Postby AKA Azure » Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:20 pm
This was recently told in Cerbies based on a tossed off comment about Troll Pottery a few days earlier.
Troll Pottery
Most of us have seen the trolls south of Waslau or the ones in the mountains. We think of them as huge ungainly creatures able to aim powerful blows but not much else. And for the most part that is true. For trolls reward strength and little else. When trolls are born in litters, or so I hear, only the strongest survive.
The others are killed by their own siblings in their quest to get the most food possible. For something else true about trolls is that they are always hungry. Even after a huge meal, they feel the pangs of an empty stomach. Or , rather they feel the pangs of something missing in their lives though they don’t know what.
Well once, a pregnant troll delivered a litter but only one was born alive. This one grew without the need to fight his siblings for survival; it was quite the change. Trolls, as I’m told, bring a certain amount to their den and it’s more then enough to feed one lone troll kit. So this one grew HUGE!
He was even larger then the normal troll. And he was so big, he easily had the other trolls giving him food as bribes so he’d not hurt them And for the first time ever, a troll had time to think. And to wonder. And to ponder WHY he felt something missing.
He crept close to the human settlement to see what they had. And he was quiet, oh so quiet for something his size, and no one saw him. As he wandered the settlement night after night, one hut caught his eye. It was on the outskirts of the village and pale brown and white things were piled up outside. He was curious so he picked one up. It crumbled in his hands. More gently, he picked up another.
He’d never seen a bowl before. It fascinated him, and for once…the hunger within him stilled…just for a moment, but it stilled. He hid nearby and waited for day. Now, you may find that incredible, that something that large could hide so well, but he did.
And he saw the potter, for that was who lived in the hut come out the next day and begin cleaning the clay in preparation to work it into pottery. Cleaning clay takes a while. You want to get out the stones and all, so you mix up slurry of clay and water and keep pouring it through smaller and smaller mesh. But the troll stayed and watched.
He left only at night to get some food, but for once, hunger didn’t bother him. And the times he didn’t leave, and no one was around, he tried sifting his own clay, carefully trying to return things just the way they were before.
He managed to mostly put thing back, but the potter was a bit confused by the way things seemed to shift about. But he shrugged and went about his work. Finally, the clay was clean enough to work with, and the troll watched the potter carefully begin working the clay.
That night he tried to duplicate what he saw, but he failed…miserably. And for the first time he broke his careful silence with a howl so loud, it was heard echoing off the nearby mountains. Everyone shivered in their beds, or under them. And no one went out.
But the next morning, the potter found things moved about his wheel and a load of clean clay that he knew he hadn’t sifted. And he thought. Finally, speaking out loud, he took up some clay and began making a long snakelike piece out of it. “This is the way to make a beginning bowl” he said as he carefully coiled it into a simple coil pot.
“Now I leave it out to harden, and then I can fire it” The troll listened fascinated. And that night, he tried making a coil pot like the ones the potter made during the day. And the next morning, the potter said nothing as he saw the stack of coil pots and there was an extra one there.
For a few days he made coil pots, then thumb bowls, formed using one’s thumb as the starting point, and again, he never said anything about the extra bowls that showed up. Each day he talked about what he was doing. And the troll learned. And when the firing happened, and a few bowls broke, as they often do, the potter spoke of why.
After a while, the potter began working on his wheel again, and explaining what he did. He said how difficult it was and how long it took him. And slowly, the troll learned.
When the potter went out to cut wood for the kiln, four times as much appeared the next morning, for the troll had been busy. And when he sifted clay, more clean clay would appear over the next few days.
So this went of quite some time. And the potter became known for both the delicate small pieces he did and the larger, more sturdy ones. For the troll never did get the hang of tiny.
Finally, the potter died, as do all, and the village folk were confused by his will, which left the hut and the kiln to the 'pot ghost' and paid a boy to take care of things. But they honored it, and they knew to stay away in the evening and night when the 'pot ghost' did his work. For that had been laid out in the will as well.
The boy took care of firing the pots and taking them in and out of the kiln. And in time, as he grew, he took care of selling them as well. Until one day, no more pots appeared. And although no one knew why, to this day, if you go to that village, you’ll see the remains of an old kiln that no one will go near.
That is the tale of Troll pottery. There's never been a troll since who wanted to learn how to still the hunger in his belly. The hunger that only art can still.
And that is the tale as my father told it.
Last edited by
AKA Azure on Sat May 24, 2008 2:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.