Saturday 20 August 2011

Bronze@8K




The great wave generated when a large piece of the Norwegian coast fell into the North Sea swept across the entire coastal area of North East Scotland, grinding the population and all their meagre possessions to mud,  just as the Cairngorm Glacier had previously taken the rocky carapace of the land and milled it into fertile soil, from which the peoples lives had arisen.  I waited for a few decades after the ravens told me about the tsunami, then left the Shelterstone once again to take the six-day walk to the lowlands.  Crossing the Ben Avon plateau, I looked around for the tusk-built towers, but they had disappeared without a trace, and I assumed, the magnificent cultural achievements of the tower-dwellers had vanished into oblivion too.

Arriving at Lon-May, I saw that new settlers had arrived from the south, bringing with them some new ideas.  Theyd built quite substantial huts, and had at last made arrangements to encourage people to defaecate outside the immediate living area of the encampment.  The winters now were less hard, and the summers fine enough to encourage the growing of little patches of edible grasses and leaves.  In good years, some careful individuals would set aside a little surplus of the edible seeds of these grasses to use during the winter.  Some of the older people, finding their teeth unequal to the task of chewing hard dried grains, had adopted the habit of smashing and breaking down the seeds using flat stones, to the amusement of the young.  But in truth, the loss of freedom eventually suffered by everyone in these islands was caused by the good times themselves, for to live at a level above subsistence means the accumulation of a surplus, and inevitably the more powerful people demanded a share of all surpluses, sometimes pretending that a tithe would bring greater benefits, sometimes not even bothering to pretend.  In previous times, to be stronger was to be more powerful, but now it was a matter of being smart enough to acquire more negotiable or transactionable stuff, and clever enough to be able to hide and control it.  And as a bonus to the invention of aristocracy, taxation had begun.

In those days, though, the fish in the sea and in the rivers were plentiful and not too difficult to catch, for in those times animals and fish had little experience of the nature of mankind.  Similarly, with care and teamwork, the beasts in the forests could readily be caught for food, and although hunting was fraught with danger, the hunters would laugh guardedly about their experiences, pretending to hide their scars even while drawing attention to them, but ever wary of offending the deities of the forest or the noble spirits of their prey.  Being killed was bad enough, but injury to the spirit was feared very much more.

There were a few huts at the Pavilions place;  the builders had been drawn there, perhaps by the feeling of power seeping up from the earth, perhaps because of the crystal-clear spring that rose a little way from the hut.  There was a track running up from the road;  deer and wild boar could be seen from time to time.

The people were smelly and distrustful, but impressed by my appearance and speech.  They took me immediately to their headman, Csalgacus, and he and I talked for a long time.  After a few weeks they allowed me to build a hut of my own.  The site I selected was fated to become the sacred Pavilions place at the edge of the village.

Csalgacus was the first person other than me who could talk to my phantom hounds.  He easily managed to learn their names too:  Kko-1, Brno and Cco.

We discussed the techniques of making objects from beeswax, how to invest the model in clay, the burning out the wax and curing the ceramic mold.  And how one could make the bronze metal using tin ingots shipped from the far south along the west coast and copper lumps brought from nearer lands.  Csalgacus knew many of the traders personally, and through them had become aware of some of the recently developing trade routes that brought stone for axes from across the Alps, amber and furs from the Baltic, wine from Italy.

These routes were being driven by an emerging economy, and in parallel, élite groups had developed, so now power-structures 0r systems of government were in discussion, even if mainly in the context of violent fighting.

With the development of  surpluses which permitted people to take a rest from the constant struggle to survive, and with the emergence of power structures which meant that the means of defence of the group had become specialised away from individuals, the availability of leisure time had increased sufficiently to give people enough economic latitude to be more experimental, to make and learn from their own mistakes and those of other people.  Apart from the roving traders, Csalgacus had met one or two travellers before me, and he was fascinated by tales of lands and peoples far away, perhaps even more than he lusted after the tools and other artefacts that very occasionally filtered through to our remote land.

Language and communication were now in this era subjects of great interest, I could see.  Lon-May was fast becoming a centre for thinking, talking and doing.  However their shaman, Findo Gask, was entirely preoccupied with the animistic spirits he believed were to be found everywhere in the forest, the sky, earth and, of course,  in animals.  I simply couldnt get him to acknowledge the primacy of  the concept of cause and effect, as it seemed to him that everything happened through the arbitrary will of the gods and spirits.  Although I could see that Findos ability to generate meaningfulness in the minds of the people was beneficial to an extent, it meant that logical thought was generally impossible for the majority who were too frightened to think more flexibly, and all such individuals were deeply resistant to anything that threatened the creaky system whereby they tried to understand the world.  Not that Findo Gask was wrong entirely;  but there are circumstances in which rational thought is more effectual than magic, just as there are situations where intuitively understanding the irrational is a more appropriate response than logical analysis.

I noticed the covertly smiling glances of the women not long after I took the girl to be my wife.  Especially after the first night when we came back to the village after spending a week together in the wood.  Id warned K!tra to keep the secret of female orgasm strictly to herself, but word seemed to have got round somehow, judging by the sounds coming from the womens hut when the hunters were away all night.

I was with Csalgacus when he died.  Wed all been out on a wife-hunting raid against a neighbouring tribe,  and the spear-thrust in the belly hed sustained had become septic, as I knew it would from the very first.  Of course, I used my herbs, but they were insufficient to deal with peritonitis from a slashed intestine, and I was unwilling to expose my surgical techniques to public knowledge for fear of the destructive effects of fame.  I had taken good care to blunt Csalgacus pain during his last days and nights, but at the end his mind cleared for a moment, and with characteristic candour, he turned towards me, looked me in the eyes with something of his old asperity and grated, You were. always a patronising. cunt, Memus..

I was almost tempted to laugh, but with that, his glazing eyes defocussed, the pupils dilating, and a death-sweat broke out on his yellowed skin.   With one final grunting exhalation, he was gone to the celestial hunting-grounds.  The shaman-priests took over matters at that juncture, not particularly pleased that I, an outsider, had been with the Chief at his death.

Csalgacus was unlucky in taking five days to die.  Most men in those days died early and rapidly, either from a badly-crushed skull or from a chance arrow strike.  Still, at 31 years, he didnt fare too badly compared to many.  His son, also Csalgacus, didnt last beyond the age of 20, when he died of an infection hed caught while carrying home an enemys head tied to his belt.  A single blackened and diseased tooth sticking out of the trophy slashed his thigh as he ran;  and barely three days later, slain by a dead enemy, Csalgacus joined his father in the earth.

© Donnie Ross 2011

3 comments:

  1. A continiuing tale worthy of a screen play. The setting is prehistoric and surreal, yet reflects a modern logic. I appreciate the line "intuitively understnding the irrational is a more appropriate response than logical analysis". You've been to French Louisiana, haven't you?! And, I love the name of the phantom hounds, K'ko-1 and C'co. Ha! Your canine counterpart must be special...

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  2. I had hoped that you would confirm my suspicions that you used Coco’s name in your story. I think that is the greatest form of flattery possible.

    I would be the first to purchase your story on Smashwords. I am not over-exaggerating when I say that I love your work and that the last two posts were phenomenal.

    I think that I have always been more of a grassroots storyteller. I attempted some poetry and purple prose, and it wasn’t bad, but had always been drawn to dialogue. It’s what works for me at my level of writing. It’s been a long time since I’ve attempted a lengthy piece, but I am being pulled in that direction. This blogworld is interesting, but I miss the solace of a night at the keyboard.

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  3. Thanks very much Jackie, it helps enormously to get a positive response from people who appreciate the writing. And I hope my efforts will maybe help to get you into the frame of mind to do more writing yourself. I agree writing dialogue is a very powerful method of drawing an accurate picture, it's something I'm only just beginning to discover.

    The phantom dogs angle was something I came up with after the death of my second choc lab. It works - it was immensely comforting to pretend the two boys were just behind me on our accustomed walks. Sad & mad, but it is a very curious thing how the canine space is deeply etched in the human mind. In terms of survival, I imagine that a hunting dog would have been as useful as an old-timer grandparent, way back!

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