There will be no new stories this week. We shall pause, and anticipate, as next week shall begin the story of Jackfish Crow.
Far in the west, men built a great city on two shores, and they built a bridge between the two shores, so that the city of men crossed the ocean itself. Late at night, fog would rise up from the ocean and roll across the entire city, until it was as if it was covered in snow. On some days the sun would rise across the horizon and melt the fog away. On other days downy gray clouds would dim the sun and the fog would hang over the city until the lady Night spread her cloak again, and her eye the moon looked upon the fog, and turned it silver, and it would run off in rivulets along the city’s cobbled streets.
On those days the fog hung over the city, all the sorrows of every man and woman would become a part of the fog. When it would fade away into the night, it would take the sorrows of the western city with it, and in this way the men and women of the western city were happy. But time passed, and more and more of the city’s sorrows became lost in the fog, and all the sorrow came into the city with the fog. The men and women of the city would close up their windows and shutters, bolt their doors and hide in the basement, but still the fog of sorrows would seep into their homes.
It was at this time a woman named Sera lived in the city. In her tiny shop, she baked all manner of desserts and sold some small bottles of wine, all of which she made herself. Such desserts as she baked were not too sweet, nor too bland, and all the wine she sold glittered in the dimmest candlelight as if it were in the sun. But by far her most famous desserts were dreams, for Sera knew the secret of baking dreams into wonderful desserts. Customers from every part of the city would come to Sera’s little shop for a small piece of happiness, and she would give them pastries and wine and see them on their way.
Well, Sera had lived in the western city for many years, and she knew all about the fog of sorrows. She always baked extra dreams and extra pastries when she knew it was coming, and she always sold more than she baked the day after. She liked nothing better than to relieve people of their sorrows, but she wondered if there was nothing else to be done. After many years of making people happy as best as she was able, Sera became determined to lift the fog of sorrows.
Thus she gathered up her pots and her pans and her bowls and her mixers. She packed a bag of flour and sugar and eggs and butter, and she climbed upon her bike. Balancing the enormous pack on her head, she pedaled down to the bridge between the two shores. Sera walked along the bridge until she was high above the ocean, and there she sat with her bare feet dangling over the waves. “Oh, Ocean,” she said. “My beautiful western city despairs of the fog. I do what I am able, but I wish to do more. Tell me how to unburden the fog and I will make you a treat of dreams.”
Sera sat on the great bridge for many hours, listening to the waves of the ocean. Every so often she would say, “Please Ocean, hear my favor.” The sun was just beginning to descend in the sky when a great wave swelled up from the ocean and Sera heard a deep and melodious voice speak. “Very well, my daughter. If you are able to bake a dream for me, I will tell you about the fog’s sorrow.”
“Thank you, Ocean,” said Sera, and she went straightaway to the home of a friend who lived near the Ocean. She did not even spare time to return to her small bakery, but immediately set to work on baking a dream for the ocean. The small pastry had the end and the beginning of time within it, and the love of a daughter for her father. As the sun descended towards the horizon, Sera carried the pastry out to the ocean in a small paper bag.
“Here is you dream, my Ocean,” she said. “Will you hear my favor?” The ocean made no reply, but the enormous wave was still swelled up below the bridge, so Sera walked out to the wave and dropped the pastry into the ocean. Some minutes later she heard the voice again.
“Thank you, my daughter,” said the Ocean. “This dream was very sweet. I will tell you how to lift the fog of sorrow. For mortal men, sorrow is part of life. It may be endured, or understood, or lived through, but if they have no sorrow, they are not truly alive. Some mortal men seek to remove all sorrow from themselves, and from their lives. These men are without understanding, for the sorrow will only return a thousandfold.” With these words, the great wave sank back into the ocean, and Sera was alone on the bridge.
The very next day, Sera could see the fog of sorrows was due to appear. She baked a great many sweets and a great many sweet dreams, but when the fog of sorrows rolled across the city, she opened up all the doors and windows of her bakery. Few men and women of the city would venture into her little shop while it was wide opened to the fog of sorrows, thus no one saw her baking up little bits of the sorrow into pies and scones and pastries.
The fog passed, as it always did, and the next day Sera’s bakery was filled up with customers. She gave them all sweet dreams, but now she also gave each of them a sorrow baked into a dessert. Her customers would eat the sorrows, and feel sad, but Sera always had so many more sweets than sorrows that, even when they felt sad from the sorrow, she would raise them up with dreams. Sometimes they might feel sad even after eating the sorrow, but Sera always had enough dreams and sweetness to go around.
Night by night, and day by day, Sera worked to bake the sorrows into desserts. One person at a time she fed the sorrows back to all the people of the western city. They felt sorrow again, those that ate Sera’s deserts, but they no longer felt any of the sorrows of the fog. Sera gave the sorrow of men back to men, and so she took the sorrow from the fog and it troubled the city no more. All the men and women of the city could now see how beautiful the fog was, and it glittered in the sunlight and moonlight, being no longer full of sorrows.
The small bakery still stands in the western city today, and if she has not died, Sera is still baking dreams into desserts and making the lives of all the men and women of the city just a bit sweeter.
In a land to the north, near the great island nations, there lived a fierce and warlike people. Their ships traveled all the oceans, and they raided the shores of every land the world over. Each warrior among them fought like a man possessed by ten devils, and in their raids they would carry away food, jewels, and the people of the shores they conquered. With all the stolen foodstuffs, they stocked the larders of their kingdom to bursting. With all the stolen treasures, their lands were dressed in decadence. And of those men and women and children they stole, they made slaves.
One such a slave was the strongest warrior of his people. The northern barbarians prized him for the great battle they had fought in capturing him alive. Fully five of their number had been needed to bring him to his knees, and five more to his hands, and yet five more still until his head touched the earth. Thus he sat, bound in more iron than all the other slaves put together, and brooded in the hold of the barbarians’ ship. He was not strong enough to defeat them all, and he was not strong enough to break their iron. This he knew, but still he vowed that their kingdom would fall and he would be their undoing.
He was sold in chains, and his great strength was put to use in many endeavors. When he was not given over to the services of heavy labor, he was made to fight for the amusement of his captors. Years passed in this fashion before, as slavers often will, they determined that the warrior should be bred. A suitable woman was found, another fierce and strong warrior from the perpetually humid southern lands. Many a careless overseer had lost an ear, a nose, or even fingers to her teeth. The two were placed in the same steel-barred cell, and bets were taken as to whether they would kill each other first, or wait until after intercourse.
But the man approached the woman and, in barely a whisper, said, “Our child will be strong enough. Our child will bring them to ruin.” Their pact was made and together the warriors brought a child into the world, a healthy boy as fierce as his mother and as strong as his father with all the determination of both of them together.
The boy was raised by his father and mother to be a fighter, for the barbarians grew more decadent each day, and wished to see a magnificent battle in their slave pits. He was reared in a steel cage, and each parent taught him all they knew of their not inconsiderable knowledge of the ways in which one man might defeat another. They taught him how to face a single opponent, or ten, or even how he might defeat a whole army. And, in secret, they forged swords, a pair of wickedly curved scimitars.
The first blade was called Knowledge, and was forged from the chains of his father, who wished his son to remember always that knowledge could make slaves of men or liberate them. The second blade was called Labor, and was forged from the chains of his mother, that her son might know how labor could be a prison, but only through labor could one gain freedom. The child grew to a man, always reared in steel, and his strength became even greater than his father’s, and his fierceness became even more terrible than his mother’s and his determination was so great that no man could stand before it.
The time came when the barbarians saw the child was at last a man, and they opened the lock on the steel cage, eager to see him fighting in the pits. They had their fight, but in no way they wished, for when the door was opened, the son of the warriors took up Knowledge and Labor and struck down the guards. He fought his way through the great underground prison where the slaves were penned, striking each door open with a single blow. He led the slaves to freedom, and no barbarian warriors, even those as fearsome as ten devils, could stand before him. Before the setting of the sun he had brought the kingdom of the barbarians to ruin, and his parents saw the barbarian kings meet their ends.
He led their freed slaves from the city of the barbarians, out of the northern lands, and for many years his new tribe roamed the desert lands. They faced many hardships, and the swords Knowledge and Labor saw many more battles, but these are all stories for another time. When all the hardships were faced and met, and when all the enemies and monsters and villains that would bind men in chains had fallen before Knowledge and Labor, the warriors’ son and his tribe found a fertile land, and built a great empire there. His swords were pounded into plows and farming tools, and thus knowledge and labor are still used today.
In the distant islands of the West there lived a shaman who was called Evangeline. Her mother was one of the Ocean’s dreams, who had slipped away from the tower where the Lady Simone dreamt them all, and her father was the eldest son of a family long allied with the spiders and privy to all their secrets. Her mother showed Evangelnie all the secrets of her dreams, and her father taught her how to speak the language of spiders, although because she was not the eldest child of the family, she did not inherit all their secrets. Yet Evangeline was a clever girl from the very start, and the spiders soon willingly told her their own secrets, and as well as the secrets of their cobwebbed dreams.
Evangeline was not a shaman right from the very start. Her mother showed her how to weave clothes at a loom and stitch patterns in silk. Her father showed her how to read the waves and go out onto the ocean in a small boat, and catch fish. One day, when her father was out fishing, and her mother was out selling cloth, Evangeline gave a tiny caterpillar a drop of honey and so the caterpillar let her weave a net out of his silk. Then Evangeline took her fine silken net out to the line of rocks jutting into the waves (the one where all the old men of the village would go to fish), and cast it into the ocean. When she pulled her net back it had caught a fish with golden scales.
“I see the silkworm told the secret of how to catch me,” said the fish. “But if you throw me back I will give you a thousand gold scales.”
“Oh, I made this net on my own, little fish, and I do not want so much gold. What use do I have for it? I am told you know the language of every fish in the ocean and I would like it if you taught them all to me.”
The golden fish squirmed and struggled and tried to get Evangeline to take all manner of treasures, but she was quite firm and would not be dissuaded. Thus the golden fish was forced to teach Evangeline the languages of all the fish in the sea. Evangeline thanked the golden fish and set him back in the waters. Then she walked along the rocks to the beach, and walked out along the beach into the water until it was up to her waist. She called all the minnows to her and told each one a secret, and each minnow told her a secret and gave her a silver coin.
Evangeline brought home the silver coins to her parents. At first they scolded her, because they did not know where she had been. But then she showed them all the coins and told them she had learned the languages of the fish. Her father was proud she knew so many languages and her mother told her, “That is what you must do. You will not be a seamstress or a fisherman’s wife. You must go and learn all the languages of the world.”
Thus Evangeline went out into the world and learned how to talk to all the creatures she met. She found a moth caught in a spider’s web on the very first night, and she begged the spider to let it go. “Please madam spider, you have so many insects in your web, and the moth is so much larger than you, surely she is more than you could eat. Let me free her and you may call on me in times of need.” The spider thought on this, and agreed, because so few men knew how to speak to spiders properly. Evangeline very carefully freed the moth, without disturbing the spider’s web even a little bit.
The moth was very grateful and offered to bring Evangeline a sliver of silver moonlight, dust to make true lovers meet, or leaves from the tree at the top of the tallest mountain in the world. But Evangeline did not need any of these gifts. “Teach me all the languages of all the moths, for that is all I desire to know.” The moth wondered if she was sure she wouldn’t rather have the seeds of a plant which would bear glowing fruit, or the key to a door hidden deep in the darkest forest instead, but Evangeline was quite insistent. The moth acquiesced, and taught her how to speak with every other moth in the world.
Evangeline slept through the night under the spider’s web and dreamed of all the spiders in the world weaving their webs together. When she woke up, she went into the dark forest and called all the moths to her and told each one a secret she learned from the minnows. Each moth told Evangeline a secret and they gave her feather dust to cure fevers, cloth woven from silver silk, and cast off keys which could only open forgotten doors.
She traveled through the forest, and came upon a village where no one could get any of their plants to grow. Evangeline talked to all the farmers and all their wives and all their children and every grandfather in the village, but no one knew why none of their crops would grow. Evangeline asked the spiders, but they did not know either. “Ask the moths,” they said. Evangeline asked the moths, but they did not know either and so they told her, “Ask the moon.”
Evangeline wasn’t sure what language the moon spoke, but she ate some apples and drank some honeyed tea, and stayed up late into the night until the moon was high above the earth. She looked up at the moon, and she asked it in every language she knew what might be wrong with the land, but the moon did not turn to face her. She exhorted the moon until she almost could not speak anymore, and just when it seemed like the night would pass in silence, she heard a woman’s voice say, “Even I cannot tell you why the crops do not grow. Ask the mushrooms.”
Evangeline slept through the whole next day. None of the farmers had any food, so she walked out into the ocean and called the sailfish and the swordfish and all the ocean’s turtles. All these fish brought in a catch of shrimp which Evangeline plucked from the ocean and roasted over a great bonfire. All the villagers gathered round and were happy, and at the end of the feast, Evangeline lay down with her head in the grass and listened for the sound of the ants crawling through the dirt. She picked up an ant on her finger and carried him to her lips. She gave the tiny ant a tiny kiss and promised him a drop of honey if he would teach her how to speak with mushrooms. Ants will do anything for a drop of honey or two, so of course the ant instantly taught her everything about the language of mushrooms, and all the mushrooms’ cousins, and she sent him on his way with two spoons full of honey for his family.
The next night Evangeline went into the forest, calling softly to all the fungi, and soon enough she heard a response. She asked the mushrooms why the farmers’ fields would not grow, and the mushrooms said: “They drive us out of their lands. They discard us from their compost. They cast us out of the shadows into nowhere. Make space for us. Respect us. Nurture us, and we will make the land grow again.”
She went back to the village, and they told her how they had planted all their crops on what had once been a field of truffles. “This land is also the land of the mushrooms,” she said. “You must in kind with them on their land, or nothing will grow here ever after.” The villagers did not like this advice, but she had spoken to the spiders and the moths and the moon and the ants and the mushrooms for them, thus they went about setting aside land and dark sheds where they would grow mushrooms. Soon enough the fields were more fertile than they had ever been. The vegetables grew large and were full of flavor, and all the fruits of the land were juicy and sweet.
This was how Evangeline became a shaman, taught by her parents and all the world. She would travel from one end of her islands to the other, and ride turtles to the far shores of the jungles of the east, to the rain-swept lands of the far south, and to the distant isles on the other side of the world shaken by the earth itself. When she would laugh, butterflies would appear, and scarab beetles held up her hair.
When the land was very young it was still very small. Men and all manner of beasts lived in the land, and every day there were more, but there was no more land. There was one clever young girl named Lily. She was so named because she was born from a lily flower, as was not so unusual for men and women in those times. Because she was born with her eyes open, she wanted to see all the ends of the earth. Thus when she had grown from a girl into a young woman, she set off to see all the lands there was to see.
She saw the trees where all the fallen gods lay, and she saw the tallest mountain in the world, and she saw the lands of the north before they were frozen. She walked from one end of the land to the other, and saw all the men and beasts who lived there, and she was still a young woman. “This land is too small,” she said, “and soon all the men and beasts of the world will fill it up.”
Lily went to the eastern lands, all the way to the edge of the earth where the ocean rolled over the sand. She sat on the beach with the ocean washing over her bare feet and spoke to the waves. “You are a vast ocean and our lands are very small, but there is no place for you on any of them. Make yourself a friend to men, and I will find a place for you on the land.” The ocean did not speak, but as the waves rolled in, they rose up from the ocean and became the curved and elegant neck of a creature Lily had seen nowhere else on the earth. It had long, high legs and a mane that rolled like the wind, and it was called the horse. One after another, they came marching out of the ocean and galloped across the beach and the lands of men.
Each horse sought out each man and woman in all the lands, for there were as many horses as there were men. For each child born, a horse marched out of the ocean. Each horse had a name, just as each man and woman did, and their names were given to them by the ocean, as all men’s name were given to them by the earth. Lily’s horse was the last one to walk from the waves, and her name was Peace.
Lily rode Peace to the west, until she came to the end of the earth. There were no Western Lands at this time, and when she had gone as far as the East could stretch, the earth dropped away into the ocean and nothing was left of it. “Here are where the lands of men come to an end,” said Lily. “With horses for all men and women, we will surely need more land upon which they may live.” Peace nodded her great head and said, “Then I will lie down here and there shall be more land for men.” Lily, bowed and climbed off Peace, and Peace lay down at the end of the earth. Peace became the Western Lands, and the ocean beyond her became the Western Ocean.
Well, of course Lily still had to see all the ends of the earth, so she began walking west. She was still a young woman when she reached the West Ocean, but she saw a great and vast land, and was pleased. She walked along beaches of white sand in her bare feet and let the ocean wash around her ankles again. She thanked the ocean and bowed to it, and in a moment a horse came prancing up from the waves of the west.
The horse told her his name was Rome and that he would carry her to lands where no men had ever been. Lily was gracious and grateful, and climbed upon Rome’s back. From the lands of the West, Rome galloped out across the ocean. He walked upon the water and the waves, and in his footsteps great new lands and island nations rose up. Together Lily and Rome brought men and horses to these new lands, and gave names to all the beasts which had never before been seen.
In the far away island kingdoms there lived a mouse, and she was very small. Her home was in one of the many rolling fields of grain the men of the island kingdoms cultivated and, because she was such a very small mouse, this single field was the whole of the world to her. When it rained, her world was filled with oceans and rivers, and when it snowed her world became an arctic tundra, and when the sky was blue and sunny her world was a paradise.
But even though she saw only her field, she was a wise and clever mouse, and she knew as much of the world as any man or beast or bird (though as some do much with few experiences, others may do very little with a great many). The world is large to a mouse, but the mouse knows the smallest parts of it and, in knowing these smallest parts, she may know the larger story.
One day, when a farmer was plowing these fields, he came upon the mouse’s home. He was going to plow it under, but the mouse begged him not to. “I will tell you a story,” she said, “and chase away those pesky locusts who eat so much of your grain.” Well, the farmer was doubtful, but he sat by his plow and listened to the mouse tell her story, because in those days men and beasts still regaled one another with fanciful tales and it was often the only entertainment to be had. The mouse told the farmer a story of how the rains came down one day and nearly drowned a small boy, very much like the farmer, but the boy clung to life through the storm. Then, when the sun returned, the boy stood up and all his struggles in the rain had made him strong, and the sun’s rays made him the tallest and strongest of all his brothers.
The farmer liked the mouse’s story, and decided to let her stay. He did not plow under her home, and the mouse diligently chased away all the locusts who tried to plague the farmer’s crops. Those she caught, she ate, for locusts were a delicacy among mice, and some few men who learned from the mice knew when locusts fell on their fields, it was little more than food falling on food. But this farmer was more concerned with grain than swarms. Thus when many months passed with very little rain, and more locusts than even the determined mouse could chase away fell upon his crops, he came back to the mouse’s home.
“Little mouse,” he said, “you seem wise and clever to me, and I do not know what else to do. My crops are dying, my livelihood is soon to perish. If my farm fails my life ends.”
The mouse considered the farmer’s story, delicately chewing an acorn as she did. “It seems to me,” she said, “that my world is very small, and yours is very large. Perhaps the world of men is too large for one man to rely only on himself and his farm, and for his farm to rely on only a single man. Find other men so that if one may fall, others will help him up, and if one of you has some hardship, the others will show him kindness.”
The farmer thought the mouse’s words were full of wisdom. Thusly, it was not long before he found several other farmers, and together they became a small village. For many years they supported one another. One man grew grain, another grew fruits, and still another raised livestock, so that each man profited by the gain of another and all of them had well-stocked larders. The farmer saw to it the small mouse was cared for, and he gave her the finest grains to eat and soft goosedown to line her small home during the cold winters.
Life was good for the village and the mouse until a great wolf came from the woods. The beast was half-mad and slaughtered all the village livestock. It would carry away small children if they were not watched, and savaged the men of the village, some unto death. A somber and bloody pall hung over the men and women, and though they were still one another’s strength, they feared the crazed beast might put an end to them all before any other whim of nature could rise to trouble them.
Once again, the farmer found himself returning to the mouse for her advice. “Oh little mouse, you were wise when my crops were dying, I would beg your wisdom again. A wolf plagues our village. I fear it may carry off or savage every man, woman, and child among us if it is not met.”
The mouse considered this again and replied, “It seems to me that my world is very small, and yours is very large. Perhaps the world of men is too large for any men to rely only on a few others, and for those few others to be carried only on the backs of other men. Find more villages like your own. Band together so that you are too large and mighty for even a half-mad wolf, and all other predators may see your strength and look for easier prey.”
These words too seemed well-spoken, and so the farmer returned to his village, and the village elders went forth to find other villages. It was not long before they had banded together and become a town, driving back those beasts of men and nature which would prey on the weak rather than labor honestly for a just return. Many men in the town grew grain, or fruits, or raised livestock, and so they traded amongst one another for the finest grains or the sweetest fruit. In this way, all men and women of the town grew wealthier in knowledge and enjoyed a rich variety of all the best food and drink there was to be had. The farmer saw to it the field where he first met the mouse was well cared for, and on the coldest nights the mouse would sleep in the town’s tiny chapel.
Life was good for the townspeople and the mouse, until another town was discovered, not far from their own. The two towns gave one another little enough consideration, and very few men went from one to the other. It came to pass, shortly thereafter, that both towns coveted a field. Each one considered it most promising and ideal for cultivation of one sort or another, and both towns rapidly became unable to resolve the debate. They fell to fighting, and within but a few months warred with each other. The youngest and bravest men of each town were sent off to fight, and returned home broken, or injured, or not at all.
The farmer, who was quite old by now, saw how this must end, for he had grown wiser too, and he came to speak to the mouse again. “Our youngest men are sent off to die as we fight one another,” he said to the mouse. “Soon we will have no young men left to work the fields or raise the cattle. We will send off the old men and then no one will be left of us at all. I fear we will soon destroy ourselves.”
The mouse folded her tiny paws over one another as she heard the farmer’s story. “It seems to me that my world is very small, and yours is very large. Perhaps it is too large even for men to rely only on as many as a town, and for such a group as this to exist in a vacuum. Your towns of men must not fight, but become larger still so that other towns will see what greatness can come of men working together.”
“And what then,” asked the farmer. “When we two towns are joined and still we have troubles? Shall our world grow ever increasingly larger?”
“So it shall,” agreed the determined mouse. “Because it is always kindness that you will depend upon in your fellow men, and you must always find a way to show them how much greater a thing than themselves they may become in being so kind. Show them these greater things, for that small kindness you did for me so long ago is no less than the greatest kindness you will do for all the men in the world.”
The farmer at last saw all of the wisdom the mouse had told him and, with this wisdom passed on, he brought the warring towns together into a peaceful city. This was how a determined mouse first built a village, then a town, and at last a city. And this is why, though a mouse may know only the smallest part of a field in the smallest part of the world, sometimes the mouse is the best one to ask if you wish your field to grow any larger.