A Son of the Ages: The Reincarnations and Adventures of Scar, the Link / A Story of Man From the Beginning

by Stanley Waterloo

I was all myself now, as assuredly I should be, after such a rude awakening. I stood there, comprehendingly, Scar, warrior and hunter, a strong man of the Cherusci, than whom there was not a braver tribe among the scores which occupied the vast Hercynian forest and took part in its fierce struggles.

A world in itself, a world of its own great kind, was this Hercynian forest, extending boundlessly eastward from the Rhine River and north to the German Ocean, and south until it reached far toward the great sea of which we had slight knowledge, a huge and densely wooded land of varied nature of mountain, hill and plain and, near its shores, of deep rivers and endless marshes, but mostly vast and sullen forests in which ranged many wild beasts and which, because of its huge extent, sustained strong tribes and clans, who, though scattered widely in villages or roving bands, made, together, a great host.

Whence we had come we did not know more than that we of the north were of the Ingævones, a numerous people who in ages past had come from a far country to the eastward, one so distant that years were required in the hard migration, and the ways of which we had long since forgotten. We had divided into tribes and had taken names for these and were often at war with each other, having, up to this time, no sort of confederation for need against a common enemy, such as lay beyond the Rhine to the westward, or other nations on other sides. Of these we knew many things, though not so clearly as we might have done, for with them we had naught in common, being well satisfied with our homes and manners in our forest fastnesses. That to the south and eastward there were those who had great cities and who sailed the great southern sea we knew, that to the west, beyond the Rhine, were the people of the Gauls we knew, and that we were usually enemies to them, and this was all. Our own drift as we grew, at least of the Cherusci, was northward from the headwaters of the rivers called the Elbe and Weser. South and east of us and near us lay the tribes with whom we sometimes had good fighting.

And how could we in our deep green fastnesses know greatly of the outside peoples? From the tales our fathers had told and from the Gauls across the Rhine we had learned something, it is true. We knew of the eastern peoples only that they were very old and very distant. Of the Assyrians and Babylonians and the Egyptians that they still existed, and that a race called the Phœnicians inhabited the land at the eastern end of the great southern sea and made rare weapons such as had sometimes come to us, and that they sailed and traded much. Grown strong, too, were now an island people called the Greeks. We knew, too, from our Gaulish neighbours whom we fought so often, that a new dread had come upon even them and that far to the south, not distant from the sea, a new nation appeared, arising swiftly, and that its people were ever ready for war and very dangerous. Dwelling in a village they called Roma—which was already becoming a mighty place—its people made invasions upon the territories of their neighbours, though its clans were ever fighting among themselves. All these things we learned, but little heeded. What cared we for the stories of the peoples of past ages? We wanted only our own great forest and our own gods, our own wars, and no invasions from strangers from afar.

So all through the great forest lay our tribes and lived their various wild lives, which nevertheless had much of order in their way and cleanness of living and obedience to our laws. Of religion we had something, though it did not bear upon us with unwholesome stress. For what may have been the faith of our Asian ancestors we cared not. Woden and Frigga and their retinue of lesser deities sufficed us and appeared to serve us well.

Yet we, barbarians as we were called by the distant and older peoples, lived lives such as in their uprightness of a kind might well have compared with the lives of later and craftier ages. Clearly defined were the lines or marks which showed the limit of each tribe’s wide land, and so within them were the marks of each clan which had a village. The villages, indeed, were almost little countries by themselves, having scant relationship with each other, save at the Folk-Moot—which, even now, was not an old thing, but which gave to us a form and saved much bloodshed—though ties of blood were strong and, among themselves, though so separated and each clinging to his clan or village, the Cherusci dwelt in rude brotherly accord. It is but fair to say as much of those of other tribes often our feudal enemies. Of vices, we had but two, the lust for fighting and the vast drinking of strong mead to glorious drunkenness. For the rest, we obeyed the Folk-Moot, where such laws as we had were made when we assembled, and regarded well the mark line and the lines which gave the allotted portions or hides of land, and the rights to the nut woods of oak and beech where fed the swine, and where were the rare salt springs, and the name sign on the trees of him who had found wild honey. In each family its head was lord. Furthermore—and who would think it of so-called barbarians?—our women were well regarded, the wife was the husband’s counsellor and friend, and purity and chastity were held the rule for all. We were a strong and healthy race, great of stature, fair or more often red of hair—which, man and woman, we wore long,—and gray or blue of eye. The youth were trained to hardihood, and the brood of either sex was ever a numerous and goodly one. What wonder that there was among the multitude of forest dwellers no envy of those of the outer world,—unless, it might be of their more finished weapons,—and but a desire for our continued isolation? We were most jealous of our lands. Even our villages were far apart and their wide boundaries of surrounding wildness well defended. Of the many usages and ways of ours I shall tell further.

There were certain clans who had no fixed abode, wandering long distances and living in huts to be abandoned; but such as these had become fewer and fewer and now most of the people lived in villages, some little and some great, but all with broad lands about them, whose boundaries were marked in many ways, some by scarred trees, sometimes by stones and sometimes by other tokens. So, as well, were marked the limits of the hides of lands allotted to each family, and these must by no means be disregarded, either the village mark, or the limit of the allotments. He who took an allotment, too, must, in token of possession and defense, break a branch from some tree upon it, or seat himself in the midst of the field, or build a fire upon it, for its ownership was a grave matter and not to be considered lightly. Some tilling the women did, though we were, as yet, but little farmers, and they also wove and spun. As for the men, we lived first for the fighting and the honour, and chiefly next, it seemed to me, for the feasting and deep drinking, with hunting and fishing and the fashioning of weapons as our only labour. Great were our feasts and it sometimes happened that they had more to them than mere carousal, especially when the feast was to one who had died valiantly in battle. There would be much eating and drinking, it is true, but there would also be much praise of the dead, which came generously from great hearts, and earnest prayers that Woden would receive the hero kindly. It seems to me that it was to our honour that we did not forget our dead, not even the little ones who passed, and I recall me that I made and kept for a friend one for whom I had heretofore cared slightly, because, when his child died, he had buried in the grave of the little one its foolish playthings and had slain a dog the child had loved and buried it also, that the dog might show the helpless and timorous one the way to the country of the dead. Stark and harsh and rough we were, but, in some things, we were most kindly and but as children.

We had a kind of reverence for some of the things about us. The oak tree we much regarded, and next to it the beech, not alone because they gave acorns and nuts to our herds of swine and to ourselves in times of strait, but because we held that they possessed a sort of sanctity. Curious it was, too, that one insect should be so regarded. This was the bee. Great was the value to us of the honey the bees furnished, our only sweet, and of its use in the making of our strong mead. Hence came the marking of the bee trees wherein was stored their honey. Heavily was he punished who cut down and plundered a marked bee tree, but if it were not marked by the first finder there was no punishment. So it was that about the bee grew up a sort of faith. Bees, it was held, had a language of their own and could understand what was said to them, and it was not counted wise to kill one. To be a hunter of the trees in which the bees concealed their stores was counted worthy of even a warrior, and I was proud that at this I had been gifted with no mean ability. Well must he know the wilds and be ready to fare patiently and far who would discover where the creatures hid their treasure, and shrewd must be his knowledge and close his nature to the wild things. It may be that I was thus close, for I was somewhat a man apart and had my dreaming ways. I had no wife. There had been one among the maidens, deep-eyed and fair and strong and red of hair as I, whom I had loved much and who would rest in the place in my arms, but our wood gods had it otherwise. There came a time of fever, and she died, and after she had been buried with my golden bracelet pledge on her round white arm, I cared no more for women. My bed was in my brother’s house, and his children cherished me, but I loved the woods and the chase and the bee-hunting and was much away, with all my fancies, at some of which the warriors laughed, saying that I was sometimes not unlike a dreaming girl, though it had been I who brought home upon my spear the head of the grim Suevi champion after one of our hardest battles.

All was not unbroken forest in our region; there were blue mountains far to the south, and here and there were little plains, and in the forest itself were sometimes clear spaces, flower-covered, where the bees sought honey for their storing. I have clearly in mind a day when I sought one of these smiling distant places.

Often have I questioned myself if it be meet or becoming in the strong man to consider and often delight in the fair and curious things upon which his eyes may rest, or feel the joyousness which comes to him through other senses. Should not his thoughts and desires dwell only on sterner and graver matters—the fight, the chase, the keen searching for the honey stores and the protection of the herds? This puzzlement I can by no means decide, but this I know that ever I follow my own will carelessly, and so have had much pleasure without effort, save to smell or look or listen. Why should I not? Does not the brawniest and most soil or blood stained warrior smack his lips over the rich juices of the cooked bird, and do not his eyes gleam as the mead runs down his tickled gullet? Do I not myself enjoy these things, and why should not I, if I have the mood, regale my other senses? Yet, as I have said, my comrades would sometimes jeer at me and call me foolish names because, forsooth, I rejoiced in the many glories of the world. Little cared I! It was somewhat known of men that my thews were mighty, my spear a sharp one and my axe of goodly weight, as had been proved in stubborn battle, and so I fed my fancies when I willed. On a day of which I speak they had food worth while, for surely there could be no fairer or more bounteous place than this for their indulgence.