up, and there was none for man or beast. And all that we could do availed naught—ay, though we offered sacrifice of cattle, it availed naught.”

“Did the Medicine Men come then?” Tig asked.

[105]

“Ay, they came.”

“And what did they say?”

“They said it was not enough. They called to mind a custom of our fathers that was wont to be observed of old time when the gods were angry; and they chose out a youth and slew him as a sacrifice. But it availed not; the waters did not return.”

“And what did the folk do then?” Tig asked.

“What did they do? Why then at last they sought counsel of the old men that had wisdom, and knew how to make a right dwelling place for the water-spirits.”

“Was not our pond a right place for the water-spirits?” Tig asked.

“Now listen, boy, and I will show thee. How is it with us? Do we dwell always in one place? Nay, thou knowest we do not. We shift with the cattle and go from place to place; we cannot abide in one place always. So do the spirits. It is true[106] that after a while we come back to our village here; and so, perchance, might they return, if we should be content to wait for them; but meantime the folk and the cattle would have no water to drink. So what’s to do? Why we must make them a new home. That’s what we must do—make them a new home!”

“Why don’t the Medicine Men make it?” Tig asked.

“Speak not of them, boy,” said Arsan. “They know their own ways. I am an old man, but I know not the ways of them. I bethink me of the old times that are past long ago, and of what our fathers did to prepare a dwelling-place for the water-spirits.”

“What did they do, grandfather?” Tig asked.

“Nay, now, be content. I have said enough,” the old man answered.

But that night when Tig was in the hut with his father, he said to him, “Father, I have been[107] talking with Arsan. He knows how to make the water-spirits come back and fill up our pond again.”

“Oh, he knows, does he?” said Garff. “Then he must tell us.”

[108]

Chapter the Seventeenth

How they made the Pond anew

SO on the next day Garff called some of the men of the village, and they went to the chief’s hut and told him that Arsan knew of a way to bring back the water-spirits and fill up the pond again. The chief was glad when they told him this, and he sent to the old man, asking him to come to the council and make known his plan. Arsan came willingly. The men sat round in the chief’s hut, and Arsan stood up and spoke.

“It is many years ago,” he said, “I was a young lad then, but I remember. The spirits of the water did quit the pool where we were wont to drink. Suddenly they went, no man knew why; nor would[109] they return, though we danced without ceasing for a night and a day, and sang and offered cattle in sacrifice to the gods. Then it was said by one of the Medicine Men that the high gods were angry and that the killing of cattle would not appease them. So the folk took a goodly youth and bound him hand and foot and slew him for a sacrifice. But still the water came not again.

“Then arose one of the folk, an old man that had understanding, and he said: ‘Are not the spirits even as we? Do we abide always in one house? Shall not the spirits desire to leave their old dwelling-place and seek a new one? Do we not know that the deer on the hills abide now in one place and now in another: and the wild geese, do they not fly from one place to another? and do not the bees go forth in bands when the time is come for them to seek a new resting-place? So do the spirits of the water. They seek a new place to dwell in. Let us make them a dwelling-place.’

[110]

“So when our fathers heard these words, they made haste to prepare a dwelling-place for the water-spirits after a manner that I remember and can show. Many days they toiled; and when the work was finished, they feasted and danced all night and sang the ancient songs. And in the morning, lo! the waters were returned.”

Then the chief said: “So this manner of making a new place for the spirits of the water is known to thee, and thou canst tell it.”

“It dwells in my mind, and I can tell it,” said the old man. “But every one must work and do as he is bid for many days. The hunting-gear must be laid aside, and every man must work.”

So the chief and all the men laid aside their hunting-gear and set to work. And this is what Arsan made them do.

First he walked out with all the men to a place on the top of the hill, close to the village, where there was a flat place that was a little hollowed[111] out like a saucer; and he set the men to work with hoes to scratch up the earth to make the hollow place deeper and wider. They gathered up the earth in baskets, and some of it they threw away down the hill, and some they laid around the rim of the hollow and trod it down hard.

Then Arsan sent the men with good, sharp knives of flint to cut down reeds and rushes and bracken and tough grass, and bind them into sheaves and bundles; also he bade them cut birch twigs and elder twigs and tie them into bundles, too. And when they had got large piles of bundles ready, he showed them how to lay the bundles on the ground in the hollow place, packing them tight and close together, like a thick mat, or like thatch.

And when this was done, he sent the men in parties and some of the women with them who knew where there was good clay to be found; and bade them dig out clay. Wherever they could find good clay down in the valley, they had to dig[112] it out and bring it to the top of the hill. It was very hot and dry weather, and the people hated the hard work and were very angry with Arsan. But the chief and Garff worked hard and cheered up the other men, and they all worked together.

When they got the clay up to the top of the hill, Arsan showed some of the cleverest men and some of the women how to spread it thickly over the bundles, laying it and daubing it well over. And some did this while the rest brought more and more clay; until at last the whole of the hollow place was thickly spread with clay, puddled and trodden hard; and the outside edge of the bundles all round was covered, so that the hollow place was like a big saucer of clay.

And Arsan bade the people bring up some smooth, flat stones from the bed of the river, and these they laid upon the clay at the bottom of the hollow, and packed them round with more clay, and laid more stones of the same sort around the[113] edge, and so made all firm and strong. There only needed the water to fill up the clay saucer and make a pond of it.

Then on the day when their task was done, they made a big feast and ate and drank; and at sunset they began the dancing, and danced the whole night long, some dancing while the others rested; and they sang the song for rain, and its chorus, and the corn song and its chorus. And early in the morning when they had sung the rain song again, they sent men with torches to look at the new pond. And soon the men came back running and leaping and crying out: “The waters are returning!” and next morning they found that the new pond was half full of water, and after two nights more it was quite full.

So they all praised the wisdom of Arsan; and it was a story among them for years and years to tell how Arsan had shown them the way to make a dwelling-place for the spirits of the water.

[114]

Chapter the Eighteenth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: Dew-Ponds

I CALL it stupid to talk about there being water-spirits in a pond,” said Joe.

“Well, I don’t know that I agree with you,” said Uncle John. “Of course that isn’t the way we explain things nowadays; but if you had lived in those times, I daresay you would have thought as other people thought.”

“But it wasn’t spirits that made the water run out, was it?” Joe asked.

“No, I don’t think it was,” said Uncle John. “What I should like to know is—can any of you think what did make the water run out?”

[115]

“Did the sun dry it up?” asked Dick.

“Perhaps there was a spring and it stopped running,” said David.

“I don’t fancy you have guessed right, either of you,” said Uncle John. “That pond of theirs was a dew-pond filled by dew—filled from the clouds; and it went dry not because there wasn’t plenty of dew in the air to keep it filled up, but because the pond leaked, and the water ran out faster than it could come in.”

“So I suppose when they made the new one with fresh clay, it was watertight and didn’t leak,” said Dick. “But I don’t understand now how the dew could fill it up.”

“And I don’t understand why they put the bundles of fern and brushwood underneath,” said David.

“It isn’t at all hard to understand, really,” said Uncle John. “You see there is always a great deal of moisture in the air. Sometimes it is high up, and[116] then we call it clouds; and sometimes it is low down, and we call it mist or dew. But there is always plenty of it—a never-ending supply. Of course you know how it comes to be there?”

“The sun draws it up.”

“Yes, the sun draws it up. The sun is always sucking up water from the earth, from the sea and from rivers and lakes and ponds, and from puddles in the road and from clothes hung out to dry. And the warmer the sun is during the day, the more water it sucks up into the air. But in the night when the air is cool, some of this water comes back again: it forms into drops and settles on the grass or on cabbage leaves, or on a book which you may have left out all night on the garden seat. You know that if you go out early in the morning and walk in the grass, you get your boots sopping wet. So if you could find a place that was hollow so that water could gather in it; and if you could keep it cool like a cabbage-leaf, so that the water would settle in it;[117] and if you could make it watertight below so that the water wouldn’t leak out, you would have a dew-pond.”

“Why should it be on the top of a hill?” Dick asked.

“I suppose because the higher up you go, the more chance you have of getting into the clouds and the moist air; dew falls more abundantly on the sides of hills.”

“But why did those people put the bundles of fern and stuff under the clay?” asked Joe. “That didn’t help to make it water-tight did it?”

“No,” said Uncle John, “but it helped to make it cool. If you want water to form out of vapour, you must give it something cold to form on. Breathe on a cold window-pane, and see how the tiny drops of water settle on the cool pane from the water-vapour in your breath. If you were to take a cold basin and set it out of doors at night when the dew[118] is falling, you would soon find the drops of water trickling down its sides.

“This is just what those people did, only theirs was a larger plan.

“They made their pond, as we read, and finished it one day before evening. Then what happened? All day long the heat of the sun had been warming the ground round about, but it could not warm the thick moist clay so much as it warmed the turf of the hill-side.

“Then, after the sun went down, everything became cooler. But the clay pond was still the coolest thing there; and the packing of reeds and brushwood kept the heat of the earth from passing into it from below.

“So the dew began to settle in drops upon the cold clay and upon the smooth stones, and it trickled down the sides. As we said, there is always plenty of moisture in the cool night air; and all you need to do is to provide the proper place for it to[119] collect in. So it was with the dew-pond in our book.

“One by one the drops formed and ran together, as soon as they had found something to run into; and millions and millions more joined in, coming as vapour and settling down as water until the pond was full.

“And so long as the clay bottom of the pond kept whole and sound, the dew-pond would hold water, making up at night what it lost by day. But if once the clay were broken or worn through, the water would run away into the ground, and the pond would never fill up again; partly because it would not hold water, and also because once the brushwood became soaked, it would fail to act in keeping the clay cool.”

“Was that why the first pond failed?” asked Dick.

“I expect it was. I expect the clay bed had in some way become worn through, so that the pond would[120] not hold water. And the people guessed quite rightly that the only way to mend matters was to make a new pond, though, as Joe says, they gave an odd sort of reason for it.”

“Do people make ponds in that way now?” Joe asked.

“Yes, I believe so; though not many people know much about it, since there are so many other ways of getting water possible nowadays. But I have heard that in some parts of the country there are old men who know how to make dew-ponds.”

“Do any of the dew-ponds that those people made exist now?” Dick asked.

“I believe so, certainly. They are to be found on the hills, here and there in different parts of the country. But some learned men say they were made in later times than those of Tig’s people. But I will tell you what we will do. To-morrow we will have a long walk upon the hills and visit a pond which I believe is an ancient dew-pond; and[121] we will have a picnic there, and then see what we all think about this question.”

“When those people had a feast,” said David, “what did they drink? Only water?”

“I don’t know,” said Uncle John. “But I should think they drank some kind of beer or spirit—not very strong, perhaps, because drink has to be well brewed and kept long if it is to be made strong. They may have made beer out of corn or even out of heather-tips, or perhaps they used honey and made mead: we do not know. The only thing we can say is that there are hardly any people in the world who do not make a drink of some kind from grain or from some part of a plant; and therefore these old people of ours most likely did the same.

“If Dick will reach me Stevenson’s Poems from the second shelf there, I will read you one called Heather Ale, which will make a good ending to all this dry talk about dew-ponds.”

[122]

Chapter the Nineteenth

THE STORY OF TIG: How Gofa made Pottery

IT has been said before that Gofa did all the work of her own household, not only cooking the food, but also making the clothes, and preparing the skins out of which the clothes were made. Also she made the baskets for storing and carrying the food in, and the pottery, too; and when her stock of household pots had become low, she used to set to work to make a fresh lot. And this was how she did it. She went down into the valley to a place by the river where there was good clay. She took with her a large basket and a rough-and-ready trowel made out of the shoulder-blade of a deer. She dug[123] out the clay, enough to fill the basket, and carried it home on her shoulders.

When Gofa was ready to make pottery, she first prepared the clay by mixing it with coarse sand, which also she had brought from the river-side. She moistened the clay with water when she added the sand, and kneaded it thoroughly with her hands, just as if she were making dough. She was always careful to mix the sand and the clay in the right proportions; for clay without sand, or with too little, was apt to crack when it came to be baked, and with too much it was not stiff enough to mould well into shape. She always saved the bits of any pots that were broken, and having pounded them up until they were quite small, she mixed them up with the new stuff. By long practice Gofa knew just how to prepare the clay for use.

Having got the clay ready, Gofa took a lump of it in her hands and laid it on a stone slab which served her as a working bench. Then, with her[124] fingers and a smooth stone, and a stick shaped into a kind of blade, she worked up the clay into a little bowl, building up the sides against the stick, and smoothing the inside with her pebble. But for the larger jars and pipkins she had another way. She took a round basket shaped like a basin and set it before her. Then she took a piece of clay and rolled it with the flat of her hand on the bench until she had made it like a very long, thin, clay sausage. Then she picked this up and began to coil it round from the bottom of the basket, inside, pinching and pressing it with her fingers and the pebble until it was flat and smooth. Then she rolled out another piece and coiled this round as before, gradually building up the sides of the pot and pinching the coils together as she went on. At length, by adding coil to coil, she raised the sides and neck of the pipkin, which she then smoothed and finished off outside with the wooden tool.

Making Pottery

[125]

All this time Gofa kept turning the pot she was making round and round upon the stone.

“Why do you keep on turning it round and round, mother?” Tig asked.

“So that I can see what I am doing,” said his mother. “The pot would be very ugly if one side bulged out more than the other, wouldn’t it? I turn it round and round so that I can keep it even and right.”

“Who taught you how to make pots, mother?” Tig asked.

“My mother taught me. She was a famous potter. People used to come to watch her when she was at work, but they could not make pots like hers; she had a rare hand in turning. I cannot turn them as she could.”

“I think you turn yours beautifully, mother,” said Tig.

All the pots alike, before they were baked, had to be decorated. This Gofa did with a bone awl,[126] engraving a pattern of lines and cross-lines and dots upon the soft clay. She had also a little stamp of bone with which the dots could be put on in threes.

When Gofa had finished a batch of pots, she and Tig carried them into the hut to dry, and generally on the next day she found that even the larger ones had dried enough in the air to enable her to lift them out of their basket foundations. Then she took each one in turn and scraped and rubbed it outside with a wooden tool, very carefully and lightly.

After this she took them to where she had a fire burning out-of-doors upon the ground. She raked away the fire to one side, and set the pots where the fire had been, standing them all upside down, and ranging them together in as small a space as possible. Then she piled up sticks and pieces of dried fir tree wood about the pots, and laid little faggots all round, and raked up the hot ashes and set fire to the pile. And she and Tig carried[127] fresh fuel as the fire burned, and kept it going until they could see the pots all red hot. And then they let it sink gradually and die down of itself; and there were the pots baked hard and sound, and fit for use as soon as they were cold.

Once Gofa had set to work making pottery, she used to make a good batch at a time; she did not stop making and baking as soon as she had finished just what she wanted at the time. For she liked to have a store of pottery at hand; and if she did not want to use them all herself, she could always exchange one or two for something useful that she might happen to want.

When Gofa or any of the other women wanted to make a large pankin for holding water or milk or meal, she used to make a tall basket, like a bucket, of osiers and reeds, and daub it inside with clay. The clay was laid on thickly and then smoothed and trimmed with the stone and the wooden blade; and the wide neck and the rim were[128] moulded by hand. She did not attempt to lift the pankin out of the basket mould, but set the whole thing in the fire as it was; and the fire burned off the basket work, and left the marks of the reeds showing all round on the outside like a pattern. And very likely it was the look of this pattern on the pottery which first gave the women the notion of graving a design upon the smaller vessels which they made entirely by hand. The women generally took pains to make neat patterns by using different simple tools of wood and bone, and sometimes they tied a piece of twisted cord round a vessel, and impressed its mark upon the clay. Sometimes they did not use a tool at all, nor even a twisted cord, but made little dents round the neck of a jar with the thumb nail, and made the pattern in that way.

[129]

Chapter the Twentieth

How Tig went Hunting the Deer

WHEN TIG was a boy and used to play at hunting, the chief of his friends was Berog. Berog and he were of the same age and equal in strength; and, though Tig was the better marksman with the bow and arrow, Berog had the greater skill with the sling. By this time they were both tall and strong lads. Each of them had been out hunting several times with the men, and sometimes they had made little expeditions by themselves. But once in the autumn, after the corn had been gathered in, they planned to have a real hunt of their own. They saved some food to take with them, but not much, because men always hunt[130] best when they are hungry. Tig had a new, full-sized bow, that he had made himself, and his quiver full of flint-headed arrows, and his stone axe slung at his side. Berog had his sling and a bag full of smooth, round stones, and in his hand he carried a club. And so they set out together.

They did not want to be seen, so they followed a track into the forest that was not much used by the men of the village. The sun had not yet risen; the air was keen, and white mists hung about the hills. Their plan was to make first for the swamps in the valley, so as to get a shot at some of the birds that lived among the reed beds. They had explored the way before, and had marked trees or laid guide stones where the track was doubtful; and so they lost no time in getting down the valley.

As they crossed the hill-side, they saw two hares cantering away across the open ground, and Berog slung a stone or two at them, but without success. When they came to the thickets at the bottom, [131]they walked warily, for they saw the track of a wild boar, and they had no wish to meddle with him. Birds of many kinds were seen. Away over the water ducks were flying high in a trail; kites and buzzards soared higher still; and far away in the distance, like a silvery flag against the sky, some wild swans were coming over. Grebes and coots were swimming about in a backwater of the river seen through the reeds, and a great grey heron rose from the swamp ahead of the boys, and flapped away, uttering a loud squawk.

The Wild Ducks

The boys crouched among the reeds. Tig fitted an arrow to his bow, and Berog put a stone into the web of his sling. So they waited for a long time without moving. All at once the sound of rushing wings was heard, and then a splash and rush of water, as a skein of wild ducks flew down near by. The boys waited eagerly, and in a moment three ducks appeared, swimming out from behind a clump of reeds. Tig shot and missed, and his arrow struck[132] up a spurt of water. Berog slung a stone at the birds as they rose, and hit one, which fell quacking and scattering feathers upon the water. At once Berog tucked up his sark, and waded out to capture the duck; but it was only wounded, and was too quick for him, and made its escape among the thick reed beds.

After this the boys waited for some time without a chance of another shot; so they left the river-side, and made their way through the thickets into the woods, and out on to the open hill-side. Now Tig took the lead; for with his bow and arrow he hoped to get larger game than water-fowl. The boys moved along at a quick pace, keeping within the cover of the rocks and bushes, in order to hide their movements. Two or three times they entered the woods again, to cross the deep glens that divided the hills; and they forded the streams that rushed in torrents down the depths. At last they climbed up a steep craggy place; and, when they reached[133] the top, they lay down flat and spied the ground in front. Before them stretched a broad hill-top, and here they hoped to see some game. Presently Tig moved on, creeping on all fours, and peeped from behind a rock. Away in the distance was a troop of wild horses, some of them feeding and some cantering and wheeling about in play; and as Tig watched them they took fright at something near them, and galloped off out of sight.

Then Berog crept up, and they both moved on across the ridge, carefully screening their movements and taking cover behind the rocks and bushes of heather. When they came to the edge, they lay down again to spy. Then Tig’s eye picked out, far down below them, an object like a withered branch of a tree sticking up out of the heather. He called softly to Berog, who looked also, and they both agreed that three or four deer were lying down there in the hollow of the hill-side. Then Tig plucked some blades of grass as he lay, and threw[134] them lightly into the air to see how the wind blew, so that he might keep it in his face in working round towards where the deer lay. If once he were to move where the wind might blow the scent of him towards the animals, they would be sure to take alarm and move away.

Then Tig turned and went down behind the ridge, moving at a quick trot, and worked his way round to a point, as nearly as he could guess it, close to the hollow where the deer were lying. Berog stayed behind on the hill-top to watch the deer and see if they should move.

When Tig reached the bottom, he crept on all fours for some distance through the heather, and then lay down to spy. He raised his head gently. There was the stag lying with its back towards him about a hundred yards away. Tig studied the ground and noted every boulder and every tuft of rushes between him and the stag, and then, lying flat on the ground, he began to crawl towards the[135] nearest stone. High up on the far hill-top Berog was watching the stag; but he could not see Tig. So Tig crept on and on, holding his breath when he moved, until he reached the point where he could see the stag quite plainly. It was lying in an open green space, wide awake, and it kept turning its head from side to side as if it were on the watch for its enemies; but it did not see Tig. When Tig saw its antlers moving, he knew that it was looking around, and he lay still. But every now and then the stag turned back its head to scratch its back with its antlers and brush away the flies that kept teasing it, and then Tig crept up a little nearer and got an arrow ready in his bow.

All at once the wary stag took alarm. It heard or smelled that an enemy was near, and got up on its feet. Then, as the stag stood for a second sniffing the air, Tig leaped up and took aim and shot at it with all his might. The stag gave a leap forward[136] and bounded away down the slope; but the arrow had pierced it deep behind the shoulder, and Tig knew that if only he could follow, he was sure of his game. He waved a signal to Berog, and set off at full speed in the blood-stained tracks of the stag.

The other deer of the herd gathered and fled over the hill, and Tig saw the wounded one try to take refuge with them; but they turned on it savagely and butted it away. Then Tig and Berog kept up the chase, and at last, in a thicket at the edge of the forest, they came upon the poor stag lying dead. They dragged the body into the open, and then, while Tig stayed by to guard it, Berog went off to the village for help.

[137]

Chapter the Twenty-first

Tig becomes a Man

BEFORE nightfall Berog came back with some of the men carrying torches and poles. They tied the stag’s hind legs and its fore legs together, and thrust a pole through, and so carried it home, and Tig and Berog marched behind. And when they reached the village, all the people turned out to cheer them. And on the next day Gofa and some of the women skinned the deer and cut up the meat. Every part of the deer’s body they kept for some use or other—the meat for food, the hide for making into leather, the bones to be broken for marrow and some to be carved into tools, the[138] brains for greasing and curing the hide, the sinews to be dried and shredded into thread; and the antlers Gofa gave to Tig, because he had won them. And though before that day Tig would have had to wait on the women while they were cutting up the stag, and run errands for them, yet now he did not. He lay outside the hut all day, and ate his meals when they were brought to him, and behaved just like any of the men of the village.

For, after this first big hunt on his own account, Tig reckoned himself a boy no longer. And soon after this, he became a man, according to the custom of his tribe. That is to say, the Medicine Men, who were the rulers of the people in all matters of custom and religion, took him in hand to make a man of him. By their orders he fasted several days, and kept apart from the people, that he might learn the will of the gods. Then the Medicine Men took him and some other boys of his age, and led them into a grove where they said the[139] gods dwelt; and they taught the boys the names of the gods and how to call upon them. And they tried each boy’s courage, and bade him remember always to be brave and endure pain without flinching; and they said that to be a coward is worse than death, and that it is better to die than to give in or run away.

After this Garff gave Tig a man’s weapons—a battle-axe and a dagger of flint, and a shield such as men used in warfare; and Tig went also to an old man of the village who was clever at tattooing, and he tattooed Tig on his shoulders and chest and arms; and after that Tig felt that he was really a man.

[140]

Chapter the Twenty-second

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: Dick’s Pottery and how he made it

WHILE they were reading about Gofa making the pots, Dick thought he would like to try his hand at this sort of work; so, after the reading, when they went out, he got a trug and a trowel from the tool-shed and said that he should go and look for some clay.

“David and I are going fishing,” said Joe; “and when we have caught some fish, we are going to make a fire up at the hut and cook them. If you were a hunter, you would come too; making pottery is women’s work.”

“All right,” said Dick; “but if ever you were[141] to be wrecked on a desert island, you might have to do women’s work, as you call it.”

However, Joe and David got their fishing rods and set off. Dick went down to the river too, but he could not find clay anywhere; so he came back and asked the gardener. The gardener said that a farmer was having a field drained close by, and the men were digging out lots of clay. So Dick went down to the field and filled his trug with clay, and then he made another journey to the river for fine sand. However, he did not find it easy to mix up the clay properly; for it was lumpy and hard, and when he put water to it, it was sticky. But, after a time, he got some mixed with the sand into a stiff paste, and then he was ready to try his hand at making a pot. He made several attempts at shaping the clay into a cup and tried to mould up the sides, using a flat stick and a smooth little stone that he had picked up by the river. But he did not succeed very well, as the clay was apt to[142] break or get out of shape, and several times he squeezed it all up and began again. At last he contented himself with making quite a small cup which he could mould into shape with his fingers, pinching it and trimming it very carefully with his wooden tool. This one seemed good; so he made another a little larger, and then set them aside while he made a fire.

He collected a quantity of chips and sticks, and soon had a bright fire burning. After it had burned for about twenty minutes and made some hot ashes, Dick pushed the fire to one side, and set the cups upside down on the hot place. It was not easy to build up the fire again, because it had fallen away and was nearly out; and when he put on fresh fuel, the smoke got in his eyes. Also he poked his best cup with a big stick that he was putting on the fire, and dented its side; but it was too late to mend that, and he went on stoking up. He kept the fire going till he thought the pots must have become[143] red hot among the ashes, and then he let it die down. He wondered whether he might try to get the cups out before they were cool; but he decided that it was best to leave them until the whole thing had cooled down. Just then, Joe and David came back, without any fish, and when they had heard what Dick had been doing, and had seen the fire, they all went in to tea.

When they came out after tea, they found the ashes still quite hot; but they got a garden rake and raked them off, and there were the two cups baked light brown and quite hard. The one that had been damaged was also much cracked; but the other one was sound except for one little crack, though it was not very shapely. Dick took it off to show to Uncle John.

“That’s a good one,” said Uncle John, “but if you had let them dry longer before putting them into the fire, they wouldn’t have cracked; and then you have forgotten something: what is it?”

[144]

Dick looked at his cup, but he could not tell what it was that he had forgotten.

“Why, the ornament,” said Uncle John. “When we pay that visit to the British Museum, you will see that the pottery of the old time always had ornament on it—or very nearly always. And I suppose you found it hard to make a bigger one? I daresay anybody would until he had had a great deal of practice. Even the old people that we have been reading about, who were so clever at making pots, had to build up their big ones on a wicker frame.

“There is something very interesting about the wicker-work frames, and you ought to remember it. It is this—baskets were made before pottery. In the very early days, before people could make pottery at all, they had, at any rate, rude sorts of baskets. And, I daresay, they sometimes tried to warm their food in baskets beside the fire. No doubt the baskets often caught fire and the food was spoiled. Then some woman who had her wits[145] about her thought of daubing the basket with clay to make it resist the fire. The next thing was to plaster the clay inside the basket instead of outside, and next to burn the wicker off altogether; and so, in course of time, they learned how to make vessels of clay without any framework at all, except for the very large ones.”

That evening they spent some time making their bows. David was making his out of the stem of an ash sapling that the gamekeeper had given him; but Joe had got a branch of real yew for his and was whittling it down with great care. Dick’s father had sent him a set from London—a bow made of hickory with a stout gut bowstring, half a dozen arrows, and a bracer to wear on his left wrist as a protection from the string when shooting. It was very useful to have these to copy from; but Dick was not content to have only a ready-made bow, and he also got a good ash stick and set to work to make one for himself.

[146]

Chapter the Twenty-third

THE STORY OF TIG: How Tig made Friends with the Lake People

THE men of Garff’s village were masters of all the land round about. They had the ground that they had cleared of trees for growing corn, and the open spaces on the hills where their cattle fed: and beyond, they had their hunting-grounds in the forests and over the moors, for miles and miles around. It was not often that any of them travelled beyond the bounds of their own ground, unless they were making a journey, such as Garff and his party undertook when they went to buy flints from Goba, the spearmaker.

[147]

One day in the summer, when Garff and Tig and some of the others were away on a hunting expedition in the forest a long way from the village, Tig wandered away alone into the woods; for there had been a big hunt for two days before, and the men were all resting in the camp, while the women cut up the meat. Tig had no need to kill any game, but he liked to be in the woods watching the ways of the wild creatures, especially the birds; and on that day he had not taken any weapon except a light spear. When he had gone some distance, he sat down to rest and watch. In front of him was a thicket of holly trees; and presently he heard a jay in the hollies, jarring and scolding as jays do when they spy an enemy. So Tig kept still and watched. Then the jays set up a loud screech and flew across towards the tall trees; and then Tig saw a dog come out into the open, followed by a lad. The lad gazed around him and then went back among the trees; but his dog had[148] scented Tig, and it began to bark and growl, bounding out into the open. So Tig stood up and called to the lad, who at once turned round and came forward. They went towards one another and made a sign of peace, and then the lad begged Tig to help him, for he said that he was in great trouble. Close by, his father was lying wounded and unable to move; and he could neither help his father home, nor yet leave him to go and bring help from their village.

“Are you then far from your village?” Tig asked.

“Well-nigh a day’s journey,” said the lad. “We are of the Lake People and dwell over yonder among the hills. And yesterday we were out, my father and I, looking to some traps, when we came upon the fresh track of a roe-buck. So we followed the track and came upon five bucks, away down below there; and my father shot and wounded one. But it was lightly hit and got away from us, so we[149] set the dog on its trail and followed it even here. And after all it escaped us; but what is worse, my father fell down a rocky place near by, just when we thought we had got our buck safely. And he is sorely hurt and has lain here all night; for I could not leave him, nor was there anyone to help us.”

So Tig followed the young man in among the bushes, and there he saw the man lying, covered with a skin cloak. He told Tig that his name was Dobran, and when Tig told him his name, he said, “I have heard of thy people and have even visited thy village long ago. This is a sore mischance that has befallen me; but truly we should have taken warning! For as we came forth yesterday, Feannog, the grey crow, croaked at us thrice, and a fox crossed our path in the woods: and these be evil omens both. But now if thou wilt in great kindness help my son to get me home, thou shalt have a warm welcome from my people, and I will try to reward thee in any way thou mayst desire.”

[150]

So Tig and the youth, whose name was Gaithel, planned how they might help the wounded man. They cut down two young trees for poles and slung the skin cloak upon these, to make a sort of litter, and on this they laid Dobran, and then lifted it and carried it between them. The way was rough and difficult, and they made very slow progress with their heavy burden; but at last, after a long climb up a wooded hill-side, they came out upon the top of a ridge overlooking a deep valley. In the bottom of the valley there was a lake, surrounded by thick woods, and near to one side of the lake a little island. The island was covered with huts, and joining it to the shore there was a kind of pier or gangway. Also Tig saw, what he had never seen before, a canoe on the water, and some people paddling about in it.

Then the wounded man pointed and said:

“See, yonder is our village where we dwell.”

“Do you keep cattle on the island?” Tig asked,[151] for he could see a man driving cows along the gangway.

“Yes,” said Dobran, “we house the beasts there too. Sorely crowded are we, and there has been talk this long while of some of the folk going away and building a village on a lake that we know of, two days’ journey from hence.”

“Is there, then, another island in the other lake, like this one here?”

“Island! Nay, none—and here is no island! What thou seest yonder our fathers, that were before us, built long ago. For they felled timbers and staked them on the bottom of the lake and builded their houses thereon, and dwelt there, even as we dwell.”

When they came to the waterside, they laid the wounded man down on the ground. Then Gaithel put his hands to his mouth and gave a peculiar call, and the people in the canoe heard it and came quickly to the shore. They lifted Dobran in and[152] paddled away with him to the landing place; and Gaithel and Tig walked beside the shore and along the gangway. When they got to the village, they were met by a crowd of the Lake people; for Dobran had spread the news of how Tig had helped him, and all the people were eager to welcome the stranger who had shown kindness to one of themselves. But Gaithel took Tig at once to the hut where Dobran was lying. His wife had already bound up his injured limb, and she was then preparing supper; and she brought food and set it before them, broiled fish and porridge and curds. After supper many of Dobran’s friends came into the hut to see him, and they stayed chatting with him till late; but at last they all went home, and the household settled down to sleep.

[153]

Chapter the Twenty-fourth

How Tig saw the Lake People’s Village

ON the next day, Gaithel took Tig and showed him the village; and Tig saw what he had taken to be an island was really a large and solid platform made of tree-trunks laid close together. There was a paling of stakes at the edge of the platform next the water, all round; and within the paling were the huts, built close together side by side in rows with narrow alleys in between, and sheds for the cattle, built of poles and wattled and daubed with clay like the huts. Besides their cattle the Lake People had some sheep, which they prized greatly on account of the wool, from which the women span yarn for[154] weaving into cloth. At the place where the gangway joined the platform there was a gate of bars in the paling, and also a rough stairway going down to the canoes that were drawn up alongside. In an open place in the middle of the village was a fire burning on a large open hearthstone; and Gaithel said that nowhere else on the island was anyone allowed to have a fire, for fear of burning down the huts. In another place was a shoot for rubbish, to which the people had to bring their household refuse and tip it into the lake. Then Gaithel took Tig down to the landing stage, and showed him the canoes that were moored there; “I know someone who would like to see these canoes of yours,” said Tig. “He is a man in our village, called Crubach. He is lame. He makes troughs in the same way as you make canoes, by burning out a tree trunk, only of course they are much smaller; my mother has one to dip hides in when she is curing them.”

Making a Canoe

[155]

“My uncle is making a canoe in the wood now,” said Gaithel. “He has been at work on it for weeks and weeks. Shall we go and see him at it?”

So they went together into the wood where Gaithel’s uncle was at work. He had felled a stout oak tree and had got a portion of the trunk cut off. This was to be his canoe, and he had already begun to shape it fore and aft and to hollow it out. He had a little fire of dry chips and sticks burning in one place on the top of the log; and in another place, where he had had the fire burning the day before, he was hacking away at the charred wood with his stone axe. There was another man at work with him, and this man was hacking at the bows of the canoe; but his axe would not make a deep cut in the hard oak wood, and he was getting on very slowly.

Gaithel’s uncle left off work to speak to Tig. He stood up and wiped his face which was all hot and grimy.

[156]

“My boat will be a beauty when she is finished;” he said, “a rare one! Have you any like her in your village?”

“We haven’t any boats in our village,” said Tig.

“What—no boats? How do you do to get on the water then?”

“We haven’t any water,” said Tig, “at least not a lake—only a pond.”

“Well, yours must be a strange village! No lake and no boats! However, your men must be spared some heavy work if they don’t make dug-outs; though, look you, a man may make five or six bark canoes or wicker canoes in less time than it takes him to make one dug-out. But then a log canoe will outlast you four of the other, let alone being a deal more comfortable. So never mind the labour and the sweat, say I; make a good dug-out.”

Then he took up his axe and went to work again.

Then Gaithel took Tig back to the lake, and[157] they got into a canoe and rowed on the lake. In the canoe was a spear with a long, fine-pointed head made of bone, barbed on both sides. This, Gaithel said, was a fish-spear; and he showed Tig how it was used in spearing large fish when the Lake People used their drag-net. The nets were kept at home, so that the women might see that they were kept properly mended.

“But when we are fishing,” said Gaithel, “we have the net weighted at the bottom with stones to sink it, and the one end is held up in one canoe and the other in another, and the canoes paddle in ashore, dragging the net between them. Then some of us wade out into the water, and spear the fish or catch them with our hands if we can, and then the net is drawn in closer until we get the rest, but sometimes some of them get away.”

Then Gaithel took Tig back to the hut, and he stayed to talk to Dobran, and told him that he thought the village a very wonderful place; and[158] he asked Dobran why it was that the fathers of the Lake People built their village on the water.

“Why,” said Dobran, “they built it thus that they might be safe from the attacks of wild beasts and from their enemies. As I told thee, they made the platform first, felling trees in the woods and piling them here, before ever they could set one pole of a hut. And with great labour they did this, building as large as they could; but even so, the space is too small.

“We are sorely crowded, as I said before; and now some of the younger men choose rather to build huts on the shore, hard by, where we have our cornland and the pasture for the cattle; though we who are older like the old ways best. Of course the wolves and such like are not so much to be feared as they were in our fathers’ days; and as for enemies—why, we have lived in peace many years and perhaps we have naught to fear. Nevertheless, I promise thee, if enemies should come to fight us, the[159] folk who have built their houses and their byres and their sheepfolds away on the land there, with naught but a stockade around them, would speedily flee for shelter to our stronghold here on the water.”

Dobran’s wife, who was sitting beside her husband, was busily spinning yarn; and when Dobran had finished speaking, she began to hum a song as she drew the thread. She had a big bunch of wool fastened to the end of a stick beside her, and she drew out some hair from the wool and twisted it into a thread between her thumb and finger. Then she tied the end of this to the spindle, which was a pointed stick loaded about the middle with a ball of dried clay, and started twirling it round with her other hand. As the spindle went spinning round in the air, and dropping towards the ground, it drew the thread out longer, twisting it all the time. As soon as the spindle reached the ground, Dobran’s wife picked it up, wound the thread round it and[160] set it spinning again; and so she went on until she had spun a good ball of yarn.

Outside the hut a daughter of Dobran’s, whose name was Eira, was sitting at the loom weaving cloth. Her loom was an upright wooden frame, and the main threads, called the warp, were stretched from the top of the loom to the bottom and kept taut by means of stone weights. In her hand Eira held a shuttle containing the cross-thread, called the woof, which she passed in and out through the warp, from side to side of the loom. After she had worked in five or six cross-lines in this way, and so had got a narrow piece of cloth woven, she stopped and picked up a thin, flat piece of wood, cut into teeth like a comb, and combed the web and pressed it down firmly. Her thread was finer and her cloth better than the women made in Tig’s village, and he stood and watched her. “Aye,” said Dobran, “she is a famous weaver. She shall give thee a girdle of her own weaving. Nay, now, she shall weave [161]thee a shirt of three colours, and thou shalt come again and fetch it for thyself.”

Weaving at the Loom

On the next morning Tig rose early, and found that Dobran’s people were already astir. Eira and another girl were grinding corn on a big, flat rubbing stone; and afterwards Eira took the meal that they had ground to make cakes for breakfast.

Then, after they had eaten the morning meal, Tig bade farewell to his friends, the Lake People, and set off homeward. Some of the men paddled him ashore in a canoe, and guided him through the woods and set him on the way; and he returned to his father’s camp.

[162]

Chapter the Twenty-fifth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: A Talk about Ancient Lake-Dwellings

WHEN Uncle John had finished reading, he asked the boys if they had ever heard before of people living in houses with water all round as a defence against their enemies?

“Yes, if you mean a single house,” Dick said, “you told me that your house here once had a moat all round it.”

“Yes,” said Uncle John, “so it had; and though the village of the Lake People was built many hundreds of years before ever there was a house like mine in all the country, yet the notion was the[163] same. In the old days men felt safer with deep water all round them, than when there was only a stockade, or even a wall. The villages by the lakes in Switzerland that I told you of before, were built in that way over the water on piles.”

David wanted to know how the Lake People had managed to support the platform on which the huts were built—was it held up by straight piles, like a table with a lot of legs?

“No,” said Uncle John, “not in Dobran’s village, anyway. I will tell you what I know about it. Some time ago a farmer who lives near here had a boggy place on his farm. It lay in a hollow among his fields, and in winter or after a great deal of rain it became almost a lake. People used to say that once upon a time there had been a lake there, but it had got filled up with moss and peat. However, the farmer wanted to turn it into ploughing-land, so he set to work to drain it; his men dug drains and ran off all the water, and then they saw a large,[164] low mound standing up out of the mud. And when they came to clear the mound away, they found that it was the remains of an ancient lake village that had lain hidden in the bog under the water for hundreds of years. I heard about it, so I went, and stayed all the time, day after day, while they were digging out the remains; and so I got a good notion of how those old people, that we have been reading about, used to make their lake-villages in this part of the country—for in other places they had other ways.”

“What did you find?” the boys all asked.

“Well, we didn’t find any huts; they had all gone to decay long before; but the great platform of tree-trunks was there, and its foundations and parts of what had been the gangway to the shore. And we found the old rubbish-heap, and we picked over and sifted every bit of it; and I will show you an arrow-head and some beads, and some pieces of pottery, that I picked out of the rubbish myself. In[165] this rubbish were great numbers of bones of animals that the people had used for food. The bones were of deer and cattle and sheep and some of smaller animals, and some of birds. But the greatest find of all was a canoe. We found it lying buried in the mud, wonderfully preserved. We could see that it had been made, like Robinson Crusoe’s boat, out of the trunk of a tree, and hollowed out by fire, and hewn with stone axes.

“And the mound was cleared away from top to bottom, and very hard work this was; for it was solidly built of tree-trunks laid in rows like the sheaves in a corn-stack: there were hundreds of trees, though none of them very large. Then there were piles driven in upright to hold the others together, and great stones that had been sunk to keep the beams down: and at the bottom of all were bundles of brushwood and more large stones, which had been put down first for the foundations. And if you bear in mind that the people of the lake-village[166] had had to chop down all those trees and lop off the branches with their stone axes, which, as Joe reminded us, were not the best sort of cutting tools, and bring every faggot and every stone and every beam across the water in their canoes, you will see it must have been a great piece of work for them. The farmer and his men had a stiff job to pull the mound to pieces and clear it away; but these old people, we may be sure, had a much harder task in building it.”

Joe said that, perhaps, they floated out the tree-trunks on the water—that would be easier than putting them on the canoes.

“That’s right,” said Uncle John. “When they had got the foundation of stones and faggots laid, they made rafts of the trees and towed them out and loaded them up with stones and so sank them upon the foundations; and then laid more trunks on these, until they got to the right height above the water.”

[167]

“Did you find any other things in the rubbish heap?” David asked.

“We found some bone harpoons for spearing fish, and a number of objects of stone, such as weights for sinking fishing nets, and some that were used, perhaps, as whorls for twisting thread in spinning, and some beads of jet and a number of bone needles; but not many arrows, and only two or three axe-heads, one of which was broken.”

“Why didn’t you find more weapons?” David asked; “I expect the people had many more, hadn’t they?”

“I expect they had,” said Uncle John, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you why no more were found. Perhaps the people went away to live somewhere else and took their belongings with them.”

“I wish we had been there when you were digging at the mound,” Dick said. “I suppose there isn’t another one anywhere about?”

“No,” said Uncle John. “I’m afraid there isn’t another one.”

[168]

Chapter the Twenty-sixth

THE STORY OF TIG: How the Old Chief Died

NOW it happened, when they all came home again from the hunting camp, that the old chief of the village fell ill. Caerig was his name, but the people always called him Old Chief, for he had been the head man of the village for many years, and they all honoured him because he had been a clever hunter in the past days and a brave fighter.

The women of the village attended to him in his sickness, and tried to cure him with the medicines made from wild plants which they gathered in the woods; but the medicines did no good, and Old Chief grew worse.

[169]

Then at last two sons of the old chief went a journey to a village some distance away where a Medicine Man lived, and they took presents to the Medicine Man and begged him to come to cure the old chief’s sickness: and the Medicine Man came. He was a very old man, and he had a great name for skill in curing diseases. He brought with him his wand of magic wood and a bone rattle, but no medicines, though it was said of him that he could make more powerful medicines than any that the women made. He went into the old chief’s hut, and sat by him for a long time without speaking. Then he got up and walked solemnly round the bed from left to right three times, making signs with his wand and shaking his rattle. Tig and some of the others were waiting and listening outside the hut, and only the old chief’s sons and some of the older men were allowed inside. Then the Medicine Man said that an evil spirit was troubling Old Chief, and unless he could scare it away, the chief[170] would die. The Medicine Man began to chant a song, shaking his rattle and beating on the ground with his wand; and the old chief lay groaning in pain, and the people cried and groaned also. At last the Medicine Man said that no more could be done that night; but that on the morrow he would work a stronger spell against the evil spirit. But in the night Old Chief died.

Then in the morning the news spread about that the old chief was dead; and the women who had attended him in his sickness stood around the hut moaning and wailing, and went crying up and down the village. And all the people mourned for him. Then after two days they carried his body to the top of a hill beyond the village, and built a funeral pyre of faggots and burned his body in the fire. This was done according to the rule of the Medicine Men, of whom there were three present to take part in the funeral. They gathered the ashes together and put them into an urn and then carried[171] the urn to a place that they had chosen. In the meantime the people had built up another great fire; and they brought an ox, and killed it and roasted it in the fire, and made a great feast on the hill-top beside the fire, and all the people sat down and feasted at the funeral feast of the old chief. Then the Medicine Men bade the people approach to lay the gifts in the grave. They brought food from the feast and set it in little vessels beside the urn, because they believed that the chief’s spirit would need food for refreshment in the spirit world; and they brought his spear and his axe and his bow and arrows and his shield, and laid them in the grave; and they brought his favourite dog and killed it there, and laid its body beside the urn, so that it might attend its master in the world of spirits. Then when this was done, the Medicine Men made the people bring stones to raise a cairn over the urn. First they laid large flat stones, building them like a little chamber about the urn; then they laid[172] six large blocks in a circle all round, and set others within the circle and piled them up into a great heap. These stones they brought from the river bed in the valley and carried them up across the hill-side to build the cairn. The building of the cairn was a work of several days; and every day until the work was finished, the women mourned and wailed in the village at sunset.

At last, on the day that the cairn was finished, the men of the village met together in council to choose one to be chief in the place of Caerig. Then Arsan, the old man, stood up and said:

“Garff is the man among us who is fittest to be our chief; for he is an able man and skilful, whether for hunting or for battle; and he is a man wise in council and the master of many cattle. Shall we not do well to choose him to be our chief?”

And the men said, “We shall do well.”

Then Garff stood up and said, “It is too much honour that you do me, friends, for I am a plain[173] man and little skilled in speaking. But if you choose me to be your leader, I will strive to do my best for the good of all, whether in the hunt or in battle.”

So they chose Garff to be chief, and from that day he was the head man among the people and took the chief place at the councils. And when any strangers from other villages came with messages, they were taken to Garff’s hut to deliver their message and to seek his protection.

[174]

Chapter the Twenty-seventh

How Tig chose a Wife from among the Lake People

AFTER his first visit to the Lake Village Tig went sometimes to see his friends there, always taking care to carry with him a present of game of his own killing, a hare or some birds, for Eira and her mother; for he was glad that they should see what a clever hunter he was; and Eira showed him how well she could cook the meat that he brought, and was pleased when he praised her cookery. Dobran and Gaithel took him out fishing, but Tig did not care much for this. However, one day they promised to show him better sport, for a party was going up into their hunting-grounds to hunt deer in a manner of their own.

[175]

They all started very early in the morning and marched up into the hills. Then the men spread their party out into a long line, curved like the letter C, and swept across the hill-side with their dogs. Then they closed in, and beat the woods until the hunters on one side started a herd of deer. The deer dashed across the woodland valley and tried to escape on the other side, but the men of the further line turned them back and drove them into the woods again.

So the hunters kept the deer moving forward, always within the line, until they drove them to a narrow place near the end of the valley, where there was a big trap, a high double fence among the trees, made in the shape of a long V. The hunters closed in on the deer and drove them in at the broad open end of the fence, and then drove them on and on until the deer were enclosed in the narrow end, where the ground was soft and boggy, so that they could not leap out.

[176]

Then some of the hunters climbed over the fence, and speared or clubbed the poor animals that were standing up to their knees in the soft soil, panting and terror-stricken. In this manner in one day the hunters got eleven head of deer; but Tig thought it was not such fine sport as stalking a stag on the hills, though at the time of the drive, when they were heading the deer down through the woods, it was exciting work.

Then they carried home the deer that they had killed, and they all spent two or three days in feasting.

Another day when Tig and Gaithel were in the woods, they came to a valley where a stream flowed quietly along and the trees grew on the banks near the water’s edge.

“This is the beavers’ valley,” said Gaithel, “they have their village here. They are our brothers, for they build their houses beside the water even[177] as we do; but we hunt them and kill them although we do call them our brothers.”

The beavers’ home was in a pond. They had made the pond by laying a dam of logs across the stream to hold back the water; and there they had built their huts with round tops of interlaced branches that showed above the water. Tig saw where they had cut down many tall trees on the banks and gnawed them into logs with their strong teeth.

“Do you set traps for the beavers?” Tig asked.

“Yes, we trap them; we bait the traps with fresh wood—fresh sweet bark is what they like. Sometimes we hunt them in the winter, when their ponds are frozen over. We go and batter at the huts with clubs. Then the beavers rush out of their huts under the ice and make for holes that they have in the banks; but we try to head them off from these by banging on the ice, and make them[178] come up to breathe at holes in the ice. They must come up after a time to get breath. Then we stand at the holes and try to spear them. We often scatter dry husks over the holes: the stuff floats on the water, and then the beavers cannot see us waiting by the holes, and we catch them if we are quick.”

“Have you many beavers about here?” Tig asked.

“There are not so many as there were once. My grandfather can remember when there used to be nine or ten beavers’ dams in these valleys where there are only three or four now.”

“They are getting scarce in our woods too,” said Tig, “we have hunted them so much.”

The next day Tig went home to his own village and got some of his neighbours to help him build a new hut and bring into it the necessary things. Then he went again to the Lake Village, taking presents for Eira’s father and mother, and he asked Eira to be his wife. Then they were[179] married according to the custom of her people, and there was a great feast at the wedding, and the men ran races, and they all danced many dances. And afterwards Tig took Eira home to the new hut in his own village.

[180]

Chapter the Twenty-eighth

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: The Boys’ Bows and Arrows

WHEN the boys went out after this reading, they got their bows and arrows. By this time the bows were finished. Dick had given to each of the others two arrows out of his set that came from London. These were well made with blunt metal heads fitting like caps. Besides these Joe had made himself six arrows, and the other two four each. For heads they had nails, filed down flat on two sides to make them fit into the shaft, and sharpened at the point. The great difficulty had been to get straight sticks, and though they agreed that it was not a real hunter’s[181] way of doing it, they had cut lengths from a thin piece of hard-wood board, with a fine saw, and then trimmed and sand-papered these to make them round and smooth. To fix in the heads they made a cut, deep enough to take the nail, and then wrapped it with fine string and glued this well over. When they had fixed the feathers, the arrows were complete, and each marked his own. Dick had a V for his mark, Joe a cut between two dots, and David a dot between two cuts. The gardener made them a target out of bands of straw, and they practised at it a good deal. But one day they made up their minds to try to shoot something that might be called “game,” and they went off to the heath. Each took a different way, but they agreed to meet at the hut afterwards, with whatever they should have bagged.

Joe went off to a place near the edge of the wood, where there were generally rabbits playing about, and his plan was to creep up near enough[182] to get a shot at once, if he could do so without scaring them, but if not, to hide among the bushes and wait for them coming out of their burrows.

David crept through the furze looking out for birds. He saw an old blackbird hopping about under the bushes, and he shot at it; but it flew away with a great deal of noise, as if laughing at David, who had to spend a long time getting back his arrow from among a lot of prickly brambles. There were numbers of yellow-hammers perching about on the furze bushes and crying out: A very, very little bit of bread and no chee-e-e-ese, and a pair of bold little stone-chats that kept flying round calling a-tick, a-tick, but David did not want to shoot at them. Then a family of green woodpeckers, father and mother and four young ones, came flying across from the woods; and David was so keen on watching them that he forgot he was a hunter; so when he got to the hut he was[183] empty-handed. He was the first in, but after a while Joe came, and he also had got nothing.

“I nearly shot a starling,” he said; “there was a flock of them running about on the grass, and I shot right into the middle of them. I wish I had got one, for it says in that book of mine that a starling is the best bird to get when you are learning to stuff, as it is easy to skin—I say, it would be fun to shoot a rabbit and skin it, and try to cure the skin!”

Just then Dick came in. He had his pockets stuffed out, and the others wanted to know what he had got. He said they were to make a fire and then he would show them; so they went out and collected sticks and made a fire in the fireplace outside the hut. Then Dick brought out of his pocket six potatoes, and said that was all his game. “I never saw anything to shoot at,” he said, “but the men in a field over there are taking up potatoes and they gave me these for[184] twopence, and would have let me have more if I could have stowed them away. I thought we could roast them in the ashes.”

But Dick had something else to show. He had found some pieces of wool, torn off sheep’s fleeces, hanging to the thorn bushes on the heath, and had gathered them all up.

“To-morrow I shall go and try to get some more,” he said, “and when I have got enough, I shall make a spindle, if I can find out exactly what it ought to be like, and see if I can spin some yarn: and if I can spin the yarn, I shall rig up a loom and have a try at weaving a piece of cloth. There isn’t much chance of being able to do it right, of course, but it is good fun trying.”

[185]

Chapter the Twenty-ninth

THE STORY OF TIG: How the Lake People brought Tidings of War

ONE day when Tig was sitting at the door of his hut trimming sticks for arrows, he heard the dogs barking, so he went to the gate and looked out. He saw three men coming up the hill, and when they came nearer he saw that they were some of the Lake Village people, friends of his. He went out to meet them, and brought them into the village and took them to his father’s hut, because they said they had brought an important message.

But first, Gofa and some of the other women brought food and set it before the visitors, and[186] they ate and drank. Then when Garff had called together the elder men of the village, he asked the leader of the party to give his message.

Then the man, whose name was Dileas, stood up and said:

“For many months past, O chief, our folk have been sorely molested by the people that dwell to the southward of our borders, across the waters of the big river. Their men have trespassed upon our hunting-grounds, and when we have resisted them, they have fought and several of our men have been slain. And now of late they have taken to hunting openly upon our side of the water, coming up the river in their canoes, in bands, and daring us to drive them back.

“Yet have we worse than this to tell. For nine days ago a party of their men attacked our cowherds, who were tending the cattle on the hill-side; and they drove off the cattle and slew one of the cowherds that was an old man, and carried off two[187] young men to their village. But a young man who escaped, being a swift runner, fled home and brought us these tidings. And on the next day our chief sent me and these two, my companions, to the people across the big river, to make complaint of the matter. And we saw their chief, sitting with the old men of the tribe; and we spoke civilly to them, saying that doubtless the wrong was done by some of their young men that were headstrong and perhaps ignorant; and that if they would restore our cattle and release our brothers and make payment for the death of the other, and would swear by their gods to trouble us no more, then we would not seek vengeance for blood, but would be at peace with them and keep faith.

“But they gave us only harsh words, saying that our cowherds had fallen first upon their men, who were but seeking for some of their beasts that had strayed; that as for the cattle, they had taken them in fair fight and should keep them; and our[188] brothers they should keep also to be slaves to them. And their chief boasted and said that his people are called the Warriors, and that warriors they be; that they are mightier than we, and are able to drive us into the hills and take away all our cattle, and take also our women and our young men to be their slaves. And their chief showed us his axe, the like of which we have never seen, for it was yellow and shining and of very great sharpness, and he said that with this axe he hath slain above threescore men. Then he sent us away, and we departed and came to our own village again, and brought these woeful tidings to our people.

“And yet worse remains still to be told. For we have deemed it prudent to send out spies to watch their village, and our spies have brought us word that the Warriors are going about their streets painted and arrayed for battle, and that the Medicine Men are making daily sacrifices to their gods, that their people may prosper in battle; and[189] by these things we are assured that they will soon make war on us.

“And now, O Chief, we are come to seek help from you and your people; and we pray you to aid us to fight against the Warriors and drive them back across the water, lest they, having conquered us and burned our village, fall next upon your people and do the like to you.”

Then Garff looked round upon the elder men and said:

“Shall we not do amiss if we withhold help from these our friends in their need? Let us join our arms to theirs and fight side by side with them against the men who are their enemies and ours.”

And the men all said, “Yes, we will fight.”

Then Garff made an agreement with the Lake Men that they should return at once to their village, and set spies to watch the fords of the river and the village of the Warriors; and if an army should be seen to leave the village, then the Lake[190] People were to light three beacon fires upon the top of the hill above their village, and he and his men would come to their aid.

The Beacon

And Garff sent Tig, with seven young men, to make a camp on the hills within sight of the Lake People’s hill, that they might watch by day and night for the signal. Then the three Lake Men departed and went back to their village.

So Tig and his companions packed their stores and took their arms, their best bows and all their war-arrows and their shields of wickerwork covered with hide; and pitched their camp up in the hills. They watched the hill, day and night, for the alarm-fire; and meantime they prepared themselves for battle, dyeing and painting their bodies with red paint and blue paint; also they exercised themselves in war-games and dances.

Early in the morning of the third day the men on the look-out saw three columns of smoke rising from the top of the hill far off. So Tig sent two of [191]the young men who were swift runners to carry the news to Garff, and he sent Eira, and the other women who had been with them, home also; and he and his five companions set off to go to the Lake Village.

A Very Old Stone Axe

[192]

Chapter the Thirtieth

How they Fought the Battle in the Wood

WHEN Garff and his men reached the Lake Village, they found the people armed and ready. The Chief of the Lake People, whose name was Bran, came out to meet Garff, and he called him and some of his men into the council that they might make a plan of war. And he told Garff that his spies had seen the army of the Warriors muster at daybreak on the river bank. They had crossed in canoes, and had built a stockade on this side of the water, and dragged the canoes ashore. They had been seen fixing long poles to the canoes, which were light ones made of wicker and hide; and it was thought that they meant to carry[193] some of the canoes over the hills to the lake, so that one band of their men might attack the island from the canoes, while another band should try to force the gangway.

Then one of the old men stood up and said:

“Surely this will be their plan! But how can we meet them better than here on our island, where the water and our good wall are our defence? Our fathers met their foes thus and beat them back. What is this talk that I hear of going forth to battle in the woods? If we leave our defences, we are lost.”

Then Bran said that it was the wish of some of the younger men to march out and try to take their enemies by surprise in the woods, and that he himself was in favour of this plan.

“Surely,” said Garff, “that is the right plan. If you had meant to stay at home and fight behind walls, you had not needed help from us; and we, too, might have taken our folks and our[194] cattle and shut ourselves up in our hill-fort. No, leave some of your older men that can yet bear arms to stay by the village and defend it if need be. But let the rest of us go out and fall upon these Warriors suddenly in the woods; and let some of the young men go and watch the fords, to see that none of the enemy cross the river elsewhere and take us in the rear; but let us start without delay.”

So they marched at once; and since Bran was an old man and less skilled in warfare than Garff, he gave the command of all the men to him, and he himself marched behind.

When they had gone some distance through the forest, and had come to an open place upon the hill-side, Garff made the men halt and hide themselves in a thicket at the edge of the wood; and he sent Tig with two others to spy for the advance of the enemy. Tig and his companions crept away through the bushes and were gone for some time.[195] At length they came back swiftly and cautiously, with news that they had seen a large band of the enemy in the wood below, all fully armed with bows and slings, and spears and axes and clubs, and carrying four canoes in their rear. So Garff set all his men in battle-line, and bade them lie still until the enemy should be well out into the open ground. Then, at a signal, they were to leap up suddenly and shoot a flight of arrows and rush upon the Warriors, every one marking his man.

Presently they heard voices and saw the figures of the leaders appear among the trees. The Warriors were sure of victory, and they had no thought of the Lake Men coming out to meet them; so they were marching carelessly along, thinking more of getting their canoes up the hill than of preparing to fight. They streamed out into the open, led by their chief who was carrying his axe on his shoulder. Garff waited till the band were well away from the shelter of the trees, and then he[196] sprang to his feet with a great shout. At once his men leaped up, and sent a deadly shower of arrows at the enemy; and every man, as soon as he had shot, fitted another arrow and shot again. Many of the Warriors fell, and many were wounded, and they were thrown into great confusion. But their chief rushed down their ranks shouting to them not to give way, but to take their shields and advance. Then to gain time and to save his broken line, he dashed forward alone, holding up his arm. Garff signed to his men to cease shooting, and the chief of the Warriors came on shouting:

“Let one of you fight with me! If there be a man among you, let him come forth and fight with me!”

Then Garff strode out from among his men and went forward to meet the chief, who stood brandishing his axe, which glittered as he waved it in the sunlight. And the chief cried out:

The Warrior Chief

“Ho! Ho! This is my axe! Skull-pecker is his [197]name, for he has pecked open many a skull—ay, and split them in twain and eaten up the brains. Come on, come on! He will split thy skull even as the others, and slice thy flesh and chop up thy bones. Come on, come on!”

But when the chief saw Garff coming out to meet him, he stopped his boasting, for he saw that he had met as tough a fighter as himself.

Each man had thrown down his shield and each grasped his axe with both hands. Garff’s weapon was a battle-axe of stone, heavy and strong, but not so keen as the bronze axe of his enemy and not so deadly, unless he could get in a sweeping blow. The chief of the Warriors was taller than Garff, but not stronger, though Garff had the longer arms and was the more active of the two; also the chief had been wounded in the thigh by an arrow, and although he had tugged it out, he could not stop the flow of blood.

For a few seconds they faced one another without[198] moving, and then the chief made a sudden leap forward and aimed a tremendous blow at Garff’s head. Garff leaped back to avoid the blow, and then rushed in and aimed a return stroke as his enemy’s axe swung round, and the chief leaped back. So they went on, striking and avoiding warily, until Garff began to give way, leaping backward at each attack and not striking again in return, for he saw that his enemy was spending his strength, and he meant to save his own. Never for a second did Garff cease to fix his eyes on his enemy’s eyes, and the two faced each other savagely. Then the chief rushed at Garff again in a fury, and struck with all his might. Garff avoided again, and jabbed upward with his axe-head to parry the blow, but he was not quick enough, and got a deep cut in the arm. Then the chief pressed hard upon him, thinking to end him with one blow; but Garff parried the stroke and gave a mighty spring, and before his enemy could recover,[199] dealt him a blow on the right shoulder, so that he dropped his axe and fell prone. Then Garff picked up the bronze axe of the chief and drove it deep into his skull, then waved his own axe over his head and gave a great shout.

When the Warriors saw their leader fall, they uttered loud cries, and some of them rushed forward with spears and axes. But Tig leaped out, and Garff’s men and the Lake Men with him, and Garff waved the dripping axe, and they rushed upon the band and put them to flight and chased them through the woods, every one marking his man. And they killed many of them there and many by the river-side, and only those escaped who flung themselves into the river and swam across.

Then Garff and Bran called their men together, and they found that only five had been killed in the fight and seven wounded. And they sought out the bodies of their enemies that were fallen, and took their weapons and their necklaces and[200] cut off their heads; and Garff cut off the head of the chief, and took his necklace of amber and his famous bronze axe, Skull-pecker; and so they all marched back in triumph, carrying their spoils and the heads of their enemies, to their own villages.

[201]

Chapter the Thirty-first

DICK AND HIS FRIENDS: How they dug out the Barrow

I AM afraid,” said Uncle John, when the chapter was finished, “that we shall not be able to have any more reading these holidays; for to-morrow and the next day I shall be away from home. There is one day left after that, as you know, but instead of the story I have planned an outing for us, which I have been trying to arrange ever since we read about the burial of the Old Chief. My plan is this. Up on the moor, beyond the place where we found the pit-dwellings, there is a barrow, as it is called, the burial mound of one of the old chiefs of the[202] time that we have been reading about. The owner of the land, who is a friend of mine, intends to open the barrow; the work is to be begun to-morrow, and he has invited us to go and see what there is to be seen.”

So on the next day they all set off to the moor with a big hamper of provisions and a tea-kettle and a spade each. There were several mounds and barrows on the high parts of the moor, and in one place there were three huge standing stones marking what had once been a whole circle of stones.

They walked over the moor until they found the squire and his men. The men were already at work with picks and shovels, and had made a deep cutting in the side of the barrow. At first they had dug through a quantity of the heathery soil and gravel, but after a while they came to large stones; and digging these out and carrying them back out of the way was very hard work.

Uncle John rolled one aside and said to the boys:

[203]

“Can any of you find me another stone like this one anywhere on the moor round about?”

They looked at the stone, which was a smooth rounded boulder, and then searched the ground round about. But the only stones that were there were small and rough. “This one came from the bed of the stream down below there,” said Uncle John, “don’t you see it is water-worn. The men who built this barrow carried that stone and these others like it all the way up here on their shoulders.”

After they had had lunch, the work was begun again, the men pulling out the big stones one after another. At last they came to where several large flat stones were set on edge, leaning one against another. These were pulled away, and then there was discovered a little chamber right in the centre of the barrow, walled in with flat stones; and in the midst of this little chamber a large urn of baked earthenware. Before anything was moved,[204] Uncle John brought the boys to look, and showed them how the floor of the little chamber had been strewn with fine white sand upon which the urn was set. Beside it were three smaller vessels all empty, and lying beside them were two flint arrow-heads, a small stone axe, and a hammer made out of the thick end of a red deer’s antler bored with a hole to fit a handle into. Uncle John lifted the urn carefully out and they all looked inside it. It was full of dust and ashes, and some bits of charred bone, and some chips and splinters of flint that had also been burned. These relics were all gathered carefully together to be taken to the squire’s house, and the workmen began to put away their tools.

As Uncle John and the boys walked home, Dick asked: “Did those people burn every one who died?”

“Perhaps not every one, but they did it very often.”

[205]

“Why did they?”

“That is a hard question for me to answer—it was part of their religion, I suppose; anyway perhaps they thought it the safest thing to do.”

“Did they always kill a man’s dog, too?”

“That I don’t know. In many cases no doubt they did, because dog’s bones have been found in the barrows; sometimes horses’ bones have been found too, showing that people thought their horses could follow them to the spirit-world, and sometimes, it is thought, that a man’s slaves and even his wife were taken to the grave and killed, so that their spirits might attend his after death.”

“How did they bore the holes in their axes and things?” David asked. “The hole in that hammer was as smooth as if it had been drilled.”

“I daresay it was drilled,” said Uncle John. “Not with a flint tool, perhaps, but most likely with quite a different thing—a hollow stick, like a[206] tube, with the boring end wetted and dipped in sand. With a tool of that sort you can bore a hole in any stone, if you keep on at it long enough, just as you can fine down wood or metal with sandpaper.”

“I suppose you would twirl the stick between your hands and press hard on the top of it,” said David. “And if the stone were hard you would want fine, sharp sand,” said Dick.

“Is there any more about Tig in the book?” Joe asked.

“Yes, I believe there is more—he lived to be a very old man and became Chief in his time, and to him Garff bequeathed the wonderful bronze axe, Skull-pecker. He had much fighting to do; but he beat back his enemies and kept his people’s hunting-grounds and their cattle safe, as long as he lived.”

On the evening of the last day of the holidays Uncle John took the boys into his study and opened[207] the drawer in the cabinet where his arrow-heads were.

“Now,” he said, “I want each of you to choose a flint out of this lot, and keep it as a reminder of what we have been reading about. Each one can have his pick in turn—Dick first, because he was here first, and Joe next and then David, as that is the order in which we met one another.” There were plenty to choose from, and they each chose one of the barbed war-arrows. Then Uncle John said:

“When I was a boy I used to know an old gentleman who had a flint arrow-head, and I used to wish he would give it to me. But no—he set great store by it and wore it on his watch-chain, mounted as a charm. He called it a fairy-bolt, because he said that it had been made and shot away by the fairies; and he thought it would bring him good luck all his life. I hope you are all pleased with your flints; and though, perhaps, they can’t bring you any good[208] luck, at any rate you have learned something about them, and about the people who made and used them long ago, in this same country in which we live and now call England.”