"Pyrémondias & the Raven"
"Pyrémondias & the Raven" is a myth first recorded among the fey of the Seelie Court. It claims to tell the true story of how the two races of one-eyed giantkin, the cyclopses and fomorians, came to be. The myth is notable for including not only the origin of these two peoples, but also for including fragments of other myths from two distinctly non-fey mythologies—the War of the Dawn Cycle from Celestial mythology and "The Hanging of the Storm Father" from the Ordning religion.
Summary
Long ago, shortly after the gods of the Ordning had each made the true giant races, a particularly clever hill giant named Pyrémondias1 found a large nest located in a pine tree. He was curious and very hungry and so he pulled down another tall pine tree that stood next to the nest's tree and lashed the tip of the tree to a stone. He waited until something big flew by and then released the pine. It whipped towards the creature and knocked it to the ground. Pyrémondias rushed over to find a giant raven lying on the ground. Pyrémondias snatched the raven and was about to gobbling him up when the raven squawked at him "Wait! Be still you hunger for just one moment hrungnir! I am a messenger Jötu, the Storm Father; Allking of the Ordning and father of your maker Gronnar, the Hill Creature! Should you eat me grave misfortune shall come upon you and your kin!" Pyrémondias thought for a moment and said, "I do not know if you are a truthful bird or if you are full of trickery. And I know little of this Jötu you speak of; only that he is very smart and very powerful." "Yes, he is so very smart and he will be so very cross should you eat me!" chattered the panicked raven. "And if you are truly his creature then you must know some of his cunning," said Pyrémondias. "Oh, I could not know all that the great Storm Father knows! His eye sees much I cannot comprehend—!" "How did such a wise and powerful maatnir2 lose his eye?" interrupted Pyrémondias. "It happened like this: Jötu was once a young god and he fought many battles. He was a terrifying storm and a cunning warrior—like you, hrungnir! His eyes could discern the weakness of his foes with a single glance. A great serpent called the Dread Dragoness and who's true name causes the earth to quake and smoke to rise from the darkness rose from her slumber and did battle with many gods. When she was finally felled, Jötu was there and saw a flash in time—a great horror of three winters without sun, men becoming as wolves, and the earth cloven to reveal the Dread Dragoness returned. Jötu was troubled by this and so went to find a sorcerer, a witch of the wood whom knew many things even the gods did not. He found her, the Seeress Vaynera, long may her memory be sung by the sweetest voices. The Seeress told Jötu the truth: even for a god to look upon the Time Before or the Time To Be, they risk losing themselves to the Old Magic of this world. For the Old Magic does not grant itself freely; it demands payment. And not a coin pressed into one's hand; it demands a sacrifice, a cost to be felt in one's bones and flesh. Now Jötu prized his skill in battle above all else; it had been his observations and tactical mind that had helped bring peace to the Realms during the War of the Dawn. And so when the Seeress said this, Jötu's heart was stricken for he knew what he must do. The Seeress and her sisters brought Jötu to the Great Oak3. They wrapped a cord of mistletoe around his neck and tied it to the highest branch of the Great Oak. Then, with a bough taken from the Great Oak, the Seeress pried the Storm Father's greatest treasure, his eye, from his skull. The Seeress plunged the blooded branch into his side and stepped back. The Storm Father cried out in pain but his voice was silenced as the sisters of Vaynera pulled the cord tight and hung him from the Great Oak. There he swayed, looking out over all Creation with but one eye and a stick in his side. He watched the stars and sun wheel passed him nine times each as his life and divinity leaked from his lips. None gave him loaf to eat or a horn to drink. He stared out from that Great Oak, who's roots run deeper than time and on the tenth dawn he looked down to the shrieking runes and saw the Era of Twilight. They pulled him from the boughs of the Great Oak. He removed the branch that had pierced his side and called it Críspantis4 and made it a new spear he carries at all times. He came upon Vaynera and pledged himself to her if she could help him prepare Creation for the Era of Twilight. They coupled and from their union came the first of the Ordning, Duris, whom Jötu told of his time in the tree and of the Tale of Twilight. And so the Storm Father's aim was taken and his sight restored and he became the most cunning and wise and powerful of the gods to lead us into Twilight." The hill giant Pryémondias was riveted by this tale. He told the raven, "I wish to be as cunning as Jötu. Will you help me?" The raven was skeptical of the hill giant but said, "I will help you if you let me go." And so Pyrémondias let the raven go. The raven was about to flap to safety, but like Pyrémondias, the raven was too curious for his own good. Pyrémondias took the rope he'd used to lash the pine tree to the ground and handed one end to the raven. He told the raven, "Take this end and tie it to the top of that tree." The raven took the rope to the top of the tree and tied it to the highest, sturdiest branch, careful that it could support the hill giant's enormous weight. Pyrémondias then wrapped the rope around his neck and told the raven. "While I am hanging, you must pluck out my eye just as Vaynera did for Jötu. Do not hesitate no matter what." Again the raven was nervous. It did not know the rites or runes that Vaynera had drawn. But the raven was also getting hungry and the idea of eating the hill giant's juicy eyeball seemed appealing. So the raven called for his flock and they hoisted Pyrémondias up into the tree. The raven flew up to the hanging hill giant and tried to pluck out his eye. But the rope around Pyrémondias' neck was not tied quite tight enough and his fat neck was preventing him from passing out. The hill giant screamed in pain as the raven's beak plunging into his eye socket and he instinctively grabbed the raven and pulled him away. Just as he did so, the branch above him snapped from the commotion. Pyrémondias and the giant raven fell a hundred feet and landed with a thud. The raven's body was crushed by the weight of the hill giant but it's beak had penetrated Pyrémondias's eye socket. Pyrémondias staggered to his feet dazed but alive and without his eye. And through some vestige of faith in the Old Magic and the blood of the Ordning, Pyrémondias had emerged changed. He was smarter and wiser than his kin, though for he had sacrificed but for a moment what the Storm Father had given in nine days and nights. And as his gouged eye sealed up, he other eye moved, as if by his will, to the center of his forehead. He became a cyclops, yet he and those that encountered him and his children did not call them so. They named them fomorians, and they endeavored to seek out greater wisdom and knowledge. Many years later, the fomorians had become a handsome race of giant, one-eyed people. They were led by a class of gifted magicians and seers that knew many secrets of the Old Magic. With only a glance of their great, single eye, these fomorians could cast potent spells and persuade others to help them in their quests for greater knowledge. Yet there were others among the fomorians who were not skilled magicians, but rather treated as mundane slaves. They retained the one-eyed anatomy of their fellow fomorians but were simpler, and bore only a fraction of the cunning imparted to Pyrémondias. At some point, the fomorian leaders decided that the key to understanding the Old Magics was hidden in the halls of the Feywild. They journeyed into the Feywild and began a great war with the fey. This act united the Seelie and Unseelie Court, whom saw the enslavement of their kind to be an abomination worthy of excision. First, the Seelie fey used their trickery to confuse the brutish fomorian slaves and separate them from their sorcerer overseers. The fey confused them with magic and made them fearful of all smaller folk, particularly those whom cast spells. These fomorians fled into the Feywild's wilderness, with the majority of them making it back through the crossing they'd used to enter the Fair Realm. These fomorians are the ancestors of the cyclopses and were spared from the curse the rest of the fomorians endured. Those fomorians that remained only became more feverishly devoted to conquering the Feywild and taking the secrets of the Old Magic. One by one, the Unseelie cursed them, their bodies warped to reflect the evil within their hearts. Even their magical powers were stripped away and after a horrific battle with the combined forces of the Twin Courts, the fomorians too fled back to the Material Realm. Yet when they returned to their home, they found the sunlight burning and their cyclops kin to reject them for their sinfulness. They were forced beneath the surface and into the forbidden Realm of Monsters, the Underdark. To this day, the fomorians live in shadows forever wondering if they were fated to this prison from the moment Pyrémondias fell from the pine tree.
Historical Basis
The history of the cyclops and fomorian races are murky at best. Neither recall much of their history, apart from the fact that the fomorians and some cyclopses participating in an ill-fated war against the fey now called the Fey-Fomorian War. Certainly the mutations found on fomorians appear to change each generations and also appear magical in origin. However, it is unclear if the cyclopses evolved from the fomorians or if their unique single-eyed skulls are an independent, non-magical mutation.
Spread
This legend appears to have originated in the Feywild and among eladrin and fey animists and now appears in many tomes containing the myths and legends of the giants and the Ordning. Few giants actually subscribe to this myth or have even heard of it, as it appears to be a mortal or at the least fey invention.
Date of First Recording
Late Mithril Era
Date of Setting
Late Dawn-Early Mithril Era
Telling / Prose
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