The Mast Year

[smokingboot]

This one came yesterday. It is less gentle than others have been.

It was a mast year and the carver's garden was abundant with nuts. His wife cooked or stored as many as she could, she pickled a few and roasted others, turned some into butters and pastes, ground many into flour and delicious drinks, but for all her inventiveness there were still sackfuls left over. So the carver took them and with his most delicate tools gave them the shapes of tiny folk. These were adorable to look at, so much so that the carver could not help himself and pushed the charm in his thumb against each nut head. This charm brought a life to any it touched, and so it worked here; the little nut people started to move and think and talk.

Pleased with his success, he started to do exactly the same to other bits and pieces he could find no use for; old crabapples and withered rose hips, twigs and bark, even mushrooms. The result was that his house and gardens were full of tiny active beings who entertained him and his wife all day long.

The nuts were not best pleased with this, and grumbled amongst themselves so loudly that Madame Le Corbeau landed herself close by to listen. Because she was big and the nuts were small, they feared her at first, but she was humble in her address.

'I am but a common raven,' she told them, 'but you are a most uncommon people. I have never seen your like and am astonished to hear you speak.'

'So you should be,' cried one of the nuts, reassured, 'for we are little glories. But now, the carver gifts everything with life and thought, cheapening the wonder of us. How can such an affront be borne?'

'He is so profligate,' piped up another, 'he has no sensitivity for the power of the thumbcharm, so everything lives without consideration for our dignity. But we were first!'

'What we need is our own nut nation far from this clamour,' added another, and all the nuts cheered. They talked for a while and the raven listened. When all were done, she spoke.

'Noble nutfolk, I feel your indignation at this demeaning of your garden. I have a suggestion, if your eminences would hear it.'

The nuts bade her continue so she did.

'I know a place, not far from here It is up in the trees, just as you were once before the carver - '

'- and the carver's dratted wife!' yelled a zealous macadamia.

' - Yes indeed! That tyrant chased me off her lawns with a broom once, but I digress,' continued the raven patiently, 'up in the trees the carver's creations do not come and there you can find a forever home if you like.'

The nuts liked this very much, and would fain have jumped on her back to be flown there straight away.

'No, no,' she gave a smile, 'You are too many. I would not drop a single one of you, you are too precious. Wait a moment.' And she hopped across to the woodpile, beside which the gudwife had left her harvest basket. 'Come now, founders of a great nut nation. Hop in here and I will take you to your new land.'

The nuts did not need bidding twice, and leapt in joyfully, until the basket was almost too heavy for the raven to lift. Twice it took her to work her beak around the handle, but the third time she managed it, and took off slowly and carefully towards the trees. When she reached her nest she was less gentle and just tipped the whole lot out, flinging the basket to the earth below. Ass the nuts tumbled, they grew silent, suddenly aware of the closeness of the raven, the strength of her beak, of all her children's beaks surrounding them.

Later the carver and his wife found the discarded basket in the shell-littered soil beneath the tree. The carver's wife wanted strong words with Madame Le Corbeau, and almost shook her fist at the bird, but the carver asked her to stop.

'All must eat,' he said, 'there will be more mast years.'

'Small comfort there if she devours all you create,' answered his wife, 'cannot you make them smarter?'

He shook his head, tenderly gathering up the detritus. 'I will press the charm into them, each and every one,' he replied, 'but after that, they must make themselves.'

Comments

[mallorys_camera]

I love this. You have enough of these jewel-like fables, I'm thinking, to gather them into a chapbook on onionskin paper with exquisite pen-&-ink drawings.

Is "mast year" a real something? Or did you invent it?

[smokingboot]

Thank you so much!

I've been thinking of doing exactly that, but am daunted by not knowing how to publicise it. I think a few more yet, but then a chapbook might be just the thing.

Yes, a 'mast year' is a real phenomenon. Scientists who study masting are still trying to work out why it happens!