THE GREAT BELL OF FELLOWSHIP
Chapter four PP 6
Stilts laughed. “I hope all your questions are so easy to answer! The Barrier Wood grows along our equator. The land down under is much like this one, but it is very difficult to go from one to the other. Only the Alari can open paths between the hemispheres, so the King and Queen share the responsibility for both kingdoms. Queen Gwendolyn rules here half the year and then they switch and King Andrew rulesUpper Windfallow. There is a month between each rule change when we have our Festivals. The King and Queen take part for fifteen days on each side.”
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Stilts, the elder fallowman, is describing the Barrier Wood, an important characteristic of Windfallow. This wood acts as a barrier between the upper and lower hemispheres of Windfallow. It is five or six miles wide and left to grow as it will. There are berry bushes and fruit trees interwoven through the wood but there are no thorns or briers to mar its beauty. The ‘gates’ into Windfallow all open into tunnels beneath the Barrier Wood and it is here the ‘mindless’ live. The mindless are those who once lived along the edges of the Wood, but they intermingled with earthlings after that world was cursed and became almost like humans in their thinking. Eventually, when all the gates had supposedly been closed, they chose to live in the tunnels and no longer called themselves fallowfolk.
The festivals referred to are the Festivals of the Bells. Each celebrates one of the great bells that hang in crystal towers in Bellkeep, principle town of Bellhaven. Festivals of Peace and Fellowship are celebrated as the particular bell rings out over the world of Windfallow. The bells are heard at the same strength of tone no matter how near or far from the bell. In some way the bells strengthen that characteristic for which they are named. The Bell of the Angels was thought only to prolong the life of the Alari, or Windfallow angels, but on a day when all three bells were rung in unison, the Alari were suddenly revealed in their celestial beauty with golden wings and brilliant white garments. It only lasted a few seconds but afterward, the three bells were rung in unison at each Festival of the Angels.
Is it wrong to talk of a King and Queen ruling in Windfallow? One would assume an innocent world would need n0 ruling. But if you are familiar with the Bible you know that all created beings have an ordered system or hierarchy. It is more an ordering of life than a power over it. We read of ‘benevolent’ rulers here on earth, but they are few indeed. On Windfallow, the rulers are truly benevolent.
What do you think of Windfallow so far?
