Riddley Walker

RIDDLEY WALKER by Russell Hoban

To Wieland

Jesus has said:

Blessed is the lion that the man will devour, and the lion will become man. And loathsome is the man that the lion will devour, and the lion will become man.

Gospel of Thomas, Logion 7

Translated by George Ogg

_{The quotation is from New Testament Apocrypha by E. Hennecke, edited by W. Schneemelcher, S.C.M. Press Ltd, 1963. English translation copyright Lutterworth Press, 1963.}

Acknowledgments

On March 14th, 1974 I visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time and saw Dr E. W. Tristram’s reconstruction of the fifteenth-century wall painting, The Legend of Saint Eustace. This book was begun on May 14th, 1974 and completed on November 5th, 1979.

Thanks are due to Dennis, Pamela, and Clare Saunders of Canterbury; to Percy Press, Percy Press junior, Fred Tickner, and Bob Wade of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild; to Stuart McRae and Paul Burnham of Wye College (the map is based on one sketched for me by Paul Burnham); and to Hans Kruuk of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Banchory.

For much encouragement and many useful talks I am indebted to Leon Redler, Jonathan Lewis, Richard Holt, John Gordon, and my wife, Gundula. I thank my sons Jake and Ben for being good company during many working hours. I am particularly grateful to Leon Garfield, who put aside his own work to read new drafts whenever I asked him to; his responses invariably put me in better touch with what I was doing and his comments were always of practical value.

And to Tom Maschler, my publisher, who’s game for anything and always generates a sympathetic electricity that helps the work along, my thanks.

R. H.

Map

1

On my naming day when I come 12 I gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs any how there hadnt ben none for a long time befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen. He dint make the groun shake nor nothing like that when he come on to my spear he wernt all that big plus he lookit poorly. He done the reqwyrt he ternt and stood and clattert his teef and made his rush and there we wer then. Him on 1 end of the spear kicking his life out and me on the other end watching him dy. I said, “Your tern now my tern later.” The other spears gone in then and he wer dead and the steam coming up off him in the rain and we all yelt, “Offert!”

The woal thing fealt jus that littl bit stupid. Us running that boar thru that las littl scrump of woodling with the forms all roun. Cows mooing sheap baaing cocks crowing and us foraging our las boar in a thin grey girzel on the day I come a man.

The Bernt Arse pack ben follering jus out of bow shot. When the shout gone up ther ears all prickt up. Ther leader he wer a big black and red spottit dog he come forit a littl like he ben going to make a speach or some thing til 1 or 2 bloaks uppit bow then he slumpt back agen and kep his farness follering us back. I took noatis of that leader tho. He wernt close a nuff for me to see his eyes but I thot his eye ben on me.

Coming back with the boar on a poal we come a long by the rivver it wer hevvyer woodit in there. Thru the girzel you cud see blue smoak hanging in be twean the black trees and the stumps pink and red where they ben loppt off. Aulder trees in there and chard coal berners in amongst them working ther harts. You cud see 1 of them in there with his red jumper what they all ways wear. Making chard coal for the iron reddy at Widders Dump. Every 1 made the Bad Luck go a way syn when we past him. Theres a story callit Hart of the Wood this is it: