Winter's Tales (3 page)

The snow bear looked around at the hard cold silver ice, then she sat down on her bottom and refused to move.

Lars pulled on her iron chain and told her all about the wonders of the palace, the generosity of the king and the splendours of the city. None of which he had seen, all of which he had dreamed about.

But she sat firmly on her large white bottom and wouldn't move. And a snow bear is very heavy if she doesn't want to move.

Lars kept tugging, chatting cheerfully about the king's palace and dangling raw meat in front of her.

Eventually the snow bear shrugged, stood up and followed Lars.

And they walked together over the ice, then through forests, to the mountains and water of the lands where it is not winter all year round. But as they walked south, it became winter there too, as if the bear had brought the snow with her.

They walked through the frosty mountains, Lars hunting for food for them both.

When they reached the farmlands at the edge of the mountains, a blizzard began. The cold howling storm didn't bother the bear at all, but Lars was getting tired, his boots were wearing thin, and it was taking longer than he thought to reach the king's palace.

Through the swirls of snow, he saw the lights of a farmhouse. He and the snow bear walked up to the door, pushing against the wind and snow, and Lars knocked.

A farmer and his daughter opened the door.

“Can we shelter with you tonight, please?” asked Lars.

The farmer shook his head. “I'm sorry.
Even though this is Christmas Eve, we can't welcome guests.”

Lars said, “Are you worried about the bear? She'll be fine. She's on her way to be the king's snow bear, and she's been as gentle as a kitten all the way here.”

The bear smiled, showing all her teeth. The farmer backed away, but his daughter smiled, at the bear and at Lars.

“No,” said the daughter, “it's not the bear. It's the trolls. It's Christmas Day tomorrow, and the trolls will come and eat our Christmas feast. They break in every year, wreck our furniture, rip our curtains and attack anyone who stays in the house. So we leave them our feast to distract them from destroying the house completely, and we hide in the mountains until they've gone. You can come with us to the mountains, if you like.”

Lars sighed. “I've just walked through the mountains. I don't want to go back. Anyway, I'm not scared of trolls and neither is this bear. We'll stay here and show them what happens to trolls who ruin a family's Christmas.”

So the farmer and his daughter went to their freezing cold hiding place, leaving Lars and the bear in the house, with a huge Christmas feast piled on the kitchen table.

The travellers were both tired, so Lars curled up in a corner and the snow bear curled up under the table, and they went to sleep.

Then the clock on the mantelpiece ticked round to midnight, and the trolls arrived. Eight huge, green-skinned, warty-nosed, hairy-handed, pot-bellied trolls with incredibly stinky feet crashed through the door. Lars slid deeper into the shadows, more scared of trolls than he'd admitted.

The trolls slumped down round the table, they slobbered and snottered all over the food, they held burping contests and sang rude songs, and they prodded each other with cutlery and bones.

Then the wartiest troll looked under the table. “Oi! Look! A pretty white cat! I wonder what roast cat tastes like?” The troll prodded at the white animal with a long spoon.

The bear opened one eye.

The troll prodded her again.

The bear stood up.

As she stood, the table and the feast rose up on her shoulders. When she straightened her spine, the table and the feast slid down her fur and crashed onto the floor.

The bear reached her full huge height and roared.

She stretched and broke the thin iron chain that Lars had put round her neck. She swiped her heavy paws in a circle, knocking all the trolls to the floor.

She roared again, giving the trolls a closeup view of her long sharp teeth.

The trolls shrieked and ran out of the door, whimpering about scary cats, leaving nothing behind but their stink.

Then the bear lay back down to sleep and Lars tidied up the mess.

When the farmer and his daughter returned on Christmas morning, Lars said he had an idea to stop the trolls coming back. As he explained, the farmer's daughter smiled at him again. And Lars decided he wasn't interested in seeing the king's palace after all.

So Lars stayed at the farm and married the farmer's daughter.

And the snow bear? She had never been interested in gold chains and warm comfort, so she waved goodbye to Lars and followed her own trail back to her icy silver home.

Next Christmas Eve, Lars put a sign on the farmhouse door:

Our white cat has just had kittens
.

Free to good homes in the spring
.

So the trolls went somewhere else for their Christmas feast.

I hope it wasn't your house…

Tsimshian folktale, Canada

It was the darkest month of winter, food was scarce and the people of the Tsimshian tribe were huddling together to keep warm and cheerful. But the wind was shrieking and howling around the village, which made the children cry and the old folk shiver.

“That's not just the wind,” said a boy.

“Yes it is,” said his grandfather.

“No, there's another howl in there. Not the
angry wind, but something sadder. Something scared. Something in pain.”

Everyone listened. There wasn't much to do but listen to the wind, apart from shiver and rub their empty bellies. The wind howled again. But now they could hear something else, a thread of another howl, just beyond the edge of the wild wind.

“It's a wolf!” said the boy. “It's a wolf howling.”

The tribe shivered even more. They were cold and weak and didn't want to worry about a pack of hungry wolves circling the village.

“But it's only one wolf,” said the boy. “And it sounds scared. It sounds like it needs help.”

The wolf howled again, the sound suddenly clearer during a lull in the wind.

The boy stood up. “I'm going to help the wolf.”

“No!” said his grandmother. “You can't help a wolf, because you can't trust a wolf.”

But the boy heard the lonely howl again and left the village. He walked into the forest,
ignoring the swirling of the wind and snow, following the sound of the sad howls. Soon he could hear whines too.

Then he saw the wolf. A big grey wolf, slumped in the middle of a clearing, with red-rimmed eyes and heaving ribs. His howls were as loud as a storm now the boy was so close, but his whines were soft and gasping.

The boy looked at the wolf. The wolf looked at the boy.

“Do you need help?” asked the boy.

The wolf whined.

The boy walked up to the wolf.

The wolf opened his long fanged jaws and the boy saw a spike of bone sticking out of the back of the wolf's swollen throat.

The boy looked into the wolf's yellow eyes, then put his right hand carefully into the wolf's mouth and pulled out the jagged bone.

The wolf collapsed onto the ground, drops of his blood spotting the snow.

The boy nodded to the wolf and turned to go. At least the whining and howling had stopped.

But as he walked away, the boy was knocked to the ground.

He rolled over in a panic.

The wolf was standing over him, teeth bared in a snarl.

You can't trust a wolf, thought the boy.

Then the wolf lowered his furry grey head and rubbed it against the boy's chest. The wolf looked up again, teeth still bared. But perhaps, thought the boy, it was a smile, not a snarl.

The boy stood up, said farewell to the wolf, and walked back to the village, to join his hungry huddled family.

The next day, over the constant howl of the wind, he heard another howl close by. Then he saw the big grey wolf, trotting round the village.

So the boy went out to meet the wolf. The wolf led him into the forest, to a newly slain deer, which the boy
dragged back to the village for his people to roast and eat.

The next day, the wolf called him again. But this time the wolf didn't show the boy a dead deer. This time, the wolf showed the boy how to hunt. He showed the boy how wolves hunt: how they track their prey, how the wolf pack works together, how they move silently and wait for the right moment.

So the boy learned to hunt like a wolf, and every day that winter he brought fresh meat back to his village. Then, when everyone was strong enough, the boy taught the rest of the Tsimshian tribe the secrets of the wolf hunt.

The tribe were so grateful for the good food the boy brought during the winter and the new hunting skills the boy taught them that when he grew to be a man they gave him a new name.

They called him the Prince of Wolves.

And though he was an important and powerful man in the tribe, the Prince of Wolves still liked to spend most of his days in the forest. Hunting, with a big grey wolf.

Yamana myth, Tierra del Fuego

The Yamana people of Tierra del Fuego live in the rocky lands at the tip of South America, closer to the South Pole than any other towns and villages on earth.

Every year, they know winter is ending and spring is on its way when they see the ibis woman Lexuwa, with her long curved beak and her long red legs, fly over their villages.

One year, when an old man sitting at the door of his hut saw the ibis flying towards his village, he was so happy that he stood up and yelled, “Look! Here comes Lexuwa the ibis! Winter is over! Spring is here!”

The villagers ran out of their huts. Everyone shouted and cheered. The children bounced up and down, squealing and shrieking. They all pointed their fingers at the ibis and shouted, “Look, the ibis! The ibis brings spring!”

But Lexuwa the ibis woman was shy and she didn't like people looking at her or shouting about her or pointing at her.

So she turned round and flew away, taking spring with her.