The Village Under the Storm

Polly had one place written down and no idea where it was. "Can you tell me how to get there?" she asked the ewe over breakfast. Follow the coast road west, the ewe said, until the land stops pretending to have hills. The Bay of Skaill is a long curve of pale sand with a green shelf behind it, and the shelf is where the village sits, half sunk into the ground with its roofs open to the sky.

Polly havde ét sted skrevet ned og ingen anelse om, hvor det lå. "Kan du fortælle mig, hvordan jeg kommer derhen?" spurgte hun fåret over morgenmaden. Følg kystvejen mod vest, sagde fåret, indtil landet holder op med at lade som om, det har bakker. Bay of Skaill er en lang bue af lyst sand med en grøn hylde bag sig, og på den hylde ligger landsbyen, halvt sunket ned i jorden med tagene åbne mod himlen.

An oystercatcher was working the site that morning, and oystercatchers can be heard in weather. Polly asked, "I would like to know the history of this particular monument." People lived here about five thousand years ago, he told her. They were farming this coast before Stonehenge and before the Great Pyramid. Then the sand came over the top of them and stayed for roughly four thousand years, until a storm in the winter of eighteen fifty stripped the dune away.

En strandskade arbejdede på stedet den morgen, og strandskader kan høres i blæsevejr. Polly spurgte: "Jeg vil gerne vide noget om dette monuments historie." Her boede mennesker for omkring fem tusind år siden, fortalte han hende. De dyrkede denne kyst før Stonehenge og før den store pyramide. Så kom sandet ind over dem og blev liggende i omtrent fire tusind år, indtil en storm vinteren atten hundrede og halvtreds rev klitten væk.

The wind took half of that, so Polly asked for it again. "Could you please repeat that for me?" The second telling had the detail that matters. Every house holds the same furniture in the same arrangement: a hearth in the middle, box beds at either side, and against the far wall a stone dresser facing the door. It is stone because there was no wood.

Vinden tog halvdelen af det, så Polly bad om det igen. "Kunne du gentage det for mig?" Anden gang kom detaljen, der betyder noget. Hvert eneste hus har de samme møbler i den samme opstilling: et ildsted i midten, alkover i hver side og op ad den fjerneste væg en stenreol, der vender mod døren. Den er af sten, fordi der ikke fandtes træ.

"Could you tell me if the museum is open tomorrow?" Polly asked, already knowing she would come back. She stood a while at the edge of one open house, looking in at a room laid out the way anyone lays out a room, the good things where a visitor would see them first.

"Kunne du fortælle mig, om museet er åbent i morgen?" spurgte Polly, som allerede vidste, at hun ville komme tilbage. Hun stod et stykke tid ved kanten af et af de åbne huse og kiggede ind i et rum, der var stillet op, som enhver stiller et rum op, med de fine ting, hvor en gæst ser dem først.