Dawn comes early to the island in the summer. Raven opens a keen black eye as a silver hue lightens the cave entrance. With as little sound as possible, Raven drops down from his perch to the floor and swaggers over to The Old Woman’s loom. She has woven a great deal since the last time he ripped her tapestry apart. The fabric is beautiful - the most beautiful she has woven yet - but she is dangerously close to finishing it. While The Old Woman and Little Snake slumber in the dark recesses of the cave, Trickster Raven alights on the loom and boldly thrusts his beak into the tapestry.
When he is satisfied with the work of his dextrous beak, Raven takes a step back to admire the frayed holes and cascading rips. The light at the cave entrance has brightened. Raven flaps out into the early morning, down to the beach for a hearty breakfast. He will need it for the long journey he must make.
The Old Woman awakens not long after and sets about her chores: tending the fire under her three cauldrons, stirring the waters of each with their herbs and bones and dyes. Not until she sweeps the floor does she discover what Trickster Raven has done to her precious tapestry. The Old Woman stops short and stares at the patterns the holes make. At last, she heaves a heavy sigh and sweeps up the shreds of yarn Raven has scattered on the floor. She washes in the cold waterfall beside the cave entrance, rinsing the dust from her body and the disappointment from her heart. After her brothy breakfast, The Old Woman heads down to the beach for driftwood. The fire always needs tending, after all.
Little Snake wakes to the sound of The Old Woman stacking driftwood beside the hearth to dry. The fire itself hisses and pops beneath the cauldrons. She watches as The Old Woman walks slowly out of the cave and turns toward the path that leads to the top of the island. Little Snake, too, moves languorously, her body sluggish from the chill of the cave. She has made a morning ritual of slithering over to warm by the fire before starting her day. She moves at a different pace than Raven and The Old Woman, but then again, she is a different creature.
As the blood begins to flow faster through her body, Little Snake notices The Old Woman’s loom and the mess her beautiful tapestry has become. This must be Raven’s doing, she decides, and now she understands why The Old Woman was moving with an unusual heaviness. When her body is sufficiently warm, Little Snake slithers out of the cave and up the path in search of her friend at the top of the island. She takes a little detour to find a nice, plump vole for breakfast, but eventually finds The Old Woman sitting silently beside the small stream that flows across the island, and cascades down beside the entrance to the cave.
Though the summer has been largely overcast and cool this year, the sun has peeked through from time to time. Today is shaping up to be one of the warm days and both The Old Woman and Little Snake find joy in just being in the sunshine and the light breeze that wafts the scent of Cottonwood over them. A party of black-headed Jays with dark blue wing tips and tails land in a Spruce overhead, cackling out their jokes and jaunts and jests. The corners of The Old Woman’s mouth curve up at their loud joviality, while a single gossamer thread of spider silk captures Little Snake’s and her attention. As the breeze blows, the silk lifts and falls, glimmering where the sun catches. Together, they speak the poem aloud.
“Fly fishing”
“Dancing over current”
“Spider thread body”
“In weightless flight”
With the spell of silence broken, Little Snake ventures a question, “Where is Raven?”
“He’s off to wake the Trolls,” replies The Old Woman, her eyes still following the spider silk.
“How do you know?”
“Did you see my tapestry this morning? He was at it sometime in the night. I have seen that pattern before - the last time he woke the Trolls.”
“Why would he do that?” Little Snake asked, incensed for her friend’s sake. “Why are the Trolls sleeping?”
“The Trolls fell asleep as the ice withdrew and Life grew. The Age of Stone passed and the Fungi, Plants, and Animals flourished. Now, though the ice is still receding, the Age of Life is ebbing. The stone beings are emerging from melting ice faster than they have in an age.”
“What are they going to do?” asks Little Snake.
“They are the children of mountains and asteroids. As beings born of solid rock cracking and grinding, breaking and sliding, they are going to carry that energy, that momentum into the world.”
“Why?”
“Trickster Raven believes the time has come.” Glancing down at Little Snake’s expectant face, her serpent tongue flicking in and out as if tasting the sunshine, The Old Woman explains, “This planet can only support so much Life. My loom can only hold so many wefts. If Raven has gone to wake the Trolls, then the time for a new cycle must be nigh. We’ll just have to wait and see how destructive they are this time around.”
“How is he going to wake them?”
“Haven’t you met Raven? The bird’s like a mosquito!” The Old Woman barks a very Jay-like laugh.
“He is pesky!” agrees Little Snake.
“You know, the ice left a Troll here, on this island.”
“Is he still here?”
“Trolls are born of stone, so they aren’t ‘he’ or ‘she’, but ‘ki’*” explains The Old Woman. “Our Troll went by the name Gauthr. Back in the days just after the ice melted, Raven and I came to live on this island, and Gauthr lived here, too, waking at night and sleeping during the day. The crushed Crustaceans and Moss left in ki’s footprints showed the paths Gauthr took each night.
“Now, one day, Raven was famished. We didn’t have as much to eat back then because all the Life you see today had not had a chance to grow up yet. So Raven flew down to the beach to see what he could find. The tide was quite low and he discovered some Barnacles - the huge kind the size of my palm that grow on wild edges where the water churns. Well, Raven fancied these Barnacles, but he didn’t know how to get at them. He pecked and scratched, but they held tight to the rocks and wouldn’t budge open.
“As much as Raven wanted the Barnacles, he didn’t like working so hard. He much preferred to get someone else to do the work and then reap the benefits. He quickly realized that Gauthr could crush a few Barnacles for him just by walking over the beach. So Raven flew to the north side of the island where Gauthr slept and spent the rest of the day whispering in his ear.
When Gauthr eventually woke at nightfall, Raven pecked and pestered the Troll relentlessly for half the night, until at last the boulder-headed creature arose and swung at him. That Trickster is a quick bird, though, and he stayed just out of reach as he led Gauthr around the island to where the Barnacles were.
“By then, the tide had come in, and all the Barnacles were under water. So, Raven had to keep pestering Gauthr to get the Troll to chase him around until the tide could go back out again. When the Barnacles finally shone white in the moonlight, Raven led the Troll down the beach to stomp on a few.”
“But by that time, Gauthr was so incensed against Raven, the Trickster could not land to enjoy his meal. Like avalanches, Trolls are slow to start moving, but once they do, very little in this world can stop them. The Troll swung and lunged and tried to catch Raven all over the beach until ki had crushed all of the Barnacles - every single one. Just before dawn, Raven had the clever idea to lead Gauthr out into the ocean and we haven’t seen the Troll since.”
“Do you think ki drowned?”
“I doubt it. More likely, Gauthr preferred living where Raven could not be a nuisance,” The Old Woman’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “Well, Raven got his Barnacles - and he tried to eat them all. He was so stuffed, he could barely fly by morning. Since that night, I have not seen a Barnacle that size, nor have I heard Raven say he had a hankering for them.”
“I’m still worried what the Trolls will do after Raven wakes them up,” frets Little Snake.
“I am more concerned that Humans have unleashed the Giants of Greed. We may need the Trolls to keep them from destroying all Life.” Little Snake glances up in alarm at The Old Woman. “Trickster Raven unravels my tapestry from time to time to keep me weaving, but the Giants of Greed don’t know when to stop. I would have a hard time weaving on a loom made of ash.”
“If Humans are so bad, then why did you weave them into your tapestry in the first place?”
“Oh, Humans aren’t bad. When they are living as they were designed, they are Life-Tenders. When they remember that all the living beings who came before them are their elders and family, then their gratitude helps those elders to flourish. True, many have climbed the Giants, thinking that is the best way to survive, and others have fallen into the Giants’ warpaths. Even so, there are Humans working hard to keep the Giants of Greed at bay.”
“First Trolls, now Giants,” laments Little Snake. “Are they going to destroy the whole world?”
“Little Snake, I know that you struggle with change,” The Old Woman speaks gently, “but you are descended from the great Snake Goddess, the keeper of the cycles of Life. You believe that your body begins with your mouth and ends at your tail, but if you were to curl yourself up, you would find that your tail feeds right back into your mouth, and that is much closer to the shape of time. Life is not a line that starts one place and ends in another, but a spiral. Death is only a turn on the curve.”
*‘Ki’ is a singular, non-gendered pronoun that refers to animate, non-human Life. For a thorough explanation, please see my story, “Feathers.”
I love this so much and can’t wait to read more. To share what our ancestors and elders knew to true, with a sprinkle of what is to come is a gift and pure joy to read. 🙏💫
I have deep hopes that you will write many many children's books that will teach the adults :-)