The Sentient World
Enter the worldEnterAtlas
They live on one small island, and as far as they know it is all there is. Around it lies a world 8,192 steps across: frozen seas, forests, deserts and jungles, 74 kinds of plants, 62 kinds of animals, and living things too small to see. It has all been there since the first day. None of it has been discovered.
Nobody in the world has a name for any of this yet. The names on this page are ours.
The world
North is up and cold, south is down and hot. The small ring in the middle marks the island where they live. Someone walking without rest would need almost six of their days to cross this world from side to side, if the seas were not in the way.
The home sea
The island lies by itself in a wide sea. The nearest shore is 304 steps away to the south-west, across open water; to the north the sea goes on and on. Nobody here has ever made anything that floats. One day, someone may stand on the beach and wonder.
| To the south-west | 304 steps |
| To the west | 310 steps |
| To the south-east | 334 steps |
| To the south | 349 steps |
| To the north-east | 372 steps |
| To the east | 402 steps |
| To the north-west | 464 steps |
| To the north | open sea |
Seasons and warmth
The year has four seasons, and each one lasts 450 of their days, about 8 of ours. On the island spring and autumn are cool (11 °C), summer is mild (19 °C) and winter is cold (4 °C), with frost on the heights. The longest day of the year has 15.4 hours of light, the shortest 8.6.
Far to the north the sea never thaws. Far to the south it is never cold. Violet and blue are below freezing, white is the point where water turns to ice, green is mild, yellow warm, red hot.
Height and rain
Mountain chains and lowlands, and how far the rain reaches: between them they decide whether a place becomes a forest, a meadow, a desert or a marsh. Climb high enough anywhere, and it is the north again.
Green lowlands, brown hills, white peaks.
The colour of sand where it is dry, blue where it is soaked.
A closer look
The island first, then nine places far beyond it, each picture 160 steps across. Every dot is a plant. Every ring is the home ground of a herd, a pack or a flock, and the red rings are the large animals.
What grows there: oak, birch, maple, beech, pine, clover, wild apple and linden.
What grows there: feather grass, yarrow, clover, wild carrot, wormwood, bramble, wild rose and wild barley.
Who lives there: wild goose, rat, crow, thrush, rock dove, wild horse, deer and hare.
What grows there: spruce, birch, pine, maple, linden, bilberry, wild apple and oak.
Who lives there: thrush, crow, rat, wild ox, deer, grouse, squirrel and wild boar.
What grows there: spruce, larch, grey moss, bilberry, birch, pine, cloudberry and juniper.
Who lives there: reindeer, crow, grouse, thrush, deer, hare, squirrel and white fox.
What grows there: spruce, birch, larch, pine, willow, grey moss, bilberry and maple.
Who lives there: salmon, reindeer, thrush, crow, grouse, squirrel, deer and gull.
What grows there: feather grass, wormwood, sage, juniper, yarrow, wild barley, poppy and wild carrot.
Who lives there: rat, crow, rock dove, wild sheep, wild horse, thrush, camel and hare.
What grows there: sage, wormwood, juniper, yarrow, olive, feather grass, poppy and wild barley.
Who lives there: rat, rock dove, crow, thrush, wild goose, deer, wild ass and wild goat.
What grows there: feather grass, millet, thorn tree, sage, date palm, agave, prickly pear and aloe.
Who lives there: antelope, parrot, monkey, rat, junglefowl, thrush, wild boar and tortoise.
What grows there: sage, wormwood, olive, agave, thorn tree, prickly pear, aloe and juniper.
Who lives there: tuna, crow, rock dove, wild ass, antelope, thrush, rat and sea bream.
What grows there: mango, kapok, ironwood, yam, fig, cacao, water mint and banana.
Who lives there: parrot, monkey, junglefowl, rat, wild boar, elephant, thrush and crow.
Plants
The island holds a handful of them. The rest stand beyond the sea. Each map shows in green where a plant could grow. Some feed, some clothe, some heal, some kill, and a few look exactly like one that does.
Nothing by that name. Not here, at least.
A broad tree with a thick furrowed trunk and lobed leaves.
Bears in autumn
Acorns: bitter until soaked in running water.
Oak galls: crushed in water they make a black that stays.
A tall tree with smooth grey bark and a dense shade under it.
Bears in autumn
A slender tree with pale bark that peels in sheets.
Birch bark: peels in sheets that keep water out and take a mark.
A tall straight tree with needles and scaly cones, sticky where it is cut.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Resin: burns long and keeps water out of a seam.
Eases winter weakness.
A dark pointed tree whose boughs hang to the ground.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Wood: light, and it rings when struck.
Spruce roots: split, they lash like cord.
A needle tree that turns gold and drops its needles before the cold.
Wood: does not rot in wet ground.
A leaning tree by the water with long thin hanging branches.
Withies: bend without breaking: what a pack is woven from.
Eases fever and pain.
A dark tree of wet ground with small woody cones.
Wood: lasts for ages under water.
A tree with hand shaped leaves that turn red and gold before they fall.
Maple sap: boiled down it turns sweet and thick.
A great tree that drops spiny green husks with brown nuts inside.
Bears in autumn
Chestnuts: roasted or dried and ground: they keep through a winter.
Thorns: the husks prick.
A tree with heart shaped leaves, loud with bees when it flowers.
Wood: soft: it carves easily.
Bast: the inner bark, soaked, comes apart into strong strands.
Eases coughs.
A dark, slow, twisted tree with flat needles and single red berries.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Wood: springs back when bent: the best wood for a bow.
Poison: needles, bark and seeds kill.
A small crooked tree, white with blossom in spring, heavy with small sour fruit in autumn.
Bears in autumn
Apples: kept cool and dry they last through the winter.
A gnarled grey tree with narrow silver leaves and small hard bitter fruit.
Bears in autumn and winter · green all year
Olives: bitter until soaked in brine; pressed, they give oil.
A low spreading tree with broad rough leaves and soft sweet fruit.
Bears in summer and autumn
Figs: dried in the sun they keep for a year.
An evergreen oak with a thick soft bark that comes off in slabs.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Cork: light as nothing: it floats, and it stops a flask.
A mighty tree of the mountains with level boughs and sweet smelling red wood.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Wood: neither rot nor worm touches it: the wood of ships and chests.
A bare leaning trunk on the beach with a crown of long fronds and great hard nuts.
Bears all year · green all year · its seeds cross the sea
Coconuts: drink and food in one shell, and the shell is a bowl.
Coir: husk fibre: rope that salt water does not rot.
A palm of the dry lands with heavy clusters of sweet brown fruit.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Dates: dry on the tree and keep for years.
A giant of the rainforest with buttressed roots and wood too heavy to float.
Bears in summer · green all year
Wood: dulls any edge, and lasts for ever.
A giant with a spiny grey trunk that stands above the whole forest, shedding clouds of silky fluff.
Bears in spring
Wood: light and soft: a whole trunk, hollowed with fire, is a boat.
Kapok fluff: too slippery to spin, but it stuffs a bed and it floats.
A dense dark crowned tree hung with heavy golden fruit on long stalks.
Bears in summer · green all year
A small tree of the deep shade whose ribbed pods grow straight out of its trunk.
Bears all year · green all year
Cacao pods: a sweet white pulp around bitter beans; the beans, left to turn, dried and roasted, are something else entirely.
A slender rainforest tree with glossy leaves and a bitter red brown bark.
Green all year
Eases marsh fever.
A tree with a trunk as wide as a hut, bare for half the year, that holds water inside.
Bears in autumn
Baobab fruit: a dry sour pulp that keeps.
Trunk water: water, in the dry season, where there is none.
A flat topped tree of the dry grasslands, armed with long white thorns.
Bears in summer
Gum: sticks things together, and can be eaten.
Thorns: thorns as long as a finger: a fence no beast crosses.
A tree standing in the salt water on a tangle of arched roots.
Green all year · Its seeds cross the sea
Wood: burns hot and long.
A many stemmed bush of straight rods, with nuts in leafy cups.
Bears in autumn
Hazelnuts: keep a year in the shell.
Rods: straight and supple: for weaving walls and fences.
A thorny tangle of arching stems with dark sweet berries.
Bears in summer and autumn
Thorns: scratches.
A knee high bush of the cold woods with small blue black berries that stain the hands.
Bears in summer and autumn
A thorny bush with pale flowers in summer and hard red hips that stay on through the cold.
Bears in autumn and winter
Eases winter weakness and coughs.
Thorns: scratches.
A prickly grey green bush of poor ground with dusty blue berries.
Bears in autumn · green all year
Wood: its smoke keeps meat from turning.
A low grey bush of the dry hills, strong smelling when brushed.
Green all year
Eases wound rot and coughs.
A bush whose pods burst into tufts of white fluff.
Bears in autumn
Cotton fluff: twisted between the fingers it becomes thread.
A thorny silver leaved bush of dunes and river gravels, crowded with sour orange berries that stay on into the cold.
Bears in autumn and winter
Eases winter weakness.
Thorns: long thorns.
A leafy plant of shady places with shiny black berries, sweet to the taste.
Bears in summer and autumn
Poison: a handful of the berries kills; not every berry is food.
Easily mistaken for bramble.
A climbing plant with curling tendrils and hanging bunches of small dark fruit.
Bears in autumn
Grapes: the bloom on the skin makes the juice turn by itself.
A twining vine with heart shaped leaves over a tuber as big as a head.
Tubers: must meet the fire: raw it burns the mouth.
Poison: raw, it sickens.
A vine climbing the rainforest trunks with strings of small hot berries.
Bears in autumn and winter · green all year
Peppercorns: dried, they keep their fire for years, and keep meat a little longer.
A giant soft stemmed plant with leaves as long as a person and hands of yellow fruit.
Bears all year · green all year
Banana leaves: wrap food, roof a shelter.
A low plant of the cold bogs with one amber berry on each stem.
Bears in autumn
Berries: keep under the snow: food in the dead of winter.
Eases winter weakness.
A mound of thick waxy blue green leaves on the bare shingle above the tide line.
Its seeds cross the sea
A slender waist high plant with sky blue flowers that open for a morning.
Bears in summer and autumn
Flax stems: rotted in water and beaten, the stems give long fine thread.
A dark green plant that burns the skin of whoever brushes it.
Nettle leaves: the sting dies in hot water.
Sting: burns for an hour.
A lacy leaved plant with a flat white flower head and a pale sweet root.
Roots: keep all winter in cool earth.
Easily mistaken for hemlock.
A lacy leaved plant with a flat white flower head, purple blotches on the stem and a smell of mice.
Poison: a root the size of a finger stills the breath.
Easily mistaken for wild carrot.
A carpet of broad leaves under the spring trees, smelling sharply when crushed.
Eases gut worms.
A feathery leaved herb with flat clusters of tiny white flowers.
Eases wounds and wound rot.
A low plant of wet places with a cool strong smell.
Eases gut rot.
A silver grey herb of dry ground, bitter beyond bearing.
Wormwood: strewn where one sleeps, it drives off what bites in the night.
Eases gut worms.
A frail flower of red or white petals over a round green head full of seeds.
Bears in summer
Poppy milk: takes every pain away, and asks to be taken again.
Eases pain and coughs.
Visions: sleep, dreams, and a craving that grows.
A low three leaved plant with round sweet flower heads, thick with bees.
A yellow flowered herb whose crushed leaves turn the hands blue.
Woad leaves: left to turn in stale water, the leaves give a blue that does not wash out.
A soft wet cushion of green and red that gives underfoot and holds water like nothing else.
Green all year
Bog moss: dried, it drinks up blood and a wound under it stays clean.
Peat: the black earth under it, cut and dried, burns: fire where no tree grows.
Eases wound rot.
A grass as tall as a tree: hollow jointed green poles in dense stands.
Green all year
Bamboo poles: light, strong, hollow and it floats: poles, pipes, cups, rafts.
Bamboo shoots: bitter until boiled.
A tall grass whose ears are heavy with hard seeds that shatter when ripe.
Bears in summer
Grain: hard as stone until ground, and it keeps for years if dry.
A grass with long bristled ears that nod in the wind.
Bears in summer
A grass standing in shallow water with loose drooping heads of long dark seeds.
Bears in autumn
A grass of the hot plains with a thick head of tiny round seeds.
Bears in autumn
Grain: ripens even when the rains fail.
A thick jointed cane taller than a person, sweet when chewed.
Green all year
A sea of pale grass with silver plumes that ripple like water.
Bears in summer
Stiff grey green tufts that hold the sand of the shore together.
Bears in summer · green all year
A rosette of thick toothed leaves full of a clear cool jelly.
Green all year
Eases burns and wounds.
Flat green pads stacked one on another, armed with spines, with red fruit along their edges.
Bears in summer and autumn · green all year
Cactus fruit: sweet and wet, in a land with no water.
Thorns: hair fine spines that stay in the skin.
A great rosette of sword leaves, each ending in a black needle.
Green all year
Agave fibre: the leaf pulls apart into cord, with its own needle at the end.
Thorns: the leaf tips stab.
Tall hollow stems with brown plumes, standing in crowds at the edge of still water.
Reeds: bundled tight they shed the rain for years, and a bundle floats.
Reed roots: starchy: food when nothing else is left.
A tall three sided green stem topped by a great mop of threads, in warm shallow water.
There all year
Papyrus stems: sliced, laid crosswise and beaten, the pith dries into a sheet that takes a mark.
Round leaves floating on still water around a great pink flower.
Bears in autumn
Long brown ribbons swaying under the cold sea, thrown up on the beach after storms.
There all year
Kelp: salty food, and spread on poor ground it feeds what is planted there.
A pale grey crisp carpet on the cold ground, like tiny bare trees.
There all year
Grey moss: what the herds of the north dig for under the snow.
A fat brown capped mushroom with a sponge instead of gills, under the trees after rain.
Bears in summer and autumn
Mushrooms: sliced and dried they keep the winter.
Easily mistaken for death cap.
A pale greenish mushroom with white gills and a bag at its foot, pleasant to the taste.
Bears in summer and autumn
Poison: nothing is felt for a day, then there is no way back: whoever eats it cannot warn the others in time.
Easily mistaken for bolete.
A bright red mushroom spotted with white, under birch and pine.
Bears in autumn
Visions: sickness, then a waking dream.
A grey hoof shaped bracket growing from the trunk of a birch or a beech.
There all year
Tinder: catches the smallest spark, and a glowing piece carries fire for hours.
Animals
Each map shows in gold where an animal could live. Long before an animal is seen, there are signs of it: a track, a call in the night, something missing in the morning. A few of them could one day live beside people.
Nothing by that name. Not here, at least.
A slender brown animal on long legs; the males carry branching antlers.
Signs: split hoof prints, bark stripped at shoulder height, a bark like a cough at dusk.
Lives in groups of 3 to 12, about by dusk and dawn, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A bristly dark beast, heavy in the shoulder, with curved tusks.
Signs: ground torn up as if dug, mud wallows, a sour smell.
Lives in groups of 4 to 10, about by night, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
Beside people it could become a pig.
A long eared, long legged brown runner of the open ground.
Signs: round droppings, shoots bitten off clean, a form pressed in the grass.
Lives in groups of 1 to 3, about by dusk and dawn, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A small red climber with a plume of a tail.
Signs: gnawed cones, nut shells split in two, a scolding chatter overhead.
Lives in groups of 1 to 2, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A small red hunter with a white tipped brush and a pointed face.
Signs: a sharp musky smell, a single line of neat prints, a scream in the winter night.
Lives in groups of 1 to 2, about by night, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
A grey long legged hunter that moves in a band, with pale eyes that hold a gaze.
Signs: a howl answered by others, large prints in a straight line, a kill picked clean.
Lives in groups of 3 to 9, about by night, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
Beside people it could become a dog.
A huge shaggy brown beast that walks flat footed and can stand upright like a person.
Signs: trees clawed above head height, logs torn open, great five toed prints.
Lives alone, about by day, stands its ground, sleeps through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
A striped grey cat with a thick ringed tail, seen for a heartbeat and gone.
Signs: almost none: a feather, a small kill half buried.
Lives alone, about by night, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a cat.
A black bull taller than a person at the shoulder, with long forward horns; the cows are red brown.
Signs: broad split prints, dung in flat cakes, saplings broken, a deep bellow.
Lives in groups of 6 to 30, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
Beside people it could become a cattle.
A stout brown swimmer with a flat scaly tail and orange teeth.
Signs: trees felled to a gnawed point, a dam of sticks, a pond where there was a stream.
Lives in groups of 2 to 8, about by night, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A quick grey brown gnawer with a bare tail.
Signs: droppings like dark grains, gnawed holes, rustling where food is kept.
Lives in groups of 4 to 30, about by night, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A dun, stiff maned runner of the open plain, in bands led by one.
Signs: round single hoof prints, dung heaps, thunder in the ground.
Lives in groups of 5 to 20, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a horse.
A small pale long eared relative of the horse, sure footed on stony ground.
Signs: small round prints, a braying that carries for miles.
Lives in groups of 3 to 12, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a donkey.
A brown woolly climber with great curled horns.
Signs: tufts of wool on thorns, narrow trails across the slopes, a rattle of stones.
Lives in groups of 5 to 25, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a sheep.
A bearded climber with long swept back horns that stands where nothing should be able to stand.
Signs: droppings on the ledges, bushes eaten bare, a sharp whistle of alarm.
Lives in groups of 4 to 15, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a goat.
A tall humped sand coloured beast with a split lip and a slow rolling walk.
Signs: wide soft two toed prints, a groan, bushes stripped of thorns and all.
Lives in groups of 3 to 15, about by day, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a camel.
A towering dark deer of the wet northern woods with a drooping nose and antlers like open hands.
Signs: huge split prints in the bog, willows browsed high, a low moan in autumn.
Lives in groups of 1 to 3, about by dusk and dawn, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
A grey brown deer of the cold; both males and females carry antlers, and the herds have no end.
Signs: a clicking of ankles, snow dug down to the moss, trails worn by thousands.
Lives in groups of 20 to 200, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
Beside people it could become a herded reindeer.
A small fox, white in winter and grey brown in summer, that follows the great hunters.
Signs: small prints beside the bear's, a den dug in a sandy bank.
Lives in groups of 1 to 2, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
A sleek spotted swimmer with a dog like head that hauls out to rest on rock and ice.
Signs: a round head watching from the water, a breathing hole in the ice, a bark from the skerries.
Lives in groups of 3 to 40, about by day, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
A great cream white bear of the sea ice, longer in the neck than the brown one, afraid of nothing.
Signs: prints as wide as two hands across the ice, a seal kill, a shape that was not there a moment ago.
Lives alone, about by day, attacks, stays through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
Something vast and dark that rises from the deep, breathes a plume of mist, and is gone.
Signs: a spout on the horizon, a sound like a groan through the hull of the world, once in an age a carcass on the beach.
Lives in groups of 1 to 6, about by day, takes no notice of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A light tan leaper with ringed horns, in herds that bound away as one.
Signs: small pointed prints by the thousand, grass cropped short, dust on the horizon.
Lives in groups of 10 to 80, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A grey mountain on four pillars with great ears, long teeth of white, and a nose like an arm.
Signs: trees pushed over, round prints the size of a shield, a rumble felt more than heard.
Lives in groups of 5 to 20, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
Beside people it could become a working elephant.
A great tawny cat; the males wear a dark mane. They lie in the shade all day and own the night.
Signs: a roar that carries across the plain after dark, a kill ringed by waiting birds.
Lives in groups of 3 to 12, about by night, attacks, stays through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
A spotted, slope backed beast with a heavy head and jaws that crack bone.
Signs: a whooping laugh in the dark, white droppings full of bone, nothing left of a carcass.
Lives in groups of 3 to 15, about by night, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
Dangerous.
A huge orange cat barred with black, silent in the deep forest and not afraid of water.
Signs: claw marks high on a trunk, a print as broad as a hand, a silence where the birds were loud.
Lives alone, about by night, attacks, stays through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
A quick long tailed climber with a bare face and hands like a person's, in noisy troops.
Signs: fruit dropped half eaten, branches shaking, shrieks passed from tree to tree.
Lives in groups of 8 to 40, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
A plump water bird; the males have a green head.
Signs: quacking from the reeds, tails up in the shallows, a nest of down near the water.
Lives in groups of 4 to 30, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
Beside people it could become a tame duck.
A big grey long necked bird that crosses the sky in arrowheads, calling.
Signs: arrowheads passing north in spring and south in autumn: they tell the turn of the year before anything else does.
Lives in groups of 10 to 100, about by day, keeps its distance, leaves before the winter and comes back.
Beside people it could become a tame goose.
A round mottled ground bird that bursts up from underfoot with a clatter.
Signs: a drumming in the spring woods, dust baths, curled droppings.
Lives in groups of 1 to 8, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A small proud ground bird of the hot woods; the male is red and gold with a comb, and crows before dawn.
Signs: a crow at first light, scratched leaf litter, a clutch of eggs under a bush.
Lives in groups of 3 to 10, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a chicken.
A blue grey bird of cliffs and ledges that always finds its way home.
Signs: cooing from the ledges, white streaks down the rock.
Lives in groups of 6 to 40, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a homing pigeon.
A glossy black bird, clever eyed, that watches everything and forgets nothing.
Signs: where they circle and gather, something has died.
Lives in groups of 2 to 30, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
A round headed night bird with huge eyes and wings that make no sound.
Signs: a hoot in the dark, pellets of fur and tiny bones under a tree.
Lives in groups of 1 to 2, about by night, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A great dark bird with a hooked beak that hangs on the wind above the heights.
Signs: a speck turning high up, a scream, a nest of branches on a crag.
Lives in groups of 1 to 2, about by day, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
A small brown speckled bird with a song out of all proportion to its size.
Signs: song at first light and last light, berries gone from the bushes, seeds sprouting where it perched.
Lives in groups of 1 to 10, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A white and grey sea bird with a yellow beak, loud, bold and always hungry.
Signs: far out at sea, gulls mean land is near; over the water, a shoal below.
Lives in groups of 5 to 80, about by day, stands its ground, stays through the winter.
A bird of impossible colours with a hooked beak, that repeats the sounds it hears.
Signs: screeching flocks at dawn and dusk, a voice in the trees saying a word it should not know.
Lives in groups of 4 to 40, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
Beside people it could become a talking bird.
A thick short snake with a zigzag down its back that does not move out of the way.
Signs: a shed skin among the stones, a hiss, a stillness on a sunny rock.
Lives alone, about by day, stands its ground, sleeps through the winter.
Dangerous.
A small quick scaled sun lover that leaves its tail behind when caught.
Signs: a flick of movement on a warm wall.
Lives in groups of 1 to 4, about by day, flees at the sight of people, sleeps through the winter.
A slow domed walker that pulls its head and legs into its own house.
Signs: a track like a dragged bowl between two rows of claw marks.
Lives alone, about by day, takes no notice of people, sleeps through the winter.
A log with eyes, until it moves: an armoured long jawed lizard longer than two people.
Signs: a slide of smooth mud into the water, two bumps on the surface, animals that will not drink there.
Lives in groups of 1 to 6, about by night, attacks, stays through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
A small green jumper with golden eyes.
Signs: a chorus from the water on spring nights, jelly full of black dots, then a thousand tadpoles.
Lives in groups of 5 to 60, about by night, flees at the sight of people, sleeps through the winter.
A deep bodied silver fish of the shallows near the shore.
Signs: rings on still water at dawn, gulls diving.
Lives in groups of 5 to 60, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A small silver fish that moves in shoals so vast that the sea changes colour.
Signs: the water boiling silver, every sea bird for miles in one place.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by night, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A big mottled fish of the cold deep with a whisker on its chin.
Signs: none from the shore: only a line let down deep finds it.
Lives in groups of 10 to 300, about by day, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A great steel blue fish of the warm deep, built like a thrown spear.
Signs: fish leaping far out, a run past the headlands at the same time every year.
Lives in groups of 10 to 200, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A grey shape under the water with a fin that cuts the surface.
Signs: a fin, circling; fish fleeing into the shallows.
Lives in groups of 1 to 3, about by dusk and dawn, attacks, stays through the winter.
Dangerous: nothing here is more so.
A speckled fish that holds its place in fast clear water.
Signs: a rise and a ring under the overhanging bank, a shadow that darts upstream.
Lives in groups of 1 to 10, about by dusk and dawn, flees at the sight of people, stays through the winter.
A big silver fish that comes in from the sea in autumn and fights its way up the rivers, leaping the falls, to die where it was born.
Signs: in autumn the rivers are full of them, and the bears, the eagles and the wolves all come to the banks.
Lives in groups of 20 to 500, about by day, flees at the sight of people, leaves before the winter and comes back.
A heavy golden brown fish of warm still water that grubs in the mud.
Signs: clouds of mud in the shallows, reeds shaking with nothing in them.
Lives in groups of 2 to 30, about by day, flees at the sight of people, sleeps through the winter.
Beside people it could become a pond fish.
Blue black shells in crowds on the rocks between the tides.
Signs: beds uncovered at low water, broken shells where the gulls drop them.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by day, takes no notice of people, stays through the winter.
An armoured sideways walker with two pincers held up like fists.
Signs: holes in the sand with little balls around them, a scuttle under the weed.
Lives in groups of 1 to 30, about by night, keeps its distance, stays through the winter.
A small brown striped flier that lives by the thousand in a hollow tree and defends it.
Signs: a steady traffic in and out of a hole in a trunk, a hum, a sweetness in the air; fruit sets where they fly.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by day, stands its ground, sleeps through the winter.
Beside people it could become a kept bees.
A big tan moth with an eye on each wing; its fat green caterpillar spins a golden brown case on the oak twigs.
Signs: cases the size of a thumb hanging in the oaks in autumn, each one a single unbroken thread.
Lives in groups of 10 to 200, about by night, takes no notice of people, sleeps through the winter.
Beside people it could become a kept silk worms.
A whining speck that comes at dusk and leaves an itching bump.
Signs: a whine in the ear at night near still water; smoke keeps them off, and so does wind.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by dusk and dawn, attacks, dies back in the cold and returns with the warmth.
A big grasshopper; harmless alone, but some years they gather and rise in a cloud that darkens the sun.
Signs: a brown cloud on the wind with a sound like rain; behind it not a green leaf is left.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by day, takes no notice of people, dies back in the cold and returns with the warmth.
A jumping speck that lives in fur, in bedding, and on people.
Signs: small red bites in lines, scratching; they leave a dying rat for the nearest warm body.
Lives in groups of 10 to 500, about by night, attacks, stays through the winter.
A small beetle that carries a cold green light and blinks it in the warm dark.
Signs: drifting sparks over the grass on summer nights.
Lives in groups of 20 to 400, about by night, takes no notice of people, dies back in the cold and returns with the warmth.
Four painted wings, carried on the air from flower to flower.
Signs: they come with the first warm days and are gone with the last.
Lives in groups of 1 to 50, about by day, takes no notice of people, dies back in the cold and returns with the warmth.
A pink blind burrower that comes up when it rains.
Signs: little coils of fine earth on the surface; where there are many, everything grows better.
Gathers in countless numbers, about by night, takes no notice of people, sleeps through the winter.
The invisible ones
Living things that nobody in the world can see, and that nobody knows exist. What can be known is what they do: water from the marsh sickens and water from the spring does not, food turns faster in the heat, a cough passes from one to the other. Some of them are helpers.
Nothing by that name. Not here, at least.
Water that stands still, smells, or lies below where waste is left, sickens within a day or two; water that runs clear over stones seldom does.
“My belly cramps and nothing stays in me. I cannot drink enough.”
Kept off by: boiling, running water, cooking, washing, waste kept from water and water mint.
Even a clear cold stream can sicken, below a beaver pond or where the herds come to drink; it shows so many days later that the water is never blamed.
“For days now my belly is sour and swollen and I tire at nothing.”
Kept off by: boiling.
Fish eaten raw brings a long hunger that eating does not end; fish that has met the fire never does.
“I eat and eat and grow thin.”
Kept off by: cooking, smoking and cold.
The meat of the boar, underdone, and hands that touched foul ground and then food.
“I am weak and pale, and my belly is never at peace.”
Kept off by: cooking, washing, wormwood and wild garlic.
In the warm season the sea sometimes turns the colour of rust and dead fish wash up; shellfish taken then numb the lips and can stop the breath, cooked or not.
“My lips and fingers tingle and go numb. It is hard to breathe.”
Kept off by: watching the water.
After a cold wet spring some ears of grain carry black spurs in place of seeds; bread made with them brings burning limbs and waking dreams to everyone who shared it.
“My hands and feet burn as if in a fire, and I see what is not there.”
Kept off by: sorting the grain and drying.
A wound left dirty goes red, hot and swollen, then the heat spreads to the whole body; one washed at once in clean water and covered seldom does.
“The wound throbs and burns, and now I shiver with heat.”
Kept off by: washing, honey, fire on the wound, yarrow, sage, bog moss and blue mould.
A deep narrow wound from something that lay in dung or earth: days later the jaw locks, then the whole body bends like a bow.
“My jaw will not open. Every sound makes my whole body clench.”
Kept off by: washing and fire on the wound.
A fox or a wolf that shows no fear, staggers, snaps at nothing: its bite carries a death that waits a month and then cannot be turned back.
“I burn with thirst and cannot bear the sight of water.”
Kept off by: wariness and washing.
In the cold season a running nose and a cough go from one to the next among those who share a roof.
“My nose runs, my throat is raw, my head is heavy.”
Kept off by: rest, warmth, distance, linden and wild rose.
Some winters a fever with aching bones lays low everyone at once; it seems to come with the wild geese and ducks, and it is never quite the same twice.
“Every bone aches. I am hot and cold by turns and cannot rise.”
Kept off by: rest, warmth, distance and willow.
Where many live close together: a fever, then the skin covered in blisters that scar. Whoever lives through it never has it again. Those who tend cattle, and once had the mild cow pox, are passed over.
“The fever broke and now my skin is covered in sores.”
Kept off by: distance and a scratch of cow pox.
A few blisters on the hands of whoever milks the cattle, gone in days.
“Blisters on my hands, from the cattle. It is nothing.”
Those who sleep near still water in the warm season fall to a fever that comes every third day, goes, and returns for years. The marsh air is blamed; nobody suspects the whining specks at dusk.
“The shaking cold, then the burning, then the sweat. Then it lets me be for two days.”
Kept off by: smoke, wind, high ground, draining, cloth and fever tree.
In the hot forests where the monkeys die of it: a fever, then the eyes and skin turn yellow. Whoever survives is safe for life.
“My eyes have turned yellow and I bring up black.”
Kept off by: smoke, cloth and distance.
A small thing found fastened to the skin after walking where the deer walk; a red ring around the bite, then months of aching joints.
“My knees and elbows ache and I am tired all the time.”
Kept off by: cloth and wariness.
First the rats die in the open. Then, where people live crowded beside their stores, swellings in the groin and armpit, and death in days. It is carried by the fleas that leave the dead rats.
“A lump under my arm, black and hard as a stone, and a fever like fire.”
Kept off by: cats, raised stores, distance and wormwood.
Meat and fish turn: first the smell, then the slime. In summer within a day, in the cold it takes many; dried, smoked or salted it hardly turns at all.
“What I ate has turned on me.”
Kept off by: cooking, cold, drying, smoking, salting and honey.
Whatever is kept damp grows a grey green fur and a musty smell, and is lost.
Kept off by: drying, raised stores, smoke and cold.
Wood that stays wet goes soft, brown and crumbling, fastest where it meets the ground: it is why a roof of wood wears down in the rain.
Kept off by: drying, charring, stone footing, resin, larch, cedar and alder.
The dusty bloom on the skin of grapes and apples. Crushed fruit, or honey in water, left alone begins to froth and becomes a drink that warms, cheers and keeps; a paste of ground grain left out swells and sours, and bakes into something light.
What it makes possible: wine, cider, mead, beer and risen bread.
Kept off by: cold and boiling.
Milk left in the warm thickens and sours without going foul, and what is pressed from it keeps for months. Cut greens packed tight under brine do the same.
What it makes possible: curd, cheese and pickled greens.
Kept off by: cold and boiling.
Wine left open to the air turns sharp, under a slippery skin; what is kept in it does not spoil.
What it makes possible: vinegar and pickling.
Kept off by: cold.
Small knots on the roots of clover, of the alder and of the thorn tree. Ground where they grew bears better the year after.
What it makes possible: fields that do not tire.
Dead leaves, dung and scraps heaped together grow warm and turn into dark sweet earth in which everything thrives.
What it makes possible: compost.
Kept off by: cold and drying.
Stems of flax and nettle left in still water for a few weeks stink, and then the long fibres come away clean from the wood.
What it makes possible: thread from stems.
Kept off by: cold.
Woad leaves steeped in stale water for days give up their colour: cloth comes out yellow green and turns blue in the air.
What it makes possible: blue dye.
Kept off by: cold.
A wound bound with bread that had gone blue green sometimes heals clean when it should have gone bad. Nobody knows why.
What it makes possible: a cure for wound rot.
Kept off by: drying.
They have fire, a roof, a lantern. They have not yet wondered what lies beyond the water. Watch what they do next, and what they ask for.