by Van Reid
“But the story has been told at many fires,” added John Neptune as commentator rather than translator, “and he will remember it, I know.”
Then the ancient Indian’s voice changed its tone and rhythm, and Sundry knew that the tale had begun. In a moment John Neptune picked up the thread once again, and they were each drifted by a timeless wind to another place, among the men of another generation. Sometimes the ancient man spoke of what “Grandfather says,” as if he himself were merely translating what he heard.
After a while Sundry and Daniel forgot that John Neptune was speaking at all, and it seemed as if they were listening directly to Uncle Francis Neptune’s words or perhaps to the words of some tale-teller long before and long departed.
44. The Rune and the Worm
We called them the Sun-Hairs (said Uncle Francis Neptune), and we had rumor of them long before we saw them. These tall, pale warriors had landed near the winter grounds of the Wabenaki, and it was there that by peaceful means and otherwise, the tale was spread from tribe to tribe of how the Sun-Hairs were warred upon by the Delaware and Shinecock. They came in great canoes, we heard, with blankets to catch the wind, and they wore hair upon their faces and carried axes and long blades. We of the Penobscot listened with great interest, though we considered the tales of these pale men to be like the tales of Michabou, who first planted the corn and spoke with the creatures of the forest.
We were the Penobscot, who knew the forest and the seashore and the mighty Kennebec, which flowed from the one into the other like a great path, for it was an ancient legend that Michabou asked the first of our chiefs what gift he would like and the first chief said that he was greatly torn between his love of the shore and his love of the woods and Michabou cut a path that is the Kennebec so that the chief and his people might therefore travel from one to the other with ease.
We were the Penobscot and in those days the pines still lived that had been planted in the era of giants and they came in ranks to the shore like guardians, and yet it was the sight of those mighty trees that first enticed the Sun-Hairs to sail into the Kennebec.
Some boys fishing saw them first and ran to the summer camp of our clan to tell us that a great canoe was coming up the coast. We watched them for two days from the forest and were not seen, and the ship followed the shape of the shore till it came to the great river mouth, and there it entered and found a beach and was drawn up by the Sun-Hairs as we would have drawn a canoe, but with many men to pull her above the tide line.
They made a camp among a grove of birch, and we thought they were happier among the white trees then among the dark trunks of the pines. We watched them for another day, and listened to their strange chatter, and were moved that they knew to sing and laugh.
We were the Penobscot and not as quick to make war as the Iroquois and the Mohawk. We were planters and hunters and knew how to defend our homes, but Michabou had gone to the peak of Katahdin and spoken with the Great Spirit, and we learned from him that we were to make a brother of a stranger. It was my own ancestor, whom I shall call Grandfather, who stepped from the dark pines into the grove of white birch and offered up his empty hands.
There was no knowing how the Sun-Hairs would respond to the appearance of one of the Etchemin—that is, one of the “people” -and Grandfather’s heart was racing. They were strange to look at with their yellow hair and their faces covered with hair. Grandfather wondered if they were indeed demons of the fire regions, as some of his clan declared.
The Sun-Hairs were startled, and Grandfather was both anxious and relieved to see that they would know fear as he did. Some of the pale men did reach for their long blades or their axes, but the tallest among them stood between his people and Grandfather and spoke firmly to those behind him as he held his hands out, empty as Grandfather’s.
It was a day as brilliant as this, but the end of summer. Grandfather says the river was noisy behind the Sun-Hairs and the wind spoke in the birches. The grass was as thick as a bed around their feet. Birds called from the wood. He remembers each of these things in that moment when the pale man and he offered each other their empty hands.
They were strange to us, not only because of their yellow hair and their pale skins, their clothes and their weapons, their great canoe and their separate tongue, but because they had come at all. Some of us wondered if their ship was their country, like an island that moved from shore to shore, but they were stranger still than that.
On the following day several of us came into their camp and we exchanged gifts. There was a man among them named Erling, who drew pictures of the land on the back of birch bark and communicated in this manner that they came from another place across the great water and that they were traveling almost as a matter of curiosity. We spent a number of days learning something of each other’s tongues, and as we came to understand each other, there were those among our people who told them of the great city of Norumbega, and the Sun-Hairs were very interested.
One of Grandfather’s family had a piece of gold beaten into a flat disk, and some of the Sun-Hairs were excited to see it; without thinking much of the gift, he gave the gold piece to one of the pale men. people blew into the tales of Norumbega more wind than the city itself It is an easy thing to tell men what they care to hear, and some of our could have contained. The Sun-Hairs were loath to leave for their homes without first seeing Norumbega, and there was much discussion among them.
Their chief was not ready to winter in these lands, but the power of the group was greater than his will, and he accepted their decision. They joined our clan in preparing for the snow: hunting and fishing, fashioning the tools and furnishings that would be needed. I preparation for winter travel, we tended to our snowshoes, and they used their blades to carve long, flat shapes from the ash tree, which, they told us, they would strap to their feet so they could glide over the snow like the wind over ice.
It was during these preparations that one of the men went to the rock face of a low cliff and carved strange marks there with a hard piece of stone. We watched him at his work, not understanding; we will make images of an animal or a thought to mark a moment or point the way, but these lines and scratchings were nothing we could recognize. Erling said to me, “This is our tongue, made into marks that other men might hear with their eyes.”
And when the man was done, he told us what he had made there, and it was a memory of our meeting, the Etchemin and the Sun-Hairs, and the names of several of us. We were deeply moved that they could pierce their words into something so permanent as stone; but Grandfather wondered if false words could be carved as well as true, and he asked Erling this while they were speaking by the dyeing pot.
Erling found a flattened piece of birch bark and a small stick. He chewed the end of the stick until it was frayed, then dipped the frayed end into the dyeing pot, and with the dye he drew marks and lines upon the bark. When this was done, he passed the piece of bark to Grandfather with a smile that made Grandfather smile, though he did not know what amused Erling.
“What does it say?” Grandfather asked.
“‘A word is not true just because it is carved in stone,’”said Erling.
Grandfather was delighted with the words, both the honesty with which Erling admitted them and the cleverness with which they had been set down. He asked Erling if he could have the words, and Erling said they were a gift. Grandfather kept them all his life, and he was buried with them.
But the next day Grandfather showed the words to another of the SunHairs, and he could make nothing of them. Grandfather went to Erling, a little angry, thinking that he had been laughing at him and that the words were not true at all. Erling explained that not all his people could make the words speak and that besides, he had written them in such a way that some people would make nothing of them unless they knew his manner of putting them down. This seemed a contradictory practice at first, but as Grandfather considered it, he realized that not all words are meant for all ears-or all eyes. Erling found
something to draw with and made the sign of an animal to one side of the markings. He said that his chief would be able to read them now.
Grandfather took the words to the Sun-Hairs’ chief, and the chief smiled when he read them. “These must be Erling’s words,” he said.
Speech between the clan and the Sun-Hairs was a mixture of our language, their language, and hand signs, but we had grown to understand one another so that deeper things might be discussed.
In the fall our clan went with the Sun-Hairs on their great canoe up the Kennebec, and we were amazed that one canoe could carry us all in two trips. Not far from Council Hill they put their canoe onto an island, and here, in the midst of the Kennebec, our clan and theirs made winter camp.
The Sun-Hairs marveled at the glories of the fall, and it was clear that they already loved the land. Several of our clan men and half the party of Sun-Hairs were chosen to make the trip to Norumbega, where they would meet the many tribes and clans of the Wabenaki and the Penobscot. Grandfather and his friend Erling were among them. Snow fell, and the Penobscots took up their gear and their snowshoes and the Sun-Hairs their gear and their flat sticks that they would tie to their feet. Their chief had chosen a leader for the excursion, a dour man named Thorkal, and this man promised to leave words on rocks behind them so that the chief could follow them if they did not return in two moons.
Grandfather remembers that there was good cheer when they crossed the river from the island to the eastern shore of the Kennebec. There were shouts of laughter and encouragement from those who were left behind, and the party for Norumbega disappeared into the forest. Among them went a Penobscot shaman known as Assimiwando, and he and Thorkal spoke much together, both before their journey and during it.
The party first came to Council Hill, and here Thorkal and Assimiwando conferred about how they would proceed. Though it was not far from the Kennebec, the party spent the night upon Council Hill, and our men told the pale men about the pitfalls and dangers nearabouts and that to go west was to walk into the jaws of the bear, for the Mohawks made winter camp at a place only two rivers away and from there they harried and struck at our people.
In the morning Erling asked Thorkal about the words he was supposed to leave behind for their chief, and Thorkal said he had made them the night before and hidden them in a manner discussed between the chief and himself.
They broke camp from Council Hill, where many a decision had been was the last to leave the hill, and they waited for him at the bottom of the made among the Etchemin, and their party headed eastward. Assimiwando eastern slope. Grandfather could hear the shaman chanting above them and wondered what the man was conjuring.
When Assimiwando came down the hill, Grandfather said, “Were you calling something?” for he knew something of the shaman’s songs.
“You’ve never seen the worm, have you?” said Assimiwando, and though Grandfather didn’t understand what was meant by this, it sounded to him like a warning to ask no more, and so he put it out of his mind.
Grandfather and Erling traveled side by side, and Grandfather taught Erling much of what he knew about the woods and its creatures. On the next day Erling raised doubts about Thorkal and his intentions.
“Bad men are often madmen,” said Erling. He and Grandfather had drifted away from the others when they stopped to eat in the middle of the day. Grandfather nodded but said nothing, not knowing what was meant by this; people around him were beginning to speak in riddles. “I think,” said Erling, “that Thorkal and these others plan some violence when they reach Norumbega.”
Grandfather was astonished. “They would be greatly outnumbered at Norumbega. The women alone would bear them down.”
“They have some plan, I am sure of it, and I fear that they have left false words upon the hidden rock at Council Hill.”
“Can they be so treacherous to their own people? From Council Hill, few paths are safe save to the east. The Mohawks will have parties flying like flocks of crows through the forest, and they will only avoid the roads to Norumbega itself.”
“That’s as I fear,” said Erling. “Then they have left words that will direct the others to the Mohawks or some such danger. If you will go with me, I will return to the chief and your clan and warn them.”
“Won’t Thorkal stop you?”
“I will leave by night if you will go with me.”
Grandfather was troubled that these men they had befriended could plan such treachery. He declined to speak to Assimiwando, but the shaman took him aside and said, “Our own chief at Norumbega is weak in the face of the Mohawk raids and in the dealings of the Etchemin, and with my magic and the sharp weapons of the Sun-Hairs, we will gain the head of the nation and prove ourselves the greater power.”
“Well,” said Grandfather to himself, “bad men are often madmen. And termites can visit the bark of a pine as well as the bark of a birch.” “This is a good plan,” he said to Assimiwando, and he wondered how many of his clansmen were part of this double-dealing.
Grandfather went back to Erling and said, “I will take you to Council Hill, and from there you will find your way to the island. Then I must hurry to warn our people at Norumbega, for I fear they will be the first to fall.”
Nothing more was said, but they lay down at the next camp and slept in two watches. When Erling woke Grandfather, Grandfather was roused from a dream of meaning. In the dream he had seen Assimiwando in a hollow tree that looked like a strange animal with horns, and Assimiwando had said to him, “Turn back and you will meet the worm.”
In the dream Grandfather answered, “Worms are not to be feared but by the dead and the roots of trees.”
“There are worms,” said Assimiwando, “and there are worms.”
“It is winter,” said Grandfather. He made so bold, in his dream, to move closer to the hollow tree, and now he wasn’t sure if Assimiwando spoke or the tree itself did. “It is winter,” said Grandfather, “and the worms are asleep with the frogs and the newts.”
“Each worm turns in its own season,” said Assimiwando or the tree, when Grandfather was wakened.
“I was warned about a worm,” said Grandfather, and when he could make Erling understand this, the Sun-Hair was very solemn. It was the night when the sun begins its journey back to summer, which is the longest and sometimes the blackest night of all. Even by the light of the stars and part of a moon, Grandfather could see that Erling was paler than was natural to him. Grandfather could understand no terror for a worm, particularly in winter, when all low creatures sleep, but the warning meant something to Erling, and he told Grandfather that they must tread with care. Perhaps, thought Grandfather, the shaman has cast some magic on any who turn back.
He was concerned to defy Assimiwando, particularly on the night of the solstice, when certain doors from the spirit world are more widely open; but they left the camp in the middle of the night, and the moon guided their first miles. Grandfather on his snowshoes and Erling upon his skis swept through the woods like birds, and often Erling left Grandfather behind as he slid down the slopes and Grandfather caught up as they clambered up the next hill.
Dawn found them skirting the lake that lay within sight of Council Hill, and they caught glimpses of the height from a rise of land or a break in the trees. Erling thought it time they took stock of their situation and stopped them. “Did your dream say where you would meet the worm?” he asked.
“It only said that anyone who turned back would meet the worm,” explained Grandfather.
“Well,” said Erling, “certainly we have turned back. Perhaps it was meant to signify something else.”
They followed the recently broken trail back toward the hill, and Grandfather led them toward a steeper ascent that was yet quicker if they didn’t mind a climb. Erling took off his skis and strapped them to his back. He loosened the long blade at his side, They ascended the slope through the pines, only stopping to consider a bank of snow that circled the top of the hill like a collar.
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br /> “If we don’t see your worm by the time we reach the top, I believe we will be safe,” said Erling. He clambered over the bank of snow and was stepping from it when a look of bewilderment and horror touched his face. Grandfather had just reached up for Erling’s offered hand when Erling thrust his hand into the bank instead and let out what must have been a curse in his own tongue.
Grandfather looked at Erling’s hand and saw that it was not buried in snow, but in a long white fur.
A great face reared up over the Council Hill: something like the face of an elk, with horns, and like the face of a human with eyes that understand, and like neither of these things. The face itself was longer than two tall men, and from its great chin hung a white beard. Its pelt was white and beautiful. Erling was standing, not upon a bank of snow, but upon a coil of the worm.
Silently, but for its hot breath, the worm thrust its gaping mouth at them, and Erling threw himself at Grandfather so that both men were carried down the slope. They could hear the great length of the monster uncoiling from the hill, and trees snapped as the head of the worm pushed its way toward them. Grandfather leaped to a tall boulder, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. He knew his shot was accurate, but the arrow spun away.
Erling was charging through the trees with his long blade raised, charging behind the gaze of the creature so that he might strike it. The monster moved like a snake in the snow, its beard hissing beneath its great head, and Grandfather nocked a second arrow, which veered away like the first.
“It is bewitched!” he shouted over the noise of the monster’s movement.
Erling raised his blade and drove it into the snow worm’s side. The creature gave a shudder that threw Erling into a tree, then turned upon him. The worm had no protection against the Sun-Hairs’ metal, and Grandfather shouted with triumph to think that they had the means to kill it.
