by Terry Deary
‘Who made these pictures?’ Willow gasped.
‘Your father,’ Rainbow told him.
‘But how?’
The woman sat on the floor of the cave beside some small stone pots. ‘I would grind up coloured rock in these. Then I added water and your father put the colour on the wall... sometimes he dipped moss in the colours, sometimes he filled his mouth with the colour and blew it through a hollow bone.’
‘They’re wonderful,’ Willow said. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
Rainbow nodded slowly. ‘This must be your new home. You are safe from Bull down here. I will bring you food and water each day and new fat for your lamp.’
‘And will you mix the colours for me?’ the boy asked.
The woman laughed softly. ‘You want to make pictures the way your father did?’ she asked.
‘I want to try,’ he said.
‘Good. The tribe needs someone,’ she told him.
‘Do they?’
‘Oh yes,’ she went on. ‘The pictures tell the story of our lives. Look, there are hunters chasing horses,’ she said pointing to a group of black figures with spears. ‘The great spirits see them. It pleases them. They give us luck.’
Willow ran his finger around the dry paint in the bowl and frowned. ‘We have had no luck. Today we did catch a bison... but our leader Flint died.’
Rainbow nodded her head wisely. ‘Yes, because no one has been making new pictures since your father died. You must try, son.’
Willow breathed in deeply. ‘I have never been a powerful hunter,’ he said. ‘But this feels good.’
‘It’s what you were born to do, my son. Your father would have taught you once you were old enough, just as his father taught him. But he died too soon. You must teach yourself. You can do it. The great spirit will guide you.’
Willow nodded. ‘The great spirit will guide me. I can do it.’
‘Rest tonight. Tomorrow you start. I will bring you food and mix your paint at sunrise.’
And so Willow began his new life in the great cavern.
7
Deer
As winter grew colder, Willow was warm enough in his cave. It was warmer than the huts of the village when the wind blew cruelly from the north.
Each day Rainbow brought him food and news. Each day he painted more and drew scenes that he remembered. His mother raised a lamp and looked up at the painting he was finishing. ‘That man is falling,’ she said.
‘Yes, it is Flint when he was charged by the bison. He was a good leader. I want to remember him.’
Rainbow nodded, silent.
A week later she hurried in with fresh meat, still warm from the roasting fire. ‘It is working, Willow. Your pictures are pleasing the spirits. They have sent a herd of horse and deer into the valley. They sheltered from a rain storm. But the rain made the earth slide down the hillside and blocked the end of the valley.’
Willow nodded, eager. ‘So, if we build a fence at this end, the horses and deer will be trapped. We won’t have to go over the mountains to hunt. We can take them one at a time to get us through the winter.’
His mother nodded, ‘That was Owl’s idea. The tribe will be well fed this winter.’
Suddenly a deeper voice rang through the cave. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding little Willow, is it?’
Rainbow swung round and the lamp shone into the small eyes of Bull. He stepped down the slope to the floor of the cave.
‘Sorry, Willow,’ the woman said quickly to her son. ‘I was so excited I forgot to look to see if I was followed.’
‘I said I would kill you,’ Bull snarled.
Rainbow rose to her feet and blocked the young chief’s path. ‘This is the cavern of the spirits. Willow is in their care. If you hurt him, you will anger the spirits. And when the spirits grow angry the whole tribe will suffer. Winds will blow down our huts. Snow will block us into the valley till we freeze and starve. And the tribe will blame you, Bull. The ones who live through the winter will say it was all Bull’s fault.’
The hunter looked unsure. His voice turned to a whine. ‘I didn’t say I would harm poor Willow. I mean, I did say that. But I heard what you said about his paintings bringing us luck.’ He looked around the cave and wondered at the paintings. He saw the image of the falling man. ‘Poor old Flint.’
‘He will be remembered,’ Willow said.
Bull whispered. ‘Will I? When the spirits take me twenty winters from now – will the tribe remember me?’
Willow smiled. ‘They will if I draw you hunting deer. If I draw you running fast as a horse with your spear in your mighty arm.’
‘My mighty arm,’ Bull sighed and his eyes shone orange-yellow in the light of the flame. ‘Oh, Willow, we grew up together. You were always my dearest friend. I have missed you since you fled from the village. Will you come back with me now?’
Willow nodded his head. ‘I love this work but I do feel lonely. It would be good to see our people again.’
Bull nodded, eager. ‘I shall hunt and you shall paint. Together we shall rule the tribe.’
‘Together?’ Rainbow asked.
‘Yes. Willow shall be the chief when I am away hunting. Will you do that, Willow?’
Willow looked at his mother and there was laughter in her eyes. ‘I could do that,’ he said.
Bull’s round face shone, happy. ‘And when will you paint my picture on the walls of the cave of the spirits?’
‘Tomorrow, Bull, tomorrow,’ the painter promised.
Bull marched up the ramp into the cold evening air. Willow looked at his mother, who was staring into the gloom as if she could see the great spirit there. ‘Be happy, mother.’
She sighed. ‘I can be happy for you, Willow. I can be happy for me. But I am worried for the men and women of this world. How will they ever last through time?’
‘Why shouldn’t they?’ the boy asked.
Rainbow looked at the back of the vanishing Bull. ‘Because the people with power are all such fools.’
Willow shook his head. ‘Let’s go home, mother. Let’s go home.’
The True Story
In 1940, during World War II, four teenage boys were hunting in woods in Lascaux, France. Suddenly, their dog vanished into a hole at the foot of a cliff face. They climbed down and rescued the dog.
The hole was the entrance to a cave. They had discovered one of the greatest cave-art displays of all time: the Lascaux caves. The boys kept their secret for a week and then told their teacher. Experts went into the caves and said the paintings were 17,000 years old. Visitors flocked in. They carried their germs with them, and these formed a green mould all over the ancient artwork. The caves were closed and sealed.
The Lascaux caves were painted in the New Stone Age. The deeper parts of the cave were lit by lamps that burned animal fat, but the New Stone Age people didn’t live in the caves and we don’t know why they painted the animals and humans. It may have been a message to their gods, asking for good luck with the hunt.
The main colours used were reds, yellows, and blacks. The painters used coloured rocks that they crushed and painted onto the walls of the underground passages. Some were drawn with fingers dipped in the paint, and some with sticks charred in the fire (charcoal). The Stone Age artists also made brushes of hair or moss. Sometimes they blew their paint through a hollow bone.
The caves contain 2,000 paintings of animals, humans and symbols. The pictures show a lot of horses, cows, bison, deer and creatures like cats. One of them shows a hunter being killed by a bison: a falling man.
This story tells how that man may have died, and how the first pictures were made. It is just a story, but the caves and the wonderful paintings are real.
YOU TRY...
1. PAINT
You can find pictures of the Lascaux Caves in books or on the internet. They look simple – but try to make copies in the same way the Lascaux artists did, and you will find they were very clever! Take a large sheet of paper or card. Use just thr
ee colours: red, yellow and black. Use a straw to spray paint, a cloth to dab it on, or your fingers to smear the paint. Could you be a cave painter?
2. REPORT
Imagine you were one of the French boys who found the Lascaux Caves in 1940. You have just reported it to your schoolmaster, and he asks you to write down exactly what happened before you forget. Write your report in 200 words or less.
3. PLAN
Draw a map of an area of countryside. It has hills and a valley with cliffs on either side, a stream and a forest, a village (where you and your tribe live) and footpaths that have been worn out of the grassland by animals. On the plan, there are a few horses in the valley.
Stone-Age people would creep up on the animals; then they’d drive them over the cliffs. To do this, they’d have to work as a team. When you have drawn your plan, share it with a friend or two. Plan how you could work together to drive the animals over the cliff so you can eat them!
Here’s the catch: you can only use five words, no more! (Maybe ‘you’, ‘me’, ‘cattle’, ‘run’, and ‘cliffs’ – or a different five of your own.) Now share your plan with your hunting friends. If you use more than five words, you lose!
Terry Deary’s Stone Age Tales
Look out for more exciting stories set in the Stone Age!
BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
This electronic edition published in 2018
Text copyright © Terry Deary, 2018
Illustrations copyright © Tambe, 2018
Terry Deary and Tambe have asserted their rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: PB: 978-1-4729-5031-4; ePub: 978 1 4729 5032 1; ePDF: 978 1 4729 5030 7
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