They say that long ago, in the time before matches, the village kept one fire burning in the square. The old keeper, Sula, looked after it with her helper Yara, a girl of twelve. On the night of the first frost, rain put the fire out. Winter was near, and the village had food but no flame.
Sula said the only fire left was on the Smoking Mountain, three days away. Yara had been on watch when the fire died, so she went. She carried a clay pot with ash, dry moss and her grandmother's red scarf.
At the mountain she lit a bundle of bark at a glowing crack in the rock and put a coal in the pot, under the moss. The way back was harder. The log over the river was gone, so she waded through to her chest, holding the pot over her head. On the last morning the ember was the size of a seed, so she fed it her red scarf.
She walked into the square at dawn with a thread of smoke rising from the pot. Sula blew on it, and a flame stood up.
