The Winter

It was a cold hard winter, frost glittered on bare trees and snow blanketed the ground. The people shivered through the short, cold days, burning the wood they had gathered through spring, summer and autumn and eating all the food they had gathered and preserved. The people hated the winter, how dark and bleak it was. They hated that their supplies dwindled and that they couldn’t go swimming, running or riding. They hated the storms and blizzards, the rivers running in spate or freezing over. Winters were hard, and this one was the hardest in living memory.

The elders gathered, fighting their way through thick snow, precious food wrapped up and carried to the meeting place. They met beneath snow-laden boughs and talked of the winter, and what was to be done. Everyone had lost loved ones, the young, the old and the sick. The people wanted to be rid of the winter and its baneful influence.

They decided that they would hold a great ceremony to banish the winter, the cold, the dark. The people danced and sang and chanted, offerings were made and many huge fires built. They drew symbols of the sun and summer, and destroyed symbols of the dark and winter. 

In the depths of the bitter winter they did this, for days and nights on end, until the cold tendrils started to draw back from the land and its people. The people rejoiced as the weak winter sun strengthened and warmed them. Trees started to bud, flowers pushed their way up through the soil. The sky was clear and blue, and only a gentle, balmy breeze blew. Spring came to the depths of winter, and soon ripened to summer.

The summer went on without end, and the people were happy. Food grew abundantly, crops springing up from the soil with great energy, trees constantly producing fruit and nuts. The animals all migrated here, to feast on the great gifts of the earth, instead of shouldering through snow to eat dried and frozen grass. There was good hunting.

More children survived, and the elders were living longer, kept warm and fed. It was a glorious summer that stretched on into years. The people constantly worked the land, harvesting more and more food, which fed more and more people. They started to expand outwards, to take more land and bring it into their eternal summer. The food was so abundant that they could feast regularly, glutting themselves, before returning to work.

The number of animals started to dwindle as they were all hunted. The land became harder to work as all the goodness was grown out of the soil, with no time to recover, no decay of autumn and winter to nourish it. The people worked harder and harder so they could feed everyone, numbers grown and expanded. There was no time for rest, and the years were long and hot.

Some people saw what was happening, and started trying to hoard food, to control the land and those that worked it. It was easier to threaten and control others, rather than work on the land themselves. Those working started to become sick, growing old before their time, joints worn and painful. Violence broke out, and blood was used to nourish the soil, to bring in the harvests. But even this could not replenish the fertility of the soil.

Deaths started again, but this time men and women in their strongest, healthiest years, worn down but the never-ending summer. And so children and the elderly started to die too, without parents or carers, and with less and less food to eat. The people wept and cried out, their work songs funereal dirges and lamentations.

The elders gathered again and decided that there was only one remedy; to beg winter to return. They built a great many fires and put them all out. They destroyed the symbols of the sun and instead drew symbols of the cycle, with the sun and summer, as well as dark and winter. They danced and sang and chanted. They made great offerings and begged with all their hearts for the winter to return.

For many days and nights they continued, until a great wind began to blow, biting and freezing. Clouds scudded across the sky and blocked out the sun. They were dark and heavy, pregnant with the snow that began to fall. The rivers began to freeze and snow and wind whipped their way through the people, who sang and danced for joy in the bitter cold.

They soon retreated to their houses, lighting fires and snuggling in with their families. The trees dropped frost covered leaves, and a deep silence descended. Inside, stories were told and meagre rations shared with a deep contentment. The people rested and slept through the long, dark days. Some very young, very old and very sick were lost, and there was great sorrow, but in that sorrow an acceptance of the turn of the wheel and a knowledge that death was just another step in their journeys.

The winter was especially long, dark and cold, and the people were happy when the spring came, but from then on, they held a special place of reverence for the stillness and quiet of winter.

© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2022