The Dream-Time by Henry Treece

First published: 1967; illustrated

Type of work: Moral tale

Themes: The arts, friendship, social issues, and war

Time of work: Prehistoric times, approximately the Stone Age

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: Hill caves and primitive villages in an unidentified part of the world

Principal Characters:

• Crookleg, later renamed
• Twilight, an artist who must flee his clan in order to continue to create
• Blackbird, one of the Fox Folk, who leaves with Crookleg when his people attack hers
• Shark, the chief of the Fish Folk, who captures Blackbird and who later wants Twilight because of his skills
• Wander, the woman chief of the River Folk, who wants Twilight to be chieftain and her consort
• Adder, a River Folk warrior
• Big One, one in authority among the Red Men, a clan that draws beautiful cave paintings

The Story

The story of The Dream-Time is that of a quest. Because an accident has left him lame, Crookleg is assigned a rearguard position when the Dog Folk attack the Fox Folk. Knowing that when the battle is over he will have to sacrifice his index finger to become a war-man and thus will no longer be able to draw, he determines to find his way to the sea and the Fish Folk. An encounter with Blackbird begins their friendship as she sets out with him. Both of them have experienced many losses, of siblings and parents and the stifling of creativity. Both yearn for a place where people will be friendly, where laughter has an important place.

The Fish Folk unfortunately are fierce, and Shark, the leader, takes Blackbird captive. Crookleg can do nothing to help her. In despair, he wanders until he comes upon the River Folk, who take him in and seem to be peaceful. Here he is renamed Twilight. When Twilight makes a brooch for Wander, the head of the River Folk, she wants to make him chieftain. Eventually, he accepts.

When the Fish Folk appear to steal the jewelry Twilight has fashioned and to make him a captive, he is forced to fight Shark. Unwilling to slay his adversary when he has the opportunity, he is aghast when Wander and Adder kill Shark and a fight between the River Folk and the Fish Folk ensues. He believes that he is an evil man for causing such violence. He does not wish to destroy the Fish Folk, despite their hostility, especially when he finds Blackbird among them. Wander has become jealous of Blackbird and the necklace Twilight had made for her earlier. When Twilight leaves to find clay for crafting necklaces, the remaining Fish Folk are killed in his absence, and Blackbird is taken. He has been left behind to fend for himself.

In his wanderings and while caught up in his thoughts about creating something that will last, he stumbles onto a group of Red Men, fierce-looking but gentle. He goes with them to their rocky caves and tunnels, where he learns that they are cave painters, far more advanced than he in their art. When they learn that he wants Blackbird back, they retrieve her for him along with a bundle of Wander’s and Adder’s hair.

The two are happy with the Red Folk. When the daughter of Big One, one of the Red Folk, is ambushed and slain, apparently in retaliation for the kidnapping of Blackbird and the hair cutting of Wander and Adder, the Red Men kill off the River Folk in revenge. They return with an infant whom they spared and give her to Blackbird and Twilight. Linnet, the baby, charms everyone over the years, especially Twilight as he sees her drawing ability grow.

Time passes, and when Big One is killed by wolves during a famine, Yellow One takes his place of authority. When Yellow One asks Twilight for Linnet and Twilight refuses, the entire clan disappears before morning, destroying all the cave paintings first. Twilight, distraught over the destruction of such beauty, becomes all the more determined to pursue his dream of peace and harmony. He and Blackbird set out with Linnet, and their wanderings take them to a people that have no stockade, a symbol of war. These people come to meet the wayfarers, laughing. Twilight and Blackbird have achieved their dream at last.

Context

The Dream-Time was Henry Treece’s last book before his death at age fifty-five. His output had been prodigious; The Dream-Time was his twenty-fifth historical novel for children, and he had written other fiction, plays, and informational books, along with an equally impressive output for adults. The Dream-Time was a departure from Treece’s other historical fiction in both time frame and language. Most of his other works dealt with the ancient Romans and the Vikings, including two Viking trilogies. The Dream-Time was set in prehistoric times, a setting he had used only once before in Men of the Hills (1957). This time he chose the simplest of word patterns, using one-syllable words whenever possible, in keeping with the primitive nature of the people he was portraying. The Red Men use no language at all, merely a variety of snarls, grunts, and other sounds along with facial expressions and hand and body movements.

Treece’s attitude toward war and violence was well known and is reflected in the character of Crookleg/Twilight, who has no desire to be a warrior. He finds killing horrible and senseless, especially of innocent women, children, and the elderly. When fighting breaks out between two clans and Twilight joins in, he is filled with remorse afterward, although others cheer him. In his own mind, he has done evil; he cannot rejoice with the others. The novel thus reveals that Treece viewed human beings as basically warlike and preferring to gain through aggression and violence rather than through negotiation. Yet Treece offers the reader hope that there is an alternative, for Twilight and Blackbird, through their perseverance, eventually find a peace-loving clan. Treece therefore suggests to the young reader that dreams of peace can become reality if the dreamer persists and does not waver in pursuit of the dream despite numerous setbacks and attempts to be lured onto other paths.

In novels with contemporary settings, the child who has different aspirations from the rest of the family, especially when those aspirations are artistic, often encounters many attempts to subvert his hopes and ambitions. Treece has taken an age-old problem of trying to be true to one’s own nature and has given it universal significance and importance even while placing the action in a prehistorical context. The Dream-Time is considered to be one of Treece’s finest works, perhaps the beginning of a new phase in his writing, cut off by his early death.