“Erik, Orn. Come on boys, time to get up.” The Crisp sound of their mother’s voice called out to the two boys, and they stirred awake. Erik got up first. He smiled over at his sleeping brother and walked over to the window. As he passed Orn’s bed, he grabbed his brother’s blankets, dragging them off of him. This caused the still sleeping brother to sit bolt upright.
“Hey, fat head! What are you doing?” he asked in a tone expressing annoyance, as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and focused on Erik’s back. When he realised what he was doing, Orn’s face turned red and his nostrils flared, expressing his indigence. “Ugh, how many times, Erik! Don’t piss out the window! Just because there’s dirt outside, it doesn’t stop the wind from wafting your stale piss smell back in.”
Orn got up and ran to Erik’s back, intending to push him through the window. Erik stopped what he was doing so he could dodge Orn’s charge. “All right, all right. I’ll go to the lemon tree. Gods, you’re such a girl.” Erik shook his head, a derisive expression on his face. He put on a comical, high-pitched, whiney voice. “Ooh Erik, don’t make it smelly, ooh Erik, don’t make gas near me.”
Orn gave him a smarmy look. “Do you think Selti will put up with your filthy habits? She’s an actual girl, so I guarantee, she would complain way more than me.” and he mouthed the words wedding off, while wearing a smug grin.
“Shut up!” Erik’s face expressed his chagrin, showing Orn he had struck a nerve. Then his expression turned smug. “Besides, I will be the man of the house, so it’ll be my rules.”
“Sure, you’ll be the man of the house. The man of an empty house. She will wind up living with us,” Orn said. He laughed, and then he tapped his bottom lip in an exaggerated show of contemplation. “I wonder what Mother would think of your idea of how households should run…”
At that, a panicked expression came over Erik’s face, which quickly turned fierce. He reached back his arm and grabbed Orn in a headlock, which he slipped out of with ease. Orn was about to swing a gut punch at Erik when he found he couldn’t move his arm. With wide eyes, he turned and gazed up at his father’s smiling face. With the sunniest of smiles, he said through clenched teeth, “Boys, your mother called you. Stop mucking about and go see how you can help her, okay?”
They left the room, rushing toward the backyard as much to relieve themselves by the lemon tree as to escape their father’s wrath. Once they were gone, Vylder shook his head and chuckled to himself. He knew his sons had good hearts, but they could be a handful when they misbehaved. He often thought that his days as a warrior were simpler times, with fewer worries. However, nothing in the world could make him trade then for now. When he left the king’s personal guard after marrying Venna, he resolved himself to never choose war over family now that he had one.
As Orn moved into the kitchen behind Erik, he could see the breakfast table already set up. Rye hotcakes with butter and some broth their mother made with the fish frames from what they had caught and eaten two nights previously. They sat down at the table with their parents. “Nice of you to finally join us, boys.” Said Venna sweetly, with just a hint of sarcasm. “It’s Serday today, so we need to start preparing the village for the mid-year festival. After breakfast, Erik, I want you to go to Mrs Sogard and help her in whatever way she needs. She will come over to help me here, so the quicker she does what she needs to do, the quicker she can join us, OK?”
Erik nodded. She looked at Orn and continued, “Orn, you can help me here and your father will go to Chief Bon to help set up the village square. So, please, eat up as we all have a long busy day today, and a busy morning tomorrow.”
“So what are we doing today, Mother?” Orn asked around a mouthful of food.
“Don’t talk while you eat, you’ll choke on it. Finish and then speak.” Venna chided.
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“Sorry, Mother,” he replied while still chewing food.
“What did I just say? And don’t you laugh, Erik. You’re just as bad.” She threw a tea towel at Erik while struggling to keep her burgeoning smile at bay.
Erik deftly dodged the tea towel but had the good grace to stifle his laugh and try to hide the smirk on his face. Venna shook her head melodramatically and put on a mock-serious expression as she teased, “I worry for that poor girl having to put up with you in her future.”
At that moment, the smile dropped from Erik’s face as he blushed furiously. “Mother!”
Orn gave his brother some vicious side eyes, accompanied by a smug grin. That earned Orn a thumb-sized piece of hot cake that his mother threw bouncing off his head, which had the whole family laughing.
As they finished up breakfast, Vylder and Erik headed out while Orn cleared the table. His mother hummed cheerfully as she began gathering all the ingredients she would need to prepare for the feast. Orn washed the dishes and then walked outside to empty the water from the tub.
While he was tipping the dishwater into the garden, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye near the front of the cottage. When he looked in that direction, he thought he saw a flash of long, pale blonde hair. “Hello? Is someone there?” At a brisk walk, he moved to the front of the house and rounded the corner, but there was no one there. The road was empty as well. He walked around the entire building, and after finding nothing, dismissed it as a figment of his imagination, returning to the kitchen to continue helping his mother.
At around midday the next day, all the villagers gathered in the village square before the fire pit. Lining the square were torches with the fire pit set up in the centre. Surrounding the square were some of the more prominent residencies, including the home of the priest and the village chief’s family home.
The village temple priest was an elderly man named Gelder. He was wearing his white fur robe and his deer antler headdress with crow feathers hanging from the thick leather headband that held it all together. He stood before them in front of the carved pole, and slightly to the side of the fire pit. The priest gave a sermon of observance, renewed vows of faith in the Gods, and thanks for their bounties and for the grace and care of their departed loved ones. For this, most of the gathered villagers joined hands and rocked side to side, others kept time with small bells or simple skin drums. The chanting combined with some of the men throat singing, creating solemn rhythm and melody bathing the village square in a musical platitude and supplication to their Gods.
Gelder raised his hands, and the villagers fell silent. The priest began his sermon, giving thanks to each of the Gods for their blessings:
“We thank you Briga, Goddess of our hearts for the feelings you bestowed upon us, and for the rain from your tears of joy and sadness, which give us life.”
“We thank you Durren, God of the sea, for your grace in allowing us the mastery of your domain, and the bounties within your home that sustain us when our fields cannot.”
“We thank you Myim, God of war, for our strength in battle, for the fires that keep us warm and those that burn within us, and for your great hall, where our warriors can drink and sing of their glory.”
“We thank you Freidig, the All Mother, for sharing with us your body so that we may live upon it and from it.”
“And we thank you Everrin, God of creation, for the knowledge and wisdom you endow us with, and all that comes from it, and for the day that gives life, and the night that gives all that which lives, the time to rest.”
With that, Geldon bowed his head, and the villagers followed suit. At this signal, several of the village boys, including Orn and Erik, came leading the seven sacrificial pigs around the left side of Gelder, while Selti approached him from his right, holding aloft the ceremonial dagger. She reverently handed it to the priest, who accepted it with the same amount of reverence.
The village boys led the first pig to a deep drainage borehole next to the firepit. Just beyond it, before the stacked, but as yet, unlit fire pit was the ceremonial bowl. The priest led the pig towards where the bowl was, gently straddled the pig, and with the ceremonial dagger, deftly slit the pig’s throat. Once the bowl filled, the first boy brought it over to the villagers to pass around. They drew with their fingers two lines down their foreheads and drank from it.
The villagers cheered, including the priest, and then they set to work lighting the fire and prepared the pigs for the feast. Now the formerly sombre and serious tone of the gathering turned festive and cheerful. Having finished their religious observances, it was time for the village to celebrate. Those that could play instruments headed up to the small stage and began playing common songs, and some villagers sang along to accompany the music. Others danced in the square, while the village men took turns supervising the fire and the pigs as they roasted.