Winter's Tales Read online

  He looked inland and saw a mountain topped with a smooth white cap. Ngatoro thought that if he climbed the mountain, he would be able to see for miles, and any land he could see, he could name and claim for himself. So he began to climb the mountain.

  As he climbed higher and higher, he gasped at the coldness of the air around him. Then he noticed that his sharp out-breaths were forming clouds in the air. It was a new magic, one he did not know, but it was a beautiful dancing magic. He laughed, blowing out puffs and streams of pale cloud.

  Then he reached the white cap on the upper slopes of the mountain. It wasn’t solid pale rock as he’d expected, or even pure silver sand as he had seen on beaches. It was something more fragile: crisp and crunching under his feet, crushed into permanent footprints behind him, and very cold on his toes.

  He bent down and touched the white crust on the ground. It burned his fingers like fire, but when he picked up a handful of white, it crumbled, then melted into cold clear water on his skin.

  Ngatoro continued up the mountain, determined to get to the top and see as far as he could.

  He was shaking now, shivering like a half-drowned sailor or a child with fever. His teeth were clacking together and he was rubbing his hands to keep them warm. His shoulders were hunched against the cold and wind. His legs were aching from the steep climb and the unfamiliar crunching surface.

  But finally Ngatoro reached the top of the mountain and looked around.

  The land below was glorious. He saw forests and rivers and meadows. He named and claimed as much land as he thought one man could love, which was not even one tenth of what he saw.

  Then he started to climb down. It wasn’t easy, because the cold white ground slipped away under his feet and he had to fight to keep his balance.

  As he stumbled and slid down the mountain, he discovered where the white cold came from.

  It came from the sky.

  It started to fall in cold white flakes from the clouds in the sky and it fluttered down to land on the ground, and on his own head and shoulders.

  Ngatoro laughed again. He was glad he had been tricked into coming on the canoe, to find this new white magic.

  He stopped and raised his hands, to greet the flakes.

  But then the wind grew stronger and the flakes fell faster. His shivering became more violent and the ground was harder to walk on. The wind grew even wilder and the flakes swirled round him so he couldn’t see where he was going.

  Ngatoro slipped and landed hard, his body flat on the ground. He was buried in the white cold, with the flakes landing on him and covering him. Suddenly he was so cold and so tired that he couldn’t even shiver.

  Ngatoro knew he was dying. He could feel the life start to leave his body.

  So he called out for help. Not to the people on the coast below, they were too far away and had no power to help him.

  He called to someone even further away, someone who had plenty of power.

  He called to his sister Kuiwai, at home in Hawaiki.

  And Kuiwai knew his pain. She felt his fear and sadness in her own heart. She felt the burning cold on her own skin and she felt the deep cold in her own bones.

  She knew she had to be quick if she was going to save her brother.

  So Kuiwai grabbed a branch from the fire, a long sturdy branch with a blazing flame at the end. And she leapt into the sea.

  Kuiwai used her power to keep the branch burning as she swam faster than lightning under the sea all the way to Aotearoa.

  When she reached the north island, she didn’t stop, and she didn’t come ashore. She just kept swimming under the land, faster than an arrow, towards the mountain where her brother lay with his last breaths billowing round his face.

  Kuiwai forced her way under the land until she reached the mountain. Then she burst upwards and out of the summit, ripping a hole in the mountain. She landed hard on the white ground, with the branch still burning in her hand.

  She ran to her brother, so fast she didn’t even leave footprints on the white land, she wrapped her arms round him, and she used her warmth and the burning flame to coax the life back into his body.

  And Ngatoro woke up.

  Then brother and sister walked, arm in arm, down the mountain to make a home together in their new land.

  And that is why Aotearoa is a land of both ice and fire. Because the path Kuiwai took under the land is now a line of hot springs, and the hole where she burst out of the summit with her flaming torch is now a volcano.

  Aotearoa is a land of fire as well as ice, because a sister used all her power and speed to save her brother from his first ever blizzard.

  The Hungry Polar Bear

  Canadian folktale

  A father and his son were away from their village, fishing on the coast of the cold north. They couldn’t reach home before darkness fell, so they settled down for the night. They built a wall of ice blocks by a hillside, then sheltered between the wall and the slope, and built a fire to keep the small space warm.

  The father held onto his harpoon and the boy clutched his knife in his hand, ready to defend themselves and their catch from any other hunters who might want to make a meal of them.

  But one hunter smelled the fire, the fish and the people, and thought it smelled like his supper.

  He was a big polar bear, white from his ears to his toes, but he was thin and hungry.

  The polar bear crept up to the wall of ice, looked over, and saw the father with his barbed harpoon and the boy with his sharp knife. The bear didn’t want to attack them, in case they woke up fast enough to hurt him with those blades.

  So he backed away and he thought for a long time, his thoughts interrupted occasionally by the chirping of a little brown bird on the hill.

  Then the polar bear came up with a plan. If he put out the fire, then the man and the boy would freeze, and he could eat them and their fish without any danger from their weapons.

  So the bear crept, as slowly and quietly as a bear on huge white paws can creep, right up to the fire.

  He patted the fire with his left paw.

  It was hot! He jerked his paw back and shook it.

  Then he patted the fire with his right paw.

  It burned his paw! He jerked his paw back and shook it.

  And he patted each little flame flat. Patting, and shaking, and blowing on his sore paws to cool them down. He patted and patted with his paws, until the flames were all gone, leaving only tiny glowing embers in the ashes.

  Then the bear backed off, to wait for the air to cool down and the father and son to freeze. Once they were frozen solid, he would be able to eat his tea in safety.

  As the polar bear waited and the little bird on the hill watched, the father and son started to freeze. Icicles formed round their mouths and nostrils. Their breathing slowed, and their hearts slowed.

  But as the polar bear was deciding which one to eat first, the little brown bird fluttered over to the fire and started to flap his wings at the last ember in the grey ashes.

  The bird fluttered and flapped, trying to bring the ember back to life. The bird moved closer to the ember, waving air at it. The bird stood right over the ember and flapped his wings as fast as he could.

  And gradually, as the bird fanned the air at the ashes, the ember turned from dull red to bright orange. The bird flapped and flapped, and the ember flickered.

  The little bird stayed there, as the ember got hotter and hotter, his wings flapping and flapping, until the ember burst back into life.

  The bird staggered backwards as the flames brushed his feathers.

  The father and son both took deep breaths of warm air, they sighed and they rolled over.

  And the polar bear realised he wasn’t going to get his supper from behind the ice wall. So he limped away, his paws blackened from the fire he had tried to put out.

  The little brown bird flew slowly back to his low bush on the snowy hill.

  The father and son woke up safe the next morning
and returned to their village, never knowing the danger they had been in, nor the kindness and bravery that had saved them.

  So that is why polar bears are white all over, except for the black skin on their paws.

  And that is why we all know a little brown bird with a bright red breast, which is still glowing with the heat of the fire he fanned back to life.

  Missing Winter

  Canaanite myth, Eastern Mediterranean

  When gods fight among themselves, the winners rule the earth.

  So when Baal, the god of rain, lightning, wind and snow, defeated Yam, the prince of the sea, he felt like the strongest god in the world. Baal demanded that El, the oldest god, grant him the right to build a palace.

  El agreed, but only after the warrior goddess Anat threatened to make El’s grey beard run with blood if he didn’t honour her brother Baal.

  Baal built a palace on an ice-capped mountain, where cool winds could blow through the windows and where he could command the rain, snow, thunder and lightning.

  When the palace was finished, Baal decided to hold a feast to show off his power. He arranged for a year’s worth of bread and wine to be brought to his palace, then he invited Anat, and he invited El, his wife Athirat and their son Athtar.

  But the guest list looked too short. Baal wanted more gods to come and bow down to him in his own home.

  So he sent an invitation to Mot, the god of death, who ruled the underworld and also ruled the sun.

  Mot responded with an invitation of his own: “How dare you invite me to a feast of bread and wine? I am not an ox or a stag, I am a lion in the desert, so I hunger for flesh and I thirst for blood. Yet you insult me by offering me bread and wine. So now the flesh and blood I yearn for is your flesh and your blood, Baal. I demand that you come to my land and feast at my table. If you do not attend, then I will send my servants to drag you down.”

  When he heard this message, Baal shivered. He’d beaten a sea monster and built a palace, but that didn’t make him the most powerful god after all.

  So Baal cancelled the feast and left his palace by the back door. He found a dead calf in a field, dressed the calf in his robes and enchanted it to look like a god, hoping Mot would be fooled.

  But when Mot’s servants took the calf to his feasting table, Mot chewed on its legs and spluttered in disgust. “This is not the flesh of a god, this is the flesh of a beast. Bring me Baal!”

  So Baal hid from Mot’s servants.

  He hid in his boat of snow-clouds. But the servants of death found him. He hid in the rocks at the end of the sun’s journey in the west. But the servants of death found him. He hid in the ruined palace of Yam, his old enemy. But the servants of death found him.

  Eventually Baal realised that no-one can hide from death forever and that hiding in corners would not look good in the legend of his life.

  So Baal stood up, dressed himself splendidly in lightning and snow, and walked down to the underworld.

  Baal said to Mot, “How kind of you to invite me to your home.” He sat at Mot’s table and he smiled as Mot offered him a dish of mud. Baal knew mud was the food of the dead.

  Then, like a polite guest, Baal ate the food in front of him. After three mouthfuls, he choked on it and fell to the filthy floor of Mot’s throne room.

  When Mot stopped laughing, he ordered the sun to shine longer and brighter and hotter.

  Without Baal in his palace, there was no-one to bring cooling winds or soothing rain. So the land suffered under the harsh summer. The earth was dry and dusty, the sky was burning thin.

  The gods mourned Baal, and hoped that someone else could take his place, someone who could be winter, and bring life back to the earth. But when El’s son Athtar sat in Baal’s throne, his feet didn’t reach the ground. No-one but Baal could end the drought and famine of Mot’s summer.

  So Anat dressed for battle. With the severed heads of death’s servants hanging from her shoulders and their severed hands hanging from her belt, she marched through the underworld to find her brother.

  When she arrived in the throne room, she didn’t draw her sword. Instead she spoke politely. “Mot, lord of death, please return Baal to life and the world.”

  Mot sniggered. “Aw, poor little Anat, are you missing your brother? You can come and join Baal here at my table. Oh no, there he is under my table. Baal is dead, and that’s how he’ll stay.”

  Anat kept her fingers away from her sword and spoke calmly once more. “Without Baal, the world above is dying. The summer is endless, the ground is hard, people cannot plant crops. If you don’t return Baal to us, all the people will die.”

  “I eat the dead,” answered Mot. “The endless summer pleases me and I am hungry for the death it will bring. So I will not return Baal, and I will command the sun to shine forever.”

  “But Mot, if all the people die in this one summer, you will have a full belly now, then be starving forever. Is a world with no life really what you want?”

  Mot grinned. “When did you turn soft, Anat? When did you care about little people’s lives? I have watched you reduce whole cities to puddles of blood. Come and join me, come and dine on death with me. And as we feast, I will tell you how your brother died. Baal died shivering and hiding, sneaking and cheating, then choking and gagging. He did not die like a god. He died like a … rat!”

  Anat screamed, drew her sword, and leapt at Mot.

  Mot stood up, raised his arms and called on his powers. But his main weapon was fear, and Anat did not recognise fear. Mot was used to ruling the dead, and the dead don’t usually fight back, so within moments Anat had knocked him down to the floor of his own throne room.

  Once Mot was on the floor, Anat ploughed lines in his flesh with her sword. She sliced him into tiny grains, then ground him into flour under her heels. She took handfuls of Mot up to the dry fields and scattered him far and wide, screaming all the time that he must give back her brother.

  When she returned to Mot’s throne room, to stir his blood into the mud, she heard Baal spluttering and choking. Anat slapped him hard on the back and Baal spat up the mud caught in his throat, then he took a deep breath and crawled out from under death’s table.

  So Anat returned Baal to life. Baal ended the endless summer, with cool rain in the valleys and cold snow on the mountains. And crops grew again.

  But over the months of winter all the tiny ground-up particles of Mot, hidden deep in the earth, crawled towards each other and clung together. So the next year Mot rose from the depths and attacked Baal again.

  Now, every year, Anat has to rescue her brother Baal from the hot grasp of the god of death, to allow the cool winds of winter to bring life to the earth. But Anat can never grind Mot up small enough to stop him coming back next summer.

  The Fox’s Footprints

  Cree Folktale, Canada

  Once, in the land near the top of the world, a little girl fell suddenly ill, coughing and struggling to breathe.

  Her father and mother were afraid she would die, so as she lay wrapped in blankets by the fire, they asked the shaman, the wise man of the tribe, to help her.

  The shaman felt the little girl’s forehead and held her hand. He listened to her coughing and he listened to the rasping sounds in her chest. “I hear footsteps crunching on snow. I hear feet breaking through the crust of the snow.”

  The mother looked out of the door flap. “There’s no-one there.”

  The shaman smiled. “The footsteps are not here in the village. They are crunching through snow in her chest.”

  He listened again. “I hear small light feet, struggling through the deep snow and the sharp crust. It’s a little silver fox.”

  He listened one more time. “As the fox moves away across the snow, your daughter’s spirit moves further from her body. We must track the fox and bring her to your daughter. If we do not, your daughter will die.”

  “I will go after the fox,” said the girl’s father.

  “No,” said the sh
aman. “I will go.”

  “But we need you here, with our daughter,” said her mother.

  “I will stay and I will go,” said the shaman.

  So the shaman’s body sat by the little girl, holding her hand. And the shaman’s spirit went walking.

  The shaman tracked the silver fox across the snow. He found her tiny neat footprints and he followed them. But as the shaman moved across the snow, he left no footprints.

  He followed the fox for miles. When he reached a sheltered spot where the fox had stopped and rested, he stopped and rested too. He lit a fire, sparks drifting up to the stars.

  As the shaman’s spirit sat by the fire, the shaman’s body warmed up. His hand grew warmer. He gripped the little girl’s fingers and she started to burn with a fever.

  “She is getting worse!” called the father.

  “Shhh,” said the mother. “Sometimes worse comes before better…”

  Miles away, the shaman’s spirit put out the fire.

  The girl cooled down.

  The shaman followed the fox again.

  He moved faster and the fox knew he was coming, so the fox began to run.

  The fox’s heart beat faster and faster with fear and exertion. The little girl’s pulse got faster and faster and weaker and weaker. The mother and father held each other tight.

  The shaman’s spirit caught up with the fox. He stood in front of her, blocking her way. His spirit danced round the fox, trapping her in a circle so she couldn’t escape. He spoke softly to her, he calmed her down, then he pointed in the direction of the little girl’s lodge. He broke the circle and the fox ran, in long skimming strides across the snow.

  The shaman’s spirit smiled and started the journey back.

  The mother and father watched the stillness of the wise man’s body and the pale face of their barely breathing daughter. Then a corner of the door flap was pushed aside and a little silver shape slid in.