Well, N, having survived your man-making, you're now what's called a New Spear.

As for that reproduction La Tène Celtic leaf-blade spear that you carried as a sign of your new standing in victorious procession back to the village afterwards: that's the New Spear's New Spear, and you are now its keeper.

(In the old days, of course, you would have been initiated with a whole age-set of peers, and the Spear would have passed to the youngest; but these days are not those.)

So you are now the keeper of the tribe's New Spear, just as I am the keeper of the Great Ooser, the antlered god-mask that the Horned wears when he comes among us in ritual. The Spear does not belong to you in the sense of owning it, just as the Mask doesn't belong to me; they belong to the tribe as a whole. We're just the lucky ones to be privileged with their keeping.

Care for that spear. It's your responsibility now.

Keep it in a clean and sacred place. Feed it from time to time. Be sure to keep the shaft well-oiled, and the head well-polished.

(Get that look off your face, N, I'm talking about a spear.)

With this, you've become keeper of one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Witches, the youngest now privileged with such a responsibility. Some day, there will be yet another man-making for yet another boy, when you will stand with the men of the tribe and pass it along to him.

At that moment, you'll cease to be a New Spear, and finally join the ranks of us Old Spears.

Then you'll be an old fart too, just like the rest of us.

Congratulations.

To GH

Many Years