The Bat (Harry Hole, #1)

by Jo Nesbø

‘The bat is the Aboriginal symbol of death. Did you know that?’ Harry did not. ‘Imagine a place where people have been isolated for forty thousand years. In other words, they haven’t experienced Judaism, never mind Christianity and Islam, because a whole ocean has separated them from the closest continent. Nevertheless they come up with their own history of creation, the Dreaming. The first man was Ber-rook-boorn. He was made by Baiame, the uncreated, who was the beginning of everything, and who loved and took care of all living things. In other words, a good man, this Baiame. Friends called him the Great Fatherly Spirit. After Baiame established Ber-rook-boorn and his wife in a good place, he left his mark on a sacred tree – yarran – nearby, which was the home of a swarm of bees. ‘“You can take food from anywhere you want, in the whole of this country that I have given you, but this is my tree,” he warned the two people. “If you try to take food from there, much evil will befall you and those who come after you.” Something like that. At any rate, one day Ber-rook-boorn’s wife was collecting wood and she came to the yarran tree. At first she was frightened at the sight of the holy tree towering above her, but there was so much wood lying around that she did not follow her first impulse – which was to run away as fast as her legs could carry her. Besides, Baiame had not said anything about wood. While she was gathering the wood around the tree she heard a low buzzing sound ...