Kirnan dragged his fingernails through the earth. Mother was slow
leaving the temple. They were keeping him out, even though he got to
go inside yesterday.
"Grandfather, why was there an axe in there?"
"The axe in the corner of the great hall?" asked Grandfather. "Well, a
long time ago, the Greydog clan raided the Woodpecker clan at
Eyrfellstead. During the raid, someone killed Natkara the
hearthmistress and hurt her two daughters."
"Doing that wasn't just a crime, it was an attack on the Earth. So the
Woodpeckers came here to the temple and gave a cow to the angry
goddess, a cracked old, carving in the corner with an axe. They asked
the angry goddess to avenge them.
They got more than they bargained for -- the goddess called Brygga, a
kinswoman of the hearthmistress, and said that she would have to bring
justice. Brygga cried, because she wanted children and a husband, but
the goddess didn't care. And so Brygga went to her."
"Brygga spent more than a year getting ready, first here in the
temple, then with the Woodpecker warband. It wasn't until Earth Season
that she was ready. Finally, on the evening of Freeze Day in Death
Week, the clan's guardian tapped out a call to come to Eyrfellstead,
and everyone came, the men armed, the women in black. As night fell
the women took the men's blades, cut themselves, and gave their blood
to Brygga, to brew a beer so strong that it burned you just to smell
it. And Brygga drank it all."
"Just before dawn, the men and Brygga set off for Greydog lands. When
they reached the last marking stone, Brygga beckoned Natkara's husband
Farad with her down the path toward Gorindstead, while the warband
headed for Greydog Inn."
Not long after the Greydog guardian raised its howl, the Woodpecker
warband knew that the goddess had her revenge, and they turned around.
Nobody told them, they just knew. And on the way back, they saw
Farad's arm in the crotch of a tree by the path."
"Nobody was foolish enough to cut it down, nor any of the other parts
they found later. So Farad never touched the earth again."
"The rest of the harvest was blessed, better than anyone had predicted
or hoped. But Brygga was a curse. When she maimed a man who brushed
her shoulder, they took her back here to the temple with gifts and
asked the priestesses to take care of her. And so they did. The people
were happy to have Brygga carry their sacrifices to the angry goddess
and do her work."
"As long as Brygga walked the earth, the angry goddess didn't take any
more women. And when Brygga stopped walking, the priestesses put away
the old, cracked carving and set Brygga's axe in its place. And so
that's why there's an axe in the corner of your mother's temple."
That evening, Kirnan's mother went out to split wood for the fire.
Kirnan watched her for a long time.
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