Grinvill's Tin

10: Odin's Tree

Erica went over to the window and stared out over the water, down towards the Bay of Skaill. She and Hamish would often do the short walk to the sandy beach there, exploring all around the abandoned Stone Age village, Skara Brae.

Nearly five thousand years after they were built, the eight low houses of the village still cluster together there. The roofs have long since blown away and coarse grass now grows up against the outside of the stone walls. Yet she and her brother would wonder at how the interiors were free of dirt, the stone tables and beds quietly waiting to be used again.

They had once gathered handfuls of hay and then lain down in one of the little houses, daydreaming as the sun dipped slowly, fiery oranges and deep scarlets staining the sky. They had tried to imagine what life would have been like for the villagers who had lived there all those thousands of years ago, the prehistoric people who had gone to sleep at night in those very beds.

Somehow it was clear to Erica that although nobody had lived there for centuries, the ghosts of those ancient inhabitants still hovered. The sky was now their ceiling. Yet, as they eternally looked out over the weathered stones, they were bound to the wild stretch of beach in front of them. It had always been their home, and they would never leave.

Erica's mind wandered from the ghosts of Skara Brae to the Standing Stones of the Ring of Brodgar, which was only a few kilometres further. Looking both more imposing and ancient than the village, they were in fact erected hundreds of years later. Like the village, though, Erica knew that they also kept hold of their magic and mysteries.

Her gaze now travelled inland, starting from the field between their house and the cliff, then passing to more distant meadows and resting on the strange mounds of earth that could be found there. Locals said these were the homes of hill trows.

Stories of such creatures, along with goblins and faeries, selkies and Finfolk, run through Orkney folklore. She and her brother had grown up amongst all of this: they knew that Orkney is a land where the past is caught up with the present, magic mixed with mud.

* * *

'Odin... She said the wisdom of Odin must prevail...'

She set the tin down on the floor and sat down beside it. She kept her focus purely on the tin and as she looked, the five fan shaped lines on its lid seemed to shimmer. The trunk remained firm, but the splayed lines above it now pulsed. Erica felt as if she was entering a dream. She was peaceful, yet her senses were very sharp and clear.

'Grinvill,' she said, and then she pulled at the lid. Once again, it flew open with ease.

Light poured from the tin, a warm and golden light but with glimpses of cooler shades of green. It was as if the rays of the sun were being filtered through the greenery of a tree. She bent over the tin glancing at Hamish to make sure that he was looking too.

At first the tin showed glossy leaves, deep green, almost black. Then, the canopy became less dense, and there, among small broken twigs and compacted soil, she could see the enormous twisted roots of a tree and its vast irregular trunk. The knotted roots climbed up out of the soil and formed giant arches in the air. Then they plunged into the ground, burrowing deep into the earth.

Under one of the fantastically high arches, a bony and ancient man was standing. At his feet was a well, its waters glinting blackly. He was looking into the dark circle, lost in his own thoughts, when its surface shivered. He twitched as he saw an image mysteriously appear. It was a huge thick-set man with ragged blond hair and a long plaited beard. He had a flowing robe fastened with a heavy bronze broach. The elderly man turned away from the well and saw that the figure whose image had been rippling in the water was now walking towards him.