The Youssouri (title of the original: Το γιούσουρι)

By Andreas Karkavitsas

(Adapted by Vassilis C. Militsis)

When I first heard of it, I had still been in swaddling clothes. And as I grew up to be a twenty-year-old stout lad, people still referred to it, both in admiration and horror. It is about the youssouri, the dauntless youssouri, which lies in the bottom of the gulf of Volo! The youssouri, which at times grows high and fierce reaching the surface of the sea, and at times it retreats and shrinks into the abyss transforming itself into an impregnable tree-castle full of gnarls and boughs, roots and threads. On our island there is a long standing lore, handed down from generation to generation of sailors, from father to son, from son to grandson, about the great youssouri, ever admirable, hard like iron, strong like a lion – a mettlesome and immortal ghost.

Those who had been the first to see it have now been deleted from people’s memory. Those who have dreamed to cut it off lie long under the ground or in the abysses of the sea. Those who sought to capture it have never reached their end.

It is said to have something beguiling and insidious, for it is always changing shape, is slippery as an eel, embedded as a castle and shimmering as an ocean fish; whoever first look at it they become unmanned.

When in my childhood days I heard about it, I would always be caught by something strange: fear mixed with spite.

There is, I said, the two-span tall Blackman who swallows seas and stems rivers with his beard alone. There is the undead Gorgon, Alexander the Great’s mermaid sister who roams the seas and whenever she hears of her brother’s death, she crushes ships with her tail and sinks them, with all hands aboard. There is Aristo who kills wild beasts, turns mountains down and uproots trees with his spear. And here we have a tree, a creature of the water, a nursling of the sand, which works miracles! Well, that is a shame! I heard men, reared in bravery, talk about it in such reverence as if they spoke of the Holy Trinity. To hell with it! Those stalwart men who defied the cannons of the Turk blocking them with their torsos! Brandishing a torch they sprang upon his armories! They stared death right in the face but they did not dare to uproot a tree! I could not stomach it.

“Can you tell me, father”, I once asked my old man, “What is this youssouri?”

“It is plain wood, my son, like all other kinds of wood; seawood. If you want to have an idea, go and have a look at my pipe”.

I went into the house, looked into the wooden cabinet and found the pipe. It was a thick big one full of knots and inky-black like ebony.

“Well, so this is the youssouri? They can cut it then?”

“Of course they can. You have it in your hands, haven’t you? I had cut off several cubits of it when I worked as a sponger”.

“Then why don’t you go and cut some from the youssouri of Volo?”

His smiling lips turned immediately into stone; his face took on a grave aspect. He turned and looked at me abstractedly as if his mind left suddenly his head.

“Ah”, he said, “the youssouri of Volo is different. Once I also tried, but I almost left your mother a widow”.

“But it can be cut…”

“It can be cut when it is still small. Over in the Barbary Sea there are whole forests of it. While fishermen are diving for sponges, they break off a bough from a tree on occasion. Only stealthily, though, while it is sleeping. But when it’s awake, it can’t be cut even by the Archangel’s sword”.

“Doesn’t Volo’s youssouri ever sleep?”

“It does sleep – how can’t it help sleeping? But it has already grown supernatural! It has lived through ages – nobody knows since when. You should see the bones of those reckless madmen who have dared it dangling from its branches like chandeliers!”

And he stared with a frightened look at a broken water jug standing in the courtyard; his brow shrank and went waxy pale as though he was seeing a viper emerging from that place.

“How did you go down, father? Using a pump?” I asked again.

“No, I went down with a stone, like the Kalymnian spongers. Where could pumps have been found in our time?”

“When I’m a grown up one day, I’ll cut it myself” I said stubbornly.

I thought that he would not consent, that he would try to deter me, that he would relate horrible tales to dishearten me. Nothing of the sort! He looked over me wistfully for a moment as if he wanted to assess my stature. Then he smiled.

“Fine. When you grow up, give it a try”, he said recovering his previous impassivity. Now that you’re still little, go and learn the sea”.

I went and learned the sea. First I became a deck-hand and then a sailor. I experienced tempests, snowfalls and foul weather. I even worked on sponge-fishing vessels on the Barberry coast. However, both as a deck-hand and as a full-fledged sailor and sponger I never forgot the eldritch youssouri and my pledge to my father. The more my body waxed bigger the more my desire burned inside me and flowed in my blood. I was looking forward to cutting the youssouri and if necessary to root it out and drag it to our island behind my sloop. I would cast it on the beach, a useless carcass, and get the crier to announce my feat all over the land:

“Hear, hear, fellow villagers; come and witness the great wonder! The sea ghost has been defeated by our island’s intrepid hero, Yianno Gamaro! Mountains tremble and grind! Come out, fellows, see and marvel!”

The whole folk would throng around it at once; the old salts would cross themselves, the womenfolk would look in dread and the young lads would envy me the deed. The lithe, fair maidens would say in admiration: “Lo, a fine valiant youth, fit to be our husband!” A second Saint George, I would be glorified on the island. And a secret dread and yearning had often tortured my soul lest some other fellow might forestall and rob me of my glory. You never knew what was going to happen. And then I allayed my anxiety thinking that no worthier man than I could have been born for such a deed. I even believed that that tree had not lain in its sunless dwelling for so many ages unless it became my reward and praise one day. Thus I completed my twentieth year of my age.

* * *

I was fishing on the Captain Strapatso’s motor ship in Evripo Sound. We gradually arrived in the gulf of Volo.

I jumped at the opportunity.

“What do you say, captain? Shall we make the attempt?”

“Which attempt?”

“Shall we go and cut the youssouri?”

Captain Strapatso burst out laughing; so did the others; I did, too. I did not dare to be serious.

“What are you talking about?” he said, “Are you out of your mind? Shall I send for a priest to cast out your demon?”

“But why not go? Are we such duffers? Now let me tell you this: those old salts dived with the stone. All the way down and up at once. What use is just one dive?”

“Oh man, let’s try to earn our bread and leave your dreams aside!” the captain ended the discussion.

“I did not give up hope. “I’ll talk him into it later on” I mused.

And indeed, I tried very hard and I persuaded him one Sunday when we were not fishing.

“How about it, shall we go?”

“Oh gosh, go where?”

“After the youssouri!”

“And who’s gonna dive?”

“I am. Don’t worry!”

We did go at last. I looked in through the glass to see the bottom. No youssouri. I swam around once, twice, three times; nothing! I began to despair. I felt strangely desperate. So many years I resurrected it in my fantasy, I had it in front of me, I fought with it and I defeated it, and now all this in vain! I couldn’t bear it. “There must be somewhere”, I thought, “I’ve got to find it either in the bottom or over on the coast or even in the clouds above! I’ve got to find it, to confront it even if it crushes my life out of me. Let my own skeleton also hang along with those of the other madmen, but I can’t stand the fact of never meeting it in my life! Then why have I lived so long, why have I become a twenty year-old-man, why have I got to know the sea well, why have I delved the bottom of the seas? My only purpose was to earn my living?”

“Let’s pull over to the port. Let’s go and have a drink” said the captain wearily. “The old timers do like to tell tales sometimes”.

Cold sweat broke out. My eyes began to blur”.

“For God’s sake, captain” I told him, have a bit more patience! Let’s make another round”.

“However, neither he nor the rowers would listen. The sloop, weary too, changed course and headed for the port.

Leaning on the gunwale, I never stopped looking left and right with a beating heart as though I were looking for my mother’s holy relics. But in vain! The green blue water was clear as far as the bottom, where I could only discern dry looking algae, soft and untouched, on underwater banks here, and on sand strewn stretches there, shirred and warm, beds, soft and virgin, fit only for the water nymphs. But no youssouri could be found; there was no trace of the tree of my dreams.

I was about to give up my glass and lie down on the deck. But at the same time a fuzzy cloud cast its shadow in front of me and stayed back as if a whale passed by.

“Stop!” I yelled; “Halt!”

The sloop stood still, turned around to its course and then we all saw a tree, like a thousand year-old oak, sit on its marble bench. So it was no lie, it was no tale!

I put on my gear quickly, passed my jackknife in my belt, grabbed an axe and dove down. But as soon as I raised my eyes, I began to shudder. Our old timers were right. The two-span tall Blackman, Gorgon and Aristo were nothing before this wonder! Its roots, black brown and bladed, sucked at the marble, gnawed into the crevices, pressed around the cornerstones, hooked its risers – you thought the whole thing was both a body and sheer strength. Its trunk, sublime as a cathedral, looking as if it were a den to a team of bears, with gnarls embedded in its hirsute here and there, soared many fathoms high. And from there shot out, proud and straight, thousand-rooted boughs and branches swaying to and fro, up and down, as though they struggled to ensnare the spacious gulf in their meshes. Around it the clear water, like a fish bowl domed over it, washed it, being nurse and mate at the same time, breath and bower. And the abyss, cold and bottomless, yawned underneath its marble pedestal.

I caught the tree unawares in its profound slumber. But even if I had found it awakened, it would have been all the same to me. It would have been easy if I had broken off a bough and come up. However, I wanted to cut it from its roots. That is what I had dived down there for. I crossed myself, aimed with my axe, and dash! Ι dealt it the first strike. The Serpent woke up. And a storm broke out at once, a turmoil, a whirlpool as if all the streams gushed upon me. The water seethed and boiled, was beaten in a maelstrom, and darkness rose up from the abyss and I was lost in giddiness. I sat down, grabbed at a clump of roots so that I could not be washed away. And then all of a sudden I spotted the closed gnarls blink like the owl’s eyes, black eyes, whose fire rushed upon me like an asp. And I saw the skeletons, a verdigris procession of those madmen who had dared to provoke it. At its roaring, I heard a distinct rattle, which was no other but that of bones hitting each other. The bleached leg bones spitefully kicked the fleshless skulls as if they were saying:

“Why have you brought us here?”

The captain signaled from above:

“Come up now. You’re not going to make it”.

“I’m really not going to make it!” I realized that. But how could I have the face to go up? Where’s the valiant hero of the island? Who’s going to be St George now? Oh no. If only I had not gone down, but now it’s all over and done with! When the whirlwind fell on me, I raised my axe and gave it a second blow with all my might. Had I struck at a stone, it would have at least cracked. I did not even nick a splinter. My axe, instead of cutting into it, backlashed two, three, four spans as if I were hitting on rubber. I’ve got to root it out, I pondered ruefully.

I signaled up:

“Throw the crowbar down to me”.

“They dispatched the tool. I threw the axe away and grabbed the crowbar. I began to work at the roots. I lost track of time. I didn’t know how long I struggled. Hours sped by and I still went on, crowbar in hand. Once in a while, I paused for breath or to take a look around in case a sea dog attacked me.

Finally I signaled again:

“Throw me the guy rope”.

“Better come up, you fool!” signaled the captain out of patience now. “What do you want the cable for? Do you want it for you to hang, maybe? We’ve got a thinner line. Come up or I’ll cut off the air!”

“If you cut off the air, I’ll tear the hose. “Have you forgotten I’ve got my jackknife with me?”

Captain Strapatso was scared dead. He threw the guy rope down to me.

I lassoed it fast around the trunk. Then I went to the other side and worked the crowbar at its roots. The monster was constantly blinking as if it wanted to mesmerize me. It shook and floundered like a fish. Its boughs, like the tentacles of an octopus, gamboled to and fro, curled and shot out its edges to get hold of me. But in vain! Even if I had not known its insidious games and not heard of its devilries, the mere sight of the skeletons was enough to deter me form the danger. Every time it stretched, I clung to the marble like an oyster. Legs, arms, eyes all worked in perfect harmony. The crowbar, sturdy as it was, grubbing out the small tendrils, one after another, drove them out of their nests, separated them from the stone, mostly peeled off, and sometimes with slivers of shingle and loads of shells.

Finally I perceived that it began to slacken. It was losing its purchase.

“Pull me up!” I signaled.

They pulled me up. I took off my gear quickly and breathed a sigh of relief.

Gosh! It was getting dark. In the distance, Mount Pelio, indigo blue, soared high. The villages loomed white on the slopes like straggling marble. In the town of Volo the first lights began to appear and the sky, tinted all purple after sunset, brought forth its twinkling stars. I felt that I revived seeing familiar faces. I forgot for a moment about the youssouri and my toils, even my future glory.

“Exhausted or what?” asked captain Strapatso.

“Now you’ll see me!” I told him and jumped on my feet. “Come on, boys! Work at your oars. We’re going to pull the tree to the island tonight”.

“What are you talking about, son? Perhaps something’s come over you? You’re not possessed by the ghost?”

They all rushed upon me, they fumbled me, felt my sinews, moved my arms, still distrustful of the fact that I was whole.

“Go on, pull, my merry men!” I said. “The Tree has been cut”.

They rushed to the oars, and pulled forcibly. However, instead of moving forward, the sloop dragged behind.

“Look here, are you mocking us?” said the captain indignantly. “Why are you bragging that you’ve cut the youssouri off?”

“By St Nicholas, I’ve cut it off”, I replied. “Pull! What do you expect? Should I have cut it off so that it would fall on me? Just pull at it a couple of times and it’ll break away with its roots”.

We resumed pulling. We toiled that way for an hour. You could hear the oarlocks creak and grate. The sailors grew obstinate and powerful like genies. Captain Strapatso, mad with joy and pride, kept encouraging them loudly:

“Ahoy! Ahoy! … My brave lads! Straight on, my lions! Shame on us! Straight on, my tigers”.

And the brave lads, the lions and the tigers buried the oars heavily in the water and rowed with such force that you thought the oars would splinter and shatter. Finally, a deep roar resounded and the sea heaved a great swell upon us. The sloop winged forward. At once, a leviathan emerged in the gulf from one side to the other. It was the youssouri.

“Let me see! Let me also see!”

They all ran astern to identify the monster. They looked at it awestruck, crossing themselves.

“Come on!” I said to captain Strapatso. “We’d better drag it ashore now that’s dark before the Turks get wind and steal it”.

* * *

No sooner had we sailed out of the gulf than foul weather, like a raging gorgon, met us from the south. The sky blew out its stars and erased its bourns. Erebus of Hades itself spread over us. The waves billowed and soared as high as mountains, foamed and shimmered shedding a white, dim and uncanny glimmer around. What white horses and what chargers, seals and wales in herds and schools, were those stupendous high seas that churned, roiled and whirled, roared and ululated in that chaotic gloom! I was growing restless. That was no ordinary sea: it was sheer wrath and seaquake, gall and curse, a bane of the abyss.

However, so far so good. The youssouri, bound fast, was following in the wake at the stern of our vessel. Sometimes, I could hear it thrash about and snort like an animal plodding uphill. It may have felt disgraced to be defeated and struggled to get free at all costs. But I would not allow it. In the midst of the furious sea I could make out the stentorian voice of the crier. One was my expectation: the admiration of the old timers. One was my desire: the praise of the maidens:

“Here’s a gallant young man to be our husband!”

At daybreak I discerned right before the mast our island, covered in clouds. We had still three miles to cover, three toilsome miles, though. Our arms weakened rowing hard all night. Our faces shrank. Our eyes blurred and wrinkles formed on our brows. Our hair turned hoary as if the burden of years had passed over us. The captain, lying on his back, resembled a cadaver. The oarsmen, silent and listless, were rowing like machines performing their work unconsciously. But I was the only one who went on rowing without respite. Many times indeed I took the whole task upon myself. However, what could I do, too? My desire was greater than my strength. The seas went on still higher, sprayed, soaked and tossed us vigorously about.

Finally, came the rosy hues of sunrise and the sun emerged above the horizon. Grim land loomed ahead, the sea was still misty, and our hospitable island in the distance made itself manifest.

“Ahoy, guys! We’re soon docking!” I yelled.

I jumped on the prow to gaze at the port, to see the beach where I would throw the dead beast. The sloop hurried in to leeward, jumped over a couple of shallows and moored on the beach. I ran to the prow to throw out the cable.

Alas! Torn and frayed rope was what was left in my hands!

What happened to the tree? It dwells again down in the bottom of the gulf of Volo, standing on its god-made pedestal, with its bladed roots, its bearlike trunk, its boughs and tendrils, moving to and fro, as if it strives to entrap everything in its meshes. The legend still goes on from generation to generation of sailors, from father to son, from son to grandson; it is always about the great, the ever miraculous, hard like iron, strong like a lion, mettlesome and immortal like a ghost.

* * *

And I, Yanno Gamaro, the new St George of the island, well in his seventies and decrepit now, still roam the seas only to earn my daily bread!

Andreas Karkavitsas or Carcavitsas (Greek: Ανδρέας Καρκαβίτσας; 1866 –1922) was a Greek novelist. He was a naturalist, like Alexandros Papadiamantis. He was born in 1866 in the north-west Peloponnese, in the town of Lechaina in Elis. He studied medicine. As an army doctor he travelled across a great range of villages and settlements, from which he recorded traditions and legends. He died on October 10, 1922 of laryngeal cancer. Karkavitsas wrote in the European tradition of naturalism (exemplified by Émile Zola), which does not shrink from portraying the seamier parts of life among humble people, rather than romanticising or embellishing reality. He was a folklorist with a gift for spinning tales full of authentic details of simple people's lives, local customs, dialects and folktales, as well as psychological insights about them. He was more successful as a short-story and novella writer. "The Beggar" is a novella about con-men, violence and the grotesque practices of professional beggars (including purposely maiming children to turn them into profitable objects of pity). "Words from the prow" is about the lives of seafarers, fishermen and sponge-divers, full of arcane details of their craft as well as folk-tale-inflected plots of tragedy, shipwreck, hands lost at sea, murder, superstition and the supernatural, as well as the joys of making a living off the sea.

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