Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Finally Ülgas got tired of Hiie’s fussing and told Tambet that he had freed the child from the sprites’ spell, but the girl would only start drinking milk in ten years’ time; that was how long the sprites’ curse on her would last. Obviously Ülgas hoped that in ten years’ time Hiie would be drinking milk for some reason, or had died anyway by then, or even that Tambet had died by then, and the fulfillment of the sage’s promise could not be verified. After all, ten years is a long time, and anything can happen in that interim.

In any case Ülgas the Sage inadvertently saved Hiie’s life, because if the torture of the girl had continued, she would have given up the ghost. Now Tambet was reconciled by Ülgas’s words and no longer forced poor Hiie to drink milk. But he could not love a child who did not behave as the ancient order had prescribed, so he hardly spoke to Hiie at all, and always looked at her with a vague sense of revulsion, as if there were some fault in her.

My lessons with Uncle Vootele continued. We didn’t practice Snakish so much anymore, as I was quite skilled at it, but we wandered in the forest, sometimes the two of us, sometimes with Ints too, draped like a ribbon around my neck, chatting about the land and the weather. Uncle Vootele talked about everything that had once been and was now gone forever. He pointed out overgrown shacks in the bushes, whose residents had either died or moved to the village, and told me what mighty old men and stern old women had once lived out their lives in those structures. Hundreds of years ago nobody could have imagined that one day those hovels would lie empty, their walls crumbling and their roofs caving in. We broke through the undergrowth and toured the ruins of these abandoned shacks, finding lots of traces of the former owners. Often we encountered a whole preserved household — crockery, knives and axes, chests of animal skins, and other chests full of gold and precious stones. In ancient times they had been plundered from the ships that used to sail our coasts, whose crews were destroyed by the Frog of the North. It was strange to touch brooches and precious stones that had once come under the giant shadow of the Frog of the North. It felt as if something of the warm flames that came from his mouth was still preserved in them.

We left everything we found exactly where it was, because we had no desire for the skins, the crockery, or the treasures. We already had everything we needed — the fortune we had amassed through the generations down the centuries. So we climbed back out of the decaying ruins, and the bushes covered them like the thickest cobwebs.

Sometimes in our wanderings we did meet living people, however. They were mainly old people, sitting in front of their little hovels, dozing in the shafts of sunlight that fell through the canopy of the trees. Uncle Vootele would chat with them and the elderly folks were happy to respond. They told us about their lives and everything that had once existed when Uncle Vootele was just a boy. The sight of Ints gave them great pleasure, too, and they hissed Snakish words quite competently with their toothless mouths, asking Ints about some snakes they had known in their time. Ints told them as much as he knew, but mostly he had to admit that all those snakes had died long ago, because adders do not live as long as humans.

“Yes, of course,” the old ones agreed. “They must be dead by now. That whole world that we knew is dead now, and we’ll die soon too, and that will be that.”

I really wanted to find out more about the Frog of the North from these old men and women. I was fascinated by the Frog. I really wanted to see him, but I knew that it was no longer possible to call him up with strong hissing as in the olden days. Surely, though, he must live somewhere; after all, he still existed, and was just sleeping, as Uncle Vootele had told me. But where? Uncle didn’t know; even he had never seen the Frog of the North. Yet those old people remembered him; in their childhood they had seen the Frog of the North rising in the sky, and one hoary old gent, with a body like a skeleton, had even seen combat in the shadow of the wings of the Frog on the seashore.

“Oh what a battle it was,” he muttered, smiling his creepy, scrawny smile, his skin so very thin that you could see every detail of the jawbone in his skull. “The Frog of the North killed them all, or scorched them half to death, so we only had to chop them to pieces and gather up the booty. Those were the days!”

“Where does the Frog of the North live?” I asked.

“Under the ground. But where exactly, that I don’t know. That is known only by the watchmen, those who have the key. Without a key it isn’t possible to find him.”

“What watchmen?” I asked. “What kind of key?”

“The key leads you to the Frog of the North,” the old man explained. “Of course, I haven’t seen it; it’s a very secret thing. The only thing I know is that there are some watchmen who have access to the cave of the Frog of the North, but who those watchmen are, I don’t know. They must have been people like us, but who exactly, that’s never been revealed. It’s a secret, and no one has stuck their nose into the Frog’s business. He was our strength and power; we only knew that he was resting somewhere deep down and would rise when we all called on him together. We didn’t need to know any more; that was enough. Those were the days!”

Later, when we had gone and left the old gaffer dozing in front of his cave, I asked Uncle Vootele if he knew anything about the watchmen and the keys.

“I’ve heard about them,” said Uncle Vootele. “But I think it’s the same sort of nonsense that the Sage of the Grove spouts. Well, all that business about fairies and sprites. They’re the sort of old legends that are made up just to find a simple reason for every complicated thing. No one wants to admit that they’re foolish. The Frog of the North appeared in the sky from who knows where, and disappeared again who knows where. But people couldn’t be content with that! Humans can’t stand things that are outside their reach. So they made up a story about some watchmen who know the Frog’s hiding place, and a key that leads to that secret place. A thing like that comforts people. They don’t know where the Frog of the North is sleeping, but there are some people who do, and with the help of a mystical key it’s possible for them to find that magical cave. Thanks to that kind of legend, the world becomes simpler and clearer.”

“No one knows where to find the key,” I said.

“Yes, but there’s even a legend about that, which the old man didn’t tell you. I’ve heard a story that at the summer solstice, when the sun is farthest in the sky, a fern bursts into flower, and that flower is the key that helps to find the way to the Frog of the North.”

“So the fern blooms?”

“No, of course not. A fern never blooms, but it’s nice to believe that you only need to wander in the forest and find a fern blossom on solstice eve, and the key you need is there. Of course, even finding the fern blossom is no joke, and the legend does say that finding such a blossom is very rare, but even that faint hope is much better than knowing that the dwelling place of the Frog of the North cannot be found in any way, even by standing on your head or doing a somersault. People always want to leave a little possibility; no one can be satisfied with inevitability.”

Uncle Vootele was right, for I was not satisfied with that story either. Of course I respected my uncle greatly and believed everything he told me, but since I so terribly wanted to find the Frog of the North, I convinced myself that this time he was wrong. What if there was some key? It was much more exciting to believe that than my uncle’s words. Since the solstice was soon coming, I told Pärtel everything I had heard, and invited him to come with me in search of a blooming fern. Pärtel agreed immediately, but Ints declined.