TALES IN PARTS
To Boil a Manchild — Part Twelve (Final)
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At first my father does not hear.
So I tell him again, “I want to give her to the cauldron.”
This he heard. He looks at me, not angrily, but with anger not distant. “You have been honored enough,” he says.
“I nearly died,” I say. “I want to thank Oden for saving my life.”
“You lighted the fire,” he says. “That is honor enough.”
“Yes, with Hulgur. But I must also thank him alone,” I say, and I don’t know where I find words to argue with my father. “There is no other way I can thank him.”
He sits very still for many moments and then he is angry with me, but even so he says, “Then do so.”
We wait for the water still and now it almost boils. Fura returns with the manchild and holds her for Romo to tie with the leather thong and then Fura picks her up again. It is his place as the last catcher of a manchild before me to make the offering. By rights I should offer the next.
I walk over to Fura and say, “Hand her to me.”
“It is my offering,” he says.
