Rise of the Degeneracy

Prologue

Daybreak, and a silver mist has descended into the glade. Red deer hinds gather in safety on the edge of the forest clearing to witness the ensuing battle between selfish genes. A pair of magnificent stags face one another in this arena. A few strands of velvet stubbornly cling onto their antlers early in the season. Their heavy breaths evaporate into the mist. A huge reigning monarch steps forward, bellowing at his younger challenger, who in turn bows his head. Not in submission, because he rakes his tines of antler through a spongy leaf mould awaiting the first fall of crisp colour. He throws back his head in defiance, tossing the stems of burnt bracken through the air.

Burnt bracken. These two gladiators are fixed only on their rut, and are oblivious to all but the quickening of hearts. They neither seek out nor comprehend these small clues as to the origin of this convenient clearing within a wild rainforest. They’re unaware it wasn’t cleared by the usual forces of storm or disease, but through the tranchet sharpened edge of a flint axehead, and the controlled use of fire. Tools belonging to the two legged predators of their kind. The crowned king and his younger challenger focus on the duel ahead.

A pair of sky-blue eyes, concealed by the leafy cover of a tree-hide, focuses in turn on their movements in the rising mist. These eyes stare out from twisted sprays of pine, woven into the limbs of a lone oak, situated conveniently downwind of the herd. The owner of these starting blue eyes has masked her scent further with a smothering of damp, peaty, leaf mould over her chestnut brown skin. The same dark skin stretching over her youthful muscles flexed to the tension of a drawn bow string. She is Ur'salla the Huntress, Ishi of Shurak. Daughter of Ja'ankilla, daughter in turn of Marsalla, daughter again in turn of the legendary Ma'ankilla-of-the-Moon. At this moment, as her fingers are ready to release an arrow, she is the Goshawk.

Six thousand years pass by.

Most of the new diggers on this archaeological excavation can easily be identified by their shiny new hand tools. Freya's trowel is special, a scratched antique, its steel edges worn thin, with a wooden handle rubbed smooth, so it slips into a leather holster on her belt with ease. The trowel is an heirloom, once wielded in some exotic corner of a lost empire, by a great grandmother never met in life. Later, the trowel of Freya's own grandmother, who used it at the dig where she met Grandpa. These ancestral memories of ancient soils lend special qualities to Freya's simple hand tool. Almost as though the inanimate thing has a self. Some qualities are not obvious to the senses.

Freya angles the sacred trowel of the grandmother ancestor, dragging it gently over the dampened surfaces of an archaic dirt. Scraping with it another thin skin of soil. Following several more rapid scrapes, she surveys for any sign of ancient human activity. Perhaps a cluster of sturdy stones to indicate the archaeology of a post-hole? Or a patch of darkened soil, stained by the charcoal remains of a primaeval hearth?

Grandma had warned her, ‘Darling Girl, apply for the Roman dig on Hadrian’s Wall. It’ll be rich in finds’.

Instead, Freya had chosen this excavation and with it, the diggers’ poverty of prehistory. More scrapes of her magical trowel and nothing but more old dirt, was that something the blade just bounced off?

She pauses to investigate. No signs of any soil stain or of debris. Temporarily she exchanges the trowel for one of Grandpa’s old shaving brushes, and sweeps around the new anomaly. A small chunk of shiny, unpatinated, black flintstone. Something about its parallel lines doesn’t register as natural.

A male voice sounds to disturb her muse, ‘Have you found something there Freyr?’ It's her supervisor, Kieran, who’s been hovering around the trenches of other nearby students.

Frey-A she mentally reminds Kieran, but physically shrugs in answer to his question, recommencing her scrape of soil. A few minutes later, another layer is removed leaving the stone increasingly conspicuous.

Kieran frowns when he sees no sign of context in her trench. Gently, he removes the blue lid of his plastic water bottle, and takes a mouthful to rehydrate. He crouches lower to Freya’s level, and trickles a little water over the stone. This wash transforms it into a discernible artefact. Multiple facets of a translucent siliceous flint, shine between regular ridges left by flakelets purposefully struck away by some ancient human being. This relic is the remainder of a cobblestone reduced blow by blow, to produce tiny, razor-sharp blades. Then the prehistoric knapper discarded it here as being of no further use. Just as Freya herself had earlier discarded an apple core.

Forms and a clear plastic bag are magicked out of Kieran’s satchel, while Freya watches his actions. He scribbles down codes, and leans forward planting a plastic label next to the stone. Kieran opens up a bag to place the artefact into, but an object dangling from Freya’s neck reflects a dazzling sunlight into his eyes and he pauses. Often he has been criticised for spending too much time with the dead, and for being insensitive to the emotions of the living. The reflective object that had dazzled him, is a pendant on a silver chain. Cast to symbolise three phases of the Moon, the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. Kieran assesses the young digger before him. A shy quiet girl, small and petite in build. He hadn’t really noticed Freya before, except she reminded him of Velma in Scooby Doo. Mousey brown hair. Plain as if hiding from attention. Bespectacled, under a wide brimmed sun-hat. He spots a smear of sunblock lotion on Freya’s small, upturned and freckled nose, and finally, behind those wide framed spectacles, her hazel eyes are pleading with him.

Kieran recalls how he'd felt when his own first find was rudely snatched away on his first dig. When he was a spotty freshman with a smear of lotion on his less cute nose.

He clears his throat, ‘It's a waste core. Kate in the small finds tent will know for sure, but it’s the type a hunter-gatherer would have fashioned, before the first stone-age farmers arrived. Would you like to examine it before you bag it for us, Freyr?’

Her fingers tremble as they reach to grasp the artefact and lift it up to the sunlight. Freya tilts her spectacles, focusing on the beauty of parallel lines. Her fingers roll it over and around. Perhaps just as would have the fingers of the last person to hold it, as they gauged where to make their next controlled strike.

Kieran makes one last attempt at conversation before retreating, ‘It's a shame there are no other features. Go slow and steady when you resume. Well done’.

Who dropped this stone? Freya wonders to herself. Did they have a personal name? Did they contemplate the night sky? Did they laugh, dance, and cry? These sorts of questions, archaeology can rarely answer. The young student closes her eyes whilst clutching her treasure, and opens up a time traveller’s heart.

Chapter 1 - Savage

6000 years ago. Wilds of Goshawk. SE Britain

Ur’salla chooses her target and releases stored energy from the bow. Her missile flashes across the glade. The muscular, younger challenger could provide many gifts for our clan, but in this rising mist, she can see a strong spirit burning in his eyes. Better that we Children of the Goshawk take the older stag’s life, so that we can grant rites of passage to his spirit. His spirit should be more willing to join our game, whilst that of the young challenger might haunt our camp and bring us sour luck.

The arrow slicing through morning mist has been finely fletched. A smooth, straight shaft of dogwood, fashioned with an incorporated weakness to permit valued flights to snap off on impact. Tipped at the sharp end by a delicately worked microblade of dark translucent flint. Small barbs of microlith are set behind the point, in a glue made from birch resin and beeswax. Ur’salla fixed the dart by binding it together using a fine thread of sinew she spooled out from her moist mouth.

Freya, I think you should know these flint barbs and point, I gifted to her from the stone you hold in your hand.

A sudden thud of an impact, follows the flash of the arrow to trigger a jolt of pain across the hart’s nervous system. King Stag buckles, but his life-force is strong, and he regains his stand. Blood flags a deep debilitating wound into a shoulder. The maimed stag lifts up his tail in distress, inciting a wave of panic across the herd. His wives, offspring, and rival all turn and bolt in unison, a flurry of pale flagged rear ends of alarm bob up and down, as deer-kind fades into the understory. The King himself is deeply injured but adrenaline fuels his attempt to escape into the woods. His crippled gait is obvious and a trail of scarlet blood drips onto the fronds as he hobbles back into the wilds.

From the tree-hide Ur’salla boldly brays her signal for we others that a wounded quarry heads our way, ‘Ee-aw - ee-aw - ee-aw!’. She follows this with her yodel, ‘You-da, Yoo-da, Yoo-dah’.

Ur’salla isn't alone on this stag hunt. For I, Tashkilla, await with others of our small training band, concealed in hides fanning out as our net. Jamilan of-the-Sett earlier invoked the deer spirit to join our game. With skill the short, tubby elderman had inspected all signs, the browse line of leaf, tracks, and with the helpful dog nose of Sheeba, scent. The spirits of our paradise guided Jamilan in conclusion, and his prediction of both arrival and flight have been proven.

Each of us hoped Ur’salla could make a quick kill in the glade, but we all laid low desiring any wounded quarry would flee in our direction. From one hide, both Jamilan and the dog Sheeba, await, whilst another conceals the big brute, Mikko the Wrestler. Durran almost-a-Man waits by a third hide, while I, Tashkilla now stand by a fourth. Ur’salla has played her part in this game, and feels no call for haste. She descends from the tree-hide branch by limb, climbing her way down to the lowest bough of the oak, before allowing herself to fall. Bare feet land on soft leaf mould. The huntress stands tall and dark in the glade, her body long limbed and athletic.

She removes a crown of ivy from her head, and wipes away dirt from her chiselled face, and from the stubs of her short cropped, coarse hair. This action reminds Ur’salla of her mother’s nagging for her to grow her naturally, wavy, charcoal black hair, long for courting. She herself doesn’t yet crave motherhood, for our people fear the angered spirits of prey may harm unborn and infants. Ur’salla isn't only the daughter of Ja’ankilla because equally she’s a daughter of this paradise. Her feminine form is perfect in adaptation to hunting in this old growth forest of Shurak. The blood of Ma’ankilla of-the-Moon pulses through Ur’salla’s wild heart and she has no desire for the change of status. Motherhood can wait.

This might suggest Ur’salla can be stubborn, and perhaps she is. Her cousins regard her as boyish, but unlike most of our boys, she is quiet and of few words. Rather I would say my best friend here is highly intelligent, and can often be found in deep contemplation. Ur’salla is fiercely loyal to our friendship.

As the morning sun rises and gains its strength, so it prises at the remaining mist to disperse. Early glorious sunlight falls as a glow into the glade. This illuminates the form of Ur’salla striding across the clearing. Leather straps crisscross tightly over a vest, magically woven from plant fibres, supporting a sturdy backpack of birch bark. Hidden inside, a neatly folded jacket of well tailored and burnished deerhide. Her long legs are clothed with breeches of the same. Over a leather belt, Ur’salla has tucked a fox pelt as a loin cloth to protect her groin. The dead fox’s face and ears have been delicately trimmed as display.

A breeze arrives to disperse the mist, and herald a change in weather. Ur’salla reaches the edge of the woods, crouching down to retrieve her arrow flights. She whispers a prayer,

‘Thank you to the spirit of the stag, and to my arrow’.

As spectres we may both understand the meaning of her savage words. Ur’salla rises back up and calmly enters the forest. She follows the shimmers of broken, and bloodied vegetation. A variety of bird calls resound across the woods, from the tee-cha of abundant titmice, to the kee-ack of the black woodpecker. Many bird calls reverberate from the thickets where small trees and bushy shrubs promise berry and hazelnut. One such covert captures Ur’salla’s attention as she passes by. Soon the Mothers of Shurak will organise their foraging bands in search of seasonal bounty. So important is the hazel to our folk, we’ve long had a special relationship with its spirit. We may not be farmers, but the wilds function as our gardens, and we know how to encourage profitable species. Clearances such as that in which Ur’salla had earlier launched her arrow, would have had nut-seeds of hazel scattered into its ashes.

For much of the year, food is too rare in the world of I and Ur’salla. The season arriving is the most generous, with fat game, fish, berries, and nuts as gifts. The meanest times will follow, when our babies may cry with hunger. Consequently it’s important we use our time wisely to gather, then process and preserve what autumn gives to us. For now the leaves of the tree canopy change from the youthful green of summer, to the shades of fall. Soon these gusts will carpet our floors with their mosaics.

Our wild, and temperate rainforests feel remarkably different to the recent plantations of your own deforested time. Here, trees stand side by side at various stages of growth. They twist wildly without respect to the demands of any carpenter. Thickets proliferate in daylight afforded by sparse canopy, and by the collapse of ancient giants. Rotting wood provides many nest holes for our birds, bats, squirrels and the honeybees. Insects, lichens, and great spreads of fungi, flourish in variety to exploit this resource, and to serve the forest cycle. Consequently our trees grow tall, and even twisted old hazels will compete for light in the canopy.

The lime is perhaps our most common tree. Its soft, fibrous inner bark is treasured by my folk for the twisting of tough rope. Late springtime and this delightful tree bears multitudes of small, creamy flowers to populate the canopy. The flowers, along with the catkins of other kinds, attract swarms of drunken black honeybees using its nectar to flavour their produce. These bees swarm among the pale underleaves of the lime, presenting an overhead viridescent brightness through which rays of warm sunlight penetrate to reach the forest floor.

As Ur’salla strides towards a river valley, she spots other kinds. Each offers its own gifts to the children of the Goshawk. Even the Yew provides wood for our bows, along with seeds we crush as a poison. The Wych Elm are plentiful, and in places competes in success with the lime. The Oak reigns over woodlands recovering from ancient fires and from the predations of ungulates. Its acorns we process to make edible. Its bark serves us by providing tannins for our leathers. The acorns add valuable fat to the wild swine we hunt, and feed the squirrels which we snare.

Birch is critical to our economy so we encourage it. It gifts to us its parchment with which we furnish footwear, luggage, canoes, and the flooring of our dens. The birch lends us precious resins and sap for our pitch, glues, sweet syrups, and hearty alcohols.

A breeze blows across Ur’salla’s face, and she becomes aware that the sounds of birds have been replaced by rustling tree leaves and by the creaking of branches. Through a gap in the canopy, she observes the arrival of new weather as it races to shroud the sun.

A patter of small clawed feet in nearby trees, and a scuttling across a crispy forest floor, are accompanied by flashes of bushy, red tails. The presence of squirrels, looking to grow fat for the leaner times ahead. Heavier, more devious feet in the tree branches above, catch Ur’salla’s ear. She guides her eyes for them to fall upon the sly marten who intends to predate on the preoccupied rodents. The marten uses its senses to listen to the bustle of tiny feet. A fresh gust, more rustling, and a sudden thump, a heavy pine cone drops to the forest floor. The arboreal would-be predator is startled from her game. It leaps back up to higher perches, before glancing at Ur’salla in alarm,

‘See you little sister, and you see me’ she tells the marten.

The first leaves of the new season blow around, in a wind-crazed dance, before they wobble around Ur’salla.

I could suggest she’s reminiscing about our shared childhood with the Ishi of Shurak. Maybe she recalls how we would skip between the dens of our camp, and dance together around the sacred hearth? Making our first dens in the woods, where we would play with little acorn dolls.

In truth, she’s recalling how her mother would carry her as we took part in the foraging bands. There we’d accompany the mothers of Shurak, as they searched using digging sticks for pignuts, roots, tubers and flower buds during the spring. Beachcombing, for seabeet, sea lettuce, samphire, and shellfish. For wild grass seeds, berries, nuts, and fungi. We don’t take what we want from Nature. We take only what we need.

It's during such forays that the elders impart so much knowledge to the younger generations. What’s edible, medicinal, or harmful to eat. We’re well versed with knowledge of our flora and fauna. We learn how to purge away toxins, and to preserve foods. The gathering is a time of education when we fill our big brains, equally it's an extremely happy school. The bands of the wild nations echo with the laughter of children.

The Mothers claim while still infants strapped to our own parents, both I and Ur’salla would wail if separated. When we discovered the use of our feet, we joined in the middle as the terrible two. Even then, Ur’salla was the Mistress of the Hunt, and I the Mistress of the Prank. Each would support the endeavours of the other. Ur’salla would distract the adults, as I placed the tadpoles into the grandmothers’ drinking water. I, in turn, would keep watch for the Mothers, as Ur’salla would stalk frogs, only to return with a clutch of tasty water hen eggs for us to devour raw as our treat,

What’s that noise now?

Shouts of comrades and the howling of Sheeba snap Ur’salla from her daydreams. She returns attention to the hunt, and picks up her pace. She breaks into her barefoot run through a wild forest. Bow and backpack balanced and strapped tight. Ur’salla skirts around a thick understory, her eyes, feet, and nerves working harmoniously to avoid hazards of tree roots, thorns, and sharp stones. She uses her long limbs to leap clear of such obstacles. This is what we were born to do, prior to the ages of degeneracy. This is what our ancestors had always done, to experience the freedom of being at one with Paradise.

When the huntress runs towards our sounds of excitement, high above, a pair of colourful jay-birds take to the wing, screeching out in alarm. Ur’salla doesn’t pause to scrutinise. If she did so, then she’d see the graceful silhouette of a powerful hen goshawk in flight. The bird glides silently beneath the forest canopy, as if following her. Its bright amber eyes track her movements across the forest floor. If she gazes up. But she does not.

King Stag's Fall

King Stag collapsed onto a soft bed of green moss which colonises a tree-throw. The rotting remains of a root stock and trunk lay nearby as the corpse of a once ancient giant. This crater has been invaded by hopeful saplings competing to replace the dead giant, and by this dying king who pants with exhaustion. The stag’s cervine eyes are full of fear for his journey to come. Mortally wounded, and surrounded by five hunters and a dog, who serve as his deathbed mourners.

Mikko the Wrestler gloats in triumph. The injured deer chose to flee in the direction of his hide, and he'd cast the javelin to end its flight. The big brute is renowned across the folk of the Goshawk, not only for his wrestling, but for his flaws, his ego, bragging and a short temper. All are considered as poor traits among people who rely upon cooperation for survival. Neither do we consider Mikko as the sharpest flake of our ishi, so much as its hammerstone. I brace myself for his inevitable boasting, and I’m not to be disappointed by the oaf,

‘It was I, the famous Mikko, champion of all nations, who took down this magnificent hart. I was ready, spear loaded into the thrower, when hinds first came-a-bouncing either side of my station. Devious teasers who conspired to confuse my aim, but wisely, I held back’. This illeist’s roughly bearded chin juts up with his inflated pride, as he bores his audience,

‘My ears picked up on the snarling of a dog, and crashing of foliage. I caught sight of my prey, and he of his conqueror’. Every now and then, Mikko uses a lever of elm wood, used to extend his cast, to point out locations, ‘Already it was too late for this quarry. The deer tried to divert to yonder thicket. Mikko had but one slim chance to aim before those thickly set hawthorn trees over there. A fleeting moment, but the spirit of the Great Elkhunter of Old used my strong arm to launch my javelin’.

I need to stifle a yawn at this point of his new legend. Ur’salla glares with contempt at the big brute. Even poor King Stag appears put out of place by Mikko’s awful bragging.

Yet he doesn’t cease, ‘... and I brought down this magnificent prize to fall here as another trophy of the Champion of Shurak’.

The frown on Ur’salla’s face deepens, and she turns towards myself. I receive and understand her unspoken request. She wishes for me to take down this brute.

Freya, I need to pause time briefly, for an explanation of my own character may be necessary. I’ve my admirers. I’m told my eyes are bright - the left side as blue as Ur’salla’s, and the other, a rare and sultry shade of brown. My lips are full, my smile attractive. I’m aware my soft curves are more pronounced than those of my more boyish and athletic best friend, albeit we share the same rich dark brown skin.

I didn’t protest during my ceremony of maidenhood, when awarded the formal title of Tashkilla the Beautiful. Despite its intent of punishing me for vanity. Indeed, rather less lovely titles were proposed by Hungalla the midwife, including Tashkilla the Tease. Consequently I was relieved when the ishi awarded me with the Beautiful. Embarrassing as it is, imagine introducing yourself to strangers as the Tease. I must confess such a title may have been deserved of the child known as the Mistress of the Prank.

I read Ur’salla’s request, and immediately strike down the boastful brute with my sharp tongue,

‘Eh, Mikko. Was it not the skills of Jamilan and Sheeba to predict flight? How about Ur’salla’s skill with the bow? Didn’t Sheeba drive the stag up to your hide? Were the endeavours of us all, not of equal value?’

The big brute’s jaw drops as he responds with an expression otherwise reserved for a punch into his soft parts during a fight. Ur’salla fails to suppress her infectious snigger. Jamilan first sneaks me a grin in acknowledgement of the truth of my charges, before he acts to make the peace,

‘We’re behaving disrespectfully with both our boasts and our bickering’ the stocky elderman reprimands, ‘A spirit lies before us, awaiting release from pain. Mikko, would you grant the rites?’

The little elder’s words dissolve tension within our band, and make excellent use of Mikko’s abilities. He is competent even single handedly at such a task. Mikko moves behind the mortally injured deer, and using his bare hands grabs its massive crown of antlers. The stag contracts neck muscles, but fails to throw the wrestler off. Mikko’s wide arms bulge, until the deer accepts the inevitable.

Mikko leans forward, to deliver his enchantment into his prey’s ears,

‘Great Hart, you have lived well, and served these wilds of both of our kinds. We hunters of the Goshawk thank you for the game, for the gifts you bestow upon our kin. Your hide, fat, and antler will be treasured. Your flesh will fill the bellies of our children and elders. Your sinew will be used to bind our family together in love’. His chant is delivered as a rhythmic, sweet murmur, ‘Don’t fear death. Your passing is honourable and not in vain. You’ll continue to give life. Our crones and midwives will sing praises for you in the spirit wild weaves as one with this mortal realm’.

While the big man continues to hum his gentle lullaby, the deer calms in response. Panic moves from eyes as though in acceptance. Mikko dips his hand into a hide pouch on his leather belt, and produces a razor sharp flake. Using one steady movement, he firmly runs its edge across the deer’s throat. A scarlet crescent precedes a flow of blood. Panic returns to cervine eyes, prompting Mikko to resume his two handed grip. He draws back stag’s head, as young Durran moves forward to place a wooden bowl to catch the ooze of crimson. The stag kicks and thrusts violently. We know these actions to be a sign the spirit crosses over to the other realm, where it’ll be free to run through ghost wilds.

Movements subside. Heart beat ceases, and a dull fog invades motionless eyes. The King is dead. Deposed and no longer a thou, but a carcass for butchery. Mikko relinquishes his strong armed hold, picking up the bowl for his toast to the spirit. He guzzles with greed at its steamy contents, regardless of clots which threaten to gag. As an elder, Jamilan takes the next turn at the toast. He stirs the blood with a wooden fork, to lift out a sticky mass of clots. This ball of dark blood he gives to Sheeba as her toast. Gingerly, she licks at the mass. Then Jamilan passes the bowl to myself.

I, still pricked by my own criticism of Mikko’s atrocious manners, suggest, ‘The Huntress who first maimed the deer should be next’.

The little elder nods in approval. I pass the toast to Ur’salla.

She raises the bowl to her lips, tips back, and allows the warm liquid to soothe her dry throat. Ur’salla now ogles me in the eye, and I smirk back at her bloody grin. She dips her fingers into the contents, and reaches to smear stag’s blood across my forehead, down the bridge of my nose onto my lips. Her fingertips dance for a moment, before she retrieves them. I don’t flinch once during this game, but stand still while she steps back to admire her art, breaking out in laughter.

She chortles, ‘Tashkilla, the bloody Beautiful!’

I catch Durran almost-a-Man, staring at the two of us with his jaw dropped in astonishment. I can turn this joke onto him. My eye meets with his, and he turns away, as he stutters out in embarrassment,

‘Wh… wh.. When is it my turn?’

Aware this younger boy has a crush on myself, I seize the opportunity to tease him. Mustering up my most seductive manner, I attack,

‘Your turn with what Sweet Durran? Perhaps you mean with the blood? Or do you mean with me?’ I swagger my hips.

Poor Durran blushes before blurting out in alarm, ‘Wi… wi.. With the blood, with the blood!’

While Ur’salla sniggers at my taunting, Jamilan comes to the rescue of the boy, ‘Don’t worry about these she-wolves. Come help we men raise up the prize for draining’. He points to a strong limb of a nearby elm, ‘We can use that bough there’.

Three males soon have the carcass suspended in the tree. Durran receives rites, and eats from the still warm heart of a rutting stag. At the close of this ritual, Jamilan suggests,

‘There’s time on this day to return our prize, without needing to camp out. That would avoid attracting the attention of hungry bears or wolves, who might wish to steal’.

We feel disappointed, as there had been hope we might camp and feast upon the liver.

The elder sweetens the suggestion, ‘Why don’t you three youngsters make your way down to the stream at the bottom of this valley, and enjoy some bathing? I and Mikko can prepare the carcass for transportation’.

In my spirit form I know Jamilan has other motives for his offer. A headache. Later he'll add willow to a hot tea brewed with hawthorn. That’ll soothe a sore head. I think too many negotiations between a bully and a taunt have antagonised his complaint. As for the suggestion of a bath, he has no wish to return to camp, to be savaged by the lashing tongues of three notorious mothers of Shurak. Charged with returning their babies caked in mud and blood.

We accept by running down the valley sides, and reach the riparian terraces bordering the stream. The channel itself is typical of the rivulets of Shurak. It meanders wildly from east to west. The alder tree dominates this local environment, with willow keeping it company.

Large, hairy black boar and sows thrive here. These swine wallow in their mud baths, where red breasted robins follow in the wake of snouts and trotters, hopeful of stealing a worm. Many trees here have been felled, not by the stone axe heads of our kind, but by the long, yellow gnashers of beaver kind. Their industrious works permit sunlight to reach and promote lush, leafy vegetation prospering on the fertile and moist margins. The chewed tree stumps left by the beaver regenerate as coppiced affairs. During summer, flocks of birds descend onto this scrub, feeding and to nest. Warblers, nightingales, and other songbirds provide beautiful music for our ears to enjoy.

The streams themselves make fair use of their floodplains. Their waters filter through the roots of the woods and underlying chalk beds to make themselves crystal clear. From the ponds and dams of beavers, meandering streams flow over gravel banks. Our clean waters are favoured by the eel, trout, chub, and pike. Soon, the salmon will run.

Our small bathing party tiptoes closer to trees to avoid stepping into black mud. One vandalised victim of an ambitious beaver lies on its side to overhang the running waters of the stream. Camp is soon established by this felled tree, and we strip off our hides, and garments. Ur'salla and I are soon naked, except she clings onto her precious moonstone, suspended by a cord around her neck.

Tattoos are important markers of ethnic identity to mesolithic savages. Ur’salla herself bears the mark of Mother Goshawk on her right shoulder, as do I. We were both given this mark by Hungalla at our ceremonies of maidenhood. But Ur’salla has a circle on her forehead, and this mark I don't share. It signifies her special descent from union between Moon and Bat. For events such as feasts and festivals, Ur’salla smears this circle with a white paste. It's this descent she proudly displays with her moonstone, a small pearl white pebble with a natural perforation. We two young maidens dare each other to enter waters just tepid enough to raise goosebumps across our skins.

Ur’salla shouts to both I and Durran, ‘Race you to the middle’.

I join her in the waters, before suddenly, a naked almost-a-man sprints along the log to launch himself into the stream with a great splash. I’ve been caught unawares, ignorant of Durran’s brazen attempt of vengeance. Taking advantage of surprise, he dives beneath the surface of the water, grabs my legs, and upends me into the stream’s flow. I’m carried a way downstream before I can regain composure. Only to hear Ur’salla’s raucous laughter as she betrays me,

‘Well done Durran!’

I have water in my eyes when my brave predator body slams me back over. Freya, between yourself and me, I can tell you only the chilly waters conceal the crush of Almost-a-Man! We three innocents continue to screech with delight, until the squat figure of Jamilan appears by the tree log.

He beckons us, ‘Come now, it's time to return’.

We clamber back ashore to dry and to dress. On our return I feel relieved to see how busy the two men have been. The carcass no longer suspended from the elm, lies on the forest floor. Its spliced limbs wrapped around a carrying pole. Sheeba’s muzzle is bloody from treats as she guards our prize. A few offerings from a conservative butchery decorate the limbs of nearby trees. The loud call of a raptor draws my gaze up to see an enormous eagle, warding off a mob of greedy buzzards.

We strap on our luggage ready for a triumphant return to the camp of Shurak, and move into position to lift up the pole. Whilst we adjust the weight to our shoulders, Sheeba runs ahead. The Mothers will welcome us back in awe of our prize, before busying themselves by processing its gifts.

We strap on our luggage ready for a triumphant return to the camp of Shurak, and move into position to lift up the pole. Whilst we adjust the weight to our shoulders, Sheeba runs ahead. The Mothers will welcome us back in awe of our prize, before busying themselves by processing its gifts.

Today has been a superb day for us savages to belong to this paradise. A day when an elder, a wrestler, two maidens and an apprentice boy, return from a training hunt with the carcass of a magnificent rutting stag. In a world where we're still fully conscious we people are just one leaf on the Oak of Life. No more nor less than the wolf, the birch, or the little bee. Equal expressions of one universal life and consciousness.