Let me tell you a tale from when I was very young.
For the longest time, there had been a great fear of the demon in the old forest laying to the East of the village. Townsfolk traveling through often warned of the danger that laid in that dark mysterious woods. No one took the dirt path leading into those woods. They claimed that birds never sang nor flowers bloomed in among the tall dark trees. It smelt of evil, everyone said. Generations and generations of village people told this old tale again and again, renewing fear every generation. The woods that once shone bright and clear now was so overgrown with weeds and undergrowth that even the bravest of grown men felt a chill whenever they got close. They said that the sun never shone through those dark crowns of trees, breeding great evil. Because of this fear, the village developed a hush over the subject of the forest, and it weighed on its people like a terrible secret, an unwanted burden. Very few of the people smiled or laughed, the children were shut up at home the moment the sun set. EVeryone spoke with the anxious hush of the afraid.
Regarding the much feared demon, no one has seen him, according to the elders, for centuries. As long as no one entered into his dark territories, the village is safe. His wrath must never be awaken by thoughtless actions. All travelers must be warned of the danger. And guiless children must be constantly watched over to see that they do not in a moment of childish foolishness anger the evil in the forest.
THe elders told the story of the demon often. It was a story, a knowledge passed down through generations. There had once been a beautiful tribe of bird men living in the forest. They resembled humans but differed only in that they had wings, and a beak, but they were beautiful and strong bodied, and immortal. They kept their scared grounds while the humans ket their farmlands side by side. For centuries they had lived in peace, with little interaction. For there was never a need to interact. The bird men had their own secret ways. But there was a different reason for their isolation. The bird tribe had a fear of human females. They had no females among the tribe and there had an ancient prophesy that the tribe would remain immortal and intact until a chid is borne of any among them. The fear of a child borne of the bird people was not realized until the farmlands began to encroach on the forest. Each year, more of the forest was cleared to make way for the growing village. And often, young maidens from the village would wander into the forest in search of berries and firewoods. The elders of the bird tribe and the elders of the village then met in secret to form an agreement that henceforth, no humans must enter the sacred forest, and all alliance and interaction between the two groups were to be forbidden. This pact between the two group came to be and soon, the bird tribe was forgotten by the young generations of the village, but this understanding that the sacred forest must not be entered became a way of life. It was not questioned. It merely became yet another understanding of the small universe of the village.
Then one winter, according to the tale, it was an especially cold winter. Snow storms blew mercilessly on the village. A young girl wandered and got lost in the forest. The villagers formed search parties to hunt for the lost girl but to no avail. Everyone took her to be lost and dead. But miraculously, she returned two weeks later, dressed in a beautiful feathered cloak. The villagers tried to pry the tale out of the girl, but she was stubbornly silent. She said nothing. But when spring rolled around, she was spotted entering the forest. And when summer came, she had disappeared entirely form the village, only to appear for a day or two and then to disappear once again into the forest. Sometimes she spoke of a friend in the forest. They villagers took to understand that she had a guardian angel of sorts. As years past, she kept up her disappearance into the forest, she grew up to be beautiful. All the young men in the village wanted her for a wife, but she turned them down one after the other, until she had turned down every single one of the young men in her village. Her parents were concerned that she would never marry, but she just smiled unconcerned. Thinking that her strange behavior had something to do with her disappearance into the forest, the curious mother followed her one day.
The girl wandered among dirt paths, disappearing and reappearing among branches and brambles as if on a familiar path. The mother was barely able to keep up with her getting her apron torn and her hair caught in the trees. She was not a welcomed visitor of the forest. It blocked her way time and again. Only through sheer determination and love for her own daughter was she able to keep up with the lithe figure disappearing so lightly and quickly among the trees. She stopped at a beautiful clearing deep within the forest. It was full of scented blossoms and butterflies. To the mother, who had never seen such beauty in her life, the place was enchanted. The girl, stopped and whistled a tune and laughed lightly. A great shadow appeared and from the sky fell a creature, resembling a man but with a beak on his face where his mouth should have been and on his back, large wings with deep brown feathers the colour of old trees. The girl ran to it and put her arms around the creature. The mother almost fell down from fright, and the repulsion of her daughter being so close to such a creature. She wanted to run screaming to tear her daughter away from the monstrosity her daughter was showing such intimacy to. The monster held the young girl, her hair swung in the sunlight as he lifted her high above the trees and over the clearing. The mother watched rooted, in horror, as the young girl shower kisses onto the creature. It caressed the young girl making her laugh and gasp in pleasure. The mother could watch no more, she ran home her heart sagging with the weight of terror and disgust. As she ran, the forest around resounded with the voice of her own daughter singing the familiar song of women in labors of love.
The girl returned home happy and light-footed. When she got home, her mother slapped her and pulled her hair. Ungrateful, unnatural child! She was told never to set foot inside the forest again. And to make sure that she would never enter that forest again, she was to be locked up in her room. Bars were then placed on her windows and her door bolted and locked up with strong chains. She cried, screamed, raved at her mother for mercy, but they fell on stone hearts. What happened eventually became a well known legend. The villagers heard her pitiful cries often, for weeks she begged to be freed. She promised to disappear completely and never return to shame her kins again. Locked up in her tiny dark room, her beauty faded quickly, she took to talking to the air. There were rumors that her lover had came in the night to try to pry the bars open to free her, but the iron bars held strong. And men started patrolling the streets with guns and pitchforks after dark to keep the feathered monsters at bay. Finally, one dark night when the moon was new, there were crazy screams, then a eerie silence and the sound of a baby crying. The girl had been with child all the time she had been locked up, it was well known that she gave birth to a demon child. They took the baby away to be tossed in the forest for wild beasts to prey on. After they took her child away, the girl stopped talking altogether, she faded into shadows. After the girl had been so broken, she could barely walk, they unlocked the chains, removed the bars from the windows and opened the doors. But she neither walked nor looked at people. She looked past them as if the world was made of air. Although there were rumors that she drowned herself in the village well, the story went that she, no longer being in the world vaporized one day. Leaving only the thin white dress she had on, on the damp rotting wooden floor. Of the bird tribe, nothing was heard of them again. Although there were speculations that the pair of lovers had eloped, and escaped to a paradise on a secret mountain where they would no longer be bothered by petty humans. The version most people stuck to is that the tribe eventually broke apart from the grief of the dead girl and the lost baby. The bird tribe with their beautiful feathered wings and bird songs disappeared altogether. The forest took on the look of something evil. Paths running through it fell into disuse and the trees grew wild and angry. Thorny plants stuck out and malicious poison fruits darkened the forest with evil intent. There were nights when sad, anguish cries can be heard from the depth of the forest.
I was passing through the village, heading West to meet up with my band of brothers, each out hunting demons. It is the tradition of my people that boys left the village at thirteen to roam the world only to return when they have hunted a fair share of demons by the count through which boys became men. The village welcomed me as a demon slayer. I told them I have seen a lot in my travels but I have yet met a demon. I told them the days of dragon and gods no longer existed, watching the iron mills that were springing up along the edge of the village. But they begged for me to rid the village of their great fear, of the demon in the forest. Finally, when the village chief along and the elders went on their knees, I promised that I would kill their demon, and rid them of their great fear.
I entered the forest from the village dirt path which headed East running through the depth of the forest. It was a hard path. The path narrowed into a trail and led to a steep uphill climb. Thorns scratched at me at every turn. Every so often, a single bird would give a desolate cry. This forest was angry and vengeful, it had a heavily guarded secret and wanted no trespassers. Perhaps, this was the day I would finally meet my demon, the one the fates had decreed for me to take on that would make me a man. I walked quietly, the gun loaded and ready to kill, my small dagger sat expectant by my chest. I was alert to dangers and sensitive to movements in the trees. By midday, I had seen nothing nor found any tracks which might have belonged to the demon. The forest was starting to thin surprisingly as I headed deeper into the forest. While the exterior of the forest was heavily fortified and angry, the depth of the forest was less treacherous. Sunlight streamed in through the leaves, leaving stripes of light through the darkness. Here, the forest felt noble and just. I wandered on. By a shallow brook, I first found traces that this part of the forest was inhabited. There was a little bridge, built from branches which straddled the tinkling water. A few miles on, I found it--the demon lair. Except it was nothing like a demon lair. It was a little dwelling made from branches and leaves. It had no windows, only a single point of entry. A little door-like hole which i had to duck to get in. No one was in the little wood structure. Inside, there was a pile of feather, which must have served as a bed. And all around were beautiful twig structures, some resembling animals, but mostly they were just beautifully shaped structures resembling nothing at all. Finding nothing that told me the nature of the being which inhabited this hut. I decided it was safer to hide out by one of the rocks and watch for the inhabitant of the place. I sat silent and still, waiting for the owner of the hut to return. If it was a demon, I could get a clear shot from where I was and avoid any close fighting. If it was a human, I would ask him or her to let me stay for the night and for some supper.
I waited. Hours passed, and nothing. The afternoon sun was waning, the shadows were beginning to stretch. Then I saw it, at first it looked like a man, but as it got closer, I saw its deformity, its mouth was twisted and strange, a growth was on his face just below the nose. There were little tufts of feather on his back. He was walking in a funny sort of limp. As I picked up my gun, he looked at me and started walking towards me. I could have taken him out easy but something stayed my hand. Maybe it was the look in his eyes. A kind of gentle curiosity and a vague shadow of remembering in his look. He stood only two steps away from me. If he decide to attack, I would still be able to overpower him and kill him with my dagger. But all he did was stare. When he reached out, I shrank back in fear. I saw his hands, they were beautiful and finely shaped, not so different in form from my own which were coarse and thick from hard labor. He touched my face, running his fingers over my forehead, my eyebrows, then my eyes, lingering on the lashes. He felt my cheeks, my nose and my lips. Then he ran his own fingers over his own. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Then he turned to walk away. I watched him. I sat for a long time, then I started to make my way out of the forest. There were tears on my face. I realized that I was crying. I did not know what to tell the villagers. There never was a monster other than the one that they had created for themselves. I unloaded the gun and tossed the bullets into the bushes. I looked at my gun, I would have no more use for it, and I tossed that too. Finally, I decided that I would not return to the village, but to head West through the forest to meet up with my brothers. I decided It was time to go home.
For the longest time, there had been a great fear of the demon in the old forest laying to the East of the village. Townsfolk traveling through often warned of the danger that laid in that dark mysterious woods. No one took the dirt path leading into those woods. They claimed that birds never sang nor flowers bloomed in among the tall dark trees. It smelt of evil, everyone said. Generations and generations of village people told this old tale again and again, renewing fear every generation. The woods that once shone bright and clear now was so overgrown with weeds and undergrowth that even the bravest of grown men felt a chill whenever they got close. They said that the sun never shone through those dark crowns of trees, breeding great evil. Because of this fear, the village developed a hush over the subject of the forest, and it weighed on its people like a terrible secret, an unwanted burden. Very few of the people smiled or laughed, the children were shut up at home the moment the sun set. EVeryone spoke with the anxious hush of the afraid.
Regarding the much feared demon, no one has seen him, according to the elders, for centuries. As long as no one entered into his dark territories, the village is safe. His wrath must never be awaken by thoughtless actions. All travelers must be warned of the danger. And guiless children must be constantly watched over to see that they do not in a moment of childish foolishness anger the evil in the forest.
THe elders told the story of the demon often. It was a story, a knowledge passed down through generations. There had once been a beautiful tribe of bird men living in the forest. They resembled humans but differed only in that they had wings, and a beak, but they were beautiful and strong bodied, and immortal. They kept their scared grounds while the humans ket their farmlands side by side. For centuries they had lived in peace, with little interaction. For there was never a need to interact. The bird men had their own secret ways. But there was a different reason for their isolation. The bird tribe had a fear of human females. They had no females among the tribe and there had an ancient prophesy that the tribe would remain immortal and intact until a chid is borne of any among them. The fear of a child borne of the bird people was not realized until the farmlands began to encroach on the forest. Each year, more of the forest was cleared to make way for the growing village. And often, young maidens from the village would wander into the forest in search of berries and firewoods. The elders of the bird tribe and the elders of the village then met in secret to form an agreement that henceforth, no humans must enter the sacred forest, and all alliance and interaction between the two groups were to be forbidden. This pact between the two group came to be and soon, the bird tribe was forgotten by the young generations of the village, but this understanding that the sacred forest must not be entered became a way of life. It was not questioned. It merely became yet another understanding of the small universe of the village.
Then one winter, according to the tale, it was an especially cold winter. Snow storms blew mercilessly on the village. A young girl wandered and got lost in the forest. The villagers formed search parties to hunt for the lost girl but to no avail. Everyone took her to be lost and dead. But miraculously, she returned two weeks later, dressed in a beautiful feathered cloak. The villagers tried to pry the tale out of the girl, but she was stubbornly silent. She said nothing. But when spring rolled around, she was spotted entering the forest. And when summer came, she had disappeared entirely form the village, only to appear for a day or two and then to disappear once again into the forest. Sometimes she spoke of a friend in the forest. They villagers took to understand that she had a guardian angel of sorts. As years past, she kept up her disappearance into the forest, she grew up to be beautiful. All the young men in the village wanted her for a wife, but she turned them down one after the other, until she had turned down every single one of the young men in her village. Her parents were concerned that she would never marry, but she just smiled unconcerned. Thinking that her strange behavior had something to do with her disappearance into the forest, the curious mother followed her one day.
The girl wandered among dirt paths, disappearing and reappearing among branches and brambles as if on a familiar path. The mother was barely able to keep up with her getting her apron torn and her hair caught in the trees. She was not a welcomed visitor of the forest. It blocked her way time and again. Only through sheer determination and love for her own daughter was she able to keep up with the lithe figure disappearing so lightly and quickly among the trees. She stopped at a beautiful clearing deep within the forest. It was full of scented blossoms and butterflies. To the mother, who had never seen such beauty in her life, the place was enchanted. The girl, stopped and whistled a tune and laughed lightly. A great shadow appeared and from the sky fell a creature, resembling a man but with a beak on his face where his mouth should have been and on his back, large wings with deep brown feathers the colour of old trees. The girl ran to it and put her arms around the creature. The mother almost fell down from fright, and the repulsion of her daughter being so close to such a creature. She wanted to run screaming to tear her daughter away from the monstrosity her daughter was showing such intimacy to. The monster held the young girl, her hair swung in the sunlight as he lifted her high above the trees and over the clearing. The mother watched rooted, in horror, as the young girl shower kisses onto the creature. It caressed the young girl making her laugh and gasp in pleasure. The mother could watch no more, she ran home her heart sagging with the weight of terror and disgust. As she ran, the forest around resounded with the voice of her own daughter singing the familiar song of women in labors of love.
The girl returned home happy and light-footed. When she got home, her mother slapped her and pulled her hair. Ungrateful, unnatural child! She was told never to set foot inside the forest again. And to make sure that she would never enter that forest again, she was to be locked up in her room. Bars were then placed on her windows and her door bolted and locked up with strong chains. She cried, screamed, raved at her mother for mercy, but they fell on stone hearts. What happened eventually became a well known legend. The villagers heard her pitiful cries often, for weeks she begged to be freed. She promised to disappear completely and never return to shame her kins again. Locked up in her tiny dark room, her beauty faded quickly, she took to talking to the air. There were rumors that her lover had came in the night to try to pry the bars open to free her, but the iron bars held strong. And men started patrolling the streets with guns and pitchforks after dark to keep the feathered monsters at bay. Finally, one dark night when the moon was new, there were crazy screams, then a eerie silence and the sound of a baby crying. The girl had been with child all the time she had been locked up, it was well known that she gave birth to a demon child. They took the baby away to be tossed in the forest for wild beasts to prey on. After they took her child away, the girl stopped talking altogether, she faded into shadows. After the girl had been so broken, she could barely walk, they unlocked the chains, removed the bars from the windows and opened the doors. But she neither walked nor looked at people. She looked past them as if the world was made of air. Although there were rumors that she drowned herself in the village well, the story went that she, no longer being in the world vaporized one day. Leaving only the thin white dress she had on, on the damp rotting wooden floor. Of the bird tribe, nothing was heard of them again. Although there were speculations that the pair of lovers had eloped, and escaped to a paradise on a secret mountain where they would no longer be bothered by petty humans. The version most people stuck to is that the tribe eventually broke apart from the grief of the dead girl and the lost baby. The bird tribe with their beautiful feathered wings and bird songs disappeared altogether. The forest took on the look of something evil. Paths running through it fell into disuse and the trees grew wild and angry. Thorny plants stuck out and malicious poison fruits darkened the forest with evil intent. There were nights when sad, anguish cries can be heard from the depth of the forest.
I was passing through the village, heading West to meet up with my band of brothers, each out hunting demons. It is the tradition of my people that boys left the village at thirteen to roam the world only to return when they have hunted a fair share of demons by the count through which boys became men. The village welcomed me as a demon slayer. I told them I have seen a lot in my travels but I have yet met a demon. I told them the days of dragon and gods no longer existed, watching the iron mills that were springing up along the edge of the village. But they begged for me to rid the village of their great fear, of the demon in the forest. Finally, when the village chief along and the elders went on their knees, I promised that I would kill their demon, and rid them of their great fear.
I entered the forest from the village dirt path which headed East running through the depth of the forest. It was a hard path. The path narrowed into a trail and led to a steep uphill climb. Thorns scratched at me at every turn. Every so often, a single bird would give a desolate cry. This forest was angry and vengeful, it had a heavily guarded secret and wanted no trespassers. Perhaps, this was the day I would finally meet my demon, the one the fates had decreed for me to take on that would make me a man. I walked quietly, the gun loaded and ready to kill, my small dagger sat expectant by my chest. I was alert to dangers and sensitive to movements in the trees. By midday, I had seen nothing nor found any tracks which might have belonged to the demon. The forest was starting to thin surprisingly as I headed deeper into the forest. While the exterior of the forest was heavily fortified and angry, the depth of the forest was less treacherous. Sunlight streamed in through the leaves, leaving stripes of light through the darkness. Here, the forest felt noble and just. I wandered on. By a shallow brook, I first found traces that this part of the forest was inhabited. There was a little bridge, built from branches which straddled the tinkling water. A few miles on, I found it--the demon lair. Except it was nothing like a demon lair. It was a little dwelling made from branches and leaves. It had no windows, only a single point of entry. A little door-like hole which i had to duck to get in. No one was in the little wood structure. Inside, there was a pile of feather, which must have served as a bed. And all around were beautiful twig structures, some resembling animals, but mostly they were just beautifully shaped structures resembling nothing at all. Finding nothing that told me the nature of the being which inhabited this hut. I decided it was safer to hide out by one of the rocks and watch for the inhabitant of the place. I sat silent and still, waiting for the owner of the hut to return. If it was a demon, I could get a clear shot from where I was and avoid any close fighting. If it was a human, I would ask him or her to let me stay for the night and for some supper.
I waited. Hours passed, and nothing. The afternoon sun was waning, the shadows were beginning to stretch. Then I saw it, at first it looked like a man, but as it got closer, I saw its deformity, its mouth was twisted and strange, a growth was on his face just below the nose. There were little tufts of feather on his back. He was walking in a funny sort of limp. As I picked up my gun, he looked at me and started walking towards me. I could have taken him out easy but something stayed my hand. Maybe it was the look in his eyes. A kind of gentle curiosity and a vague shadow of remembering in his look. He stood only two steps away from me. If he decide to attack, I would still be able to overpower him and kill him with my dagger. But all he did was stare. When he reached out, I shrank back in fear. I saw his hands, they were beautiful and finely shaped, not so different in form from my own which were coarse and thick from hard labor. He touched my face, running his fingers over my forehead, my eyebrows, then my eyes, lingering on the lashes. He felt my cheeks, my nose and my lips. Then he ran his own fingers over his own. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Then he turned to walk away. I watched him. I sat for a long time, then I started to make my way out of the forest. There were tears on my face. I realized that I was crying. I did not know what to tell the villagers. There never was a monster other than the one that they had created for themselves. I unloaded the gun and tossed the bullets into the bushes. I looked at my gun, I would have no more use for it, and I tossed that too. Finally, I decided that I would not return to the village, but to head West through the forest to meet up with my brothers. I decided It was time to go home.
posted by Nippy at 12:08 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home