Andrus Kivirähk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish

Naturally we didn’t think Hiie was to blame for having a stupid father. On the contrary, we liked visiting her all the more for it. It gave us a chance to turn the screws on Tambet. He wanted his precious wolves to be feeding all the time, but we put them to sleep and in that way were snatching Hiie from the cage her parents had built for her — the big ax and constantly replenishing piles of hares for her to chop up. We visited her every day, and Tambet and Mall couldn’t work out why the wolves had become so sleepy and no longer ate in the daytime. They even stayed at home to keep watch, but hissing Snakish words doesn’t take much time, and Hiie always found an opportunity to utter them, thus proving to her parents that the wolves went to sleep even when the couple were at home.

Finally Tambet invited Ülgas to come — who else! The sage came and examined the wolves, who were alert in the mornings and bayed as if frenzied, but while Ülgas and Tambet went into the bushes behind the shack to find out whether the Forest-Mother or the tree-sprites had anything to do with the wolves’ sleepiness, Hiie hissed the Snakish words, and when the men came back into the barn, all the wolves were sleeping the sleep of the just.

“It’s the work of the sprites,” said Ülgas. “No doubt about it. I can guess what the trouble is. Tambet, old friend, the baying of your wolves is apparently disturbing the tree-sprites’ sleep. You know that the sprites sleep in the daytime, and they are disturbed by the noise from those benighted animals. So they put the wolves to sleep. You’ll have to get used to it; the sprites mustn’t be annoyed!”

Tambet was satisfied, for when it came to the sprites he was meek as a kid. It would not even occur to him to go against ancient customs or the word of the sage. What did amaze me, though, was that neither Ülgas nor Tambet had thought that Snakish might be behind the wolves’ behavior. To tell the truth, I had been sure that they would soon work out our trick, wake up the wolves, and forbid Hiie from putting them to sleep again. Ülgas and Tambet knew Snakish, and although the hiss needed for putting animals to sleep was not one of the easiest, it was not such a rare and unfamiliar hiss, unlike those taught to me by Ints’s father, the king of the snakes. Ülgas and Tambet should certainly have known that hiss. But for some reason the possibility that the wolves had been put to sleep with the aid of Snakish words didn’t enter their heads. That was odd.

Only later did I understand that although Ülgas and Tambet hated all those who had settled in the village, they themselves no longer really lived in the forest. They were disappointed and angry to see the good old sylvan life gradually dying out, and to overcome that they clung to the especially ancient and secret ways. They cherished spells, sought a way out in the invented world of the sprites, and no longer cared for ordinary Snakish words. To them they seemed too weak; they had not been able to keep people in the forest, so must be of no use. Ülgas and Tambet thought that only sorcery was worthy of attention, but since the snakes knew that there is no such thing as sorcery, Ülgas and Tambet wanted nothing more to do with them. Not even the Frog of the North would have satisfied them. They believed they had found something altogether stronger, and they kept on about their sprites and Forest-Mothers, imagining that they preserved ancient values. They had gone just as far astray as the people in the village. But they never appreciated that.

In any case, more peaceful days came for Hiie, since Tambet and Mall reconciled themselves to the wolves having to sleep in the daytime. It was what the sprites wished. In the mornings they got restless if the wolves were awake too long making a noise, since they feared that the sprites would be annoyed and that they would have to bring sacrifices to restore peace. A few times, at our request, Hiie delayed putting the wolves to sleep, and we hid in the bushes, stifling laughter while we watched Tambet and Mall running anxiously around the barn and trying to somehow calm down the terrible baying so that the revered sprites of the forest could sleep peacefully.

Finally Hiie would hiss the necessary word to the wolves. “Thank goodness!” said Tambet and Mall happily, not noticing what their daughter had done, and went about their own business. They did not try to find another job for Hiie instead of feeding the wolves — or more correctly, they forgot to. Nor did they pay much attention to their daughter. This didn’t bother Hiie much. She could go and play with us, and often spent the whole day in our company — something that would have been completely impossible before. We wandered everywhere with her, home to my place and to the snakes’ home, and visited Pirre and Rääk to look at the lice. I believe that Hiie had never had such fun before as that summer.

Since the time when Pärtel and I went to the village and were almost stunned by the miraculous things we’d seen in the home of Johannes the village elder, we had not visited any village people. More than five years had passed since then. Although at first I had been burning with enthusiasm for the bread shovel and the spinning wheel, this passion had cooled with the years. I had experienced other interesting things, had learned Snakish with the help of Uncle Vootele, and had grown to like life in the forest more and more. For a long time I had been able to think of the spinning wheel and the shovel without any desire. I had grown up and become more sensible, and understood that there was no need for such tools in the forest. The village no longer interested me much at all, it was something alien and distant, a place that I could conceivably visit again, but was in no hurry to.

For a long time, Pärtel and I had not talked about the village or recalled our old adventures, because plenty of other things had happened in our lives. Ints knew nothing about the village, apart that the villagers didn’t know Snakish. Adders regarded such creatures with supreme contempt — unless they were hedgehogs, which they also disdained, but feared as well. They had no reason to fear the villagers, because those people could not withstand snake poison, so that adders always felt themselves their superiors.

Now, when we had Hiie with us, Pärtel and I got the idea of going back to the village. We had taken Hiie around the forest with us and shown her everything we knew and Hiie had never seen. We enjoyed the girl’s enthusiasm hugely and wanted to keep surprising her, but we had almost exhausted all the exciting things in the forest. So we began to think about the village, Johannes the village elder, and his daughter, Magdaleena.

“Let’s go and see them,” I suggested, and Pärtel agreed immediately, all the more so because Hiie resisted and looked really frightened. Tambet must have told her dreadful things about the village at home. Hiie knew, of course, that her father spoke badly about many things, including me and my family, but she did really fear the village. Of course that increased our keenness to take her there — for what could offer a boy more enjoyment than to drag a trembling and reluctant girl in the direction of apparent mortal danger! One can show off one’s courage, but when it finally turns out that the danger is not real danger, you can laugh happily and say, “I said there’s nothing terrible here; you’ll even like it here. Haven’t we shown you interesting things?” And so we weren’t worried about Hiie’s timid objections. We took her with us, and Ints came as well, because he had not visited the village, and thought that one adder should get to know everything there is to be found in and around the forest.

We got to the hillock where you could see the whole village, including Johannes the village elder’s cabin, which was closest to the forest. Hiie said nothing; she just panted, and when I took her hand I felt that the girl’s palm was covered in sweat. Evidently she was really afraid. She had never gone out of the forest before. The sun was behind the clouds, but still she was astounded by the light and space, a kind she had never encountered in the forest. She looked imploringly at me. Obviously she would have liked to scuttle back among the trees, but I was merciless. So Hiie submitted to me, just as she had always submitted to her mother and father.