But even after Tengir had put an end to the Wind Queen's feeding on the people, Child-of-Earth, a cautiously disposed man, was still not convinced of the virtue of Heaven. He said thus to Tengir: "In the old times our people worshiped the ancestors, from all the prior generations up to the Mother Goddess herself, at a grove in the ancient forest where mounds of earth are piled high. But over time the location of this burial grove was forgotten, having been grown over with weeds and creepers and reclaimed by the forest, which is so thick overhead and underfoot that it is said no light can penetrate there, and anyone who ventures there will soon lose himself. But even the forest itself is lost. Now we have forgotten the names and deeds of our ancestors with the exceptions of the famous Mother Goddess and the Bear God, whose worship alone the people have carried on. The entire chain stretching from that time unto today is a blur, and the people are depressed and uneasy. Can the spirit of Heaven shed light on this enigma?" Tengir answered: "It can be done." And he left the Village to search for the grove.
He spent several weeks looking for the ancient forest, but although he scoured the land far and wide, there were no forests to be found besides the one located northeast of the lake. But this forest was not as obtuse as the one Child-of-Earth was talking about, for the floor, though covered in leaves and moss, was easily trodden, and the canopy was not nearly dense enough to hinder the advance of the sun's rays, which filled every corner of it. To be sure, he checked every inch of this forest, but there was no burial grove. Realizing that the forest he was looking for was no ordinary forest, he divined the way there by observing the flight of birds on high. When the birds had flown over the horizon, he watched the clouds. The twisting wisps' and tendrils' dance told him the location of the forest. He went north for several hours, then went to the east, until he was upon the northern edge of the same forest. The first time he looked, he saw that it was the same forest, but he did not doubt the result of the divination, so he looked again, and this time he saw a spirit bluff. Hidden behind the spirit bluff was the entrance to a terribly black section of forest, and he went in. Seeing as it was thicker and darker here than it was in any forest he had been to before, he understood why the people of the Village had forgotten the location of their ancestors' tombs. For one needed only go a dozen fathoms in, and it was already as dark as a moonless midnight. It was so dark, one could even lose oneself. The floor was a tangling of creepers and mushrooms, toppled trees, crooked brooks and moss-choked rocks. But with the Stone-Splitting Sword in one hand and the Wisp Jar in the other, Tengir cast a powerful light on the way in front of him while cutting down everything in his path.
By and by he entered a part of the forest that was ever so slightly thinner than the rest, though it was not thin enough to be called a glade, for the boughs above his head let through only the sparsest columns of sunlight. Here the ground protruded skyward in three great mounds but, true to Child-of-Earth's report, they were entombed beneath the undergrowth. Tengir said to his heart: "This must be the site of the burials." And he got to work clearing the area. Using the Scythe he took out of his Sack, he felled all the trees around the burial mounds until the place filled with sunlight and warmth. After removing all the creepers and bushes and mowing the grass, the earthen burial mounds gleaned in the crisp daylight. Then he fashioned a fence using the felled lumber, causing it to surround the burial mounds, and put up a sacred gate made of two logs cocooned in heavy bark, each three fathoms high.
The precinct was thirty-five fathoms long and fifteen wide. He consecrated it with an animal sacrifice, and as soon as he had done so, three kingly spirits emerged from the three burial mounds. The one in the middle looked especially noble, and he spoke first, he said: "You, son, who have just restored light to our tombs, who have erected a holy gate over our shrine, who are you?" Tengir replied: "I am Tengir, Knight of Heaven. I was dispatched by Child-of-Earth to restore the people's memory of their ancestors. Are you not the ancestors of the people who live in this district?" The kingly spirit replied: "We are precisely so. The man to my left reigned five thousand years ago, the man to my right, three thousand, as for me, I was the last great King who reigned one thousand years ago. After I died, my children dwindled in number and the districts they controlled were reduced to one or two, and shortly after that the processions to this tomb and the rites of veneration ceased. The fences and sacred gates disintegrated and the ground was taken over by trees, creepers and wild grasses, until the forest swallowed us, buried us in darkness. And if it had not been for you, Knight of Heaven, we would have remained this way for the rest of eternity. Now we only wonder if anything remains of the children we left behind in this world." Tengir said: "They now live upon the banks of the great lake." And the kingly spirit: "The temples of yore crumble until nothing is left but pebbles, and their columns, once towering marvelously over the world, are choked by vines. The ways of the ancients, once a deep and swollen river, taper down to a trickling stream. Our children have had their eyes covered by the Earth, like us they have spent the past several centuries buried in darkness. They are yet asleep, only the light of a celestial hero can awaken them. You have come just in time. Go among our children and summon them here. No longer shall they be strangers to themselves."
After hearing the ancestors' instructions, Tengir went back to the Village with a quick foot and told Child-of-Earth and all the people what had happened. With the highest jubilance and blessedness, the people of the Village, along with the people of all the related villages in the district, made haste for the ancient forest, singing and dancing all the way there. Tengir and Child-of-Earth led them through the path made in the forest until they reached the clearing where the shrine was. Being transported to the highest ecstasy, the people all and sundry, old and young, man and woman, worshiped the ancestors and entered thick communion with the spirits. All the while they basked in the crisp and virile light of the midday sun, which warmed their skin and blessed their eyes with the gift of sight. Now that his eyes were open, Child-of-Earth saw the virtue of the God of the Sky, and from that point on resolved that he and his people would revere this god for all time to come.