Part 5

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.

_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 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.

“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 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 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.”

_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 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.’

“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 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 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 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.

_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?”

“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 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; 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 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 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 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 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.”

_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 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 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.

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, 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 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 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.

_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 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, 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.