Cold creeps in slowly,

Bones, chilled and brittle

Snap like twigs,

Fragile and friable.

Remembered warmth

Turns the mind to memory;

Sunlight and laughter

And your hand in mine

Murmuring dreams;

Walking our future

As our words entwine

And our hearts race

Seeing the far yesterday

In our tomorrow.

Climbing our mountains

With the innocence of children,

Finding our future

In each others eyes.

***

Cover Art – Sue Vincent

***

Now, Elkmar and Aini built a house on the bank of the river Avon.

Aini had the form of a great white cow but she also had the form of a fair and beautiful woman.

Big-Boss Stud wanted to sleep with her.

Aini was amenable to that but she feared the power and the might of Elkmar, for his whiskers were tough and his tusks were long.

***

“Why the form of a cow and a woman?”

“It’s a way of recognising the relationship of the worlds.”

“But to what end?”

“Understanding.”

“But I don’t think I do. Understand… I mean.”

“The easiest one to grasp is the Sun-Ray-Corn-Earth equivalence.”

“The Sun, Ray, Corn, Earth equivalence? Oh! I think I’ve got it! The corn sprouts from the earth like rays of light shine out from the sun.”

“And in drawing that equivalence, you’re recognising a universal process. I told you it was an easy one. No less beautiful for that though. We can probably go further by saying the stalks of corn are the rays of light from the Sun-Field projected through the Earth-Field.”

“Projected through what?”

“A particular seed… and the right conditions.”

“Neat.”

“Can you think of any other equivalencies? Animal ones, perhaps?”

“But of course. The Sun is a Horse, the Moon is a Cow.”

“…and the Earth?”

“The Earth is a Sow!”

“Why is the Sun a Horse?”

“Because it carries each of us to other worlds.”

“Why is the Moon a Cow?”

“Because it sustains us in the shadow of the Earth.”

“And why is the Earth a Sow?”

“Because of its prodigious progeny.”

“I think you’re right on all counts but I think they took it further. Can you express all that qualitatively?”

“I think so. How about… the Sun is a Horse, for Generation. The Moon is a Cow, for Dispensation. And the Earth… the Earth is a Sow, for Recompense.”

“Perfect! It’s all in there in a succinct form which has to be thought about in order to yield its meaning… just like the myth itself.”

“Or just like a seed.”

***

So Big-Boss Stud sent Elkmar on an errand to Ekane, his beautiful son by Elatha, in the Plain of Fair Isles.

“Whatever task I am set,” said Elkmar, “I will accomplish it in the space of one whole night and one whole day and I shall be back with Aini before evening.”

“You must build a system of Cause-Ways to link these isles one to the other,” said Ekane.

“No easy task that,” said Elkmar, “but I am the equal of it.” And he called to him his flocks, and his herds.

But Big-Boss Stud, had already put three crafty spells of magic on him, so that Elkmar felt no hunger and he felt no thirst and he saw no sun set for the space of nine full moons, which passage of time seemed to him but the length of one whole night, and one whole day, during which time he and all his people, worked at the task which Ekane had set him, and to right good effect at that!

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