The Midsummer ritual Mandrake, Rune and Burrhead made so much trouble about was a thanksgiving for the blessing of the new generation of youngsters born in the spring. Midsummer fell at about the time they left (or were pushed out of) their home burrows to find their own territory. It was the beginning of a more solitary life and a time in which many would be caught by a tawny owl or starve as they searched for new territory. As well as being a thanksgiving, the ritual was also a petition to the Stone that these youngsters might be safe from talon and beak.
As they began the first of many sessions of explanation and story-telling in the nine-day wait before Midsummer Night, Hulver explained to Bracken that in ancient times every youngster in the system made the trek to the Stone and witnessed the ritual. It helped give youngsters the courage they would need in the trials that lay immediately ahead of them. Indeed, after it, many never returned to their home burrows—the ritual was the moment of departure and their home burrows were left for their mothers to occupy by themselves again.
In ancient times, a scribemole would make the long trek from Uffington to attend the Duncton ritual, for the presence of the Stone gave it a special status among mole systems generally. By the time of Hulver’s youth, of course, no scribemole came, or had come for a long time, and the ritual was beginning to decline in importance. Fewer youngsters attended, perhaps initially because, as they migrated down the slopes, the journey became too dangerous.
‘Perhaps Mandrake’s ban on the ritual is the inevitable conclusion to what has been coming for generations,’ explained Hulver, ‘though why an outsider should be the instrument of it, I do not know. It may be ending, but I will not let it end as long as I am able. They think I’m old and traditional down at Barrow Vale, and perhaps I am, but unless you honour something, you honour nothing. There’s more to being a mole than burrows, worms, fighting and mating—much more. I hope you’ll have the sense to see that one day.’
‘Did you go to the ritual when you were young?’ asked Bracken.
‘Yes, I went. I was one of the few—but then my mother came from the slopes and insisted. It was the first time I saw the elders together in the shadow of the Stone and with the chanting and the words it was very awe-inspiring. I remember afterwards I felt I could do anything. Anything! It gave me the courage to face the fact that I could never return to my home burrow, and after it, I never did.’
Bracken nodded with understanding. He remembered his own feelings of fear and desolation when he was alone in Hulver’s burrow.
‘What’s a chanting song?’ Bracken wanted to know next.
‘Oh!’ Hulver was surprised, but then youngsters these days didn’t seem to know anything. ‘Why, they’re ritual songs, songs of courage, hope and prophecy. One mole sings a verse and then the others join in.’
Hulver began to sing one of the songs in his old voice, but Bracken wasn’t impressed and finally Hulver stopped singing. ‘Well, you need a lot of moles singing it together. Hear that once and you never forget it!’
They stayed entirely on the surface for the first two or three days, because although Bracken was at first inclined to search for an entrance into the Ancient System, Hulver refused to let him. ‘No living mole has been down into the Ancient System and I’m certainly not going down now, after all these moleyears. There’s something about it that makes it wrong. It’s not ready yet.’
Bracken, despite his desire to explore everything, understood. He could feel the Ancient System around him, apparently more than Hulver could, but he felt the Duncton moles had lost it and were not yet ready to find it again. He hadn’t even seen an entrance to it since he had been up on the hill, because everything was so blocked up by mould and debris. But the tunnels were there, their secrets intact.
After two or three days of staying near the Stone, the two set off across the hill to the south end of the wood. On one side of it the chalk escarpment fell away sharply, the wind rushing up and blowing your snout into the air if you tried to peer over. On the other side, the pastures began—or ended, depending on your point of view—all rough and scrubby with billowing clumps of gorse whose bright yellow flowers attracted Bracken, though he didn’t dare break cover from the last of the wood to take a closer look.
