Page 237 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

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THE AMBER ROUTE

1510-1440 B.C.

In the summer the sun set almost due north, behind

the headland. And the flaming gold and pearl pink of its setting
moved slowly along the northern sky, with the pine forests on the
hill crests sharp and black against the glow, until after at most

three hours the light strengthened again and the sun rose again,
a little east of north. It was never night, and the sun shone
sixteen hours a day, and the grass and com sprouted thick and

green, and you could almost see the beanstalks growing. All
living things reveled in the light and warmth after the snow­
bound winter and the cold wet spring.
The lads of the village spent most of their time in or around
the water. They climbed over the rocks, dived into the pools,

prospected high-level routes along the cliff faces, and paddled
out on all manner of floats and logs and lashed-up contraptions
of timber into the open waters of the Skagerak.
They said that they were working, and indeed they

brought in a variegated and not unwelcome harvest from their
expeditions. Gulls’ eggs from the skerries and guillemot eggs
from the cliffs alternated with crabs and mussels from the rocks
and mullet and groupers from their fishing trips into the deep
waters. Their parents looked indulgently on these -jaunts and,

remembering their own childhood, only when very hard pressed
insisted on an occasional day’s work in the fields.
The village lay in a fold of the grey granite hills, beside a
broad inlet of the sea, on the coast near where now the border

between Norway and Sweden runs down to the waters of the