De zon achterna

De zon achterna, meaning after the sun, is both a practical description of Tiuri’s westward route and the phrase around which a brief, unexpectedly intimate encounter with the Fool gathers. The Fool turns the direction of a fugitive’s journey into an image of departure and possibility; when the expression returns as Tiuri resumes riding near sunset, it carries the memory of that exchange into the road ahead.

A direction made memorable

In the conversation at the Forest Hut, Tiuri explains that he is going far away. The Fool gives that journey its most vivid formulation: not simply west, but after the sun, imagined in white, yellow, orange, and gold. Tiuri accepts the phrase and repeats it, confirming the direction while also responding to the Fool’s way of seeing it. The words make a practical route sound like pursuit of something radiant and distant.

The phrase then helps Tiuri ask for directions in terms the Fool can understand. He wants to know whether the road leads west, toward the place where the sun sets. The Fool says that the road continues for a while and ends at a bare clearing, but that Tiuri can keep going without a road. This distinction matters: the sun supplies an orientation, not a guaranteed path. The expression points toward a destination while leaving the means of reaching it uncertain.

A shared image, unequal freedom

For Tiuri, following the sun belongs to an urgent escape. He cannot disclose his name, warns that dangerous pursuers may come after him, and asks the Fool not to reveal that he has been seen. His westward journey is therefore not a carefree adventure. It carries the risk of capture and death, and the secrecy that protects him also limits what he can tell the person who has offered him food and help.

The Fool hears the same image differently. He says that he, too, would like to follow the sun, but his father says it goes down, and his mother cries when he leaves. His questions turn the sun’s movement into a puzzle about where it goes and whether it sets where it lives. The exchange does not resolve that puzzle. Instead, it shows how the same phrase can hold two unequal possibilities: Tiuri is already moving toward an unknown country, while the Fool remains at home, imagining departure and asking the traveler to return with an account of what lies beyond.

The phrase also gives the Fool a way to participate in Tiuri’s journey without leaving the Forest Hut. He offers food, explains which direction to take, and warns Tiuri away from the dangerous southern route. In return, he asks for a promise: that Tiuri will come back and talk with him. Tiuri cannot promise when he will return, but he says that he hopes and intends to. The expression thus belongs not only to a departure but to an exchange that leaves a possible future meeting between them.

Travel, trust, and secrecy

The encounter joins the expression to practical acts of trust. The Fool brings Tiuri food and supplies information about the route; Tiuri accepts the help but asks him to keep their meeting secret. The Fool relates this request to his own practice of protecting secrets, including the nests whose eggs his brothers would take. His account makes secrecy a form of care rather than merely concealment. He promises not to tell anyone that Tiuri ate his food or is following the sun.

The directions sharpen the phrase’s connection to risk. Tiuri is told to ride straight on after the road ends, but not to go south, where dangerous things lie. Before he leaves, the Fool adds a warning about a dark pool that belongs only to the forest spirits. The journey after the sun is therefore not a simple line through open country: it depends on judgment, warnings, and the traveler’s ability to continue when the marked way disappears. Tiuri leaves with the remaining food in his saddlebag, having received both a direction and a caution about where not to go.

The phrase returns on the road

The expression recurs as Tiuri resumes his journey shortly before sunset. He rides through a forest made vivid by the light of the descending sun, carrying a broken branch as his only weapon. The ring on his finger begins to shine again; its light cannot illuminate much, but it encourages him. Against these concrete details, the Fool’s words return in Tiuri’s thoughts, connecting the earlier conversation to the conditions of the road: fading daylight, limited protection, and a route that seems to lead west.

This recurrence gives the phrase a structural function as well as an emotional one. It marks Tiuri’s departure from the Forest Hut and carries the Fool’s image into the next stretch of the narrative, just before something happens on the forest path. Its meaning remains grounded in the journey rather than becoming a promise of easy arrival. The sun is followed, but the road is winding, darkness is coming, and the traveler must press on with only partial light. De zon achterna therefore holds together orientation, longing, and uncertainty: it names where Tiuri is headed while recalling the person who asked what it would mean to go there.