Yule Log

Deep in the forest where the snow masks the ground, a trail of footsteps leads to a round mud structure with branches and moss for a roof, and even this is now interred in snow. There is a doorway hung with ropes of roots and leaves bound together, winter daisy chains of browns and dark reds. A man dressed in a belted tunic of coarse fabric over knitted undergarments, pushes aside the curtain and calls. He is carrying a wooden bowl filled with a porridge of wild oats and berries and a few green herbs.

A reindeer appears and then another, and the man empties the bowl onto a log which has been cleared of moss and fungus so that the deer can eat from it.

The man brushes aside a circle of snow with his hand. From beneath the trees where the snow has not lain, he collects twigs and tree bark and lays them in the circle. He goes back inside the dwelling and returns with an ember and a small bag made of sacking. He lights the fire and as it grows he feeds it with more bark, more twigs. He takes the bowl and puts snow into it, which he allows to melt over the fire. He takes a mushroom from the bag, runs a finger over the red and white cap and licks it. He sits down now, feeling neither the cold nor the damp beneath his clothing. He watches the bubbles as the snow melts and then boils. He breaks off a small piece of the fungus and lets it fall into the bowl.

His movements and the world around him are slowing down. As he watches, each bubble seems to take minutes to rise to the surface, each one contains a scene. He moves closer, here there is a boy lost in the woods, here a girl eating dangerous berries. As he takes in each scene he concentrates intently, committing every detail to memory.

Snow begins to fall, so slowly that it must have no weight at all, and as though the man had no heat at all it shrouds him, coating his hair, his beard and moustache, even his eyelashes.

The bubbling has ended and he picks up the bowl, impervious to the heat and plunges it into the snow. He drinks some of the liquid and then offers the bowl to each of the reindeer in turn.

Under the trees is a platform of logs lashed together with fibrous grasses and animal gut, at one end are longer ropes made of rushes, gathered and dried during the summer months. These in turn are attached to two harnesses fashioned from animal hide. He pulls the log platform into the clearing and pulls the harnesses gently over the muzzles of the two reindeer. He slides the drawstring from the sackcloth bag over his head and shoulder, then picks up four reins of hide and knots them into the rings at each deer’s shoulders. He sits crosslegged on the rough sled and hauls on the reins.

‘We will go first to the girl who ate the poisonous berries,’ he tells them, and he feels them rise into the falling snow as it swirls through the winter night sky.