The All Father Paradox by Ian Stuart Sharpe

Author:Ian Stuart Sharpe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Outland Entertainment
Published: 2018-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

ENTRY SIXTEEN

WHEN THE TREE WAS FINALLY brought to my attention, I wondered how I could have missed it. It was a giant among monsters. One hundred feet all round—if not more—and hundreds of feet high. There was simply no way to tell; it was so tall that I wondered how it might pull water from the soil to such extremities. It had a fibrous, furrowed bark, red in hue although tending to much darker patches. The root systems were gnarled and intricate, intertwining with others across the whole glade. I asked Herra Dahl to take an axe to a branch, but he barely made a scratch.

When the Dreamer appeared, it was only to confound me further. He explained that my guides had misinterpreted him, and that the tree wasn’t just that one colossal trunk, but a whole village. I surmised by this that he meant each tree to be an offshoot of the first: I have already observed that heavy snow may push a tree’s low-lying branches to ground level, where they take root and prosper, growing anew in the spring.

At my request, the Dreamer regaled me with his people’s sagas. He informed me that the world was created by a raven flying over water, who, finding nowhere to land, decided to create islands by dropping small pebbles into the water. Nonsense, of course, but one may note the honored place of Odin’s own heralds. The raven then created this tree, and then he made the first man and woman out of wood and clay. The raven once conversed daily with the tree but had long since flown away. The Dreamer then stated, in his own language of clicks and sighs, that I was to sing to the tree. As I have mentioned, I have an ear for the music and know something of the incantations of the Finnar. Upon seeing that he was serious in his intent, I decided to humour him.

I had not proceeded more than three notes in imitation of the Finnar, when the conjurer joined me in my melody, banging his drum steadily, like the fall of feet along a trail. He too began to chant. I was dimly aware of the Beaver folk dancing around me and then felt a tremendous shaking throughout my body, followed by a rush of sweet, summer fragrances and the humming of bees. I have spent many nights trying to describe the sensation that came next. In Finnmǫrk, I observed young children sleeping in leather cradles, without any thing like swaddling clothes, enveloped in dried bog-moss and lined with the hair of the reindeer. In this soft and warm nest, they are protected from the most intense cold. For the longest moment, I felt transported into this land of slumber, safe and secured.

To my intense and increasing fascination, I then found myself somewhere else entirely, still trembling without the means to control my limbs. My surroundings were intimately familiar—the little corner of my family garden in Vittaryd, which I had so diligently cultivated as a boy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.