The Book of Altasi

The following is the English translation of The Book of Altasi, the fifth addition to the Inkling Sagas.

=Birth of Altasi=

It was during the coming of winter that a nomad family, who had named themselves Cnwüljok (“the silent ones”) were moving camp. The family were trudging along the snow alongside their dogs who were pulling sledges which contained all of the family’s possessions. Moving camp is always dangerous for it presents an opportunity for predators to pounce upon vulnerable people with no shelter to run to, and indeed this was one such example. Despite being the silent ones, the noise of their footsteps crumpling in the snow and the whimper of the dogs echoed in the ears of a nearby menace. A small pack of sabre tooth tigers began to plan their ambush. The big cats hid among the trees until it was time to pounce, and when that time came they burst out from the trees with a hungry fury. The chaos of dogs barking and howling, screams and bared claws caused one nomad to run away alone out of pure fear. The girl ran through the forest with no thought or thinking about where she was going, just that she was fleeing from a predator. Back to where the hunt was taking place, the sabre tooths were targeting the sledge dogs. The dogs being all bound by rope to the sledge made them an incredibly easy target. The nomads had tried to chase away the sabre tooths but they failed to do so before a number of their dogs had been mauled. The only thing to be done was to cut the dogs free before the rest died, but only one dog, a pregnant bitch, managed to evade the slaughter. The nomads managed to chase them away but the father of the group was severely injured in the process and the sabre tooths had managed to drag away the dog corpses for their own meal.

With the great chaos that had occurred, with many of their sledge dogs being hunted and the father being attacked, the nomad family didn’t realise that one of their own was missing. The missing girl, named Mĕlgürt, had wandered far away and was now open to a new danger, the cold. Mĕlgürt’s warm and cosy fur coat was packed away in the now decimated sledge. All she had on was some light cloth, worn at her insistence that she was tough enough for the cold. When night creeped over the land the cold revealed itself to be a bitter creature. Mĕlgürt’s hands and feet lost all sense of feeling and use, she felt heavy, tired and devoid of energy. Eventually she couldn’t walk any further so she plotted herself against a tree and felt herself slipping into unconsciousness. As with all beings that freeze to death in winter, she had caught the attention of Oskül, the god of snow, ice and owls…Old Man Winter. Oskül took the form of a snow owl and swooped among the trees to find the dying girl. He perched on a high branch above and looked upon her. The way that the frost had settled on her skin, the way the snowflakes in her hair twinkled in the moonlight, made Mĕlgürt a beautiful sight in the eyes of the owl. Oskül at once was smitten by the girl. He decided that he wouldn’t let his cold kill her. He banished the cold from her body and within a few moments Mĕlgürt was awake, lucid and warm. When she opened her eyes she saw a tall man with long white hair flowing from his head and face.

“I am Oskül” he spoke to her

“and you were nearly dead.”

When Mĕlgürt processed the situation she thanked the winter god and asked if he could help her find her family. The tall man giggled and boasted.

“This season of winter is my domain, the snow is my herald and the cold air is my subject, when they cover the ground I am king of this land and I see and hear all that happens in my kingdom.”

Without a misplaced step Oskül was able to lead Mĕlgürt back to her family, only for her to find her father dying of serious wounds. Mĕlgürt again turned to Oskül for help and asked him if he could help her father. Oskül nodded with no uncertainty. Old Man Winter knelt beside the dying man and carefully rubbed snow over his wounds, when he brushed away the snow the wounds beneath had disappeared as if there was never any injury. The father stood up amazed and healthy and thanked Oskül dearly. Oskül beamed with a great smile on his face at the joy of Mĕlgürt and her family. He then interjected saying that his powers and effects can only manifest in the winter. Such that when spring comes the father’s injuries will reappear, only to disappear the following winter. Regardless the man was happy to not die from his wounds. Despite Mĕlgürt being rescued and the father being healed the family were still troubled for all but one of their sledge dogs were now dead. Now their tents, tools, clothing and other possessions were unmovable, leaving them at risk of another attack. Oskül, ever the kind spirit, remedies this by giving the surviving dog the strength to pull the whole sledge by herself.

Oskül travelled with the family for some time during that winter and in doing so, he and Mĕlgürt fell in love and together they had a son, Altasi. On the night of their son’s birth a mysterious dog with an odd and unpleasant smell had wandered into Mĕlgürt’s tent during the night. Mĕlgürt felt a wave of fear and dread wash over her as her limbs were frozen to the ground. The dog spoke quietly and warned Mĕlgürt that the winter god was really some dark spirit, one that must be killed and could only be killed with a shard of ice that the dog handed to Mĕlgürt. “Kill him” were the last words that it spoke before disappearing into the night. The sight and message confused Mĕlgürt greatly, she passed it off as being nothing more than a delusion induced by her pregnant and encumbered state. She tossed the shard aside and went back to sleep. She was woken not long after when her son decided to enter to the world. The shard had melted in the warmth of the tent leaving a small pool of water between Mĕlgürt’s legs. In that tent Mĕlgürt gave birth to Altasi. After the birth when the couple were holding and looking over their newborn son, three wolves had sat outside the tent. They each asked one question.

“Will he live or die?”

“What will his name be?”

“Will he be fortunate?”

At the same time the surviving bitch dog had given birth to her litter. One of the pups was raised alongside Altasi as his personal companion dog which he named Onrsamart (“he who does not wander”).

Being a winter god, Oskül could only dwell among humans when it was wintertime. When spring came along he had to retreat to the frozen realm Heksamau. Despite his routine absence, Oskül returned every winter to see his wife and son. During one return he was approached by Mĕlgürt’s father. Over the years his injuries had been returning and disappearing with the passing of winters. While he was strong and healthy during the cold months he still spent much of the year in pain. He asked Oskül if there was any way to end this suffering. All that Oskül could offer was to bring the father with him to live in Heksamau where winter is permanent. There he would be healthy and free of pain all year round. And so a human had come to dwell in Heksamau. He returned every winter just like Oskül to visit his daughter and grandson. However his stay in the winter realm had an effect on him, his spirit became more than that of a human and more like one of a spirit. His personality had not changed and he was much the same man as he always was, but his mortality was left behind. He eventually lived long enough to see Mĕlgürt age into an old woman and die, he even lived to see Altasi die and yet he hadn’t aged since he entered Heksamau. It is not known what his original name was, but millenia later he still returns to Macu every winter to roam and visit his distant descendants. In this land he was given the name Džietnutemi “(the grandfather”). Džnietnutemi has an understandable hatred of sabre tooth tigers and in his immortality he became a prolific hunter of sabre tooths, such so that he became revered as a god of hunting sabre tooth tigers, to be honoured while hunting the beasts or when one is vulnerable to attack by them.