round and helped him build a new boat – to his design of wood, of course; not a skin coracle like we were used to, or even a dug-out tree trunk like the people from the north – poor Estra’s mother included – will insist on travelling in.
“We were not at all impressed with her and her boat. While our little community was graced with her presence, she tried hard to convince us that it was much the superior water-craft – and look where it got her, poor woman.
“Do you know the very first thing that you do when you are making one of those dug-outs? You wouldn’t believe it,” Aunty Grizzel scoffed. “You bore a big hole in the bottom to the thickness that you think your boat should be. Then you start hollowing the whole thing out from the top – it takes forever – and when you finally reach the original hole you made, you know it’s finished.”
“But won’t it sink if it has a hole right through it?”
“Exactly. However, you bung the hole up. But when you need to beach the boat, where we, of course, would be able to turn our coracles over to dry, a dug-out is too heavy – that is when you pull out the bung to drain it.
“So, you can imagine that no one round here had any intention of trying their hand at one of those, but they did their best to help Artin to make the sort of craft that he was used to. They are obviously excellent boats, you have no idea of the distances they voyage or the weather they battle through. You never know if the strangers are lying, of course, but I don’t think they often are – they all say much the same things.
“Anyway, you try stitching planks together with osiers and caulking it all with moss and resin – that’s how they make their boats – I expect you have worked that one out. It’s very tricky. But that’s Artin and his folk all over, isn’t it? Everyone was very eager to help, but it took months of experiment.”
But when it had finally been tested, Niav knew that that had been a tragedy. Father and Mother she had been told, were out in the boat with Artin, and everyone was watching from the river’s edge (with only young Aunty Grizzel minding new baby Niav back at home) and the boat had gone down at the river-mouth; only Artin’s decorated knee protector that her dad, Diarma, had made had been washed in on the sands.
What happened after that? Niav was unsure. She now felt she might have been told a pack of lies. Little details started to add up. Memories of hearing people mention that it was when Artin came back about three years later, with a new boat, a new band of brothers, a new knee-guard and a welter of new magical ideas, that many people had started to feel that maybe Artin really must be some sort of miracle-worker or even a god.
Niav couldn’t help feeling, from spending so much time with dear cousin Estra, that this was how the myths began. At the moment, what she wanted was the truth.
So what had it been? Time and time again, through all the years that Niav could remember, he had come whirling in, always on the brink of a storm; Artin the Smith – smoke and magic, golden metal and golden honey. They said he gave so much and had taken so very little in return, but now she wasn’t sure.
Suddenly the skies opened and Niav dashed headlong down the ridge to tell the world.
***
“And how many did he have with him this time?” Aunty Grizzel was trying her best not to sound interested, as the rain pelted down on the turf of the roof and filled the drip-gully to overflowing.
“I think there were at least four of them, maybe five. One may have been a woman. I’m not sure. The light wasn’t good.”
“Five, that’s handy, five eggs. You could give those eggs as a guest-greeting.”
“I am sure those eggs are not bad,” said Niav firmly.
“Then that’s all right, isn’t it? Anyway, they are beautifully packed.”
***
Artin the Smith and his companions anchored their boat at the deep part by the eastern shore where the boys used to jump in from the rocks at sunset if no strangers were visiting. Next day the new arrivals were rowed over to the settlement on the opposing