The First Days of Man, as Narrated Quite Simply for Young Readers

by Frederic Arnold Kummer

Modor made wide gold bands and put them on each arm from the elbow to the shoulder, and these bands, originally ornaments, formed the first metal armour.

Another thing that came from this battle was the beginning of the use of armour. One of the sea folk had struck Modor a heavy blow across the arm, that would have cut it to the bone, had not the axe fallen upon the thick band of gold Modor wore on his arm. After this, Modor hunted for more of the gold, and when he found it, he made many more wide gold bands, and put them on each arm from the elbow to the shoulder, and this was the first use of metal armour. But it was a very long time before men came to use heavy armour of brass, and iron and steel.

Modor loved adventure, and he made up his mind to gather a fleet of ships, and cross the water to the land of the sea people, and attack them. But he did not live to do this. One day, while hunting in the marsh of the reeds, up the coast, a great beast like a rhinoceros, with long woolly hair, and sharp horns on its snout, charged down on him and his companions. They fought bravely, but Modor and two of his men were killed, and the rest fled to their boat, afraid.

The whole village mourned Modor with songs and cries of grief, and the next day a party went to the marsh and brought back his body. They buried it in a grave on the plateau, with great stones over it to mark the place. With his body they buried the dead chief's spear, and axe, and his gold armlets and shield, for these people believed that the dead would live again, and would need their weapons in the other world.

For hundreds and hundreds of years after this the island people lived in peace. The tribe grew very large, and spread far inland, where they found pleasant meadows, and forests, and banks of clay from which to make pottery. They built many stone villages and temples, and made armlets of gold, as Modor had done, and sewed plates of it to their belts, and ornamented the handles of their spears and knives with it. They also found tin, from which they made ornaments of a shining colour like silver, and copper, from which they made spear heads, and axes, beating them into shape with hammers of stone. With coloured clays, and the juices of plants, they stained their bodies in strange patterns, and coloured the shafts of their arrows and spears.

In the forests of the island were many wild animals, bears, great horned deer, and savage wolves, while along the rivers that flowed through the marshy country were huge beasts like the rhinoceros, and wild boar and snakes. From fighting these enemies they became fierce and brave, and when the bards sang of the men who came to attack them from over the sea, they would beat their weapons on the ground, with a loud noise, and talk of setting out to conquer them, as Modor had planned to do. But it was not until long after, when a chief named Mor came to be head of the tribe that they crossed the Great Water.

The twelve boats that escaped from the sea fight never reached home again. They had no compass to steer by, and the wind and tide drove them to a far-off shore, where no man had ever been. Here they settled, just as the island men had done before, and grew into a new tribe and people.