The Saga of Erik the Viking by Terry Jones

Author:Terry Jones [JONES, TERRY]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
ISBN: 978-1-84365-262-5
Publisher: Pavilion Books Company Limited
Published: 2013-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

THE TALKiNG VALLEY

ERIK AND HIS MEN travelled on until they came to a green valley full of blue flowers. Thorkhild sniffed the breeze and said, ‘There is something curious about this valley.’

But they set off across it, until they came to a tree leaning over a clear pool. ‘I have never seen such a tree before,’ said Erik. ‘Look! Its bark is lined with gold!’

‘So it is!’ cried his men, and they seized their knives and began to strip out the gold from the bark of the tree. But suddenly a gentle voice stopped them. ‘Don’t!’ it said.

Erik and his men looked all around them, but they could see no one, so they shrugged and carried on. And then the gentle voice spoke again. ‘Don’t!’ it said, ‘for I will die.’

Erik and his men looked at each other. Then they looked behind the tree, and then they looked in its branches.

‘I must be dreaming!’ said Erik. ‘But it seemed to me as if the tree spoke.’

‘How can a tree speak?’ cried Sven the Strong, and he took his knife again, and began to strip out more gold from the bark.

‘Do not kill me,’ said the gentle voice once more.

‘Who are you?’ cried Sven the Strong, letting go of his knife.

‘I am the tree that you are wounding with your sharp blade,’ replied the voice.

‘What sort of country is this,’ cried Erik, ‘where trees can speak?’

‘This is the Talking Valley,’ replied the tree. ‘In it you will find many wonderful things, but you can do much harm.’

‘What sort of tree are you?’ asked Erik.

‘I am a Stone Tree,’ replied the tree. ‘My bark is seamed with gold, my branches are shot through with silver, and my leaves are veined with fine filigree, but all my fruits are stones, and when summer ends my back is almost broken by their weight.’

‘But how is it you can speak?’ asked Ragnar Forkbeard.

‘I can speak no more nor less than any tree,’ replied the Stone Tree. ‘It is just that you can understand, for all who touch the gold from my bark can ever after understand all plants.’

‘Is that true, grass?’ asked Erik.

‘It’s true!’ whispered a million tiny voices, and a million blades of grass waved together in the wind.

‘But this is more wonderful than anything I have ever seen or heard before!’ exclaimed Ragnar Forkbeard, and he bent down and heard a daisy singing in a high voice:

‘I am bowing to the sun

And when my day is done

I shall turn away and wait

For my friend to come, to come.’

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