Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

“Mother won’t let me have the wolves killed! They give us milk.”

“Your mother will have to get used to it, because her son has done evil!”

There was no trace left of the kindly old granddad; with his burning eyes and whiskers trembling with rage, the sage more resembled a rat standing on his hind legs. “A mother is responsible for her son. And she is guilty too, because if she went to the grove every week as she should, and took you with her, she would know that one has to be very respectful to sprites, and you would know that too. In the olden days people went to the grove every day, to show respect to the powerful forces of nature and to earn their goodwill and friendship. Then it wouldn’t have occurred to any brat that he could throw a filthy louse into a sacred lake. Leemet, terrible things will happen to you if you don’t respect the sprites! Even I can’t placate the nature spirits if you anger them with this shameless behavior. You really would be better off listening to me, instead of befriending Primates and snakes too much. They may be our brothers, of course, but they’re quite a different breed.”

Ülgas’s talk had scared me. Did I really have to bring all our wolves to the lakeshore, so that the sage could slit their throats and buy the friendship of the lake-sprite with their blood? What would Mother say? We needed the wolves. Of course we could get new animals — there were many abandoned wolves whose masters had moved to the village trotting round the woods — but that kind of much-traveled wolf didn’t give much milk. It would take a long time for them to get used to a new pack. And anyway, replacing the wolves would be inconvenient and I had a very bad feeling in my heart. In the end I wasn’t to blame that the louse rushed into the water. I tried to explain that to Ülgas, but he said that it didn’t matter, since the lake-sprite was angry anyway, and that awful things would happen if he wasn’t given wolves’ blood. He commanded me to be at the grove with the wolves at exactly midnight, adding that in the olden days wolves alone would not have sufficed. In olden days the guilty party — meaning myself — would have had to be cut into pieces and thrown into the lake. But he, Ülgas, was such a skillful sage and such a great friend of the lake-sprite that he was able to placate the sprite with wolf flesh alone. Or at least he would try.

This kind of talk terrified me even more. What if his attempt failed and Ülgas decided to sacrifice me to the sprite after all? We sneaked away from the lakeshore, leaving Ülgas muttering some spells.

I had a very bad feeling, as any child would who has done something naughty and now has to go home to tell his mother. At the same time I knew that the sooner I got this horrible business off my shoulders the better. I wanted to pass the decision on to my mother. Let her tell me what to do: whether to go at midnight to the lakeshore with the wolves or not.

I asked Ints and Pärtel to take the louse back to Pirre and Rääk, while I ran home.

t home, Mother was waiting for me, her face beaming with pleasure.

“Leemet, guess what I’ve brought you today!” she asked conspiratorially, and immediately announced, “Owls’ eggs! Two for you and two for Salme.”

I felt even lousier. Owls’ eggs were my favorite food, and it was by no means easy for Mother to get them, because at that time she was getting fat, and climbing up a tree to an owl’s nest with a frame like hers was quite a feat. To tell the truth, it was always frightening to watch Mother climb, because you felt that at any moment the branch might break under her weight and she would fall and break her bones. Uncle Vootele had told Mother that she shouldn’t climb to the treetops like that, that I should go in her place, but Mother replied that she knew how to choose eggs, and anyway she liked being up in the trees.

“A bit of movement and exercise can only do me good,” she said, and I often heard her calls as I roamed around the forest and saw her gesturing from some terribly high top of a spruce, a broad grin on her face. Mother was astonishingly nimble when it came to searching for delicate morsels for her children, and food generally.

All those dangers that Mother had to overcome in fetching owls’ eggs made the delicacy especially precious, and I was dreadfully ashamed that in return for the eggs I had nothing to offer except the news that her wolves would that night have to be taken to the lakeside and bled to death. I mumbled that I was terribly glad about the eggs, though I didn’t start eating them, but slipped quietly behind the table and waited for the opportunity to talk about the louse and Ülgas.

At the same time, sister Salme was enjoying the taste of the owls’ eggs, slurping greedily and licking her lips. I felt envious watching her, seeing that her brow with its white hair was not furrowed by trouble, unlike mine. Mother noticed my strange expression and asked if I was sore anywhere.

“No,” I said. “But … Look, I want to tell you something.”

“Eat up your eggs first,” Mother suggested. “And then I’ll bring you a cold flank of venison to the table; you can’t have eaten anything today. Where do you run around all day? Were you with the snakes?”

“Mother, I don’t want to eat now. I was at Pirre and Rääk’s today …”

“Why do you go there?” Salme interrupted me. “I think they look horrible. Why do they go around naked all the time? It’s obscene! I get sick in the tummy when I see that lot. That Rääk’s breasts hanging down to her navel, dangling like two great hairy oak leaves. And Pirre has such a big tool that when he sits he takes it in his lap; otherwise his willy lies on the ground like a tail and the ants get inside.”

“Salme, what are you saying?” gasped Mother. “Why do you stare at such things anyway?”

“How could I not stare, when he shows it off to everyone? That’s just why I’m saying it. I think it’s horrible! I get a pain in the tummy when I see those two. And then there’s their bottoms! They don’t even have hairs growing there! Completely bare and purple, like two big berries in a bunch!”

“Then close your eyes,” said Mother.

“Why should I close my eyes? Let those apes put something on their arses! My eyes don’t bother anyone, but their thingumybobs are completely gross! Other girls say it too. Just thinking about Pirre’s dick and Rääk’s tits makes you lose your appetite.”

“Well, don’t think about them then!” exclaimed Mother. “I don’t think about them at all. I never see them; they don’t move around the forest much.”

“Luckily!” snorted Salme. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Leemet invited them around here one day. He hangs around those apes all the time. Leemet, I’m telling you: if you bring those purple-arsed Pirre and Rääk around here, I won’t be sleeping or eating in this house anymore!”

“Oh no, Leemet won’t be inviting them,” Mother assured Salme. “And they wouldn’t come either. But what were you doing there, Leemet? What’s so interesting there?”

“They bred a louse the size of a goat,” I said. “And Ints and Pärtel and I took it for a walk.”

I took a deep breath, because now I wanted to get the whole horrible story off my chest, but Mother and Salme wouldn’t let me. For a while they debated why anyone would need to breed a louse the size of a goat, and whether such a louse would be dangerous to humans, and whether Salme dared to go out in the forest at all.

“What can it do to you?” wondered Mother. “You can shout at it, or hit it with a pinecone. That’ll send it running.”