The River Of Stars

It's been a busy month here, so writing time has been spent on other projects, but as I've just come back in from Mum and Dad's house,  I've been gazing at the stars, and I thought I'd share this with you all, that I wrote for Camp last month. For context, it was written to share after an evening star gazing, which of course the clouds hid, but I wanted  to create a myth that my distant ancestors sat atop a hill one starry night  many millennia ago may have told each other about the constellation Cassiopeia, long before they'd heard of a Greek myth. You can Find the constellation in the East of the summer sky here in the Northern hemisphere, and it looks like giant W.

I hope you enjoy it...

 Constellation of Cassiopeia,  courtesy of https://star-name-registry.com

The River Of Stars

 

Let your minds take you to another campfire, not far from here, a little higher up on the ridge to the North, there too, the fire is roaring, and the tribe has gathered, much like it has here. There too, there is companionship, warmth and safety, so let yourself be transported back to another place in time, several millennia since.

Stelli feels the chill of the night tingling on her nose and cheeks, and she pulls her furs more tightly around her, the bone toggle has fallen off, but she has yet to tell her mother who is quietly feeding her youngest sister under her own furs. She inches a little closer to the fire.

The great sun set low in the sky earlier tonight and tomorrow he will rise a little later, for the cold months draw near, and the winter approaches. She snuggles into her Grandmother Edda, who despite her tiny birdlike frame, radiates a warmth that Stelli has been drawn to, for all of her 11 summers. The old woman smiles and manoeuvres her into her great fur cloak whilst still managing to work on the carving she has carefully been etching on a long animal tooth with a small flint. Her old, gnarled fingers slower now than they used to be, but still working in precise, hypnotic movement scoring lines and patterns.

 

Round the fire the menfolk of the tribe, her father, her uncles, brothers and cousins are laughing and congratulating themselves on the end of another season of hunting in the furthest reaches of the land. They have long since been settled here on the high ridge that they call home, but the nomadic spirit from over a lifetime ago still pulses through their veins and each summer, the call of adventure sends them to follow the herds who still take their seasonal migrations to the faraway lands towards the other sea.

 

The night is crisp and clear, and the skies are full of stars that shine brightly and Stelli traces patterns with her fingers, Edda smiles as she watches her.

“You can see the shapes and places of the stars child?” she asks quietly.

Proudly Stelli answers her, “Yes, I can. I can see the great bear that Uncle Ruud showed me”

On hearing his name Ruud joins the conversation, and everyone listens, as they always do, for he is their greatest hunter and warrior.

“The great bear” he roars and winks at Stelli, “Artur, we call him. My ancestral fathers hunted that bear and put him in the sky to remind us of our old ways!”  and the men folk roar in appreciation at the sharing of the ancient memories of their tribe.

Stelli points out a jagged line of stars that traverse the night sky “and what of those ones?” she asks her Grandmother, who knows all that there is to know.

Her Uncle’s son Haan answers first “That’s the great adder, my Grandfather told me about him when I was a boy, a giant silent serpent that slithers down from the heavens when the winter nights come, his eyes are like flames and that is the last thing you see before his fangs dig into your flesh with their deadly poison!”

Some of the younger children look scared and draw closer to their mothers, and Stelli can see that her little brother Torba’s lip is trembling.

Ruud laughs and ruffles Haan’s hair, “No son, that is the where the heavens open when the Gods are angry, like a great split in the sky, when the sky rumbles and the heavens are filled with flashes of fire. It reminds us to serve our Gods well”

This isn’t helping Torba much and his lip continues to quiver.

Ruud however is kinder than his son, and seeing Torba’s face and those of the smaller members of the tribe who look worried, he continues:

“But, we serve our Gods well and we bring them offerings, and they are not angry with us! Look at all of these hides and furs, and the winter supplies of meat that we have gathered! We still hunt the Elk, the Deer and the wild boar and we feel their hearts beating and their blood pulsing in time with our own throughout the wild hunt. We still make offerings for their sacrifice to honour the Gods, and they are not angry” and even Torba smiles a little.

“These stars in the sky, are pathways to home” he carries on “They were placed there by the Gods for our ancestors, back in the old days when our fathers walked from land to land, long, long ago, before the sea rose and drowned the pathways of Doggerland and the land split into two. These stars guided them home, from the Land where the sun sets, to where it rises, so that we could journey back to each other, and we use them still”  There is much nodding and agreement amongst the tribesmen.

“What do you see Stelli?” Asks her Grandmother,  Her voice is quiet but her presence as Elder and Keeper of the Stones means that she too is listened to and revered. The whole tribe wait for Stelli to reply.

“Well, erm ” Stelli’s cheeks flame as she mutters, but she ignores the faces that Haan is pulling  and she continues “I see,  well, I see a meandering river, like the one that weaves through the valley, down there” as she points to the darkness at the bottom of the hill towards where the muddy brown river flows  “but  it is reflected in the skies and marked out by stars” 

Edda’s face breaks into a wide smile

“You are right, my granddaughter, you are right”

Edda looks around the tribe, and gently unwrapping Stelli from her cloak, she stands up as tall as she can be for such a small woman and looks up into the night sky.

“That is indeed the river of stars, t rises with the sun and it weaves its way through the valleys of the heavens, all the way over to where the sun sets in the faraway places of the land.  And do you know why it is there?”

Some of the older members of the tribe nod, but the younger ones, shake their heads open mouthed.  “It is the river of stars and the river of life” she continues “when we walked the land when I was a girl, even younger than Stelli is now, it showed us the way back to our ancestors, and as Ruud says, it kept us safe on our journey home, and yes there were snakes Haan and your grandfather wrestled them and he fought off bears, to keep us  all safe” Haan smiles, relieved that he doesn’t look so stupid after all.

“But it is also the river of our ancestors, so that wherever we journeyed we could find our way back to them, and wherever we buried them, they could always find their way home to us, back to the rites that we speak and sing, when we honour them, and our dances  that lead them upwards to the stars, where we all go when we pass through the veil, and their spirits journey ahead through the star river to the great unknown.”

Stelli feels the hairs on the back of her neck prickling as Edda speaks and as she rejoins her granddaughter and wraps her back up in her furs, she whispers just to her:

 “It is no wonder that you know these things my child, you were birthed on a starry night like this, I helped you from your Mother’s body, and it was I, that named you Stelli, in honour of the stars that shone so brightly above us, then, and now” 

Stelli smiles with pride and Edda hands her the tooth she has been carving all afternoon and night saying “here child you need a new toggle for your furs”

And when Stelli looks at the carving, in the flickering light of the fire, she can see as well as feel, the curved groove of the celestial river marked along the whole length of the tooth,  as well as a handful of stars marking out  its journey through the night sky, and she knows in that instant that her Grandmother is full of the magic and wisdom of the heavens, and she, Stelli has inherited this deep star magic too.

 

                                               Have A Blessed Week