Taltos lotmw-3 Page 43

  Over the centuries we came upon such creatures more than once, or bought them from other Taltos, but we never saw them in any organized force of their own. We supposed them to be harmless. We had no name for them, really. They taught us nothing, and they made us cry with frustration when they couldn’t learn anything from us.

  How sad this is, we thought, that these big animals look so much like Taltos, even walking upright and having no tails, but they have no minds.

  Meanwhile, our laws had become very strict. Execution was the ultimate punishment for disobedience. It had become a ritual, though never a celebrated one, in which the offending Taltos was quickly dispatched with deliberate and severe blows to the skull.

  Now, the skull of a Taltos stays resilient long after other bones in his body have become hard. But the skull can be crushed easily, if one knows how to do it, and we had-unfortunately-learned.

  But death still horrified us. Murder was a very infrequent crime. The death penalty was for those who threatened the entire community. Birth was still our central sacred ceremony, and when we found good places to settle, which argued for permanence, we frequently selected places for our religious circle dancing, and we laid out stones to mark these places, sometimes very, very large stones, in which we took pride.

  Ah, the circles of stones! We became, though we never thought of it that way, the people of the stone circles all over the land.

  When we were forced to a new territory-either by starvation or because another band of Taltos was coming towards us whom none of us liked, and with whom no one wanted to live in close quarters-we got in the custom of making a new circle at once. Indeed, the diameter of our circle and the weight of its stones became a claim upon a certain area, and the sight of a very large circle built by others was a sign to us that this was their land and we should move on.

  Anybody foolish enough to disregard a sacred circle? Well, they would be given no peace and quiet till they decamped. Of course, it was scarcity that imposed these rules often. A great plain could support very few hunters, really. Good spots on lakes and rivers and on the coast were better, but no place was paradise, no place was the endless fountain of warmth and plenty that had been the lost land.

  Claims of sacred protection were asserted against invaders or squatters. And I remember myself carving a figure of the Good God, as I perceived God-with both breasts and a penis-upon an immense stone in one of these circles, a plea to other Taltos that they must respect our holy circle and therefore our land.

  When there was a true battle, born of personality and misunderstanding, and rank greed for a particular portion of the earth, the invaders would knock down the stones of those who lived there, and make a new circle entirely of their own.

  To be driven out was exhausting, but in a new home the desire to build a larger, more imposing circle burnt hot. We would find stones, we vowed, so large that no one could ever dislodge them, or would ever try.

  Our circles spoke of our ambition and our simplicity-of the joy of the dance and our willingness to fight and die for the territory of the tribe.

  Our basic values, though unchanged since the days of the lost land, had hardened somewhat around certain rituals. It was mandatory for all to attend the birth of a new Taltos. It was the law that no woman could give birth more than twice. It was the law that reverence and sensuality attend these births; indeed, a great sexual euphoria was often sustained.

  The new Taltos was seen as an omen; if not perfect of limb and form, beautiful to behold, and full sized, a terrible fear came over the land. The perfect newborn was the blessing of the Good God as before, but you see, our beliefs had darkened; and as they darkened, as we drew all the wrong conclusions from purely natural events, so did our obsession with the great circles darken, our belief in them as pleasing to the Good God, and as morally essential for the tribe.

  At last came the year when we settled on the plain.

  This was in the south of Britain, now known as Salisbury, where the climate was beautiful to us, and the best we had ever been able to find. The time? Before the coming of human beings.

  We knew by then that the winter would always be with us; we did not think it possible to escape the winter anywhere in the world. If you think about this, it’s a perfectly logical assumption. Alas! The summers were longest and sweetest in this part of Britain, I knew this firsthand now, and the forests were thick and full of deer, and the sea was not far away.

  Herds of wild antelope wandered the plain.

  Here we decided that we would build our permanent home.

  The idea of moving all the time, to avoid arguments or to chase the food supply, had long since lost its appeal. We had become, to some extent, a people of settlements. The search was on among all our peoples for permanent refuge and a permanent place to perform the sacred singing, the sacred memory game, and the sacred dance, and of course the ritual of the birth.

  We had deeply resented our last invasion, and had only left after endless argument (Taltos always try words first), some pushing and shoving, and finally a lot of ultimatums, such as “All right, if you are determined to crowd these woods, then we shall leave them!”

  We held ourselves to be vastly superior to the other tribes for any number of reasons, and certainly because we had so many who had lived in the lost land, and many, many still with white hair. We were in many respects the most clearly organized group, and we had the most customs. Some of us had horses now, and could manage to ride them. Our caravan was comprised of many wagons. And we had good-sized herds and flocks of sheep, goats, and a form of wild cattle that no longer exists.

  Others poked fun at us, especially for riding horses, off which we fell repeatedly, but in general other Taltos held us in awe, and came running to us for help in bad times.

  Now, upon the Salisbury Plain, determining that it would be ours forever, we chose to make the greatest circle of stones ever seen in the world.

  By this time, too, we knew that the very making of the circle united the tribe, organized it, kept it from mischief, and made the dances all the more joyous, as stone after stone was added, and the circle grew ever more impressive to behold.

  This great undertaking, the building of the biggest circle in the world, shaped several centuries of our existence, and pushed us forward rapidly in terms of inventiveness and organization. The search for the sarsens, or the sandstone, as it is now called, the means of bringing the boulders back, of dressing them and erecting them, and finally laying in place the lintels-this consumed us; it became a justification for life itself.

  The concept of fun and play was almost gone from us now. We were survivors of the bitter cold. The dance had been sanctified. Everything had been sanctified. Yet this was a great and thrilling time.

  Those who would share our life joined us, and we grew to such a number that we could resist invasion; indeed, the very first monstrous stone of our great plan inspired such inspiration that other Taltos came to worship, to join our circle or to watch it, rather than to steal part of the plain.

  The building of the circle became the backdrop against which our development took place.

  During these centuries our life reached its highest peak. We built our encampments all over the plain, in easy walking distance of our great circle, and gathered our animals into small stockades. We planted the elderberry and the blackthorn around our encampments, and these encampments became forts.

  We arranged for the orderly burial of the dead; indeed, we built some graves beneath the ground during this time. Indeed, all the consequences of permanent settlement played themselves out. We did not begin to make pottery, but we bought a great deal of it from other Taltos who claimed to have bought it from the short-lived hairy people who came to the coast in boats made of animal skin.

  Soon tribes came from all over Britain to make the living circle of the dance within our standing stones.

  The circles became great winding processions. It was deemed to be good luck to give birth within
our circle. And much trade and prosperity came our way.

  Meanwhile, other large circles were being erected in our land. Vast, marvelous circles, but none, absolutely none, to rival our own. Indeed, sometime during this productive and wondrous era, it became known that ours was indeed the circle of circles; people did not seek to rival it, but rather only to see it, to dance in it, to join the procession weaving in and out of the various doorways formed by the lintels and the standing stones.

  To travel to another circle, to dance with the tribe there, became a regular event. At such gatherings we learnt much from each other, and celebrated great chains of memory, swapping tales and reinforcing the details of the most cherished stories, and correcting the legends of the lost land.

  We would go in bands to see the circle which is now called Avebury, or to see other circles farther south, near Stuart Gordon’s beloved Glastonbury Tor. We went north to worship at others.

  But all the while, ours was the most magnificent, and when Ashlar and his people came to visit the circle of another tribe, it was considered to be a great honor, and we were asked for advice, and begged to remain, and given fine gifts.

  Of course, you know that our circle became Stonehenge. Because it and many others of our sacred rings are standing even today. But let me explain what may be obvious only to scholars of Stonehenge. We did not build the whole thing that is there now, or is believed to have been there at one time.

  We built only two circles of sarsens, quarried in other areas, including the distant Marlborough Downs, but mainly at Amesbury, which is very near to Stonehenge. The inner circle had ten standing stones, and the outer thirty. And the placing of the lintels atop these stones was a matter of great debate. From the beginning, we opted for the lintels. But I never much appreciated them. I had dreamed of a circle of stones to imitate a circle of men and women. Each stone was to be roughly twice the size of a Taltos, and as wide as a Taltos is tall. That was my vision.

  But to others of the tribe, the lintels gave the impression of shelter, reminding them of the great volcanic cone which had once protected the tropical valley of the lost land.

  It was later peoples who built the circle of blue stones, and many other formations at Stonehenge. At one time, all of our beloved open-air temple was enclosed into some sort of wooden edifice by savage human tribes. And I do not care to think of the bloody rites practiced there. But this was not our doing.

  As to the emblems carved upon the sarsens, we used only one, upon a central stone which is long gone. It was a symbol of the Good God with breasts and phallus, and it was deeply etched within reach of a Taltos, so that he or she might trace it in the dark by touch.

  Later, human beings put other carvings upon the sarsens, just as they put Stonehenge to other use.

  But I can tell you that no one-Taltos, human, or other species-has ever happened upon our great circle who did not to some extent respect it or come to feel the presence of the sacred when within it. Long before it was ever completed, it became a place of inspiration, and it has been one ever since.

  In this monument you have the essence of our people. It is the only great monument we were ever to build.

  But to fully appreciate what we were, remember, we retained our values. We deplored death and did not celebrate it. We made no blood sacrifice. We did not see war as glorious so much as chaotic and unpleasant. And the high expression of our art was the singing and dancing circles assembled in and around Stonehenge.

  At their greatest height, our birth festivals and festivals of memory or music would include thousands of Taltos, come from far and wide. It was impossible to count the circles formed, or to measure the widest of them. It is impossible to say how many hours and days these rituals went on.

  Imagine it, if you will, the vast snowy plain, the clear blue sky, smoke rising from the encampments and the huts built near to the stone circle, for warmth and food and drink. See the Taltos, men and women all, and of my height, with hair long, often to the waist or even to the ankles, wearing carefully sewn skins and furs and high boots of leather, and linking hands to form these beautiful, simple configurations as the voices rose in song.

  Ivy leaves, mistletoe, holly, whatever was green in winter, we wore in our hair, and brought with us, and laid upon the ground. The branches of the pine or whatever tree did not lose their leaves.

  And in summer we brought flowers aplenty; and indeed, deputations were kept going all day and night into the woodlands to find flowers and fresh green boughs.

  The singing and the music alone were magnificent. One did not tear oneself from the circles easily. Indeed, some people never left of their own accord, and small fires were made within the margins between moving lines of dancers, for warmth. Some danced and sang and embraced others until they fell down in a faint or dead.

  In the beginning we had no one presiding, but that changed. I was called upon to go into the center, to strike the strings of the harp, to begin the dance. And after I had spent many hours there, another came to stand in my place, and later another and another, each new singer or musician making a music which the others imitated, taking the new song out from small circle to big circle, like the ripples in a pond from a falling stone.

  At times, many great fires were constructed beforehand, one in the center and others at various points, so that the dancers would pass near to them often as they followed the circular path.

  The birth of the Taltos in our circle was for the newborn an event unrivaled even in the lost land. For there the circles had been voluntary and spontaneous and small. But here the new creature opened its eyes upon an enormous tribe of its own kind, and heard a chorus like that of angels, and dwelt within that circle, being suckled and stroked and comforted for the first days and nights of life.

  Of course, we were changing. As our innate knowledge changed, we changed. That is, what we learned changed the genetic makeup of the newborn.

  Those born in the time of the circles had a stronger sense of the sacred than we old ones did, and were frankly not so given to rampant humor or irony or suspicion as we were. Those born in the time of the circles were more aggressive, and could murder when they had to, without giving way to tears.

  Had you asked me then, I would have said our kind would rule forever. Had you said, “Ah, but men will come who will slaughter people for fun, who will rape and burn and lay waste simply because it is what they do for a living,” I would not have believed it. I would have said, “Oh, but we’ll talk to them, we’ll tell all our stories and memories and ask them to tell theirs, and they’ll start dancing and singing, and they’ll stop fighting or wanting things they shouldn’t have.”

  When human beings did come down on us, we assumed, of course, that they would be simple little hairy people, of the gentle ilk of the amiable, grunting little traders who sometimes came to the coast in boats of skin to sell us goods and then went away.

  We heard tales of raids and massacres but we could not believe these. After all, why would anyone do such things?

  And then we were amazed to discover that the human beings coming into Britain had smooth skin like ours, and that their magic stone had been hammered into shields and helmets and swords, that they had brought their own trained horses with them by the hundreds, and on horseback they rode us down, burning our camps, piercing our bodies with spears, or chopping off our heads.

  They stole our women and raped them until they died of the bleeding. They stole our men and sought to enslave them, and laughed at them and ridiculed them, and in some instances drove them mad.

  At first their raids were very infrequent. The warriors came by sea, and descended upon us by night from the forests. We thought each raid was the last.

  Often we fought them off. We were not by nature as fierce as they, by any means, but we could defend ourselves, and great circles were convened to discuss their metal weapons and how we might make our own. Indeed, we imprisoned a number of human beings, invaders all, to try to pry the knowledge f
rom them. We discovered that when we slept with their women, whether willing or unwilling, they died. And the men had a deep, inveterate hatred of our softness. They called us “the fools of the circle,” or “the simple people of the stones.”

  The illusion that we could hold out against these people crumbled almost in the space of one season. We only learned later that we’d been saved from earlier annihilation by one simple fact: we didn’t have much that these people wanted. Principally, they wanted our women for pleasure, and some of the finer gifts which pilgrims had brought to the circle shrine.

  But other tribes of Taltos were flocking onto the plain. They’d been driven from their homes along the coast by the human invaders, who inspired in them only deathly fear. Their mounts gave these human beings a fanatical sense of power. Humans enjoyed these invasions. Massacre was sport to them.

  We fortified our camps for the winter. Those who had come to join us replaced many of the fighting men we had lost.

  Then the snow came; we had plenty to eat, and we had peace. Maybe the invaders didn’t like the snow. We didn’t know. There were so many of us gathered together, and we had lifted from the dead so many spears and swords, that we felt safe.

  It was time for the winter birth circle to be convened, and it was most important, as so many had been killed in the last year. Not only must we make new Taltos for our villages; we had to make them to send to other villages where the inhabitants had been burnt out.

  Many had come from far and wide for the winter birth circle, and we heard more and more tales of slaughter and woe.

  However, we were many. And it was our sacred time.

  We formed the circles, we lit the sacred fires; it was time to declare to the Good God that we believed the summer would come again, to make birth happen now as an affirmation of that faith, and an affirmation that the Good God wanted us to survive.

  We had had perhaps two days of singing and dancing and birthing, of feasting and drinking, when the tribes of human beings descended on the plain.