“Go on, run around!” Uncle Vootele whispered to me. I ran to the seashore and jumped into the waves fully clothed; then I played with the sand, until I looked like a lump of mud. Then I noticed that the bonfire was already burning, and I ran back to the fire at top speed, but there was no sign left of Manivald. The flames were so big they rose up to the stars.
“How filthy you are!” said Uncle Vootele, trying to wipe me clean with his sleeve. Again I met Tambet’s fierce gaze, because obviously it wasn’t the done thing to behave at funerals as I was, and Tambet was always very particular about observing the rules.
I didn’t care about Tambet, because he wasn’t my father or uncle, just a neighbor who was fierce but didn’t have any power over me. I tugged at Uncle Vootele’s beard and demanded, “Who was Manivald? Why did he live by the sea? Why didn’t he live in the forest like us?”
“His home was by the sea,” replied Uncle Vootele. “Manivald was an old, wise man. The oldest of us all. He had even seen the Frog of the North.”
“Who was the Frog of the North?” I asked.
“The Frog of the North is a great snake, the biggest of all, much bigger than the king of the snakes. He is as big as a forest and he can fly. He has enormous wings. When he rises in the air, he covers the sun and the moon. In ancient times he used to rise often in the sky and devour all our enemies who came to that shore in their boats. And after he had devoured them, we took their possessions. So we were rich and powerful. We were feared, because no one got out alive from that coast. They also knew that we were rich, and their greed overcame their fear. More and more boats sailed to our shore to steal our treasures, and the Frog of the North killed them all.”
“I want to see the Frog of the North too,” I said.
“I’m afraid you can’t anymore,” sighed Uncle Vootele. “The Frog of the North is asleep and we can’t wake him up. There are too few of us.”
“One day we will!” said Tambet. “Don’t talk like that, Vootele! What kind of defeatist nonsense is that? Mark my words. We will see the day when the Frog of the North rises in the sky and eats up all the paltry iron men and village rats!”
“You’re talking nonsense,” said Uncle Vootele. “How is that supposed to happen, when you know very well that it would take at least ten thousand men to wake up the Frog of the North? Only when ten thousand men together say the snake-words will the Frog of the North wake up from his secret nest and rise up under the sky. Where are those ten thousand? We can’t even get ten together!”
“You must not give in!” hissed Tambet. “Look at Manivald. He was always hopeful and did his duty every day! Every time he noticed a ship on the horizon, he would set a dry stump alight, to announce to everyone: ‘It’s time for the Frog of the North to wake!’ Year after year he did that, even though no one had answered his call for ages, and the alien boats would land and the iron men came ashore with impunity. But he didn’t smite with his fist. He just went on pulling up stumps and drying them out, lighting them up and waiting — just waiting! He was waiting for the Frog of the North to come in power to the forest once again, as in the good old days!”
“He will never come again,” said Uncle Vootele gloomily.
“I want to see him,” I insisted. “I want to see the Frog of the North!”
“You won’t,” said Uncle Vootele.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
“No, he will never die,” my uncle said. “He’s asleep. I just don’t know where. No one knows.”
Disappointed, I fell silent. The story of the Frog of the North was interesting, but it had a bad ending. What was the use of miraculous things one can never see? Tambet and my uncle carried on arguing while I traipsed back to the seashore. I walked along the beach; it was beautiful and sandy, and here and there large uprooted stumps lay around. They must have been the same ones that the departed and now-immolated Manivald had been drying — to light as beacons that no one heeded. Beside one of the stumps there was a man crouching. It was Meeme. I had never seen him walking, only stretched out under some bush, as if he were a leaf of a tree, carried by the wind from place to place. He was always munching on some fly agaric and always offered some to me too, but I never accepted it, because my mother wouldn’t let me.
This time too, Meeme was on his side beside the stump and again I hadn’t seen when and how he had come. I promised myself that one day I would yet find out what that man looked like standing on two legs and how he moved around at all — upright like a human or on all fours like an animal, or sliding along like a snake. I went closer to Meeme and saw to my surprise that this time he wasn’t eating fly agaric, but sipping some sort of drink from a skin.
“Ahh!” He was just wiping his mouth when I crouched down beside him and sniffed the strange odor wafting from the skin. “It’s wine. Much better than fly agaric, thanks be to those foreigners and their bit of common sense. The mushroom used to make you drink lots of water, but this here quenches your thirst and makes you drunk at the same time. Great stuff! I’ll think I’ll stick with it. Want some?”
“No,” I said. True, my mother hadn’t forbidden me to drink wine, but I could guess that since Meeme offered it, it couldn’t be any better than the fly agaric. “Where do you get skins like that?” I’d never seen anything like it in the forest.
“From the monks and the other foreigners,” replied Meeme. “You just have to smash their heads in — and the skin is yours.” He went on drinking. “Tasty little drink, there’s no denying it. That silly Tambet can yell and squeal all he likes, but the foreigners’ tipple is better than ours.”
“So what was Tambet yelling and squealing about?” I asked.
“Ah, he won’t allow us to have anything to do with the foreigners or even try their things,” said Meeme dismissively. “I did say that it wasn’t I that touched that monk, it was my ax, but he’s still twitching. Well, what if I don’t want to carry on eating fly agaric? I mean this stuff’s much better and goes to your head quicker too … A man has to be flexible, not stiff like this stump here. But that’s what we’re like these days. What use has being stiff been to us? Like the last flies before the winter, we drone our way slowly through the forest, until we slouch into the moss and die.”
I didn’t understand any more of his talk and I got up to go back to my uncle. “Wait, boy!” Meeme stopped me. “I wanted to give you something.”
I started shaking my head vigorously, for I knew that now he would produce some fly agaric or wine or some other disgusting thing.
“Wait, I said!”
“Mother won’t let me!”
“Hold your tongue! Your mother doesn’t even know what I want to give you. Here, take it! I don’t have anything to do with it. Hang it around your neck.”
Meeme thrust into my palm a little leather bag, which seemed to have something small yet heavy inside it.
“What’s in here?” I asked.
“In there? Well, there’s a ring in there.”
I untied the mouth of the bag. Indeed there was a ring in it. A silver ring, with a big red stone. I tried it on, but the ring was too big for my tiny fingers.