How Tig visited Goba the Spear-maker

ONE day, not long after this, Tig was bringing in a faggot of sticks for his mother, when he saw his father getting ready for a journey. He had a wallet, with food packed into it, slung over his shoulders; also his bow and a quiver full of arrows. He carried a spear in his hand and had his stone axe slung at his side.

Tig had never been away with his father, and he wished very much to go. He asked his father where he was going, and Garff said:

“I am going away over yonder, to get some arrow-heads from Goba, the spear-maker; but it is too far for thee to travel. We shall be three days or more about our journey, and we shall sleep out at night. Thou art better at home.”

But Tig begged hard; so Garff said he might go, if his mother would let him; and though his mother said she feared it would be too far for him, yet he might go, for he was getting a big boy and must learn to march like a man.

Four or five men of the village were going with Garff, and at last they set out. They left the open ground where the cattle were feeding, and made their way into the forest, going downward until they came to the river. They marched along the river-bank, going up the stream, and then crossed the water and mounted upward by a track through the thick forest until they reached the high ground on the other side of the valley. Here they were on the open moor; and the men began to practise shooting for a match. One man shot an arrow ahead, and then the others, each in turn, aimed at the first man’s arrow. Then they walked on, and as soon as they were near enough to see how the arrows lay, they sent Tig to pick them up. But Tig did not have to ask whose arrow each one was, because every man had his own mark on his arrows, and Tig knew the marks just as well as one of us nowadays knows his own initials on a pocket-knife.

After sunset they came to a sheltered spot near a clump of oak trees, and here they camped for the night. Garff and another man then gathered up dry grass and dead leaves and twigs, and set to work with their fire-stick to make a fire. This they did by setting the fire-stick upright, with its end sunk into a hole in a little slab of wood that they had brought with them. Then one pressed his hand lightly on the top of the upright stick, while the other brought out a kind of bow with a loose bow-string, and looped the string around the middle of the upright stick. Then he worked the bow backward and forward and so made the fire-stick spin in its socket, which after a while became so hot that it set fire to the dry leaves and twigs that had been laid around it.

Meantime the other men had collected dry brushwood and had cut logs, so that they soon had a good fire. They sat round the fire and ate of the dried meat and corn-cake that they had with them, and then lay down to sleep. The men watched by turns to keep the fire up; for so long as there was a good blaze they need not fear the attack of wild beasts. Tig lay close beside his father; and when one of the men wakened Garff to take his turn of the watch, Tig wakened too, and saw the darkness all about them and the sparks flying upward towards the stars, and he heard the wind rushing in the tops of the trees around them, and far away the howling of the wolves hunting through the night.

After three days of such marching and camping, they came to Goba’s village. Goba’s village was in the hill country and at the top of a low, rounded hill. There was a wall set with stakes all round the village, and the huts were mostly larger and better built than any Tig had seen before. Goba and his sons never went away from their village. When the people moved off in the summer and went camping with their cattle, Goba and his sons stayed at home, working at their trade. They were all busily working when Garff and his party arrived.

All about Goba’s hut there were great heaps of flint stones, and the floor of the sheds where they worked was covered with broken pieces and waste chips. Goba and the other men all had different pieces of work on hand. Goba was making a spear-head; he had laid it on a large stone between his knees and kept striking it sharply and delicately with a small stone which he held in his right hand, to finish chipping the edge and make it sharp. Tig stood by and watched; and when Goba saw that Tig was watching him, he let him take the spear-head in his hands and look at it and feel the sharp point. It was made of beautiful yellow flint stone.

“Did you make it out of one of those stones?” Tig asked.

“Yes,” said Goba, “out of such a one as they have there, see,” and he pointed to where two men were fixing a large grey flint stone into a groove between two great logs. Then one of the men took a large stone and struck the flint at the top and knocked off a long flake. This they did six or seven times; and then they gathered up the flakes and took them into the shed.

And Goba showed Tig some of the things the other men were making. Two of them were at work upon arrow-heads, chipping them very slowly and carefully; and while Tig was watching, one man made an unlucky stroke and broke his arrow-head in two. So he spoiled all his day’s work at one blow, and there was nothing for it but to take another flake and begin all over again. But the other man took a bone tool like a chisel, and pressed it along the edge of his arrow-head all the way along, flaking off tiny chips and making the arrow-head very sharp.

Another man was making a stone axe. He had shaped it out by hammering it with stones of different shapes and sizes, and was then busily grinding the cutting edge by rubbing the axe-head backward and forward, backward and forward all the time, upon a large grooved slab of hard sandstone.

“With such as this we can cut,” said Goba; “we can fell trees and hew them in pieces. There is nothing like my axes for cutting. Now see, I will show thee how the men of the old time made their axes—they that were in the land before our fathers came hither;” and Goba picked up a heavy lump of flint stone that had been roughly chipped into the shape of an axe-head. “Even such as this were the axes of those rude folk! Ho! ho! right enough to brain a wolf withal, but good for naught when it comes to felling of trees or hewing of timber. We must have our axes well ground to an edge for felling timber, little son.”

“Why doesn’t my father make spears for himself?” Tig asked.

“Thy father is a hunter, boy,” said Goba. “Look at me! Can I chase the deer? Nay! Too heavy and slow am I for hunting. Set thy father’s leg against my leg and his arm against my arm: then thou wilt see.

“But set thy father’s hand against my hand, his eye against my eye! He can spy the deer when they are many paces distant among the fern, where I should see naught. But can he see, as I can see, into the heart of the stone, and can he handle it aright to shape an arrow or an axe? Nay, he cannot. Now I was born to love the good stones, and these my sons follow after me. It is not born in thee to handle stones: thou wilt grow up to be a hunter, like thy father.”

“I should like to be a spearmaker, and make spears and arrows like these of yours,” said Tig.

“Then thou must come and learn our craft,” said the old man, “and that is a long matter. Start young, that’s the only way. The hand must learn, and the eye must learn, and many a likely piece of stuff be spoiled before a craftsman is made. But thou wilt not come. Thy father likes better for thee to learn how to hunt deer and slay wolves, with the good stones that I and my sons will make for thee. It is not born in thee to follow our craft, little son.”

Inside his hut Goba had his store of all kinds of weapons made of stone—axes and spears and arrow-heads and daggers; he also had knives and chisels, and scrapers to scrape hides with, and little saws, and many other such things all of flint stone.

Then Garff and his men unpacked the goods they had brought with them—fine skins, and pickaxes made of deer’s antlers (of which Goba was always in want, for digging out the flint), and a fine buck that they had killed in the forest that morning, and as much of the crushed corn out of their stock as they could spare. And these things they exchanged with Goba for flint arrows and spears and two or three axes. And Goba gave Tig a javelin or little spear for his own; because he said that the party had a long way to travel before they could get home, and Tig must have his weapon like the rest, in case they should fall in with wild beasts and be attacked.