King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

Frustrated, Odysseus ordered his men to make camp whilst he and Halitherses went looking for a ford or bridge. Before long they returned with news of a ferry not far downstream. There was no sign of a ferryman and the craft was in poor repair, but it could float and would be able to take them a few at a time across the broad river. However, with twilight already upon them it was decided to wait until daylight before making the crossing.

Eperitus found a patch of comfortable ground by the bole of an old tree. Shortly afterwards he was joined by Damastor and Halitherses. For a while they discussed the river and the crossing of it, then turned to their impressions of the country itself. It seemed to be sparsely populated, despite being a pleasant land with plenty of streams and meadows for keeping livestock, as well as good soil for growing crops. It would be a place worth settling, were it not for the strange tales they had all heard about Elis and the larger region called Arcadia, of which it was but the northwestern part. Even in faraway Alybas there were stories about the wolfmen of Arcadia, prowling the hills and pastureland at night in search of victims. Under the light of the sun or the moon they could not be told apart from another wolf, except that they hunted alone and were not afraid of anything. But in the twilight of early evening or the dusky period before dawn they regained human form, at which times they would seek out human company to ease the suffering of their loneliness. Yet the host of such a beast would become its victim once the sun or moon was in the sky again.

It was said they were descendants of an ancient king who had practised human sacrifice. When he tried to offer one of his own sons to Zeus, in his anger and disgust the father of the gods had turned the king into a wolf. The curse had been passed to the sons of the king as well, and the only way they could ever return to their original form was to abstain from human flesh altogether. That being impossible for a wolf, they were doomed to wander the earth in a state lost between man and beast.

After they had finished sharing their tales, the three men agreed that the mules should be kept closer to their camp for the night, rather than leaving them tied to a tree far from the safety of the fire. They also discussed the wisdom of setting a guard in this strange, underpopulated country, and to Eperitus’s relief Halitherses split the watch between two of his men.

Eventually, they pulled their blankets over themselves and lay down to sleep. There were no clouds or moon in the sky above, but the stars were like the grains of sand on a beach and their pale light made everything about the men clear. The cold air carried every sound clearly: the rush of the river over the rocks that were scattered along its banks, the snorting and stamping of their mules, even the cry of owls hunting in the darkness. Eperitus fell asleep listening to the noises of the night and thinking about the wolfmen of Arcadia. He dreamed he was in the great hall in Alybas, where a giant wolf was crouched over the dead body of King Pandion. The king’s blood dripped from its jaws, and as it looked at Eperitus it seemed to grin.

They stood in a circle about the raft. Eperitus could not imagine how it was supposed to carry them across the foaming waters that separated them from the next stage of their journey. The wood was rotten, broken in places and bound together by leather ropes that were cracked and splitting. Although the rectangular deck would fit six men and a mule, he doubted whether it would take their combined weight. Another problem was the strong current. The raft must usually have been pulled from one side of the river to the other along a rope, and though the stumps were still there the rope itself had gone. Because of this it would take two or three men using poles to get the raft across safely.

Despite these problems, Odysseus wasted no time in sending Antiphus out to trap a wild animal for sacrifice, whilst ordering others of the party to repair the ropes that held the raft together. The islanders were skilled seamen and, using a combination of axes and some rusty tools from the deserted ferryman’s shack, were soon busy replacing the worst of the wood. Before joining them in their work, Odysseus sent Eperitus on a chore of his own, to find and cut lengths of wood to act as staves in punting the raft across the river.

By the time he returned with four long poles the work on the raft was finished. Replacement wood had been taken from the contents and walls of the shack to repair the worst of the damage, whilst the ropes that lashed it together were the original cords reinforced with strips of cloth, leather or the intertwined branches and stems of plants.