Weaving pots was a winter job. In spring and summer willow stems loose their bendiness and become snappy and brittle. So, on winter evenings, after it was dark and her father was back from the sea, Ostra walked up the cliff to the marshy willow bed on the edge of the woods to cut the willow stems and weave them. She worked by the light of the moon or of a little rush lantern, yellow flamed and trailing the stink of animal fat. In the cold, in the wind, in the rain.
Ostra liked the work, because it was peaceful and solitary and gave her time to be quiet.
The rhythm of bending and binding the stems to make the big, open shape of the crab pt pleased her. Sometimes she sang quietly to herself, but more often she sat quietly listening to the sounds of the winter night, the screaming vixens, the owl hooting, the wolves howling and, above all the sound of Earth, to the big silence of the stars. Listening in the cold, winter silence is how she came to hear animals speaking to her.
The White Hare, P7-9
by Nicola Davis
Illustration Anastasia Izlesou
ISBN 978-1-9108-6248-3
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