Bear-Faced Erick - A Fable

Bear-Faced Erick- A Fable

Before we captured lightning in bottles and spun it between space and told our stories to each other between the stars…

Before we bound words into books and locked them into great building of stone and glass…

Long before we even made writing to make our stories carry beyond our feet…

We created language so we first could even Tell our stories.

The tales we told we large in those days.

Perhaps that is why none of them are written down. 

There are not letters large enough. No buildings built could ever hold every idea that has ever been had, or every great hero.

Ask any Teller of Tales they know.

The Real stories. The very best ones, were always saved for the fireside. For the darkest nights, when the people crept close and the branches snapped. When there were no disbelievers, only wide eyes and open hearts, waiting to hear the next part of the story. Small voices sighing off to sleep on sweet promises for more upon the next night.

There was a boy named Erick in those days who loved the fireside on cold winter nights more than anything else in the world.

While the old Tale Teller would recount the epics Erick would lie on his back and gaze up at the stars. In those stars he would imagine all the great deeds and fantastic beasts come to life and his head swam with the wonder of it all.

He knew in his heart that all he wanted in the wide world was to be a Fireside Teller once he was old enough. In secret Erick practiced reciting the words to the old songs and stories that had been passed down through his people for generations. The old Teller was very old indeed and although there were other men in the village who knew the special stories he had not yet allowed any other man to recite any of the important epics at the fire yet. 

Erick was still dreaming it would be him that would be chosen for this honor on the day his father told him that he was to become a hunter. All of the men in Erick’s family had always been hunters, just as all of the women had been weavers. He didn’t give Erick a choice. Erick might have made his father listen to reason if he had not been his only son but with nothing but sisters it was very hard to explain why he didn’t want to follow in the family traditions. There was no one else to help and they had to eat. And his sisters were so very small.

So on a very cold autumn morning Erick was up at first light. He dressed as warmly as he could and went out into the dark trees with his father. Even though Erick said he was no hunter and swore he wouldn’t kill anything.

Erick had been in the forests all his life but he had never gone as far into the gloom as this and soon he became frightened. There was so much overgrowth that it was never fully warm on the forest floor, even as the sun crept ever higher overhead.

His father showed him how to move more quietly and soon they were parting the branches as swiftly as shadows and making as little sound as ghosts. 

Erick began to feel very strange. His ears were ringing and his chest felt light and hollow. His bones and blood stirred and hummed like the stars and fire were inside him.

Suddenly a Great Bear rose before them and loomed directly above his father. It seemed to blot out the sun.

Surprised his father reeled backward; his mouth open wide but he was too afraid to cry out.

A boulder had been hiding behind a log just behind his fathers feet and he tripped and staggered causing him to fall back and drop his great sword. The Bear reared high over his father’s face as the man raised one now empty hand to ward off the certain blow. Erick’s father closed his eye’s knowing he was about to die.

A high strange sound rang out throughout the woods followed by a booming roar.

Erick stood in front of his father. His small hand was held aloft as if he was trying to ward off the Great Bear’s claws. His hand was empty, the knife his father had forced him to take was still strapped firmly to his waist. He didn’t remember moving but felt a taste like flowers and ashes in his mouth. He had saved his fathers life. The bear had not struck Erick. 

The Huge Bear, now silent, stood proud before him. Not as a foe but in respect. Looking at him as an Equal.

His father grabbed his fallen sword and would have killed the beast outright but Erick stayed his hand. The Mighty Bear regarded Erick a moment longer and then calmly walked away. Erick’s father had no word’s to explain what had happened, but knew from that moment on that there was something different about his son. 

Erick did not know what God he had met in the forest that day but over the next several years as he was growing up and learning his trade he would often get that strange feeling in his bones and blood, what he thought as his Fireside Teller feeling, as of stars and firelight, and tales about Him started to be told.

Erick the Bear Faced they called him, for he had faced down the mighty bear with no weapon in his hand. He had kept his word and not killed that day. Erick the Liar they called him, for he killed the next bear he met, to cure his sister’s fever. Many names Erick gathered about him like feathers. His tales grew like ashes banking round a deep ring of coals.

And so the boy for dreamed of telling stories went on to create them. He even told a few, and how he came to write a few down is a quest in and of itself. But that is a tale for another time.

Now, off to sleep with you. I have to bank the fire for the night. I promise to tell you more tomorrow.

For these are stories we tell out-loud, here when the fire is lit and the moon is still high. And that is what keeps them living, and they will live forever as long as our memory holds them fast. And I always remember Erick...