The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Twenty-Two

iie was of course amazed when she saw a hairy old man wriggling out of the grass, but I quickly explained things to her. Grandfather crawled up to the fire, grabbed the still-hot hare, and ripped it quickly in half.

“Very good. Crunchy!” he declared, gnawing his own half and spitting out the bones. “At least you know how to roast a hare, whatever else you do here.”

Half of the hare disappeared with amazing speed into the old man’s belly. He licked his fingers clean and stared at us in wonder.

“What? You haven’t even started eating? What are you waiting for? Hare is best eaten hot. If it cools off, you get a taste of clover on the side.”

We divided what was left of the hare into two and sank our teeth into the meat. Grandfather watched us with burning eyes.

“Nice to see some living people again,” he said. “Otherwise I don’t have time to watch them, for when I see movement, I attack straight away and bite. Only when the chap is already dead and it’s time to boil up the corpse do I have time to glance at him. But, well, it’s a bit late when the flesh is starting to come off the bones and it’s all just porridge.”

Hiie screwed up her nose, and suddenly it seemed that it would be hard for her to go on eating the hare. Grandfather noticed this and shook an admonitory finger.

“Don’t make faces like that, girl!” he said. “The charnel house needs supplies. And anyway, thanks to me this island is still free. Not a single iron man has set up a claim here. Listen, tell me the news from the forest! How is my daughter getting on? Do you have brothers and sisters too?”

I told Grandfather that Mother was doing well and that I had a sister, Salme, who lived with a bear.

“Why does she live with a bear?” asked Grandfather angrily. “Are there no more men in the forest?”

“No, there aren’t,” I replied. “They’ve all moved to the village.”

“Well, nothing can be done about that then. Better to be with a bear than with some village blockhead. A bear is your own, even if it’s stupid. In my day I had many friends among the bears; they were good for leg pulling. Bears believe everything you tell them. I always used to feed them hare droppings. I’d say, ‘Look, these are big brown strawberries. Eat!’ The bears always ate them too, maybe even a whole basketful; they’d thank you afterward too. Enough to make you laugh out loud! Well, I think your sister has a jolly life! She doesn’t need to make meals; she can just take a hare and sit it on a nest like a bird, then offer the bear the droppings and say that they’re hare’s eggs, just freshly hatched!”

This crude trick amused Grandfather so much that he cackled with pleasure for a while afterward. “It’s such a shame that I’m on this island; I’d really like to see your brother-in-law!” he said. “If I could just pull his leg! But never mind. Soon my wings will be ready, I’ll fly back to you, and then we’ll play out that hare-eggs joke with the bear.”

“When will you get those wings ready?” I asked. “How many more bones do you need?”

“Not many more. It’ll take two or three men. I’ll get those together in a few months. But I’ve got something much more important missing. You see those wings don’t rise into the air on their own. You need wind for that.”

“Wind?” I repeated. “The wind blows all the time.”

“It does, but that’s not enough,” explained Grandfather. “It has to blow in the right direction and when I need it. I need a windbag, boy, and you have to bring it to me.”

“From where?” I asked.

“From Saaremaa. An old friend of mine lives there — Möigas, the Sage of the Wind. You’ll get a windbag from him if you tell him I sent you.”

“Are you sure that this Sage of the Wind is still alive?” I cautiously inquired. “When did you last see him?”

“It was long ago, but these island folk don’t die off so quickly, especially wind-sages,” explained Grandfather. “They reach two hundred years, because now and then they let the wind blow through them. They press the windbag to their mouths and then it whooshes through all their intestines, it cleans all the infection and trash away, and spurts out of your arse with such a bang that big pines bend to the ground and break in half. After an airing like that your insides are so healthy again that unless someone runs an ax into your back you can happily live another fifty years. So don’t worry at all about whether old Möigas has died. He’ll outlive us all and calmly carry on tending to his winds.”

We agreed that we would set off first thing the next morning, because Grandfather was in a hurry to get hold of his windbag.

“You never know. Maybe a whole fleet of iron men will land here tomorrow,” he said with enthusiasm. “Then I’ll finally have the bones I need. It would be silly to wait around on the island just for the lack of a windbag. You know, boy, I’ve already been lolling around here so long that I’m downright ashamed. Every night I dream of beating iron men until they foam like liquid shit. I want to get back to war! And you’re coming with me, because when those bastards run for cover under the spruce trees, so that I can’t catch them from the air, that’s when you must kick them into returning to the field, so that I can strike them with a club right on the crown.”

Grandfather’s enthusiasm had fired me up so much that at that moment the plan seemed like fun. Even to me, who had never cared for struggling or fighting! Somehow the image of me driving out the fleeing iron men from under the trees into the open like goats toward Grandfather as he rampaged in the air appealed to me. The old fanged man sitting by the campfire inspired me with the urge for battle, and my muscles tensed themselves with excitement.

“But first we’ll sleep,” said Grandfather, suddenly changing from a bloodthirsty bird of prey into a caring old grandpa. “Tomorrow you have a long sea journey ahead; you must rest. Children, I will now crawl into my own lair, otherwise some fox will come and start to gnaw the precious human bones. What a sad end that would be! I’ve counted every bone. You stretch out here; tomorrow I’ll come and get you up. Breakfast is on me. Today you treated me; tomorrow I’ll give you a treat. You’ll come to Grandfather’s to eat!”

He wriggled into the undergrowth like some great lizard, whose enemy has nipped his tail off.

“How old is he really?” asked Hiie.

“About eighty,” I answered. “I don’t know exactly. Uncle and Mother always spoke of him as someone ancient and long departed.”

“He certainly is ancient,” said Hiie. “I’m a little afraid of him, but I find him very refreshing. It’s quite different to my father and mother’s obsession with the past. What they do smells musty, but your grandfather is just like some plant that simply blossoms even though winter has arrived.”

We snuggled in each other’s arms, but for a long time I got no sleep, thinking of my unexpectedly discovered grandfather. In a way he reminded me of Uncle Vootele, although in a much wilder form. They were made from the same tree, except that Uncle Vootele was the tree’s smooth and strong trunk, which a storm might be able to break, while Grandfather was like a coarse and tough root pulled from deep in the ground, which not even a bear would have the strength to twist in half. And I was the crown of the tree, bending with the wind and fragile. I was the top, where the branches become so fine that they couldn’t even bear a little warbler. Nothing was higher than I was, only the sky, empty and blue.

But at this moment all that seemed unimportant. Hiie snuffled to sleep on my arm; she had ears that stuck out a little from her head, and she looked like a little rat. I pressed my nose against her cheek and fell promptly to sleep.

Grandfather woke us in the morning with a loud hiss, splitting the ear like a knife and scaring away sleep at once. Hiie and I leapt up. Grandfather was sprawled beside us, in the sunlight even hairier and more wrinkled, and winked his eye.

“Come and eat!” he said. “I’ve roasted a whole deer for you. Eat as much as you can; the rest you can take to Saaremaa with you.”

Grandfather lived in a very peculiar structure, built partly of wood, partly of stones. One can only imagine what effort Grandfather had required to roll the knee-high rocks into place. He couldn’t lift them, so had to push the stones in front of him as he crawled like an ant. At the same time one could only wonder at the force that Grandfather had shown in dragging whole tree trunks into place. I couldn’t resist asking Grandfather how such a thing was possible, but he only snorted vaguely and said that the house had to be strong, or it would not be able to withstand war.

“I can never know when some ship might sail to this island, so full of iron men and their henchmen that I can’t kill them all at once,” explained Grandfather. “Then I’ll need a fortress to go into, to resist a siege. Here between the stones I have all kinds of narrow passages that I can wriggle through, to attack the iron men by surprise, but they won’t find me in the maze of stone and wood.”

“But still, how did you manage it?” I persisted. “You don’t have legs. You’re alone, but these stones and beams weigh … I don’t know how much.”

“Ah!” chuckled Grandfather. “It’s not worth talking about. Every true man in the olden days could manage with stones and trees. Come on in. I’ll cut the venison for you and show you my bowls.”

We went to the fireplace, on which a huge stag was roasting. Nearby stood a stack of hundreds of skulls — all properly scrubbed to a polish and with the excess holes stopped up with precious stones and gold. These were apparently ornaments and treasures carried by those unfortunate iron men whom a cruel fate had led to this island that at first sight seemed so beautiful and safe, but in whose grass lurked a cruel Grandfather, fangs in his mouth.

Grandfather filled three bowls with springwater.

“Water from this spring is especially sweet and pure,” he said. “There you are, children! Drink! Your skull, Hiie, belonged to a monk. But yours, Leemet, was the chief of the iron men. Let’s drink a toast!”

We knocked together the beakers made of skulls and drank the springwater. I can’t say that drinking from such strange vessels didn’t induce a certain hesitation. Hiie’s hand trembled a little as she raised the cranium to her lips, and I feared that the springwater might have the taste of death. But no, the water was really pure and amazingly delicious. Actually I had to admit that Grandfather was very reasonable. What else was he to do with the crania of the iron men? Now a use had been found for useless objects. It’s very pleasant to drink from skulls. I emptied mine and filled it again.

“Isn’t it good?” nodded Grandfather. “Making these bowls is my passion. I don’t actually need that many of them, just the one would be enough for me, but I simply like carving. Every cranium has its own peculiarities. Some are oblong; others are as round as a lingonberry. Some have a lump on the side. Some are very small. Look at this one! It just makes you laugh. You might think it was a rat’s skull! But actually this was on top of this man’s neck, and the man himself had a quite ordinary build. He must have been extra stupid, if he had such a small head!”

“Interesting,” I said, turning over a small cranium in my hand, in which there was room for only a few sips of water.

“Did you have bowls like these at home?” inquired Grandfather. “No? Well then, I’ll give you one when you get back from visiting Möigas. Take as many as you want and take them home. That’s my wedding present.”

Hiie and I looked at each other and smiled awkwardly.

“We don’t even know if we can go back home,” said Hiie. “They wanted to sacrifice me and they’re probably looking for us even now.”

“Hit them on the head with an ax and there’s an end to it,” suggested Grandfather. “I have never feared anyone. I always went where I wanted, and soon I’ll be going again — I mean flying — when you bring me the windbag. Are your stomachs full? You’d better get going then. The sooner you leave, the faster you’ll come back, won’t you?”

He ordered us to fill the boat with meat, because “you have to eat; food gives you strength.” It was clear where my mother had acquired the practice of stuffing all relatives and friends with food. We took with us a couple of skull cups too. Grandfather ordered us to give them to Möigas the Sage. And then we were in the boat, and I tried by rowing to keep to the direction where Saaremaa was, according to Grandfather.

The trip to Saaremaa lasted quite a lot longer than our first sea journey. Maybe we could have got there a little faster, but we didn’t rush. Of course Grandfather needed the wind, but one day more or less no longer mattered to a man who has spent decades alone on an island. Time and again I rested the oars and then we bathed and cuddled and ate cold venison. This was our honeymoon, although we didn’t know it at that moment. We were simply happy to be together with no one disturbing us, apart from the inquisitive seals who poked their heads out of the water and watched us with great interest. There were also several sorts of small and large fish splashing in the sea whose dark backs could be seen quickly slipping past as you looked into the water. We could have caught them, but we didn’t bother. It wasn’t possible for us to cook fish in the boat, and there was plenty of venison. I tried to keep our course by the sun and we were more drifting than rowing toward Saaremaa.

By evening we still hadn’t got far, and we spent the night in the boat, amid the splashing of the waves, and the gurgling caused by the seals rising to the surface and then sinking to the depths of the sea. In the morning we woke early and I tried to work out where we had got to. On the horizon appeared something dark, which apparently was a shore. I put the oars in the water and started to row, but the boat didn’t move from the spot.

“We’re stuck on some seaweed,” said Hiie.

I looked into the water and saw that the boat was surrounded by a strange gray substance that looked exactly like a furry skin grown onto the sea. I stretched out my hand to try to scrape it off the side of the boat and discovered to my surprise that this peculiar skin consisted of long hairs, each of which was about the thickness of a hay stalk and extended who knows where.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” I declared. “And even Uncle Vootele didn’t tell me that hairs can grow in the sea. You might almost think we were on the back of some animal.”

“We’re not on its back; we’re in its beard,” replied Hiie. “Look behind you. We’re on a fish’s beard, but it doesn’t seem to be a fierce one.”

I turned around quickly and saw an unprecedented scene. At a distance of several tens of boat lengths, amid the lapping waves, was the most extravagant creature you could imagine. It was a fish, but as big as a mountain, and evidently terribly old, for the whole sea was full of its long gray whiskers. Its greenish scales had over the years been covered by thousands of shells and other marine detritus, its huge fins dangled limply like the wings of some enormous bat, and its very old and very tired eyes looked at us fiercely, and yet also curiously. We stared back, and then this strange creature opened its mouth and hissed in clear Snakish, though mixed with several other unrecognizable words, apparently so ancient that nothing but a fish would understand them: “Good morning, humans! Where are you going to?”

“To Saaremaa,” I replied.

The fish blew away the whiskers that were floating into its mouth.

“It’s right in front of you,” he said. “You should be there by noon, though I wouldn’t dare to say that very certainly, because I’ve never seen humans in such a small boat before. Last time I came to the surface, three warships passed me, each one with at least forty rowers, and that time it seemed funny to me, for in previous years there were also many more of those ships. And now only one tiny boat and two humans. Well, well, what’s to be done. So it must be arranged that way that you are the humans who see me for the last time, and who I see for the last time.”

“Why the last time?” asked Hiie.

“Because this is the last time I come from the sea bottom for fresh air. I have come to the surface once every hundred years, but I can’t be bothered anymore. I’ve become old. Even today I thought a long time whether it was worth dragging myself out of my own comfortable lair and swimming here, but then I decided to let this be the last time. My beard has grown so long that it isn’t easy to carry it with me; it gets full of water and becomes a heavy burden even for me. But I did it anyway. Yes, the sea has been emptied. Where are all those humans who once used to speed around in ships? Is there some epidemic among you?”

I didn’t start explaining to the fish that many of us had moved to the villages, were growing rye, and no longer went in ships to distant lands like our forefathers. Yet still the iron men’s ships were moving about, and in ever-greater numbers. I asked the fish whether he had seen them.

“The iron men?” wondered the fish. “No, I haven’t encountered them. What a shame, I would have liked to see them, because I won’t be coming above the water anymore. Might they be passing by here today? I don’t have much time. I have to swim back soon to my cave, but maybe I’ll be lucky? What are they like?”

“Rather like humans, but with an iron coating,” I said. The fish plashed in astonishment.

“Never heard of it, never seen it,” he murmured. “I’ve been to the surface too rarely and many things have passed me by. Yet it seemed to me that every hundred years it’s best to get a little air. Everything was always just like the last time. The sea was full of warships and the Frog of the North was flying in the sky.”

“Have you seen the Frog of the North?” I shouted.

“Of course, many times!” replied the fish. “And not only seen, sometimes he’s landed on my back, to rest from flying. He was big and strong, but at that time I was even stronger and I could carry him without much effort. By now it would be beyond my powers. That’s not important, for I haven’t seen the Frog of the North for a long time. Do you know where he went?”

“He’s asleep,” I said. “And no one knows where.”

The fish exhaled approvingly.

“That’s right too. Sleep, rest, that’s good. I’ll soon be going to rest too; I’ll dive right down to the bottom, I’ll sink into my burrow, and I won’t come out again. My beard will cover me and I can doze in peace. A long, long sleep. I can feel how good it will be.”

He closed his old eyes and slowly moved his fins.

“I suppose I’ll go now,” he said then, opening his eyes. “I’ll have to go without seeing the iron men, but never mind. In my life I’ve seen so much: things to think about as I lie on the seafloor. To tell the truth I’m not especially interested in those men of iron. What do I lose if I don’t see them? Nothing. If you do meet them, tell them that the great fish Ahteneumion has gone down to the bottom. I won’t see them and they won’t even see me, and for them it’s the bigger loss.”

This idea seemed amusing to the old fish; he moved his tail and looked us in the eye.

“Just think, they’re always traveling around in their ships, these iron men of yours, but they can’t even guess that somewhere on the bottom of the sea I’m sleeping under my beard,” he said, bursting out laughing again. “They think there are only little fish and jellyfish and other rubbish like that in the sea, whatever is floating on the surface, but they can never know that I’m there too. Poor fools!”

Again he blew away the whiskers that floated into his mouth.

“Good-bye, I’m going now,” he said. “You were the last humans I saw and who met me. You know who Ahteneumion is and what he is doing. Others don’t. You are now the wisest people on earth. The last ones to see me. Farewell!”

The next moment the great fish dived. The water started to ripple and the boat almost capsized. The whiskers surged around us and I was afraid that they would drag us with the fish into the depths, where we, together with all our knowledge, would bleach away in Ahteneumion’s embrace. But it all turned out well: the beard vanished with its owner into the depths, the sea became calm, and we were alone.

“So now here we sit, the two wisest people on earth,” said Hiie. “The last ones to see the great fish.”

“It bothers me — to be the last of everything,” I replied. “In my family I’m the last man, the last boy in the forest. Now I’m also the last to see the giant fish. How does it happen that I’m always the last?”

“For me you’re the first,” said Hiie, kissing me, and after a little while, when we’d got dressed again, I rowed onward.

Actually I was of course also the last for her, but I didn’t know that then.