What we know today as Stonehenge has been a place of gathering (we believe it was worship) for several thousand years. The stones in place today were put there about four thousand years ago. This is an interesting tale about a tribe living in the area. The tribes chief had three sons. The eldest, Camaban, was born with a club foot and was banished from the settlement. He lived in the wild, and came to an old temple where the sun had been worshipped before his people changed their allegiance to the moon goddess. The second son, Lengar, was a warrior and was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps to become chief one day. The third son, Saban, was the most well-liked of the three but was too young to be a warrior at the time the story begins. Saban is following Lengar out to the area of the old temple when they come upon an Outlander who approaches the old temple and asks for Sannas, who is priestess of the moon temple in a rival village. Lengar pretends he doesn’t understand the stranger and ends up killing him, even though Saban insists he should be brought before their father. They discover the man had many gold tokens, religious items he had taken from another tribe. Saban sees Lengar take the gold, Camaban, who was hiding nearby, manages to grab a couple of the smaller items and scurry away. Lengar wants to keep the gold for himself but knows that Saban will tell their father, so tries to shoot him with the stranger’s arrows and then claim he was defending his brother from the Outlander. Saban manages to escape but trouble comes when their father demands the gold be given to him for safekeeping. He is a wise and peaceful man, saving for winter when the tribes face starvation. Lengar wants to use the gold to buy warriors to defeat neighboring Cathallo, but surrenders it finally to his father. He then leaves the tribe, taking some of the young men who support him with him.
Later, Camaban is to be sacrificed to the gods but just as he is about to be killed, he opens his mouth and is holding the small gold relics on his tongue. His life is spared but he too disappears from the tribe, leaving Saban as the heir presumptive.
There are lots of plots, twists and turns in this story. I kept wondering how any of this could be known since written language was not around in this part of the world at the time. Camaban goes on to become a sorcerer and even has his club foot at least partially mended so that he only has a slight limp. He decides that the tribe has made a mistake by worshipping the moon goddess and that a temple should be built to Slaol, their word for the sun god. Lengar comes back and does become chief but Camaban is behind the scenes, urging Lengar to build his temple, and sparing Saban’s life so that he can be the one to move the stones. All three will become chief of the tribe at some point in the tale.
An interesting story with lots of superstition, treachery and abundant killing. Weapons were invented long before words, there are swords, daggers, knives, bows and arrows, but there’s also love, friends, families, and the creation of something lasting and beautiful.