Kris

by J. J. Ruscella

  The Sami respected the wolves but knew how deadly they could be to the reindeer herds. Thus the wolves became their adversaries in the struggle to live within their natural surroundings.

  The fur of the wolves, along with their hides and carcasses, were used, as the Sami used all things, to make tools and protective garments and as food for themselves or their animals.

  On the night of our return from the great reindeer migration, large fires were built, and a feast was prepared. They lit braziers of Agarwood, a rare evergreen that grew in the sacred places of the Sami. When we stopped by one of these sacred groves where no trees should grow this time of year, Pel led me into its heart and taught me its mystery. The ground was strangely warm with no or little snow, and the air was heated with a damp mist. Pel warned me away from places that spat scalding water to the sky. From time to time the whole area would rain large drops of tepid water. In the grove there were a few trees that had been attacked by mold. Prior to the effect of the mold, Agarwood is pale. Once infected, however, the evergreen produces a dark, aromatic resin that permeates and transforms the tree into a very dark and dense resin embedded heartwood. I had never heard of or seen anything like it. Pel explained to me that the transformed Agarwood was then used as an incense and that it held unique mental and physical healing properties.

  The Sami men sat near the fire, and many held drums made from reindeer hide stretched and laced across oval birch frames. The drums were decorated with a symbol of the sun in the center, which was surrounded by the representations of the animals and sacred places revered by the Sami. Each drum was different and designed to tell the story of its owner and the world surrounding his family and his life.

  The men held small hammers made from bone or antler, which they used to strike the drums and make a rhythmic, enchanting music. It reminded me of how we would gather as a community to sing Christmas carols, and I told them as much.

  “Juovllat,” Pel said, and others in the circle nodded in agreement.

  “Juovllat? Christmas? How do you know of Christmas?” I asked, confused.

  Pel took the drum from the closest man and showed me once again his story, how it began with a star, a crude drawing of a small child and two lines that formed a rough cross. As the men passed around their drums, I saw that every story began with these three symbols.

  “He is the tree that was cut down only to grow again,” Pel said.

  “How do you know this?”

  “It is part of our story.” He shrugged. “Many moons ago, before the memories of our grandfathers’ grandfathers, a great noiadi leader of the Sami followed a star to the child’s side. He watched the tree grow until it was cut down, and then to its rebirth. We did not see him again.”

  “If you did not see him again, how do you know this?”

  “His spirit speaks to us,” was his straightforward answer, and I was never to learn more. To him it was just a simple truth.

  The Sami sang through the night, and the music put us in a wistful mood. When the music faded to completion, Pel moved near the heart of the fire, lifting his drum and striking it slowly as he sang in conversation to the spirits of the animals, so he might travel in their ethereal world. He sang about the wanderings of his people, the beauty of the world, and their place among all things. He thanked the animal spirits of those sacrificed along the way and said they were now part of our spirits as we were part of theirs. He thanked the reindeer that had always helped the Sami in their spiritual quests and formed the basis of their lives.

  As Pel passed deeper into his ritual drumming and song, he began a long and colorful Yoik, which I learned was an improvised song known to bestow upon its subjects a greater strength and blessings, as it described their personalities and important characteristics.

  What I did not know was that the song he was to sing that night was mine.

  He spoke of the way I had come into their world, and the magical gifts I had made and shared with his people. He sang of my journey with the Sami and my help in protecting and providing for the reindeer. He sang of my big love and devotion to my family and my bravery in fighting off the wolves that had attacked us so fiercely. And he sang of my efforts to save his life and protect all the Sami people.

  When he finished, he told me this song was not about me. It was me. I was its owner. Forevermore his people would sing my song and remember how I had become a part of their world, of the earth and the sky, and the places reindeer fly.

  Pel placed a silver ring on the skin of his drum and watched the way it moved and danced and spun on the drum when he struck it with a small hammer made from a reindeer antler. When the silver ring at last completed its journey, Pel said to me, “We are children to the father of miracles, we shelter beneath the tree that grows again, we are reindeer herders. Will you walk the snow with us?”

  It had been difficult to make toys during my first year in the village, when I was learning so much from Pel and the others. Pel could see I was determined to get back to my calling and one day as the spring thaw was underway, he came to me to discuss an important matter.

  “Now time to build home,” he said. Then he looked me over with a studied eye. “Must be big home, for big family and big love.” Then he laughed to the point of falling and rolling on the ground.

  Pel assembled his best craftsmen: Haakon, Eilif, Baldur, Roald, Vidar, and Flem to assist me in collecting the large and thick tree limbs and sticks we would need to support the walls and coverings of our dwelling. He showed me how to clear and prepare the ground to make a proper base. Then he decided I should have a specially designed home that combined adequate living space with adjoining rooms for Gabriella, a carpentry to house my tools, a barn for Gerda, and windows so I could always see the beauty of the world.

  “You have learned way of reindeer,” Pel told me. “But this no job for you.” Then he picked up a toy wolf lying on a flat board where I had carved it. “This your job,” Pel said. “We make reindeer. You make toy.”

  “That wolf is my gift to you,” I said to Pel. “It is the sign of your power over them. They may threaten others, but will never harm your spirit.”

  Pel and his men helped me collect the materials necessary to build our new home and carpentry. They taught me the ways to bend the key supporting branches so they would continue to hold their shape as they dried and how to interlock them to add strength to the wall supports. They showed me all the types of sticks and tree branches that would serve to make the best wall panels and how to peel the birch bark needed to fill in the spaces in the walls that reindeer pelts and the turf would eventually cover.

  They also emphasized the importance of the fire pit and the circular opening above it, which was our doorway to the spirit world and the place through which our smoke would rise into the skies. This was the center of our home, like our hearts that glowed warm to sustain us.

  When the frames had been constructed and the wall sections detailed, the men began to cut and brace the windows and their shutters and roll large sections of turf, which was applied in sheets and chunks to coat the outer walls. It was monstrous. The main room had a tunnel with bedrooms on either side which opened up into a huge space larger than Josef’s carpentry. The stables were at the back end with a huge tarp covering a hole large enough for a horse. One day I will build a door large enough for a sleigh. I needed to start with something smaller until I figured out how to unify our village design structures with the Sami’s earth homes. So I fashioned a large door of wood planks which I had cut large enough to accommodate my own comfortable entry.

  Pel was impressed when he first saw the door, which was the only one of its sort in the village, where canvas was the covering of most entryways.

  “You wise like big bear,” Pel said to me. Then he laughed as he opened and closed the wooden door and brought many people to see the ways I fitted the wood together, with strong joints and polished panels. His greatest joy of all was the image of the flying reindeer I had carved into the cent
er of the door as a symbol of the reindeer people who had shared their homes and village with my family. It was also part of a joke between Pel and me because he often described the reindeer as flying, which I had taken to tease him over.

  Pel held a ceremony to welcome my new home and carpentry to the village, and the people who came to visit and inspect the home of the flying reindeer brought us furs and hides to comfort us and keep us safe as we journeyed into the night-land of our dreams.

  Pel and the men pounded on their drums and sang a song of the powerful reindeer that transformed their lives and traveled as spirits above the earth and below. They sang of the blessings they would bring to all the reindeer people.

  When the song was finished, I surprised Pel with a gift to thank him for his instruction and guidance in building this home and for the way he had opened his heart and his village to us. Sarah and Gabriella had wrapped the gift in soft animal furs and tied it with birch bark bows and sprigs of flowering plants and herbs, which delighted Pel beyond our expectations. He walked among his people and held the package out to them so they could see the beauty of its presentation and the pride he felt upon receiving the gift. The villagers crowded in to share his delight and gaze upon the wondrous gift. Then Pel placed it on the ground before them to unwrap it. The villagers pressed in again to see what was hidden inside.

  Pel held his people in suspense as he folded back the layers of the wrapping slowly and carefully to preserve them. Then his face took on a glow as brilliant as the northern lights as he threw back the covering to reveal a glistening bowl drum, which I had carved from the heart of a beautiful burl wood knob I had discovered in the forest.

  In the center of the drum’s bowl, I had carved the sun and surrounded it with the Sami’s symbolic images I had learned from questioning and study. Beginning with what was intended to be the top, I placed the star and began the story of the three wise men as I imagined it. Beside the star was a mountain. Atop the mountain sat a great noiadi shaman in view of the star. Next I had carved a sacred grove and the noiadi picking the sacred wood. This I now believed to be the holy incense brought to the feet of the Christ child. I showed great stretches of strange terrain and two occasions when the noiadi gained the company of a fellow follower of the star. When the great journey ended, I showed him kneeling as one of three gift givers at the feet of an infant surrounded by animals who lay about the child. This completed the first half of the drum, and at the bottom I bisected the drum with the two rough lines of the cross. I then told the story of Pel and his people, their village, and the reindeer that are the essence of their lives. Next to Pel I had carved the image of his beloved dog Enok, standing over the wolf he had conquered.

  “It is as we see it,” Pel said to me, filled with the solemnity of the night’s experience. “How do you know this to be true?”

  “The spirit speaks to me,” I replied, which was the simple and honest truth.

  Pel sat before us all and made music from the drum and sang a song of the reindeer flying and of me upon their backs. He sang of toys, and he sang of Juovllat, and he sang of all the blessings and big love his people would enjoy in this world and beyond.

  Chapter 6

  The Great Delivery

  One day, we awoke to find Pel and the Sami villagers gone. They had moved out to follow the reindeer on their ritual migration path.

  Pel was adamant that I spend my life and time creating the toys that he knew to be my passion, yet I could not help but feel a deep sense of loss due to his absence and the separation from our people and the reindeer.

  As the months and years went on, Pel and the Sami and the reindeer would return to our village and depart again in a constant process of change and growth that reflected the cycle of life around us.

  I worked to establish my carpentry and build the toys I wished to share with the children in a similar cycle of giving and exchange.

  Sarah and Gabriella learned the lore of the land and excelled at gathering the plants and materials we would need. The carts, sleds, and furniture I built we shared with Pel and his people and the traders who would on occasion visit us and restore our supplies.

  Time passed in the wink of an eye and before I knew it I found myself a man of nearly 34 years, blessed with many new and fruitful memories to replace the dark and distant days of my youth.

  Each year, like the trees around us, I seemed to grow in size as I added to my experience. I was by now a broad man with a full, red beard and ruddy cheeks kissed by the cold wind that danced across the snowpack.

  Throughout the years, in addition to the objects I crafted and carved to trade with others, I built fine chairs and tables and other essential furnishings, which stood in stark contrast to our earthy dome-roofed home. Of course, I also made as many glorious toys as I could produce to share with others in many faraway places.

  As I entered our living quarters on one blustery day after a long and busy journey, I kicked the snow from my fur-lined boots and hung my heavy red coat on a wall peg. Sarah had looked after me with such a passion and wished me always to stay warm, and each year she made me a new coat of bright red fabric lined with thick, warm fur to protect me from the elements.

  I warmed myself briefly by the fire and settled into my sturdy rocking chair, which was positioned in such a way that I could bask in the warmth of the hearth and read and write in my journal by the light of the fire.

  After reviewing some of the most recent journal entries, I held it close to my chest and rocked slowly in the chair until I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  I awoke to feel the slender fingertips that slipped across my shoulders and chest, then up to my beard. I let the fingers roam, then snatched the hand and tossed my journal next to the inkwell on the table. Like a bear fishing in a mountain stream, I reached around, grabbed Sarah from behind, and pulled her onto my lap.

  “Kris!” Sarah screamed.

  I chuckled and held her close, cuddling her and cherishing her warmth.

  “You have to be careful with me,” Sarah admonished.

  “Do I, now?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to my rough, wild girl?”

  “You spoiled her and made her civil.”

  “Shame on me. Perhaps I should take you out to follow the reindeer once again?”

  Sarah brought her face near mine, and we rubbed our noses in a gentle show of affection. Then she turned away from me and scooped up my journal from the table.

  “You write more every year,” she said.

  “There is more to write every year,” I replied as I playfully snatched the journal from her.

  “What will you do when the pages are full?” Sarah asked.

  “I’ll have to write on you,” I told her as I dipped my fingertip in the inkwell.

  Sarah giggled and ran from me, shrieking as I chased her threateningly with the dripping ink.

  Triumphant, I trapped her on the other side of the room.

  She gently caught my hand as I held my ink-stained finger out to touch the tip of her nose. “If you want to write on me, you’ll have to take me with you when you go to check in on the children.”

  “Then you’ll have to wake before the sun tomorrow!”

  “Tomorrow? You have more to do?”

  “Well, the family is getting bigger. Yesterday’s babies are today’s fathers and mothers, and we are spreading farther along the countryside.”

  “I was worried, Kris.”

  “Sorry I was so late.”

  “Well, as long as you keep away from the dangers of the mountain passes.”

  “How many times must I promise?”

  “How many times will you leave me?”

  Our eyes met and I could see her genuine concern for my safety.

  “I’m preparing a gift for you, and you have to be around to claim it,” she said. Then she pushed my ink-stained finger back onto my own nose and escaped as I trailed after her.

  “What is the g
ift?” I asked as I pursued her.

  “A secret.”

  I grabbed her again and held her close. “Give me a hint,” I said as I tickled her with my inky fingers.

  “Stop it! You’re ruining the dress.”

  “Then tell me,” I said warning her.

  “It will be ready by Christmas.”

  “Christmas?”

  “I think so.”

  I lifted her from the ground and tossed her up into the air as our play continued.

  “Stop, Kris. You’ll hurt the baby.”

  I let out a gasp of astonishment then set her down very gently. “Oh, Sarah,” I muttered softly.

  “As I said, you’ll have to be careful with me now.”

  Gabriella peeked in from a back room. Her snowy white hair and wrinkles born of infinite smiles had transformed her now completely into the grandmotherly figure I had first imagined. “Does he know?” she asked with excitement.

  “Gabriella!” Sarah said, playfully cautioning her.

  “How long?” I asked.

  “Three months. I wanted to be sure.”

  I rested my hand on her belly. “That leaves six months, mother. I have six months. He’ll need a crib. You’ll need a changing table. And his toys, oh, the toys!”

  Sarah fluffed my beard with her hand. “One thing at a time, that’s how we get things done.”

  Gabriella reemerged to lure my dear Sarah away so she could learn how I had responded to the news.

  “I could use some help with the baking,” Gabriella said to her with a wink.

  “I’m coming,” Sarah sighed.

  “Oh, no hurry,” Gabriella chortled with a smile.

  I stroked Sarah’s face, and she gave me a little kiss on the cheek and then skipped off to assist Gabriella.

  I crossed back to the table where my journal rested and picked it up, slowly flipping through the pages. Then I closed its cover and placed it on the stone shelf, which rested near the base of the wall.