Late one summer’s evening, on a bend in the Otter River, a few miles south of the little village of Tipton St John, there was a scrabbling in the undergrowth. A blackbird dashed away from the thicket and sat nearby glaring and uttering short, sharp alarm calls. In amongst the leaves and shadows a pair of jet black eyes peered out, followed by rounded furry ears, and a snub, whiskery snout. “Nearly there,” said Boris. “Right you are, dear,” said Mara, the smaller beaver who was bustling along the channel behind him. The two were excavating another tunnel from the pond behind their dam into the surrounding forest. Boris, the male, reached up to drag down a slender branch of silver birch. He nipped through the wood as easily as a toast soldier, and passed the branch backwards to his partner. Mara sank her teeth and claws simultaneously into the bark and half-dragged, half-floated the branch along the water channel back towards the pond. They had been working for an hour or two, and had made good progress as night began to fall.

On the far side of the pond where the river flowed in, Mara and Boris’s four kits were playing. Coppy, the eldest, had found a stand of fresh willow wands sprouting up from the base of a tree felled last year by their father, and he beckoned his brother, Fletch, and sister, Poll, to join in the feast. Chip, the youngest, swam across too, paws frantically paddling beneath the water, his nose, wet and twitching above. They nibbled the delicious stems down to the stump and as night drew on, they dived into the moon-silvered water to play.

Fletch slipped smoothly underwater and scrabbled along the base of the dam. He loved the feel of rough stones rubbing against and ruffling up the fur on his tummy. Spotting a dark shape above him, he went into stealth mode, moving his tail gently side to side to manoeuvre into position just beneath it and then he shot up, bashing into his sister and flipping her almost out of the water. They both landed back in a spluttery splash. Poll was not best pleased so she chased him out of the water, along a log, and back into the little pool on the far side, where he went bounding into the woods, scooting into the hollow of a log where he sat, taunting her and laughing. She was a little too big to fit. Chip and Coppy had paddled over to join her and were giggling at the scene when suddenly they heard a deep cry. “Breach! Breach!” It was their father sounding the alarm.

The kits stood on their hind legs for a moment, each frozen, ears up, their eyes bright. All at once they fell on all fours, bounding over each other in their race to the water and dived in one after the other, the moonlight in the pond shattering like glass. Paws paddling and tails propelling them along, they swam as fast as they could towards the sound of their parents.

Mara had been contentedly gnawing through a particularly delicious three-year-old ash tree, eyes closed the better to savour the sweet cambium sap, when her ears had twitched. Instead of the constant barely audible silvery trickle, the river had changed its tune. It sang out a new song: a jangling, jostling, gallop of liquid gurgles. An unmistakable sound that meant only one thing: the dam had been broken.

“Breach! Breach!” Boris had taken up the cry, and the two beavers pounded their way heavily through the undergrowth and slipped into one of the many deep channels they had carved through the wet land into the main pool. Heavy fur plastered sleekly to their bodies, they powered through the water to the dam. There was the problem. A large log had worked its way loose and the water of the upper pond was joyfully rushing through the gap.

As soon as the kits reached them, the family worked together as a well-oiled team: Boris dashed into the woods chipping away at the far side of a young tree so that the trunk would fall towards rather than away from the pond. When it did, Mara selected some of the smaller branches and quickly cut them free. These the kits grabbed as best they could with their little paws and all six of them pushed, dragged, floated and heaved the branches into position to plug the gap. They then took turns diving to the bottom of the pond and scooping great armfuls of mud and gravel to pack tightly against the wall of the dam, building it up and up until finally they were left patting the last pieces into place as the moon slipped down towards the far horizon and the woodland birds began to announce the first glimmers of dawn.

The kits yawned mightily as their parents shooed them along towards the lodge, and they dived one by one to the underwater entryway. They hauled themselves out and shook their wet fur before making their way along the rush-lined passageway to the innermost chamber, which was snug and dry, lined with leaves and feathers, fur and spidersilk.

Coppy, Fletch, Poll and Chip lay together in their nest.

“Did you remember to sharpen your teeth?” asked Mara.

“Yes, mama,” said the kits, and they bared their front teeth at her so she could admire their bright orange incisors.

“Tidied up your toys?” asked Boris.

“Yes, papa,” said the kits, although Coppy, Fletch and Poll looked accusingly at little Chip, who had in fact kicked up a terrible fuss when they were told to dismantle and put away the fortress they had built with twigs and twine. Poll kicked him discretely.

“Mamaaaa,” cried Chip, squirming away. But he stopped at a stern look from his father, and went back to sucking his claw.

“Do you want a story?” said Mara.

“Story,” they chorused. “Story. Story.”

And so Mara settled herself on her haunches, scratched her tummy comfortably with her sharp claws, and put on what the children called her special voice, the soft strong sing-song lilt that she reserved for those stories sacred to beaverkind, tales of power and mystery and the green, beating heart of the wood.

“In the beginning,” she began, “in the time before Time, before there was a moon to rise, or a sun to set, before wind or rain, before scent or song: the earth was a shoreless, landless watery world.

Through the still, dark waters swam the Great God Perún. He swam to the ends of the earth and back again – only there was no earth. He swam to the furthest stars in the sky – only there were no stars, there was no sky. And Perún was filled with rage and loneliness.

And so He opened his great mouth and bit into the darkness and felt the sap begin to rise. He gnawed at the black air until it split and yielded and fell with a crash into the light. With his right paw he let loose the thunder and with his left, a great bolt of lightning. And with one beat of his huge tail, Mount Golicsa rose up out of the waters.

Perún created day and night, sun and moon, heat and cold, dry and wet. But the seas lay quiet, no islands in sight. The land lay parched and dry. By day the sun stood at noon and no shadows were cast. At night it was ever midnight. They switched from one to the other in the blink of an eye: night was without dawn, day without dusk.

In this divided world Perún reigned supreme. He sat upon his throne in the heavens and was pleased. One day, he took to sharpening his mighty axe. With each stroke, a shower of sparks fell upon the earth below, and wherever a spark touched the land, a tree sprang up. Perún was delighted with his new creations: the strength of their trunks, the hardness of the wood, the dancing light of their leaves.

The trees grew drunk on his admiration. They grew so thickly together their trunks stood straight like prison bars and the canopy of their leaves was so thick no light could reach the earth, and a second time of darkness reigned. From the tips of their branches they could see the heavens, and desired a place for themselves. Are we not also gods? they reasoned. Powerful. Beautiful. All-knowing.

The trees stretched upwards, clawing past the clouds, and tore at the sky. They grabbed at the sun, and ensnared the moon in their net of twigs. Finally, Perún had had enough.

I shall teach these trees a lesson! he declared. He scraped a fistful of dust and spat to make a ball of mud. In his own image he shaped an animal whose pelt was dense and thick, able to withstand the bitter cold of winter. He fashioned for it clever, dextrous claws which could grip and tear, shape and make. In its head he set magnificent teeth forged from iron smelted in the heart of a volcano and burnished to the colour of the setting sun. At its tail he set two jewels that exuded an intoxicating perfume. Finally he pressed the tail flat under his broad thumb.

And Beaverkind was born.

The beavers immediately set to work gnawing the base of the tree trunks. One after another, the trees fell to the ground. Gaps appeared in the canopy and sunlight fell upon the earth. As the piles of wood grew, new uplands were created, and the beavers scraped valleys and ditches with their powerful claws. Water began to flow upon the earth – for now there were higher places and lower, and the possibility of movement. And with the water’s flow came fish, whose bright scales played with the rainbow light of waves and ripples. And with the fish came birds to prey upon them. And mayflies for them to feed upon. Rushes and reeds sprang up on the river’s banks and wildflowers burgeoned in the wetland wood.

The trees were first angry that this small scurrying creature could bring them down and they howled in anguish, and fought back with all their might. From their stumps they sent out bold green shoots, determined to reclaim their heavenly place: and the beavers laughed, for their fight made them more abundant, more delicious, and easier to eat.

And the rivers flowed outwards and the land was nourished. And the canopy was opened and the light flooded in. And all the world was dappled in light and shade, damp and glorious and green. And the sun and the moon danced together twice every day, in the lightening of dawn and the darkening of dusk, for the beavers had created twilight. And the planet itself turned and span in joy and raced through the heavens to whirl with its star.

And the Great God Perún saw the dam was a blessing, and he said to the beavers that this was their task, their life’s work, and their highest prayer. To sculpt the land so that the water could move upon it in mysterious ways, and all the creatures of the woodland would thrive and multiply. Thanks be to the beaver.”

The four kits had long since fallen asleep. Outside, the dawn teased white feathers of chilly air from the surface of the pond. A grey heron stood on one leg, poised, alert for fish or frog. A fox picked its way through the bracken, ears pricked forward, and an owl glided home from its hunt.

Mara and Boris took up their positions, one at the head and one curled around the tails of their four sleeping kits, safe in the heart of their lodge. Without waking up, Chip snuffled and let out a small sneeze. “Dam you,” said Mara sleepily, for in beavertongue that is the highest blessing. And soon, the sun rose and the whole family was dreaming.