Summer's End: Harvest Festivals of Evandar

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The autumn is a season of harvest. While the harvest of the world of Evandar is far more labor intensive than harvest in much of the real world, it is a time of largess and celebration (when the harvest is good). For the people of Evandar, autumn is considered to begin with the first major harvest of the major crop of the region.

Generally, this is the wheat or other grains that were planted as late in the last year as possible so that there is grain growing as soon as all is thawed. The practice was one that the people of northern Evandar developed to compensate for the challenges of the growing season in that mountainous region.

The first harvest celebration is known only as First Harvest. It is celebrated when the final field of early, ripe grain is harvested. A corn dolly is made and left standing in the field to draw the attention of mischievous spirits to the field rather than the places where the grain is stored. Sometimes, the corn dolly will be paraded around the field with great ceremony and people trying to douse the dolly with water. The general tone of the celebration is joyful. This is also a time when many marriages take place because the harvest is considered to be an auspicious time for weddings and they have no reached the time where multiple things are due for harvesting.

The second harvest celebration is a few weeks later. The second full moon of autumn is known as the Harvest Moon and under the light of it (and by the light of bonfires) there will be harvesting done out in the fields. At the same time, however, there are races, feasting, and celebrating. The Harvest Moon celebration is also one of the ones that is focused on fertility. A pregnant woman will be chosen as the Harvest Queen and sit upon a throne of sorts. She will for the evening outrank local nobility and, later, rule the time between Harvest Moon and the final celebration. The Harvest Queen is housed in the local noble's home as an important guest. When the final celebration comes, the Harvest Queen is sent back to her home with a chest that holds the donations and gifts of homage that she received. (Most often, the gifts and such are things that she would need to care for her child and manage her household.)

The final harvest celebration comes after the first frost that lasts beyond sunrise. This is known as the Cold Harvest. Some also call it the Blood Harvest. During this final harvest time, herds are thinned and meat is prepared for storage. Where the other celebrations are filled with joy and excitement, the Cold Harvest is a time of great solemnness. The Harvest Queen kills the first fatted stock animal with an invocation that the animal's death be taken by the bane-workers (the deamons) and the animal's blood keep their thirsty lips away from human throats.

Mythos of Evandar: The courtship of Sigurt and Roen

I am beginning a new segment on here. I will be recording the various iterations of the body of myths and lore of Evandar. Some of it will be focused in different regions. And there will be some that are larger and go between multiple groups. I will attempt to make note of where each myth fits in the world. Below is the first iteration of the myth of the courtship of the goddess Roen and the god Sigurt. I wrote this back in the spring of 1997. What changes there may be to it are adjustments for spelling and grammatical errors.
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I begin with the time before time, when Roen, Sigurt, Kaileth, and Morguthu were young and the world just formed. In the eternal darkness between the stars, long before any of us, the gods saw the world. Morguthu, in his cruelness, saw the shining beauty and innocence of the world as a thing to be destroyed. He walked on the earth. From him came plague, sorrow, hatred, and violence. A surge of evil tainted the defenseless children of the First Age.

They battered each other, destroying their brethren of spirit for a perceived gain. Many were fearful, pleading with Morguthu to loosen the death hold he had on the world. Kaileth heard their please and sought the cause. Discovering the pain and anguish of all the folk of the world, he went to his sister. Roen began the arts of healing and with the aid of her brother, she created places of protection.

This proved not to be enough, though. Roen walked the earth, bringing what peace she could. Morguthu tried to attack her, meeting with Kaileth each time. His [Morguthu's] brother was in a region of the world untouched by Morguthu's poisons. After a time, the sounds of sorrow reached him and he awoke from his sleep. Sigurt saw the work being done by Roen and Kaileth. As the pair worked side by side, Sigurt slowly began to fall in love with her [Roen], watching them from a distance. Morguthu saw his brother's growing adoration as was furious. Tempted to seek to destroy everything Roen had created, he brooded.

During this time, Roen and Kaileth reversed most of the harm wrought by Morguthu. The world grew to be almost healthy again. Sigurt saw the immense damage wrought by his brother and began to do what he could to ease the world's pains as well. When Morguthu walked the world again, Roen ans Sigurt had began to become close. Morguthu used all of his arts of deception to make himself as fair as the rising dawn. Kaileth saw him approaching Roen, and knew it was their foe despite the fair face. Kaileth warned his beloved sister that Morguthu was soon to arrive. Taking the form of a sparrow, Kaileth stayed close.

Morguthu dazzled fair Roen's eyes at first. He claimed to have fallen in love with the goddess and wished her to be his bride. A tinge of icy, bitter rage swirled through his guise as Roen turned away. Softly, she told him he was a danger to her and her creations. He insisted she was safe with him and that her creations were as well. She frowned and sternly told him she would not be his.

In a flash fire of rage, he attacked her. With all her strength and power, she banished him from her. After Sigurt had confessed his love, and Roen confessed her's for him, they were wed. Kaileth guided the world as Morguthu began to rage. As Sigurt and Roen celebrated their union, the world knew peace. And thus began the First Age.

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Clearly very different from what I have developed now, you can still see the seeds of the more mature story in this one. Something that I should note is that the spelling of Kaileth changed multiple times through out this very brief story. The very first version of the name of the god of chaos and magic was Kalieth. Somehow, over the many years I have been working on this, the name changed to what it is now. I think it happened about seven years ago, but I'm not entirely sure.

It is also evidence that my writing style was once far less elegant than it is now. One of the things that annoys me about this first version of the story was how repetitive I was. It also bothers me that I kept everything so vague. I am glad that I've made the changes I have over the years. It gives the story greater depth and a sense of history.

Flora et Fauna: Gryphons

Gryphons are considered mythical creatures by the people of Evandar. The tales about them describe them as a cross between an eagle, dragon, and great cat. In the north, the cat is the pumas that roam through out the region. In the south, the cat is the bobcats (which are slightly smaller than the pumas and disinclined towards resting in trees). Every story, however, describes gryphons to be carnivorous and generally creatures of foul temperament. The life cycle of gryphons alters in what region the stories come from. In the north, they are said to have hatched from eggs. In the south, they are said to have been birthed in litters akin to what cats have. In either case, the juvenile gryphon is said to be self sufficient upon its entrance into the world. They are described, functionally, as smaller versions of the adults. Females are said to be particularly nasty towards humans.

The gryphon is a description of an animal that once existed during the First Age. They were formed by the magic of the Deamons and attended their makers/masters much like dogs attend to their owners. Mature gryphons were the size of a horse. They possessed the wings of a true dragon, though they were feathered like an eagle's wing. Their heads were like that of an eagle and their bites could sever limbs easily. They also possessed the ability to spit venom a considerable distance. Their lower body was akin to that of a great cat, complete with claws and a tail. The immature gryphons had the coloration and appearance of a bobcat. Once they reached the size of a pony, however, they shed the bobcat look and looked more like pumas.

Gryphons were considered abhorrent abominations. With the defeats of the Deamons in the Great War, the magical construct of the gryphon destabilized and turned into egg shaped stones. These stones are collected and used for malevolent folk magic. There is no trace of the magical power that shaped the gryphons in these stones, though they look exotic compared to the stones of the region. The stones were small enough to fit in a large man's hand with room to spare. They appear to be fashioned from raw crystal shot through with random dark lines. The gryphon stones are generally considered ill luck and even the most greedy of people will not handle them. Indeed, some people have fashioned facsimile gryphon stones for the purpose of terrifying the receiver. These fake gryphon stones, however are not shot through with the dark lines.