Lorcan's story

A story within a story. Short and not particularly sweet.

“And the stone giant brought down his axe in a fury. But the rascally Findbjörn had slipped away, so the axe only split the rock in two. And that,” the guide said with finality, “is why this broken rock is called the Giant’s Axe-Blow.”

He beamed at the group of school children, expecting to see similar expressions of delight on their faces. Instead they looked at one another and shuffled their feet. Gillie eventually spoke for them all.

“Then what? Where did Findbjörn go? Didn’t the stone giant go after him? Stories don’t end like that. They have an ending.”

“Nobody knows where they went,” the guide said with a thin smile.

“Home for their tea,” Jason piped up from the back.

“Nah, they had football first,” Ahmed cackled, and there was more shuffling and a few guffaws.

Mrs Wilson looked at the guide with amusement, enjoying his confusion. He’d been a right pain ever since he’d picked them up from the coach park. Dry as dust and boring as hell.

“G’wan then,” Lisa said. “Finish it.”

“There isn’t any more to the story,” the guide said sharply. “It’s just a legend, not history. It never happened.”

“There is more though. I know that story.”

It was the new boy, Lorcan who spoke. The other kids called him a Gypo, or Tinker if they were being friendly. The boys tolerated him because he was good at football, and the girls admired his lovely black curly hair.

“Tell us then,” Jason said.

It was an order. All eyes fixed on Lorcan. The boy cleared his throat.

“Before the giant had brought down his axe, Findbjörn was already half-way to the forest. He ran until he got under the trees, and then he stopped. Just there.” He pointed. “The giant roared and pulled his axe out of the crack to swing for him again, but he’d split the rock right down to the centre of the earth where it’s molten rock, red and fiery. He’d disturbed the salamanders that live down there, and they poured out, roaring like banshees, poured all over him and wrapped him up in their long tails and long necks until he glowed as red as they were. Then they dragged the giant down with them to the centre of the earth where he fell apart into agates and tigers eyes. The salamanders gathered up the stones, and the crack up above snapped closed.”

Lorcan paused and the children looked at him expectantly.

“But it’s open now,” Lisa said. They all looked at the split rock, and the shuffling began again. The children hung on Lorcan’s words. He had them under a spell.

“Down there, under the earth, are fields and fields of trees with golden bark and leaves that glitter too bright to look at. That’s where the salamanders grow jewels. They plant raindrops and bits of stars to grow diamonds, green leaves to grow emeralds, and they grow sapphires from bits of the sky. Where they live at the centre of the earth it’s full of ’em, fire orchards growing big, juicy jewel fruits that the salamanders live on. They eat the fruits and spit out the pips. That’s what miners dig out.”

“Pips?”

Lorcan nodded. “Jewel pips. But Findbjörn didn’t want the hard pips that you can find in any jeweller’s shop, he wanted some real gems, the big fat brilliant ones that the salamanders grow in the fire at the centre of the earth. He saw what happened to the stone giant, and knew that the crack led down to where the salamanders live, so he took the pickaxe and he tried to open it up again.”

He paused. They were all listening, waiting for the dreadful end they could half-imagine. Even the guide.

“Findbjörn walloped at the place where the crack had been, and pebbles and dirt flew about. He walloped the stone again, and the pickaxe knocked off a few chips, but he wasn’t as strong as the stone giant, and he couldn’t get the stone to split open.” He looked at the expectant faces, boys and girls scarcely daring to breathe, huddled close to hear better, or perhaps in reassurance. “He couldn’t open up the crack, but the salamanders heard what he was about, and at first they were angry. Then one of them looked around the fire orchards and noticed that they were low on rubies. So they raced up to the surface of the earth, quick as greyhounds, and they opened up the crack again, and before he could wallop anything else with his pickaxe, they grabbed Findbjörn.”

“To grow rubies?” Ahmed asked uneasily.

Lorcan nodded. “They wrapped their long tails and long necks around him and dragged him down to the centre of the earth, and they didn’t let go until he glowed red as the inside of a fire and until each drop of his blood had grown into a ruby. Then the crack closed up again and they planted their rubies in the fire orchard.”

Gilly asked the question that was bothering all of them now. “So why’s the crack open again?”

Lorcan shrugged. “It’s just a legend,” he said, looking at the guide. “It’s not true, not like history. But they say that the crack opens when the salamanders need a bit of sky to grow more sapphires, or new leaves because they’ve run out of emeralds, or maybe they’re low on diamonds.”

“Or rubies,” Ahmed said and shuffled a few steps backwards.

There was a silence, the wind scattered dead leaves about and they watched as some of them blew over the lip of the cleft and disappeared inside. Mrs Wilson shivered and wrapped her arms about herself. She looked at the sky, then at her watch.

 “I think it’s time to be getting back to the coach.”

It wasn’t and they all knew it, but nobody felt like hanging about any longer. Mrs Wilson hurried her charges back to the coach park, and nobody messed about on the way, not even Ahmed. Not even Lisa demanded to go back for a last look around the souvenir shop. Only the guide lingered. Perhaps because he didn’t believe in fairy stories, or perhaps because he had heard, as the children had done, the distant sound of salamanders singing.

In any event, the guide went back to the Giant’s Axe-Blow. He went back later when the centre was closed. Just to have a closer look, he told himself. And if he did, that would explain why he was never seen again.