((neatly penned in Lumi-kieli))
Once again I have not kept up with my journal for the easiest of reasons, that we have hardly stopped moving and there has not been time. Today I am reminded of it by, strangely enough, a recollection of Frimsi, who I have not seen nearly all year. But I was watching Beri's kin in their subdued celebratings, and my fingertip went over my necklace thinking of how I had not even told Beri's moder why we both wear matching necklaces, and I thought of Frimsi and how much discomfort his presence here would have been -- for him and for everyone else -- and I suddenly laughed. And Beri looked at me as if wondering why, so I just waved as if to say nothing, I will tell you later. And then we both forgot about it in the celebrating.
Except I kept thinking about how I never got to sell Frimsi the jars of hilloa, and that made me think of how I had not written in my journal because we had spent so little time in Bree. I thought we would be there a moon. I had just about barely gotten the Pony's kitchen back into order and met a new girl who Butterbur hired and then we were off again in a hurry to reach the Vales in time for Juhannus, or Gathering, or Gaderung in their words. The journey was exhausting! I can hardly keep up with Beri on roads, and the climb over the High Pass, though it was refreshingly cool, it was so steep and rocky and hard to climb, and I was out of breath almost the whole time. Surely it was beautiful but I was too tired to appreciate it.
It is now three nights since we arrived. I met a few of the clan in the passes before that, and with Beri's vouching for me they treated me well and gave me welcome. I was so exhausted though from the climbing up and then down -- down is harder than up -- that I barely saw them and can remember less. At the lodge itself, though, there was more to see and smell. The land is so lush! No wonder they can celebrate for two weeks without even eating meat or fish; there are enough fruit and berries to feed my whole village for a moon, within a stone's toss of the gates, and there are hundreds of hives for bees all making honey, and there are sheep and goats and cows and chickens all walking about scarcely tended or needing tending, and crops of grain as well. It is beautiful and immediately restful and I was much in need of it, but still I was scared of not being accepted.
Beri tells me that her moder approves of me, but the kin of Beorn are so hard to know what they feel so much of the time. Even though they all take pains to speak the etelä-kieli for my sake -- a whole people, more in number than all the Lumi-väki put together, in one place, all speaking these words for one person! -- still I feel so much like I do not understand what the people are thinking or feeling or saying or doing. I know Beri must have felt that way at Sûri-kylä too. And she reassures me that I am welcomed, as I reassured her. But in a way, it makes me tired all the time just trying to figure out where I stand, or to remind myself I do not have to.
The first day of the Gathering there was a ritual I am not sure I understand, where Beri and I were chosen -- because I am the guest from far lands, and presumably because she is with me -- to carry torches in a run three times around the lodge. If we could do it before the torches burned out, it foretold a good season, but Beri's torch got splashed in a pond and sputtered out mere yards before the end. Coincidentally I did better by not hurrying as much, or by trying to hurry but not being able to keep up with Beri's great strides. Even so, the celebratings are more reserved because of this ill portent, and it seems there is no sacrifice or appeal to try to appease the spirits to fix it -- this is more of a foreseeing of what will be, than an offering to change it, I think.
But there is still much feasting, and I am not missing meat or fish at all as yet, though I wonder if by the end of two weeks, I will find if there is such a thing as too much sweetness even for me! And merriment: games and music and dancing. Their music is like the voice of the hills; there is much drumming (drums are not reserved here for the spirit-talkers) and even more dancing. I am told that later there will be a time for me to share my songs and even my stories, though I imagine they will be strange to them. And pulla! Tomorrow I will bake pulla to offer, if I can get permission to use the oven, that is. With so many honey-cakes, though, the mild flavor of pulla will seem not like a welcome burst of sweetness, as it is for us, but something almost bitter by comparison. I hope that the chewy texture and the spice and almond will make it intriguing enough to make up for that.
I have not asked Beri about this yet, but if she is right that her family approve of me, then there is nothing more standing in the way of us marrying and choosing where we will live. We are to be here a bit more than another week. Maybe near the end I will ask if, having seen home again, she wishes to live here, or to return to Bree-land. Even if we will settle here we will return once to get our things and settle up with people, but we should still decide before we leave. I wonder if one reason to return to the lands of Bree is Lothaer? And if we do, we will also have to think about what sort of ritual or celebration we wish to have to mark it. It has been so long that these questions were far away, over a horizon too far to see. Now they are suddenly near.
