Download Game! Currently 80 players and visitors. Last logged in:AceduckArgainXoIberiamssp

Library: The legend of Land's End

Books

Author: Chadran
Date:Dec 10 1999

This fragmentary text is believed to be the only surviving fragment of a
large-scale folk epic of the people of the far northeastern coastal regions
of Batworld. The origins of the epic, often referred to as "The Legend of
Land's End" are unknown and date back several hundreds of years; this poetic
fragment is believed to have been first written sometime between bat-years
120 and 220.

I have copied this text from a manuscript which was given to me by a certain
acquaintance of mine who shall remain anonymous. He often told me about his
research of northeastern folklore; he claimed that he had discovered several
references to an ancient culture, now extinct, by the study of the fragmentary
portions of the "Legend of Land's End"; this culture would have been entirely
destroyed in some kind of a massive cataclysm or natural disaster.

He mentioned that there was something peculiar about the way some of these
references actually fit with written Bat-history: it is widely known that
great parts of the northeastern Batworld sank into the sea in a great deluge,
which has later been connected and attributed to the god Amarth's powers.

I was absolutely perplexed by the amount of evidence he could pile up of the
existence of this mysterious culture and of its even more mysterious,
traceless destruction. He trusted me with the manuscript which contained this
single fragment of the epic I will soon present to you; he was very anxious
that I take it, as if he had been greatly apprehensive or premonitive of
something.


Two weeks after he had given me the manuscript he vanished. I have been able
to find no trace whatsoever of this person since, and it is widely believed
that he is dead. By whose hand, I have no idea. Even though I know he was very
close to solving this mystery, I have been able to find none of his research
or
his manuscripts, and I have come to the conclusion that they have been
destroyed - and again I cannot say by whose hand.

And although I know nought of his fate, I fear mine will turn the same.
Therefore I present you these last fragmentary lines on the face of the earth
of "The Legend of Land's End".


By the greenest of our valleys
  Swept the waters crystalline
Sandy pearly shores; and cliffs did climb
  Into cerulean skies.

"Iris" was her name; And long
  The journey she had made,
Through sundry seas in gale and breeze,
  Towards familiar quays.

It was her fourteenth night afloat:
  The moon was dark, the water cold
And as she sped along the wind,
  The mate cried "Fore behold!"

For through the dead of night there shone
  The guiding light so dearly known
There, upon the cliffs that climbed
  Into cerulean skies.

Towards that light so lief now drawn,
  The harbour they would reach by dawn;
The weary crew with hopeful hearts
  Made sail across the waves.

But not with mirth can Fate be fawned,
  And never did they reach the dawn,
But neither mourned a soul the men
  Who lay in wat'ry graves.

And when the Sun brings on the morn,
  Looks down upon its throne,
It cannot see the beauty, ever lorn;
  Nor that which lingers on.

The clouds now pile in mountain shapes,
  The air is bad and brine:
The greenest of our valleys
  Swept the waters crystalline.


Books