Winter's Tales (9 page)

Venezuelan legend

Caribay was the daughter of the chief of the Mirripuyes tribe, but people said that she must really be the daughter of the sun and the moon. How else could anyone explain the brilliance of her eyes, the gleam on her skin and the shine in her long black hair? She seemed to be made of light.

Caribay knew she was beautiful. Every day she dressed to show off her beauty. She wore
beads on her clothes, bone collars round her neck and flowers in her hair, all to make herself more beautiful than anyone else in the mountain tribes.

One day she was at the riverbank, searching for shiny pebbles to sew onto her poncho, when she saw five white eagles fly overhead.

She had never seen anything more beautiful, not even her own reflection in the water. The eagles were so elegant and their feathers gleamed so perfectly white.

Caribay was jealous of their beauty. “If I had those white feathers in my hair, then I would be even more beautiful than the sun and the moon.”

She followed the eagles as they flew higher into the mountains. She tracked their shadows on the ground, hoping the birds would grow tired of flying before she grew tired of following.

The five white eagles flew higher and higher. Caribay was a fast runner and a nimble climber, so she kept pace with them for hours, but eventually she began to tire.

So she shouted, “Oh sun in the sky, I am told that my beauty echoes yours. Help me trap these eagles so I can pluck their feathers and become as beautiful as you.”

The sun watched the girl chasing the eagles, then he sank below the horizon so she could no longer see their shadows.

Caribay sighed and continued to follow the eagles in the dusk, tracking their pale gleam in the darkening sky and the sound of their occasional wingbeats in the air.

And she yelled, “Oh moon in the sky, I am told my beauty echoes yours. Help me trap these eagles so I can pluck their feathers and become as beautiful as you.”

The moon looked down and saw that the eagles were tired of being chased by the girl shrieking behind them. So the moon threw down her rays to touch the eagles.

The five eagles settled on the five highest peaks in the Sierra de Merida. The eagles stayed still, their white feathers edged by moonlight, as Caribay scrambled towards them.

“Well done, moon, at least you're more use to your beautiful daughter than the sun,” she gasped, and she reached up to yank out the first eagle's tail feathers.

When she touched the eagle's tail, she screamed, because it was not soft and warm like feathers should be. The eagle felt solid and cold.

The moon had changed the eagles into the icy peaks of the mountains.

The eagle turned round slowly to look at Caribay, its beak sharp and hard as a blade, its eyes shining with the chilly light of the moon.

Caribay screamed again and ran down the mountain. “I don't want the white feathers any more,” she shrieked. “Just let me go home.” But she couldn't find her way home. She ran round the mountains, lost in the dark, screaming and shrieking.

As she ran and shrieked, the eagles shook themselves and settled more comfortably.
When they moved, their smallest feathers fell, whirling cold and white through the air.

Those feathers were the very first snowflakes.

Caribay never found her way out of the mountain tops. As she ran and shrieked, she became the spirit of the wind. So now, Caribay is often heard but never seen, which is very frustrating for a girl who loved to show off her beauty.

The white eagles still live happily on the tops of the five highest mountains. All year round, the eagles can be seen as five gleaming white peaks.

And in the winter, when the storms rage round the mountains, and they hear the shrieks of Caribay trying to find her way home, the five eagles shake and settle. Then their white feathery snowflakes fall, covering all the lower mountains in the Andes.

And people agree that the mountains and the snowflakes are far more beautiful than Caribay ever was.

Norse legend

Almost nine hundred years ago a shipload of Vikings sheltered from a snowstorm in a stone-age tomb called Maes Howe in Orkney. As they waited, surrounded by ancient bones, rather than telling ghost stories, they carved graffiti on the walls. Amongst the runes about beautiful women and hidden treasure, one of the carvings is about a Viking hero called Ragnar Lodbrok.

Ragnar Lodbrok sounds like a very heroic name, until you realise that Lodbrok means ‘hairy trousers'. There really was a Viking hero called Ragnar Hairy Trousers. And this is how he got his name…

Long ago, a Viking king was riding through a forest when he saw something glitter. Vikings love treasure, especially other people's treasure, so he jumped down from his horse. But the glitter wasn't coins or jewels – it was an animal. A little shiny animal, with sharp golden scales, big purple eyes, tiny fluttering wings and a long snaky tail. And when it sneezed, it sneezed sparks.

It was a baby dragon.

It was a very cute baby dragon. So the Viking king picked it up, balanced it on the front of his saddle and took it home to his castle as a gift for his daughter Thora.

Thora was delighted with her pet dragon. She cuddled it and stroked it and fed it herself every morning.

At first, because the dragon only had tiny teeth and little jaws, she fed the dragon
ripped-up raw rabbit. (Thora was a Viking princess and she didn't mind a bit of blood on her hands.)

Soon the dragon was bigger, and Thora didn't have to rip up the rabbit. She just threw whole rabbits into the air for the dragon to catch and eat.

When rabbit wasn't enough to fill the dragon's growing belly, Thora started to feed the dragon chopped-up raw sheep. (Thora was a Viking princess, and she was quite handy with an axe.)

Soon the dragon was so huge that Thora didn't need to chop up the sheep. All she had to do was peel off the sheepskin every morning. (Dragons don't like getting wool caught between their teeth.)

When sheep weren't filling the dragon's belly either, Thora decided it was time to go to market and buy a herd of cows.

But on the day she left the castle to buy the cows, no-one else was brave enough to feed the dragon breakfast. So the hungry dragon ate one of the castle gardeners.

The king wasn't pleased. He decided to banish the dragon to the far northern wastes. He raised his arm, he pointed to the northern wastes and he shouted at the dragon.

But dragons don't usually do what they're told, and this dragon didn't want to go to the far northern wastes, because there wasn't enough food there. So the dragon flew to the top of the highest mountain in the land and made a lair.

Then the dragon swooped down every day to grab farmers from the fields or fishermen from the fjords, and take them up to his lair to eat them.

Soon, no-one wanted to farm or to fish, for fear of being eaten by the dragon.

Eventually, with his people hungry and afraid, the king sent out a proclamation: “Anyone who can rid us of this dragon will win half the kingdom and the right to ask Princess Thora for her hand in marriage.”

Half a kingdom is a prize worth having and Thora, when she washed her hands, was a lovely princess. So lots of heroes arrived at
the castle, all equipped with horses, armour and lances.

They rode one by one to the mountain, left their horses at the foot, and climbed up, with their shiny metal armour and their long sharp lances.

When the first hero climbed to the top, the dragon saw him coming. The dragon opened his huge jaws, and the dragon breathed fire…

Inside his fancy shiny metal armour, the hero baked, like bread in a bread tin. And when the hero was all nice and crunchy, the dragon ate him.

So the next hero started to climb up the mountain, with his shiny metal armour and his long sharp lance. The dragon saw him coming, and the dragon breathed fire…

Inside his heavy metal armour, the hero roasted, like a parsnip in a roasting tin. And when the hero was caramelised and soft in the middle, the dragon ate him.

After a few more baked, roasted, grilled and fried heroes, suddenly there weren't so many heroes keen to climb the mountain. In
fact, there was now only one person left who was prepared to climb the mountain and take on the dragon.

His name was Ragnar, and he wasn't a hero or a prince or a warrior. He was a kitchen boy in the king's castle. But he had liked Thora for a long time, and he wanted the chance to ask her to be his wife.

Ragnar didn't have a horse or a lance or any armour. All he had was a key to the kitchen.

So one winter evening, he crept into the kitchen and he found a broom handle, some string and a carving knife. Then he crept up to Thora's chambers, and he asked her for three of the sheepskins she had peeled from the dragon's breakfasts. Thora gave Ragnar the best sheepskins she had, and she gave him a smile too.

Then Ragnar walked through the long winter night, all the way to the mountain, and he climbed the mountain in the dark. When he was near the summit, he sat down by a mountain stream and he started to cut the sheepskin with the knife.

He cut himself a pair of trousers, a jacket and a big hat with flaps. He pulled the clothes on, woolly side out, so he was wearing fleecy fluffy sheepskin all over.

He tied the knife to the end of the broom handle to make a spear, and he put the spear down by the side of the stream.

Next, Ragnar lay down in the stream, with only his nose poking out, and he stayed in the water until the fleece was soaking wet.

Then he climbed out, picked up the spear and stood very still by the stream.

And as his breath froze in front of him in the cold winter air, so the water in the fleece froze too.

Ragnar had made himself armour of ice.

As the sun rose, he climbed to the summit of the mountain.

In the light of the sunrise, the dragon saw him coming and the dragon breathed fire.

But Ragnar's armour of ice kept him cool as he walked towards the dragon.

So the dragon breathed fire again. Hotter, redder fire.

And Ragnar's armour steamed a little, but inside the icy fleece, he stayed cool.

The dragon breathed fire again. His hottest, reddest, fiercest fire.

And clouds of steam billowed off the armour of ice as Ragnar walked forward. But inside the armour of ice, Ragnar stayed cool.

The clouds of steam blinded the dragon, and while it couldn't see, Ragnar took one last step forward and drove his spear into the dragon's heart.

The dragon fell down dead.

Ragnar used the knife to cut off the dragon's head.

Then he walked back to the castle carrying the head to prove he had killed the dragon. But as he walked back, the rising sun warmed the air, and Ragnar's icy armour finally melted. So he was squelching at every step by the time he reached the castle.

When he walked into the Great Hall, with the dragon's head dripping blood and his sheepskin armour dripping water, he won himself a new Viking hero name.

Ragnar Lodbrok, Ragnar Hairy Trousers.