to work in and give birth, half buried in the soil. The bashful girl protested that the union of brother and sister was unheard of, but in vain, and eventually she gave in. But she made the Sun promise that they would be married in a wax church, attended by a wax priest, at the far end of awax bridge. Nothing was too difficult for the Sun, and soon all was prepared. But as they walked towards the white church, the bridge beneath them melted, and they fell into the water. God took pity and rescued them, placing the sun on one side of the sky and the moon on the other, so they can always see one another but never meet. One of Ileana's names was Diana, another was Luna, and a third was Selina, or Sulina. The green, shady glade was somewhere in the Danube delta, and the island to which they were walking to be wed might have been Sacalin Island just off the Black Sea coast. The story was told by the late nineteenth-century ethnologist Nicolae Densusianu in his epic work Prehistoric Dacia . 14 One of his most extraordinary claims is that the Dacians founded ancient Rome, and that Latin is actually a dialect of Dacian.
The map near the quay in Sfântu Gheorghe, which I consulted before setting out for the sea shore, also has a rather legendary quality. As I walk wearily beside the river, there is no sign of the footpath which was clearly marked on it. So I follow the river itself, skirting round low, overhanging branches by venturing deeper into the water, up to my knees. The river is cold and there is not a boat in sight, just the roar of the surf behind me, the call of sea and river birds in my ears. The smoke from the burning reeds on the far side is diluted and almost disappears into the grey sky. Suddenly to my side, I hear a whistle, then another. My heart misses a beat, expecting bandits to leap out of the marshes and overpower me. Then I discover the culprit: a single reed, taught to whistle by short blasts of the wind through its dry stem. A wall of reeds blocks my path, too thick and marshy to go through, and the water is too deep in the main channel to walk around. I have to cut inland, into a thorny thicket. I find a path which leads to an abandoned house. There once must have been an easy route for those who lived here into the village, but if there was, it's gone now, and there is nothing but bogland and the low, square concrete hulk of a bunker, overgrown with moss, built by the Germans during the Second World War. Surely the efficient Germans must also have had a road? But even to reach their fortifications, I would have to swim across a deep, narrow channel. I don't want to retrace my steps all the way back to the mouth of the river, so I ring the fisherman I'm due to meet: Tudor Avramov. Twenty minutes later his small boat purrs round the headland and I wade out to it. This is a part of the world where water transport still trumps the land routes.
Back in the village we sit in a café, though he refuses a drink. He's in a hurry; it's the height of the Danube herring season, and he wants to get back to his nets by his hut on the far side of the river. Radu Suciu in Tulcea gave me Tudor's name, as a former sturgeon fisherman involved in the Norwegian–Romanian sturgeon sustainability project. Once they travelled to Norway together. What impressed Tudor most was how organised the Norwegian fishermen were. ‘We have an association of fishermen here too, but we need a proper trade union,’ he says. The lone fishing company in the delta uses its monopoly position to keep the prices paid to fishermen low. Yet they are obliged by law to sell all their fish to it. Why doesn't he organise a trade union himself? ‘I tried once, in 2005, to get fishing rights for us in several lakes in the delta. And they threw me out. I wouldn't want to be seen as a trouble-maker.’
Tudor has spent his whole life here. His first memories of the Danube are of stealing his father's boat as a child, and trying to row out to sea. His
The map near the quay in Sfântu Gheorghe, which I consulted before setting out for the sea shore, also has a rather legendary quality. As I walk wearily beside the river, there is no sign of the footpath which was clearly marked on it. So I follow the river itself, skirting round low, overhanging branches by venturing deeper into the water, up to my knees. The river is cold and there is not a boat in sight, just the roar of the surf behind me, the call of sea and river birds in my ears. The smoke from the burning reeds on the far side is diluted and almost disappears into the grey sky. Suddenly to my side, I hear a whistle, then another. My heart misses a beat, expecting bandits to leap out of the marshes and overpower me. Then I discover the culprit: a single reed, taught to whistle by short blasts of the wind through its dry stem. A wall of reeds blocks my path, too thick and marshy to go through, and the water is too deep in the main channel to walk around. I have to cut inland, into a thorny thicket. I find a path which leads to an abandoned house. There once must have been an easy route for those who lived here into the village, but if there was, it's gone now, and there is nothing but bogland and the low, square concrete hulk of a bunker, overgrown with moss, built by the Germans during the Second World War. Surely the efficient Germans must also have had a road? But even to reach their fortifications, I would have to swim across a deep, narrow channel. I don't want to retrace my steps all the way back to the mouth of the river, so I ring the fisherman I'm due to meet: Tudor Avramov. Twenty minutes later his small boat purrs round the headland and I wade out to it. This is a part of the world where water transport still trumps the land routes.
Back in the village we sit in a café, though he refuses a drink. He's in a hurry; it's the height of the Danube herring season, and he wants to get back to his nets by his hut on the far side of the river. Radu Suciu in Tulcea gave me Tudor's name, as a former sturgeon fisherman involved in the Norwegian–Romanian sturgeon sustainability project. Once they travelled to Norway together. What impressed Tudor most was how organised the Norwegian fishermen were. ‘We have an association of fishermen here too, but we need a proper trade union,’ he says. The lone fishing company in the delta uses its monopoly position to keep the prices paid to fishermen low. Yet they are obliged by law to sell all their fish to it. Why doesn't he organise a trade union himself? ‘I tried once, in 2005, to get fishing rights for us in several lakes in the delta. And they threw me out. I wouldn't want to be seen as a trouble-maker.’
Tudor has spent his whole life here. His first memories of the Danube are of stealing his father's boat as a child, and trying to row out to sea. His
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