Part 3

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 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 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 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!”

_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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

_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 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 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.”

_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 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 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!”

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 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 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. 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.

_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 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.”

“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 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 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.

“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.”

“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 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.”

_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 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.