Rumblings of discontent and grief rolled across the land like the waves of the floods after Wise with Herbs spoke her words. The whisperings of sorrow and anger subsided only when Old Mother lifted her staff high in command for silence.
Old Mother spoke in halting statements, her voice pausing, allowing her granddaughter to carry the burden ofshouting her visions. Wise with Herbs was no longer young, but her voice was strong, and always had been.
She called out, “Old Mother of Winter Trees speaks her vision. Soon strangers will come from the east. Some will be pale-skinned ones. Some will be darker, as are we. Many will have sky eyes that shine like the summer sky. Eyes that are the color of flax flowers. Colors of moss and leaves. Many will have hair like animals, hair that is the yellow of furze and gorse flowers. Hair the red of autumn leaves and clover flowers. Their ears will all be rounded. Their stature will be taller than the People, and strong.
“They will kill for our land, sending many to our trees. They will bring death and war and plagues. When they have killed many of us, they willkill our trees.”
The rumblings rose in wails. The men clacked their teeth. The women bared their breasts to the cold wind in horror. When the grief settled, Old Mother continued. Her daughter’s voice carried the dire tidings from the hilltop to the four corners of the cardinal road, to all the People of the Trees, repeated by those with the best hearing, so that all, even the near deaf, would hear the visions of the Old Mother of Winter Trees.
“They will be calledFarmers. They will cut down our trees and plantCrops. They have already forgotten the ways of the Gathering and the Hunt. They will kill our people and destroy our way of life. They will try to convince us that the way of the Farmer and the Man-seed is better than the Way of the Womb.”
The wailing rose on the icy air. But Old Mother’s eyes were still sharp enough to note that some of the men shifted, thinking that perhaps it was time for such a change. Sees into Darkness had warned her that some of the men would do so.
Her strength waning, Old Mother spoke again when the wailing softened. “It will take long, many hands of years. ThePeople of the Trees will fight and we will die, and we will lose this battle. They will make war. They will kill all the hunters. They will maim the young boys and force them tofarm.”
The men who had shown desire for change shifted again, not happy with the words of the seer.
“When the Farmers defeat us, after each battle, they will violate the women and the children.”
The screams this time lasted long. Long and long. Wailing and grief and fear and horror. When silence again blanketed the land like ice, Old Mother said, “They will desecrate and cut the Earth and plant few kinds of seed for fewer and fewer crops. They will plant no hawthorn trees. No oak. No nut trees. No trees of any kind. And the way of the People of the Trees will die.”
More wailing caught on the wind, swirling with the smoke of the gather. Grief and anguish and moaning.
Old Mother of Winter Trees whispered more tidings, and Wise with Herbs spoke into the silence that followed. “From their visions, Sees into Darkness and Old Mother of Winter Trees have this wisdom and these commands. Each tribe will captureallof the women theFarmerssend toFarmand to War. If a youngFarmerman survives battle, his seed will be given to any Woman willing to bear his seed and his daughters. All of the young will be treated as one of us, and not as the motherless who search for a home and a tribe. The children will be taught our ways and the ones born with sky eyes and leaf eyes who wish to go and live among the farmers will be allowed to do so. Thus will our seed and our wombs live on. This ends the revelation of the Vision Moon.”
The sound of outrage rose on the air. Old Mother looked at Sees into Darkness. He stood and addressed the Hunters and Warriors.
“When we fight, once each battle is ended and our enemies sacrifice their blood into the land, their women will bebrought to the Womb Circle. To theseFarmers, we will teach our language. EachFarmerwoman will be allowed to choose a mate from the tribe that defeated her people. We will raise her children, the children of theFarmers, with our children of the Womb, mixing our seed with their wombs, and their Moon-Blood with our tribes. When they have three sky-eye or leaf-eye children, they will be allowed to return to the Farmers, taking the sky-eyes and the leaf-eyes with them. We will keep and raise their dark-eyed sons to fight theFarmers, their own families, the people from the east. We will keep their dark-eyed daughters as our own. Their dark-eyed sons and daughters will grow up with and will mate with our women and our hunters and they will learn our ways . . .” He went silent, his eye of the world and his eye of the darkness closed in pain.
Old Mother took up the commands, Wise with Herbs again calling out. “The sky-eye and the leaf-eye will carryusin their blood. Thus, we will leave our mark and our blood and our way of life upon theFarmerswho come and kill our trees. And we will become one people.”
A voice shouted from the smoke-filled dark, “Then shall we becomeFarmers? Shall we kill our own trees?”
Sees into Darkness shouted, “We have no other path but war! Go! Make the weapons of war! At the First Gather, each woman will choose a mate and many babes will be born. This will bind us all together in the Circles of Trees and when the babes are safe in the womb, the Hunters and Warriors will take battle to theFarmers. Our wombs and our seed will survive into the future. We . . .” He looked at Old Woman.
She crawled slowly to her feet, her back hunched, her body tired, her spirit broken. She found her own breath and waved Wise with Herbs away. Old Mother took the hand of Sees into Darkness. Together, they spoke the words of their vision.
“We go forward into the future. Our circles will endure. And we will reappear many and many and many hands of years in the future, and our trees will live again.”
???
Each group talked among themselves.
The Hunters and Warriors talked, their words about weapons and the long coast they must defend. They created new words for a new clan: Sentries and Runners. And words of war: walls, ditches with sharp sticks, shields, throwing spears, throwing axes. The best sizes and kinds of throwing rocks. They discussed ways that they might carry word from village and tribe to village and tribe, and ways to hide the paths through the trees, ways to ambush the invaders, theseFarmers.
The Old Mothers of each tribe talked together, making plans for supplies for the warriors to make war. They discussed ways to hide their most sacred herbs and foodstuffs from the invaders. Their places of power from the Killers of Trees.
As the hunters and Women of the Womb talked, the power in the land began to alter. Despite the visions of their leaders, no one could believe that they might lose the war withFarmers.
No one but Old Mother and Sees in Darkness had seen the visions. They would fight until the last Warrior. The two grieved as only leaders who have seen visions can grieve. And Old Mother grew weaker. Her heart pounded and skipped beats. Her breath was labored.
At last, knowing her time was near, Old Mother of Winter Trees beat her singing stones again. Silence fell over the hillside and down through the People. Wise with Herbs called out herwords, “My staff must be passed before it is buried. My tree calls.”
Grief and excitement rolled across the land.
“The staff will choose,” she repeated.
Old Mother pulled the small obsidian blade from the leather bag at her neck. The blade came from their first lands far to the east, over two seas, over many lands, to this isle at the west end of the world. “Old Mothers from every tribe,” Wise with Herbs shouted. “Come forth and be presented to the staff of the People of the Trees.”
