Dragons
They are as real, as inescapable, and as inevitable as dreams
-Aelsynda of the Elves Dragons? They are entirely mythical creatures, representing the primal and uncontrollable forces of nature in a form more easily understood by our uneducated and unsophisticated ancestors who lacked the mental capacity for comprehending the enormity and complexity of the world in which they lived. when faced with catastrophe of a natural source beyond the power of mankind to resist, it was perhaps comforting to attribute such things to a malevolent entity rather than to accept the disquieting fact that the world is sometimes uncaringly lethal
-Master Sataram, "On Superstition and Folly", 835 To stand beside my queen upon a peak
And see the vasty woodland, deep and green,
From east to west, and south to north arrayed,
In every moment of all times at once was shown,
Of such undying wonder would I speak
But that a greater, dreadful sight was seen
As from the green a form of fire displayed
And rose like fury, blazing and unknown,
What vengeance could it bring, what doom could wreak,
Those wings of shadow, aspect so obscene
A ruin of all glories would be made,
And with its flight all joy in me had flown
And yet she smiled my Queen to see the flight
And sang of darkness shrinking from the light
And named the flying wonder, Birth, Renewal, Dream,
A glimpse of stars' far distant truer gleam.
-Teyorm Songmaker, "Rosmihen", circa 249 The Blacksmith's Daughter and the Dragon
This is a true tale and it took place many years ago in amongst the bleak crags and mountains of a far-off land. In those days there was a great peril upon the land, and trolls and giants walked abroad, and the common-folk lived in fear of their lives. It happened that there was a village on a hillside and the people there were miners who toiled beneath the mountains to extract the good iron that was needed by the Duke of that land to forge armour and swords for his doughty knights.
[Summary:
The blacksmith in a mining village (probably in Raendor) is approached one night by a sinister figure who tricks the blacksmith into working for the visitor forever, forging link after link of a never-ending chain. It is implied that the visitor is a disguised Troll. The blacksmith's daughter "a maid of surpassing innocence and purity" realises the nature of the visitor and pulls back the hood that conceals its face, revealing a dreadful inhuman being beneath. It mocks the terror of the girl, the blacksmith and the village and swears it will enslave them all and have them labour until they die.
The girl flees from the village to fetch help but becomes lost in the mountain. At this point she slips and falls down a steep slope into a misty valley where she encounters the titular beast.]
Striking her head, the poor girl slid and slipped and slithered down to the very bottom of the slope. So deep was it that she passed through the mist entirely and came to a rest in the valley beneath, and although the mist hung far above her like a layer of cloud, it was as bright as a sunny day. She lamented that she could not help her father and the other villagers and did not even complain that her head was bleeding and her clothes were torn and dirty.
Her good-hearted statement and her lack of selfishness aroused the pity of one who dwelt in that valley, and the girl heard a voice from within a nearby stand of trees.
"Your blood flows from your wounded head, your garments are torn, yet think you only of your needful kin" said the great voice, "Pure of heart I name you, and Richly Rewarded shall be your name to come."
"Who speaks so strangely," said the girl, not frightened but cautious, and the voice answered her.
"Do not fear, nor let your heart be stopped in fright; Though fearsome and frightful even friends may find me. Behold, I come."
And from the stand of trees emerged a dragon, shining and dreadful, fearsome and glorious. Like the flash of drawn steel at the dawn of battle, or the lightning stroke that brings down the castle of the wicked. Mighty was its majestic head, it's muzzle lined with teeth of shining diamond, its eye were stars fallen from dark skies into steel-hard skull and skin. The girl, having been reassured by its words did not distrust its intentions and made a curtsey as was proper.
[Summary:
The girl tells the dragon of the plight of her village and it takes pity on the villagers for her sake. It says that it cannot itself come to the village and drive off the troll ("Those fiends whose tribe is tribulation vile") but if she is courageous enough it will give her the strength to stand-up to the stranger. She accepts without a moment's hesitation and the dragon cuts open her chest with a single sharp claw ("So swift and sharp she felt no sting) and scooping out her heart replaces it with a single large drop of its own blood, then gently kisses the wound so that it closes without a scar.
The girl then clambers back up the slope, promising to return when her task is done, and the way is long and hard and she loses all sense of time as she climbs through the mist.
Once the mist has cleared she finds that she can see in the darkness of night and makes her way back toward her village, where the endless hammering at the forge goes on. The stranger, the probably Troll, is lounging imperiously on an iron chair in the village square, surrounded by coils of new chain and endless iron trinkets newly made. The villagers do not recognise the girl or look up from their labours but she approaches the Troll. After exchanging riddling words with it for some time, the girl unleashes her power
With eyes opened wider than she had opened them before, with hands upraised toward the sky like wings thrown back, with mouth agape and calling out in fury, she felt that beating heart within her, that drop of gifted blood, ignite and burn like the summer sun, like all the stars, like the shine of hope reborn, and its heat was carried on her call, swiftly spiralling from her unto the stranger, encircling him in coils of fire like ropes around a bundle. So hot was the fire that it consumed cloak and flesh and bone and soul, and melted into a running mound of iron the great chair and all the chains and trinkets around.
[Summary: At this point what should be a happy homecoming is soured. Nobody in the village recognises the girl and she only barely recognises the blacksmith, now an old man, as one who was her infant brother when she departed. She realises that years have passed since she left her father's forge and that the village had been in the thrall of the monster for all that time. She sadly turns her back on the village and returns into the mountain passes.
Finding the place where she previously fell down the slope into the mist, she pauses in thought, then casts off all her tattered clothing and leaps into the misty abyss, where "Exulting in the fall, and the freedom and the fire within her, she spread her newfound wings and flew through the mist to the side of he that loved her."
-Vanran of Summerpoint, Excerpted from "Fables and True Tales", circa 766
-Aelsynda of the Elves Dragons? They are entirely mythical creatures, representing the primal and uncontrollable forces of nature in a form more easily understood by our uneducated and unsophisticated ancestors who lacked the mental capacity for comprehending the enormity and complexity of the world in which they lived. when faced with catastrophe of a natural source beyond the power of mankind to resist, it was perhaps comforting to attribute such things to a malevolent entity rather than to accept the disquieting fact that the world is sometimes uncaringly lethal
-Master Sataram, "On Superstition and Folly", 835 To stand beside my queen upon a peak
And see the vasty woodland, deep and green,
From east to west, and south to north arrayed,
In every moment of all times at once was shown,
Of such undying wonder would I speak
But that a greater, dreadful sight was seen
As from the green a form of fire displayed
And rose like fury, blazing and unknown,
What vengeance could it bring, what doom could wreak,
Those wings of shadow, aspect so obscene
A ruin of all glories would be made,
And with its flight all joy in me had flown
And yet she smiled my Queen to see the flight
And sang of darkness shrinking from the light
And named the flying wonder, Birth, Renewal, Dream,
A glimpse of stars' far distant truer gleam.
-Teyorm Songmaker, "Rosmihen", circa 249 The Blacksmith's Daughter and the Dragon
This is a true tale and it took place many years ago in amongst the bleak crags and mountains of a far-off land. In those days there was a great peril upon the land, and trolls and giants walked abroad, and the common-folk lived in fear of their lives. It happened that there was a village on a hillside and the people there were miners who toiled beneath the mountains to extract the good iron that was needed by the Duke of that land to forge armour and swords for his doughty knights.
[Summary:
The blacksmith in a mining village (probably in Raendor) is approached one night by a sinister figure who tricks the blacksmith into working for the visitor forever, forging link after link of a never-ending chain. It is implied that the visitor is a disguised Troll. The blacksmith's daughter "a maid of surpassing innocence and purity" realises the nature of the visitor and pulls back the hood that conceals its face, revealing a dreadful inhuman being beneath. It mocks the terror of the girl, the blacksmith and the village and swears it will enslave them all and have them labour until they die.
The girl flees from the village to fetch help but becomes lost in the mountain. At this point she slips and falls down a steep slope into a misty valley where she encounters the titular beast.]
Striking her head, the poor girl slid and slipped and slithered down to the very bottom of the slope. So deep was it that she passed through the mist entirely and came to a rest in the valley beneath, and although the mist hung far above her like a layer of cloud, it was as bright as a sunny day. She lamented that she could not help her father and the other villagers and did not even complain that her head was bleeding and her clothes were torn and dirty.
Her good-hearted statement and her lack of selfishness aroused the pity of one who dwelt in that valley, and the girl heard a voice from within a nearby stand of trees.
"Your blood flows from your wounded head, your garments are torn, yet think you only of your needful kin" said the great voice, "Pure of heart I name you, and Richly Rewarded shall be your name to come."
"Who speaks so strangely," said the girl, not frightened but cautious, and the voice answered her.
"Do not fear, nor let your heart be stopped in fright; Though fearsome and frightful even friends may find me. Behold, I come."
And from the stand of trees emerged a dragon, shining and dreadful, fearsome and glorious. Like the flash of drawn steel at the dawn of battle, or the lightning stroke that brings down the castle of the wicked. Mighty was its majestic head, it's muzzle lined with teeth of shining diamond, its eye were stars fallen from dark skies into steel-hard skull and skin. The girl, having been reassured by its words did not distrust its intentions and made a curtsey as was proper.
[Summary:
The girl tells the dragon of the plight of her village and it takes pity on the villagers for her sake. It says that it cannot itself come to the village and drive off the troll ("Those fiends whose tribe is tribulation vile") but if she is courageous enough it will give her the strength to stand-up to the stranger. She accepts without a moment's hesitation and the dragon cuts open her chest with a single sharp claw ("So swift and sharp she felt no sting) and scooping out her heart replaces it with a single large drop of its own blood, then gently kisses the wound so that it closes without a scar.
The girl then clambers back up the slope, promising to return when her task is done, and the way is long and hard and she loses all sense of time as she climbs through the mist.
Once the mist has cleared she finds that she can see in the darkness of night and makes her way back toward her village, where the endless hammering at the forge goes on. The stranger, the probably Troll, is lounging imperiously on an iron chair in the village square, surrounded by coils of new chain and endless iron trinkets newly made. The villagers do not recognise the girl or look up from their labours but she approaches the Troll. After exchanging riddling words with it for some time, the girl unleashes her power
With eyes opened wider than she had opened them before, with hands upraised toward the sky like wings thrown back, with mouth agape and calling out in fury, she felt that beating heart within her, that drop of gifted blood, ignite and burn like the summer sun, like all the stars, like the shine of hope reborn, and its heat was carried on her call, swiftly spiralling from her unto the stranger, encircling him in coils of fire like ropes around a bundle. So hot was the fire that it consumed cloak and flesh and bone and soul, and melted into a running mound of iron the great chair and all the chains and trinkets around.
[Summary: At this point what should be a happy homecoming is soured. Nobody in the village recognises the girl and she only barely recognises the blacksmith, now an old man, as one who was her infant brother when she departed. She realises that years have passed since she left her father's forge and that the village had been in the thrall of the monster for all that time. She sadly turns her back on the village and returns into the mountain passes.
Finding the place where she previously fell down the slope into the mist, she pauses in thought, then casts off all her tattered clothing and leaps into the misty abyss, where "Exulting in the fall, and the freedom and the fire within her, she spread her newfound wings and flew through the mist to the side of he that loved her."
-Vanran of Summerpoint, Excerpted from "Fables and True Tales", circa 766
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