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Those were the stories I knew from my youth. Now I shall proceed with the ones I heard on my journey.

I left my valley in the early morning just before the spring solstice. I went on, throwing the blue ball when I was thirsty, throwing the green one when I was hungry, throwing the yellow one at night so I could rest – all as was prescribed to me by the man. I crossed the Yellow Plains that lay to the west of our valley and went over Bald Hills, and in three days I entered Deka Plains.

Several tribes lived there, most of them our distant relatives, who speak the same language as we do in the valley. I reached River De and was received kindly by a tribe who called themselves Klo as well. We had a feast and a sit-in, and the tribe's youth performed a ritual dance to notify surrounding spirits that I am a guest and not a rival. And then we sat around the fire late in the evening and had a talk, and in that talk, I had one very important lesson.

You see, their stories were almost like ours, but had many things different. In the story of Origins, for example, they say that from Tarragon came Fishes, not Birds, and Birds went from Lillies instead. And then they said, that from Dogs came People, and from Birds – Spirits, and from Fishes – Snakes. All that I'd never heard before. And the Antelope, they said, was hunted down after it caused another fire, and it was not Red but White, and it was not killed on the spot, but captured and then butchered by Ulnad himself.

“But how can it be? ˮ I tried to argue. “Ulnad cannot touch the blood! ˮ

“But of course, he can! ˮ my peers replied.

“But that goes against what Earth told him! ˮ I said.

“But Earth never said that to him, where'd you get that part? ˮ they shouted in response.

We had a lot of arguments about a lot of things, which were extremely important for all of us, but which differed drastically in all of our stories. At some point, the dispute became so heated I was afraid that it might have turned into rivalry, and I think it very well could have, if not for an Elder who came at our fire from the shadow of a clay house and sat beside us. The youth at the fire immediately went silent, and so did I. The Elder sat for a time, playing with charcoal with his cane, and then said,

“So much noise over drivel.ˮ

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“Our stories are not drivel, Grandfather! ˮ one of the younglings exclaimed, but the Elder caught air with his fist, signing him to shut it. ˮ

For a time we sat silently watching the fire play with twigs inside the stoned circle. Then the elder said,

“Not much use from a story if it drives you crazy. A useful story is one that makes you think. Here's one I heard from my uncle the other day.

“One day it happened, that a hunter was striding across hills with his game hanging at his waist. He stumbled upon the skull of a horse, and when he did so – a snake jumped out of it and rushed to bite him, but the Hunter dodged the bite and jumped away from the skull. The snake then returned to its shelter, and the Hunter strode on and returned to his tribe with no harm upon him.

“For a time he forgot about it. He returned to the tribe and along with the other hunters they carved their prey and had a good feast. But soon strange things started happening in the tribe, as elders died one by one, once every day for eight days. When all the elders were dead and buried, the middle men and women started to die, young mothers and fathers – again one by one, once every day, day after day. Something was wrong in the tribe, and a group of middle men including the said Hunter gathered together and went to a Wolf Cave, where Shaman lived. They came to the cave and asked the shaman about their peculiar situation. The Shaman conducted a Ritual of Summoning, and once he did so, a shadow of a snake spirit jumped off the fire and pointed at the Hunter.

“'You are my prey,' it said, 'and until I get you, neither you nor people around you will have any well-being!'

“When the men returned to the tribe and told of what they witnessed, they were met with solemn silence. Some said that the Hunter should go and give himself up to the snake spirit. Others thought of ways of appeasing the spirit. Many agreed that their poor fellow could not stay in the tribe.

“The Hunter listened to all the talk until they ceased and night fell upon them, and went asleep in a tree. In the morning he left his tribe and tried to go west, to other tribes, seeking admittance. But wherever he went, people began dying inexplicably, one by one, day by day, for each day that he stayed in a settlement. Evidently, the curse was following him everywhere. He returned to the Wolf Cave, back to the Shaman, and asked him if there were any ways to lift the curse, but the Shaman could not help him.

“'Of all the spirits,' he said, 'you had to stumble upon the Wayo one. There is no way to redeem it. The spirit will rage until he gets what he wants.'

“Dejected, the Hunter sat in the cave, pondering. He did not want any more people, fellow or not, to die because of him, so he asked the shaman to do his burial rites, and once they were done, he went back to the place where he saw the skull. He found the skull, and inside it, the snake was waiting for him. And he let the snake bite him, and the poison killed him quickly. He died right there, near the skull, unbeknownst to his own tribe, robbed of his own life. ˮ

Such was the story that the Elder told us, and it did indeed drive us all into deep thoughts. Nobody said anything again that night, and the silence kept until the last of us went to sleep.

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Footnotes:

* - "Middle men" - men and women of "middle age", i.e. not kids and not elders; those who already have or can have children.