Night. Somewhere in Northern Europe. (8,000 B.C.)
Picture a cave with a fire burning just outside its mouth. Prehistoric men, women, and children are seated on the cave floor, every face alit with awe and wonder, under the spell of a master storyteller. Before them, an elder, dressed in animal skins and a headdress with antlers stands near the flames, gesturing and talking. He’s retelling the story of a recent hunt. The fact that everyone already knows how it ends doesn’t spoil it; if anything, it enhances it. It’s all there: the suspense of the stalk, the rush and fury of the kill, the sustaining power of life-giving flesh, gained at the cost of animal life, and perhaps the life of one of their own. One of their number, moved by the power of the imagery, illustrates the story on the cave wall, trying to hold onto some of the magic lest it be forgotten.
