Chapter Three

N THE MORNING, STEVEN HELPED load the raft with melons, and then asked how he could get across. Ranihaha showed him how to build a raft like his own. When it was finished, it was much too big for just Steven’s meager belongings, so Ranihaha suggested that they load it with melons as well. When they were finished, two rafts were loaded with melons and ready to cross the river with Steven’s belongings wedged into a corner of one.

The day’s work done and a meal in their stomachs, Ranihaha turned to Steven for the story of his hat. Now Steven was basically an honest man, but having heard Ranihaha’s wonderful story about the obstructive bridge made him feel as though the story of making his hat was small by comparison. It needed to be much more important to be a good story. So Steven cleared his throat and began in his best story-telling voice.

The Rejected Missionary

NCE UPON A TIME, long ago but not so very far away, there was a peaceful little village that knew little of the world outside its cluster of huts and the meeting hall where they gathered for festivals and councils. The village had occupied this little spit of land for as long as any could remember. They supplied their own needs and fed themselves from their gardens and sheep herds. The only people from outside their village that they saw were those from the mountain village who joined them once each year for a feast, dancing, and to seek marriage partners for the long winter months.

There had been no one else come to the village in the memory of the elders. There were no roads that led from the village further than the hunting, grazing, or planting lands that surrounded it. They were a happy people with no cares other than the cares of planting and harvesting.

One day there was a great stir in the village as a child had seen, from far off, a stranger walking through the fields. He was dressed in a foreign fashion with long black robes and a hat that defied description. By the time the stranger approached the village, all of the people had gathered at the council house. The stranger walked silently between the standing people making his way to the step where the village elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman stood waiting for him.

The stranger stopped before him and raised a bony finger to shake it in the face of the elder.

“You and all your people have been marked for eternal suffering by the dragon-god who sits in judgment over all mankind,” the stark figure intoned. “Repent, therefore, and turn to worship the one who judges you.”

Well, that created quite a stir among the people. They had never heard of this or any other god and had lived in peace all their lives. But the elder was a just and wise man. He, interpreting the shaking finger of the missionary as a greeting from this foreign person, stretched out his own bony finger at the stranger and intoned his own greeting.

“You will suffer a feast with the people this very day and will tell us the story that has brought you to our step. Bathe therefore in the river and present yourself at this step at sundown to trade stories with the people.”

The missionary had apparently heard every kind of invitation and threat before so he puffed himself up and raised his voice.

“I will be at this step when the sun touches the mountains. Let every man, woman, and child ready themselves to hear of their damnation and to eat the fruits that have been placed before them.” With that, the missionary silently departed through the people and went to the river to wash. The village made immediate preparations for a feast and to greet the strange guest as the elder instructed. This would be a feast of the proportions of the annual two village festival. Everyone was gathered together and ready by the time the sun touched the mountain.

In the sun’s last gleams, the stranger once again approached, and his incredible hat seemed to catch and hold the fire of the sun as he strode boldly among the people to the steps where the elder, wisewoman, and shaman awaited him. They escorted him inside the council house and seated him at the table among them and they feasted.

During the course of the dinner, the shaman remarked on the missionary’s unusual hat. That started the story-telling without so much as a Once upon a time.

“This hat,” started the missionary, “is the badge of my office—an emissary from on high bringing the story of doom to all people. It is made of the feathers of the serpent and the skin of the hawk. This is the nature of the almighty. The dragon swoops down upon the unsuspecting and devours them in his fire. And that is the fate of this village. The dragon waits on his mountain for the day when you are least suspecting—the day when you feast in your homes and say what good lives you have. On that day, judgment will come. All that you have will be as nothing. You will seek refuge but none will protect you. All your wisdom and all your lore will not help you. You will be as grass before the flames and tinder in the firebox.”

“That is a good story,” said the elder. “You are very exciting. And this hat protects you from the fierce wrath of the dragon?”

“The feathers are proof against fire and the skin against water. The wearer of this hat stands unafraid before the dragon,” said the missionary.

The missionary went on for a long time, but soon the people tired of his doom and gloom. They retired to their homes and the missionary was given a place to sleep in the council house. But long after the people had found their beds and the missionary slept, the elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman met together and walked by the river.

“It is all a lie,” said the wisewoman, “an exciting once upon a time. Even he does not believe what he says, but has said it so many times that can’t imagine otherwise.”

“There may be a dragon,” said the shaman. “I have heard of such in my lore and craft. Such a mindless creature could damage us like the stranger says.”

“So are we to simply send him on his way and trust that we are safe?” asked the elder. “His stories give no hope and no alternative to the utter destruction of the village. If people came to believe this, they might become desperate, leave the fields for fear, and sew the seeds of our own destruction.”

“There is the problem,” said the wisewoman. “It is not whether the story is true, but whether the people believe it. We must either be sure that the people do not believe him or offer some protection and hope against his prophecy.”

“Or both,” said the shaman. “Let us make sure people do not believe, but hold a talisman against the threat.”

And so they laid their plans. Little did they know that the missionary was busy helping them. When they arrived back at the council house to confront the missionary about his story early in the morning, they found the youngest daughter of the village elder wrapped in his arms, sated in love-making. They immediately drove the missionary out of the village amidst a clamor from the people for the rape of one of its daughters. He protested that the girl had come to him, but the elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman shouted down his protests and denounced him as a liar and thief. The people picked up stones to pelt the man has he ran from the village.

The elder, the shaman, and the wisewoman had planned for this and had placed the village hunter at the outskirts of the village. As the missionary ran from the village, the hunter took careful aim and shot the hat off his head. The missionary was too panicked to return for his precious possession and ran on into the woods and was never heard from again.

For many years the hat was kept in the council house of the village on display and in every generation there has been a dragonslayer raised against the day that the dragon might come against the village to fulfill the missionary’s prophecy. It was always known that if the prophecy were true, then one day the village would give the implausible hat to their dragonslayer. He would quest far and wide if the dragon ever showed his face and the hat would protect him when he faced the dragon. For if the dragonslayer is protected by the same feathers and skin as the dragon himself, how can he come to harm?

“And that is the story of this implausible hat?” asked Ranihaha.

“That’s the story, and that is why I wear this fine feathered hat so proudly,” Steven affirmed.

“There is more truth in this story than you think,” said the old melon farmer, surprising Steven. “Tomorrow morning at first light, we will cross the river.”

Chapter 2
Chapter 4