Seeds of Pine

by Emily F. Murphy

True, O Sir Time Lock, but when the gods would be thrifty they give their money away. The Gods are master-spenders and have learned the wide wisdom of being foolish. Do you follow me aright?

And this is the wisdom of our Northmen who have well tamed Dame Fortune and have set their sure brand upon her.

But, if money sticks not in their purses, and if they haggle not over coins, yet are these men businessful with a purpose for large enterprise. In these latitudes, we have deep-counselled companies of traders who, while they love the sweet power of money, have ever bartered fairly, and know that 'mine' and 'thine' are different words which rhyme well in all reckonings. I have sure grounds for knowing this, and am minded to say, "Hail! and all hail!"

The North is a numbed and haggard land of and snow, say many voices. In its vast voids lives a dark spirit which lures men on and tricks them so that they come, in time, to love that which punishes them. And if by some fair hap they are led into other and softer climes, then do they fret and fever for the wolf-lands of the Yukon or the Mackenzie, as though some secret and unforbidden magic had entered their blood forever.

I will not speak contrariwise to these men, for it is meet that I should speak fairly. The love of the North, like the fiery kiss of genius, is a sorrowful gift, and none can say whether it is greater in joy or pain. She is an exacting mistress, this white-bodied, rude-muscled North, and, of times, she breaks and hurts a man till he drags his brokenness away to die. Yet, is she beautiful and passionately human; full of vigour and drunken with life, and her house stretches from the dawn to dayfall.

And why should men complain of the stabbing cold and of the unrestricted range of the young winds? Why do they wish to regulate God's snow and rain? What could be more hateful to men than unfaltering sunshine and ever-flowering fields?

In the winter of the fortressed North, animals turn white as do the birds and the very earth itself. All were pallid and colourless but for the yellow belt of the setting sun and the black-green tree shadows that fall toward the pole. The rivers cease their singing; the birds are silent, and all is stilled to the bounds of the world save only the sonorous wind which is the breath of Claeg, the Bound One, who is the earth. Here, the north-east wind is Lord Paramount, and the Crees and Chipewyans have long known that Death comes from his direction.

Listen! I made an error, to say that all is stilled, for, of occasion, there is the mewl of the lynx; the yap of the timber wolf as he gives tongue in pursuit of ah-pe-shee moos-oos, the jumping deer; the howling infamy of the huskies seeking their meat from God; the raucous roar of the hulking moose blind with rage of love.

Listen! I made an error to speak of an all-whiteness, for, where the Aurora pins her colours to the sky, it is like unto an angry opal. This is Beauty Absolute. Her swinging swords of flame none have measured: who shall tell the measure of this land?

But listen! It is not beyond our understanding that men should feel the urge of this Northland and its strange enticement. Some there are who speak of it as the lure of the North; the fret of spring, or the call of red gods. Surely we may understand aright if we do but watch the birds flock hither of spring-time, and how the fish fight up against the streams though it be to suffer and to die. These cannot resist the drag of the magnetic pole, any more than you and I who have souls and are feeling folk!