“You know that this is my place
And that I am the forest’s guardian. Enlil
Put me here to terrify men.
And I guard the forest as Enlil ordains.”
-Humbaba
10,000 B.C., beneath the terrible Cedar Forest, where dwell the eaters of men, in a land yet to be named or ruled by Man
Jacam stands spear in hand surveying his hunting ground as his woman, Jilith toils in her garden. As much as he would prefer her toiling under his loincloth it is nice to have something to eat when the Master of Animals denies him his skittish prey. Eating women’s food is not to his taste, but then again neither is starving when the stags decline to give up their flesh.
Jilith stands up from poking her planting stick into the hard soil; the only soil her scrawny Jacam can manage to protect for her garden since he’s terrified of those big hairy hunks out in the forest. Her stick breaks and she stands up with a curse, “This is auroch shit! I’m not strong enough and this louse isn’t doing a think but leaning on his spear.”
“What is it woman?” snarls Jacam.
“You heard me asshole. We need to break ground to get this corn in or we won’t have anything to eat when your spear arm gets sore this winter. Bring that spear over here and cut me a trench to plant my seed corn while I go fill the water skin. With both of us working we’ll grow a good crop.”
“Bitch nah! This is my sacred spear; the only thing that puts meat on the spit and stands between you and those hairy bastards out in the woods.”
Jilith puts her hands on her hips and declares, “Those killers would gladly slit your throat to get their hands on this soft corn-fed body after those leathery berry-eating nags they’ve been humping all winter. You want me to send out an invitation, or are you going to dig me a trench?”
It was said by The Sky Elders that Jacam tilled for six days and six nights to plough Jilith’s garden, and in the end, was too tired to plough Jilith, who was soon sneaking off to the edge of the woods with her basket of corn as soon as poor exhausted Jacam was fast asleep in the hut he had built for her.
