Winter's Tales Read online

  For Colin,

  who loves cold northern

  landscapes too.

  Contents

  The Seeds of Winter

  Greek myth

  The Snow Bear and the Trolls

  Norwegian Folktale

  The Prince of Wolves

  Tsimshian Folktale, Canada

  The Ibis Brings Spring

  Yamana myth, Tierra del Fuego

  The Hag of Winter

  Scottish myth

  The Spiders’ Christmas

  Ukrainian Folktale

  Ice and Fire

  Maori legend

  The Hungry Polar Bear

  Canadian folktale

  Missing Winter

  Canaanite myth, Eastern Mediterranean

  The Fox’s Footprints

  Cree Folktale, Canada

  Ukko and the Bear

  Lapp legend, Finland

  The Last Sun

  Chinese myth

  Blind Winter

  Viking myth

  Five White Eagles

  Venezuelan legend

  The Hero with Hairy Trousers

  Norse legend

  The Seeds of Winter

  Greek myth

  When the gods were young, there was no winter.

  There was no winter, no spring, no summer and no autumn. Just warmth and growth, with fruit heavy in the trees and grain tall in the fields. Every month brought a new crop to harvest, and everyone ate well.

  The goddess Demeter was always busy, because it was her job to encourage all the plants to grow, but she was happy too.

  Demeter had a daughter she loved very much: Persephone, whose father was the chief god Zeus. So, with her beloved plants and her beloved child both growing healthy and strong, Demeter was a glowing generous presence on the earth.

  Persephone grew into a beautiful young woman: tall, slim and golden, like the wheat in her mother’s fields.

  One sunny day, Persephone was picnicking with her friends at the edge of a field. They had eaten so much of the earth’s goodness – apple pies, cucumber sandwiches, honey cakes – that all her friends were full and sleepy.

  But Persephone noticed something in the centre of the field. A plant she had never seen before, dark and glittering in the distance.

  She asked her friends if they would come with her to examine the plant, but they yawned and said they would join her later.

  So Persephone walked on her own towards the plant. As she got closer, she could see it was covered with black flowers. As she got closer still, she could see silver tips on each black petal. She knew all of her mother’s plants, but she had never seen flowers so gloriously dark and sharp.

  There were nine blossoms and Persephone decided it wouldn’t harm the plant if she picked just one of them to show her mother.

  So Persephone reached out to pluck the nearest flower.

  But her fingers stuck to the stem. She couldn’t break the stem and she couldn’t pull her hand away.

  The flower trembled. The whole plant shivered. Then the plant jerked and started to sink into the ground, as if something was pulling on the roots.

  Persephone yelled for help, but her friends were asleep.

  The plant was dragged down into the crumbling earth and Persephone was dragged down after it.

  And she landed in the underworld.

  She landed at the feet of Hades, the god of the underworld, the king of the dead.

  Hades had heard of Persephone’s golden beauty and he wanted her to brighten up his dark land. So he had grown the black flowers to tempt her and he had pulled on the roots to steal her away.

  “Will you be my queen?” he asked.

  Hades offered Persephone the black blossoms as a wedding bouquet and he offered her a table of fragrant food as a wedding feast.

  Persephone looked round at the dark glories and riches of the underworld. She heard the whispered histories and knowledge of the dead. She smiled at Hades and she accepted the flowers, but she didn’t eat any of the feast, because she suspected eating the food of the underworld could trap her there forever.

  Up above, Demeter was starting to panic. Persephone hadn’t come home after the picnic, and although Demeter had no idea where her daughter was, she was afraid someone had taken her.

  So she rushed up to Olympus and demanded to see Zeus.

  “Where is our daughter?” she sobbed.

  The most powerful of the gods frowned, then shrugged. He had a lot of children and it was hard to keep track of them all.

  But Demeter’s grief was growing louder and Zeus was fond of Persephone, so he sent Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to investigate. Hermes returned with rumours of a new queen in the underworld, with hair more golden than a crown.

  “That’s her!” cried Demeter. “That’s Persephone! Bring her back! Please, Zeus, bring our girl back!”

  So Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld, with instructions to ask Hades politely to give the girl back to her mother.

  But Hades refused. “She’s happy here, aren’t you, dear? And she makes me happy. What would she do back at her mother’s, anyway? Weed the garden and thin out the carrots? She’s wasted there. Tell Zeus I’m keeping her here.”

  Hermes took that message back to Zeus, who shrugged and said there was nothing he could do.

  Demeter wailed and screamed and stomped around the marble halls of Olympus. Then she calmed down and said in a quiet voice, “If you are going to do nothing, then I will do nothing too. I will do nothing at all.”

  And she did indeed do nothing. Demeter refused to help the plants and grass and crops grow.

  She sat in a corner, weeping and muttering and refusing to do anything. While she was in such a dark mood, nothing could grow. No grass, no flowers, no fruit, no crops. Nothing grew.

  When the grass stopped growing, the animals became thin and hungry.

  When the crops failed, the people were soon thin and hungry as well.

  Eventually the people had so little food, they stopped sending up offerings to the gods.

  The gods became hungry too.

  Zeus looked around at the barren hungry world and decided that he’d better get Persephone back after all.

  So he summoned Hermes. “Return to the underworld and demand that Hades hand over Persephone, and make that demand in the name of the highest god, in the name of Zeus the god of thunder…”

  Before Hermes started on his journey to the underworld, Hades and Persephone already knew he was coming. When Zeus thundered, everyone heard, so everyone knew what Hermes’ mission was.

  Hades turned to Persephone, as they sat on their ivory thrones, and held out a handful of blood-red seeds. “You must be hungry, my dear. Please accept these seeds.”

  Persephone knew it was time to make a choice.

  She could eat the twelve blood-red seeds and stay forever in the underworld, with all the power of the queen of the dead.

  Or she could refuse to eat the twelve blood-red seeds and return to the light, to be her mother’s daughter forever.

  Persephone took the twelve seeds from Hades’ white hand.

  As she raised the seeds to her lips, Hermes arrived on his feathered feet and announced, “Zeus the thunderer demands the return of his daughter.”

  “It’s too late,” smiled Hades. “She has already eaten the food of the underworld. She must stay here forever.”

  “Not forever,” said Persephone.

  She opened her fingers and showed eight blood-red seeds still glowing in the palm of her hand.

  “I only ate four of the twelve seeds. So I will stay with you for four months of the year, and I will return to the sunlight and my mother’s fields for the rest of the year.”

  So now the gods are older, an
d we have winter.

  We have winter for the four months of the year that Persephone is in the underworld, when Demeter grieves for her daughter and refuses to let the plants grow.

  Then comes spring, when Persephone returns and Demeter’s joy brings life and growth.

  Then summer, when everyone is settled into contented happiness.

  Then autumn, when Demeter sinks slowly into sadness as she remembers her daughter must leave again.

  And then winter returns, when Demeter grieves once more and no plants grow anywhere.

  No plants, except the glittering black flowers that Persephone grows in the underworld.

  The Snow Bear and the Trolls

  Norwegian folktale

  The King of Denmark wanted a snow bear. Other kings owned lions and tigers and giraffes and unicorns, so he wanted a big fancy pet too. He offered a reward to the first man to bring a snow bear to his palace.

  Lars was a farmboy who had always wanted to see the king’s palace. So he travelled to Finnmark, in the far north of Norway, and he tracked a great white snow bear. He laid a trap, baited it with seal meat, then he caught the bear in his net and locked an iron chain round her neck.

  He said, “Come on, my beautiful white bear. I will take you to the King of Denmark and you will wear gold chains round your neck, and be admired and fed all sorts of good food. Follow me to Copenhagen, to live a life of gold and warmth and comfort.”

  The snow bear looked around at the hard cold silver ice, then she sat down on her bottom and refused to move.

  Lars pulled on her iron chain and told her all about the wonders of the palace, the generosity of the king and the splendours of the city. None of which he had seen, all of which he had dreamed about.

  But she sat firmly on her large white bottom and wouldn’t move. And a snow bear is very heavy if she doesn’t want to move.

  Lars kept tugging, chatting cheerfully about the king’s palace and dangling raw meat in front of her.

  Eventually the snow bear shrugged, stood up and followed Lars.

  And they walked together over the ice, then through forests, to the mountains and water of the lands where it is not winter all year round. But as they walked south, it became winter there too, as if the bear had brought the snow with her.

  They walked through the frosty mountains, Lars hunting for food for them both.

  When they reached the farmlands at the edge of the mountains, a blizzard began. The cold howling storm didn’t bother the bear at all, but Lars was getting tired, his boots were wearing thin, and it was taking longer than he thought to reach the king’s palace.

  Through the swirls of snow, he saw the lights of a farmhouse. He and the snow bear walked up to the door, pushing against the wind and snow, and Lars knocked.

  A farmer and his daughter opened the door.

  “Can we shelter with you tonight, please?” asked Lars.

  The farmer shook his head. “I’m sorry. Even though this is Christmas Eve, we can’t welcome guests.”

  Lars said, “Are you worried about the bear? She’ll be fine. She’s on her way to be the king’s snow bear, and she’s been as gentle as a kitten all the way here.”

  The bear smiled, showing all her teeth. The farmer backed away, but his daughter smiled, at the bear and at Lars.

  “No,” said the daughter, “it’s not the bear. It’s the trolls. It’s Christmas Day tomorrow, and the trolls will come and eat our Christmas feast. They break in every year, wreck our furniture, rip our curtains and attack anyone who stays in the house. So we leave them our feast to distract them from destroying the house completely, and we hide in the mountains until they’ve gone. You can come with us to the mountains, if you like.”

  Lars sighed. “I’ve just walked through the mountains. I don’t want to go back. Anyway, I’m not scared of trolls and neither is this bear. We’ll stay here and show them what happens to trolls who ruin a family’s Christmas.”

  So the farmer and his daughter went to their freezing cold hiding place, leaving Lars and the bear in the house, with a huge Christmas feast piled on the kitchen table.

  The travellers were both tired, so Lars curled up in a corner and the snow bear curled up under the table, and they went to sleep.

  Then the clock on the mantelpiece ticked round to midnight, and the trolls arrived. Eight huge, green-skinned, warty-nosed, hairy-handed, pot-bellied trolls with incredibly stinky feet crashed through the door. Lars slid deeper into the shadows, more scared of trolls than he’d admitted.

  The trolls slumped down round the table, they slobbered and snottered all over the food, they held burping contests and sang rude songs, and they prodded each other with cutlery and bones.

  Then the wartiest troll looked under the table. “Oi! Look! A pretty white cat! I wonder what roast cat tastes like?” The troll prodded at the white animal with a long spoon.

  The bear opened one eye.

  The troll prodded her again.

  The bear stood up.

  As she stood, the table and the feast rose up on her shoulders. When she straightened her spine, the table and the feast slid down her fur and crashed onto the floor.

  The bear reached her full huge height and roared.

  She stretched and broke the thin iron chain that Lars had put round her neck. She swiped her heavy paws in a circle, knocking all the trolls to the floor.

  She roared again, giving the trolls a closeup view of her long sharp teeth.

  The trolls shrieked and ran out of the door, whimpering about scary cats, leaving nothing behind but their stink.

  Then the bear lay back down to sleep and Lars tidied up the mess.

  When the farmer and his daughter returned on Christmas morning, Lars said he had an idea to stop the trolls coming back. As he explained, the farmer’s daughter smiled at him again. And Lars decided he wasn’t interested in seeing the king’s palace after all.

  So Lars stayed at the farm and married the farmer’s daughter.

  And the snow bear? She had never been interested in gold chains and warm comfort, so she waved goodbye to Lars and followed her own trail back to her icy silver home.

  Next Christmas Eve, Lars put a sign on the farmhouse door:

  Our white cat has just had kittens.

  Free to good homes in the spring.

  So the trolls went somewhere else for their Christmas feast.

  I hope it wasn’t your house…

  The Prince of Wolves

  Tsimshian folktale, Canada

  It was the darkest month of winter, food was scarce and the people of the Tsimshian tribe were huddling together to keep warm and cheerful. But the wind was shrieking and howling around the village, which made the children cry and the old folk shiver.

  “That’s not just the wind,” said a boy.

  “Yes it is,” said his grandfather.

  “No, there’s another howl in there. Not the angry wind, but something sadder. Something scared. Something in pain.”

  Everyone listened. There wasn’t much to do but listen to the wind, apart from shiver and rub their empty bellies. The wind howled again. But now they could hear something else, a thread of another howl, just beyond the edge of the wild wind.

  “It’s a wolf!” said the boy. “It’s a wolf howling.”

  The tribe shivered even more. They were cold and weak and didn’t want to worry about a pack of hungry wolves circling the village.

  “But it’s only one wolf,” said the boy. “And it sounds scared. It sounds like it needs help.”

  The wolf howled again, the sound suddenly clearer during a lull in the wind.

  The boy stood up. “I’m going to help the wolf.”

  “No!” said his grandmother. “You can’t help a wolf, because you can’t trust a wolf.”

  But the boy heard the lonely howl again and left the village. He walked into the forest, ignoring the swirling of the wind and snow, following the sound of the sad howls. Soon he could hear whines too.

 
; Then he saw the wolf. A big grey wolf, slumped in the middle of a clearing, with red-rimmed eyes and heaving ribs. His howls were as loud as a storm now the boy was so close, but his whines were soft and gasping.

  The boy looked at the wolf. The wolf looked at the boy.

  “Do you need help?” asked the boy.

  The wolf whined.

  The boy walked up to the wolf.

  The wolf opened his long fanged jaws and the boy saw a spike of bone sticking out of the back of the wolf’s swollen throat.

  The boy looked into the wolf’s yellow eyes, then put his right hand carefully into the wolf’s mouth and pulled out the jagged bone.

  The wolf collapsed onto the ground, drops of his blood spotting the snow.

  The boy nodded to the wolf and turned to go. At least the whining and howling had stopped.

  But as he walked away, the boy was knocked to the ground.

  He rolled over in a panic.

  The wolf was standing over him, teeth bared in a snarl.

  You can’t trust a wolf, thought the boy.

  Then the wolf lowered his furry grey head and rubbed it against the boy’s chest. The wolf looked up again, teeth still bared. But perhaps, thought the boy, it was a smile, not a snarl.

  The boy stood up, said farewell to the wolf, and walked back to the village, to join his hungry huddled family.

  The next day, over the constant howl of the wind, he heard another howl close by. Then he saw the big grey wolf, trotting round the village.

  So the boy went out to meet the wolf. The wolf led him into the forest, to a newly slain deer, which the boy dragged back to the village for his people to roast and eat.

  The next day, the wolf called him again. But this time the wolf didn’t show the boy a dead deer. This time, the wolf showed the boy how to hunt. He showed the boy how wolves hunt: how they track their prey, how the wolf pack works together, how they move silently and wait for the right moment.