The Word Problem

Why is it, when I think this:

'Can Freya come too? Because she's good company and besides, she's my sister and can do excellent things, and also, to be perfectly honest, I'm afraid of the dark so the more the merrier?'

it always comes out like this:

'Freya?'

??

Why?

I think it's because it all gets mixed up in my head, like this:





I have to work on that.

Found Items (first 4 days in the Tree of the World)

120 Maple keys
86 Acorns
Countless Oak flowers
24 Pine cones
4 rune stones (in a small hole in the trunk)
A feathered quill
A tattered old remnant of a man’s tunic (also known as a kyrtill)
Interesting brooch
Abandoned barnswallow nest
Feathers from a rooster
Skull of a griffon vulture
Nightjar feather
Great Spotted Woodpecker feather
Yellow wagtail feather
Full Tree Pipit skeleton
Winter Wren diadem
12 ocean smooth stones
Idun the Leaf.

(date: Still pretty sure it's still late Einmánuður.)

The Question of Saliva as Glue

(date: I'm pretty sure it's still late Einmánuður.)

Rat-A-Task is a weaver. Like, the way a basket weaver is a weaver, but Rat is a weaver of his nest. That's how he does it. Really. He told me that people sometimes believe squirrels use their saliva to build their nests, but Rat thinks that's just gross. 'Gross!' he says. 'Ew!' And other things. 'I hope you don't believe a squirrel would use saliva as building material,' he says, casting me a suspicious look.

'No, I don't,' I say. 'I've never even heard of it.'

'Just think about it. It's only logical. Do you think I could sleep in a nest that was all glued together with my own saliva? That's for the birds!'

He means it literally. There are birds that do that. I've seen them, on other branches of the Tree of the World. They line their nests with a shiny liquid that comes from their beaks.

'That, my friend,' says Rat-A-Task, 'is bird saliva. Birds are not civilized like we squirrels are, and that's the evidence right there. Saliva. Just gross.'

And then he leans in, almost conspiratorially, as if the birds with their saliva might overhear him, and he says:

'No, the secret, if you know what you're doing, is all in the weaving. That's how my mother taught me and it's how I do it. Don't you worry. Your hands are too big. I'll never be able to teach you. But if you bring me the raw material, that will be help enough.'

So that's what I will do. I will bring the raw material to Rat-A-Task, and he will use what I bring him (and what he gets to himself) to build the biggest drey there ever was built. Right here in the biggest tree that ever has grown.

The Question for 1st Page of Diary

(date: Is it the month of Einmánuður or Harpa? I've lost track.)

Q: What's winter on the outside and summer on the inside?
A: The cliff that hides the Tree of the World!