The Man Who Spoke Snakish (10 page)

Pärtel and I agreed to meet under the whisking-trees, which we would find by following our mothers and sisters.

It wasn’t difficult. Evidently it didn’t occur to Mother that I might suspect something, and I played my part well. I ate my fill properly in the evening as always, and scrambled to my sleeping place. Salme did the same, and a little while later Mother also got under her big deerskin, where all three of us had snuggled down in my childhood.

For a while it was silent and dark; although at first I’d been afraid that I wouldn’t hold out and would sleep through it, I was no longer afraid of that. I was as excited and alert as a swallow, and my only concern was to stay in one position, when actually I wanted to toss and scratch all over all the time. It’s terrible how the urge to scratch takes over your mind. But I forced myself to
stay still, until at last I heard Mother getting up from her position and tugging at Salme.

“Let’s go now!” she whispered.

They sneaked quietly out the door. I lay a few moments more in the same position, in case they might have forgotten something and come back. But they didn’t, so I leapt out of bed and followed them.

I saw them walking in front of me and I crawled on the damp grass like my friend Ints, trying to make as little noise as possible. Mother and Salme didn’t notice anything. After a little while they met one of Salme’s friends, who was also on her way with her mother to the moonlit sauna, and the four of them continued on their way. I stayed at their heels.

Finally we arrived at a small clearing. This was undoubtedly their destination, because there I saw other women who were already taking off their clothes and starting to climb the trees, an oak switch between their teeth. There was a rustling in the bushes somewhere and Pärtel crawled up beside me.

“Mine is already up the tree!” he whispered and pointed with a finger toward a tall spruce tree, at the top of which sat his naked mother, her white body shining in the moonlight, slowly and with visible pleasure whisking herself.

It was undoubtedly a beautiful, magical scene, but I was much more interested in Salme’s friends than in Pärtel’s mother. I let my gaze rove around, and saw the women climbing ever higher up the tree trunks against the night sky, until they found a suitable branch and settled on it, bathed in the bright moonlight, stroking their naked bodies with an oak switch, as if the moon’s golden glow were spread all over them. It was an exciting scene, and Pärtel and I stared at the naked girls in fascination. We also
saw Hiie, sitting beside her mother and swishing the little branch on her bony legs, but she was obviously not our favorite; she was scrawny, with the body of a child. One of Salme’s friends, on the other hand, had breasts like wasp’s nests! We both gulped when we saw her starting to beat herself as her tits bounced merrily up and down.

You can only imagine what a scene would have been offered by the women whisking in the moonlight centuries ago, when the forest was still full of people. The branches must have sagged under the weight of all the women. Now there were only a few whiskers, scarcely a score, including a few old women who offered no pleasure to the eyes. But they were all whisking heartily, and from the rhythm of the fall of the switches emerged a fine moonlight dust, which glowed like a living fire.

“Beautiful!” sighed Pärtel, ogling one woman who had put down her whisk for a moment and stretched out with great pleasure, thus heaving her powerful bosom farther out.

We heard an enthusiastic sigh come from someone nearby, and we flinched in fear. Who else could be lurking here? We turned rapidly around and quite near us saw a large bear, who was watching the whiskers, his head cocked, gnawing his long claws with great pleasure.

“What are you doing here?” I asked angrily, because the man within me was awakening, and no man will tolerate bears looking at women.

“I’m watching,” replied the bear. “Oh, they’re so sweet!”

“Don’t she-bears go switch-whisking?” I asked. “Why don’t you peep at them?”

“No, they don’t,” sighed the bear, who of course didn’t understand that I was making fun of him. Bears never understand
that; they are terribly simpleminded and gullible. “She-bears are not so pretty anyway. They wear a thick coat, and you can’t take it off. But these ones here are all so beautiful and sweet! As if they’d been flayed!”

“Go flay yourself!” I snorted angrily. “Go on, scram! Or go flay some goat; then it will be beautiful and sweet too!”

“I’ve tried that, and it’s not the same,” sighed the bear, who, like all bears, was not capable of taking offense. But he did toddle off a little way, raising his snout toward the treetops.

We must have been whispering too loudly with the bear, and my sister, Salme, came down from the treetop. I suddenly heard my mother’s voice ask, “Where are you going?” and I turned around. To my astonishment I saw Salme standing naked under the tree, not far away from us.

“I heard some noise,” said Salme, with a suspicious expression. “I think there’s someone here.”

She peered between the trees, and Pärtel and I pressed ourselves as deep into the moss as we could. We couldn’t crawl out anymore; Salme would have spotted us immediately. But staying put was not without dangers either. Thanks to the full moon, it was very light in the forest. Salme would only have to go forward a few steps and she would discover us straight away, and right now she was about to take those steps.

I felt a cold sweat in the back of my neck, for I couldn’t even guess what punishment might await little boys who invade a secret whisking party. The women would certainly be horribly angry that we had spied on them. My mother would of course hardly be likely to do me much harm, but I would feel so ashamed.

We wanted to dig into the ground like moles, but humans have sadly not been given that gift, and not even Snakish would help here.

Salme stepped forward two paces, and would certainly have found us the next moment, when suddenly a delicate little voice called, “Salme!”

It would have been reasonable for Salme to scream now, and even run for help. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead she muttered with a kind of shameful satisfaction: “It’s you, Mõmmi! What are you doing here—you’re not supposed to be here.”

Our ursine acquaintance came out of the bushes.

“Salme, you’re so pretty!” he sighed. “I was sitting here and I didn’t get a look from you. There are many beautiful women up there in the trees, but you’re the nicest.”

“Mõmmi, it’s not decent to watch in secret like that!” said Salme, shielding her naked body with her hands. She wasn’t angry in the slightest. I imagined how differently she would have spoken to me and Pärtel. It was actually insulting: she would have berated her own brother mercilessly for peeping at her and her peers, but with this bear she spoke in a tender and kind voice, as if he were her dearest friend. The bear came right up to Salme and licked her bare feet.

“Don’t do that; Mother is up there,” whispered Salme. “I have to climb back up too. See you some other time.”

“I’ll stay here under the tree until morning,” murmured the bear. “Let me admire your beauty!”

“You silly thing!” said Salme sweetly and stroked the bear’s head. Then she slipped back to her own tree and climbed up.

“Who was there?” asked Mother.

“Nobody,” my sister answered. She took the switch and set about swishing again, but in quite a different way than before. She was no longer bathing in the moon rays; she was performing for Mõmmi, watching down in the thicket, showing off all her charms.

“Let’s go home,” I said, angry with both my sister and the bear.

was really disappointed in Salme, and I had a good mind to tell Mother that my sister was flirting with a bear. I couldn’t do it, however, because straight away she would have wanted to know where I’d seen Salme consorting with a bear, and then I would have had to tell her that I’d been spying on the women whisking in the moonlight. So now I knew my sister’s secret, but had to keep it to myself. Even I couldn’t lash out at Salme, lest she guess that I had been in the forest that night and had seen everything. It was unpleasant.

What made the whole thing especially embarrassing was that Pärtel had also seen my sister with the bear, and kept asking me: “Are they a couple?” He didn’t do it to tease me, but it still irritated me. The fact that Salme was carrying on with a bear was shameful enough—but did the whole world have to know about it? The relations between the bear and Salme were a private family matter! I ordered Pärtel not to tell anyone what we had seen in the moonlit forest, but wasn’t at all sure that he would keep his promise.

I knew for myself how difficult that was. The secret turned in my stomach and pressed itself on my tongue—for what is the point of nosing out a secret if you can’t boast about what you know! It wasn’t just a question of Salme and the bear; we had seen a lot of other things that night that weren’t intended for our eyes. Later, when I met a friend of Salme’s, my head was spinning with the joy of victory; there she sat and regarded me as just an annoying boy, when I had seen her bosoms and bottom! If only she knew! But I kept quiet about my secret reconnaissance and only smiled strangely when Salme’s friends turned to me.

“What are you laughing at?” they would ask, but I wouldn’t answer. Instead I quickly twisted my mouth straight and ran away, so as not to betray my secret knowledge of bosoms and bottoms.

The only one to whom I dared honestly talk about it was Ints. But my news aroused neither interest nor amazement in him. For an adder, a bear and a human were quite similar creatures, and he saw no reason why they would not be attracted to each other. Nor did Ints have any opinion on the hidden beauty of Salme’s friends. Of course it’s quite natural that a snake, a creature that resembles a long smooth rope, would never see the purpose of breasts and buttocks. So Ints listened to my story quite indifferently and said that yes, he had seen all that and there was nothing special about it whatsoever.

I had promised myself that I’d visit Hiie more often, and I did. The girl was chopping up hares again when we crept out of the shrubbery, encouraged by Ints saying that neither Tambet nor his wife were at home at the moment. Hiie looked terribly tired, but when she saw us she suddenly grew downright joyful.
Though she was ashamed of her spattered apron and bare toes, which were red with hares’ blood. She hid her toes behind the large ax, and would have liked to chat with us, but the wolves in the barn kept on baying hungrily, demanding food.

“I suppose I’d better carry on working,” whispered Hiie unhappily. “Otherwise they’ll start making so much noise that Mummy and Daddy will hear.”

“And then they’ll be angry?” I asked.

“No, no!” replied Hiie, but it was evident from her face that they would.

“Let’s go and look at those wolves,” suggested Ints, and we stepped into the barn. I had never before seen so many wolves gathered together. It was simply horrible—there were hundreds of them, each in its own little stall. As we looked inside the shed, they all turned their muzzles in our direction and smacked their tongues, obviously hoping that we were bringing the hare meat they hungered for. When the wolves saw that we came empty-handed, they started again with their piercing wail, and some of them threw themselves down on the ground and rolled, to show that they were frantic with hunger.

“They haven’t eaten since this morning,” explained Hiie.

“And a wolf shouldn’t eat so much anyway,” added Ints. “They have some fat on them; some are even quite plump. Just look at that beast by the door! It’s as big and fat as a bear. Don’t feed them so much!”

“But they howl if they don’t get food,” complained Hiie.

“Let’s make them stay quiet,” I said, and hissed loudly. Naturally my voice couldn’t compete with the ululations coming from the wolves’ throats, but a properly uttered Snakish word always reaches its mark; it burns itself through the loudest
noise, and it’s impossible not to hear it. This Snakish word was intended to lull animals to sleep. The wolves ceased their clamor, yawned—showing their fangs—then snapped their jaws together and spread themselves out languidly. For a little while they eyed us sleepily, then put their heads on their paws and fell into slumber.

“Haven’t you been taught Snakish?” I asked.

“I have, but not those words,” replied Hiie, watching the sleeping wolves with fascination. “How long will they sleep?”

“Till the evening, or until we wake them. I’ll teach you the Snakish words I just used, so you can feed them in the morning and then put them to sleep, so they won’t make a noise. Would you like that?”

Hiie nodded excitedly. I repeated the relevant words of Snakish until they stayed in her mind and she could pronounce them. Then we did a test: I woke up the wolves. They got drowsily to their feet and at first were quite peaceful, but then their habit of continuous devouring came back to their minds. Noticing that they had no food, they let their throats resonate. Then Hiie faultlessly hissed the Snakish words she had learned by heart, and the wolves obediently lay down, covering their snouts with their tails, and in a moment were asleep again.

“Well, you see how simple it is!” I said. “Strange that your father and mother haven’t taught you that trick before.”

“They probably want Hiie to fatten the wolves all the time,” said Ints. “My mother always says that Tambet loves wolves more than people.”

Hiie blushed on hearing this, because we were talking about her father. She knew that we didn’t like her parents, and she felt guilty for being friendly to us. She must have also been afraid
that our dislike for Tambet might grow so great that we wouldn’t like his daughter anymore either. She could hardly have loved her father much anyway. In fact Tambet was so terribly cruel to her that she could have replied to Ints: “Yes, it’s true. He really is a spiteful person.” But Hiie was too ashamed and meek to utter such words. I never heard her say anything bad about her parents, even though she was the one who suffered most because of them. She simply felt a constant embarrassment about them, as if she were ashamed of some ugly scar that could not be hidden from the gaze of others.

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.