The People of Toget
Cain & Abel
Deep summer now in the west of England, and with volatile skies. Sometimes baking, other times misty rain. I struggle with August at the best of times: I can get a bit listless even while kicking my boots for the crispness of autumn. And this summer it’s edgy. There’s been riots in cities and a more visible display of unrest than we’ve had for a while. Immigration, border control, general communication breakdowns. We are far from Eden, with devilment everywhere.
The best thing I can do is offer a story.
And I appreciate the comments a few weeks ago (on the creation story). I read everything, even if I don’t always write back. It’s an act of generosity and energy for you to respond to these essays. Re: these Genesis stories, there’s a novelistic approach one could take, but I wanted to keep it within the charge of an almost-oral-storytelling. That’s important to me. As if we were hearing it through the woodsmoke.
For any Devonian folks, the last tickets for my Thursday night talk on this kind of thing – To Fall Beautifully From The Edge Of The World, can be found here:
To Fall Beautifully From The Edge Of The World
Transmission
So, the story.
We remember First Man and Woman exiled from Temple Mountain after eating from the Knowing Tree. Here is the link to The Knowing Tree if you want to reorientate before we continue.
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The People Of Toget
Though banished from the soft place, Maker kept talking to the First Two. Never stopped. Over time Moorwoman had a child, the first ever to do so, and she gave birth to a killer. But she did not know this as she cradled her sweet boy, as she gave thanks to Maker for his help that now, somehow, there were three. First Three. Then another baby was born, another boy. We can call them Animal-Man and Seed-Man.
The lads grew, and Seed-Man (the eldest) worked crops, a farmer. Animal-Man tended herds. They made libation to Maker, though they themselves had never been to Life Tree, and every day were now walking to Death Tree.
Animal-Man sorted through his flock and found the first born, and gave the loveliest, fattest portion. He gave blood. Seed-Man gathered up some fruits of the earth and offered them. It would seem Maker discerned one offering as greater than the other. It appears he looked into both men’s hearts and saw something lurking in Seed-Man. Shiftiness. A darkness coming into the world. Seed-Man was deeply angered his offering was not received in the same way as Animal-Man, and his head drooped towards the ground. He scowled at the earth like a sullen wolf. Maker saw this and spoke:
– Why are you simmering, furious? Why are you dirt-staring? If you do the right thing, won’t you be approved? But if you don’t, evil squats there – right by your door – and wants to own you utterly. You must learn mastery of it.
But evil took ownership. Resentment shot into our world. Seed-Man suggested to Animal-Man they go out to the fields. In the domain of his power, the seed-place, he attacked and slaughtered his brother. Maker called to Seed-Man:
– Where’s your brother? Where’s Animal-Man?
Fresh with the killing of his kin, Seed-Man straight out lied to Maker, defiantly saying:
– How I should I know? Am I by brother’s keeper?
– The blood of your brother is keening to me from the dirt. The earth has opened its jaw to drink the brother-blood spilt by your own fists. What have you done? You have a blight-curse on you now. Your field won’t yield, seeds won’t respond to your skill now. You will be a wanderer, agitated in spirit, restless.
Seed-Man felt the terror burbling up like a spring. He was frit almost unto death. The picture in his mind from Maker’s pronouncement was like a branding iron on his skull.
– This is unbearable. I will be shifted from my place, I will be obscured from you. I will be adrift in agitation, rootless, my head stoved in from the first that lays a hand on me.
– That is not how this will be. There will be vengeance sevenfold on anyone that takes your life.
Maker then put what is called the Cain-mark on the lad, so he wouldn’t be butchered. And Cain left the presence of Maker, taking himself east.
A Cain-mark on the Seed-skull: a stone cold killer, this first human from Moorwoman’s belly. No word of repentance do we hear of.
From Seed-Man came those who lived in tents and raised animals, from Seed-Man came those who played harp and flute, from Seed-Man come the blacksmiths, the ones who conjure tools and weapons from bronze and iron.
Multiply,
Multiply,
Multiply.