Legend of the Swamp Hermit

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Sreip
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Legend of the Swamp Hermit

Postby Sreip » Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:11 pm

OOC: I don't know where to post this legend I wrote up. If it is more appropriate elsewhere, just move it. :D Sreip is not the storyteller for this legend. I don't know who is. Just imagine it's someone, a peasant, talking to you and actually telling the legend.
I used this thread from the History of Valorn: http://www.darkgrimoire.com/bb/ftopic2328.Hermits.html and the actual description of what the hermit says IC to come up with this story.
Enjoy.


In a time not so long past Dundee was beginning to find itself again. Folk came back from the trees and plains in which they had hid. Folk were seeing faces like their own, and shared stories of evil that were all too familiar. Folk were settling again. They got together and slapped some fresh wood boards on the inn walls. The mayor’s office got swept out. And the temple saw some new shine to its old worn stones. Yep, these were some new times coming.

Jon liked these new times. He had come from the northern forest, where his arms had grown as thick and round as the trees he had felled for firewood. He was a burly sort, round of chest and with a booming laugh. Folk would whisper about how he must’ve been one of them forest creatures, for all the hair that covered him. Cory’s truth, Jon was a hairy fellow, but he didn’t mind people’s words any. Oft time, Jon preferred company to the beasts that ran the fields and climbed the trees more times than being with Dundee folk. That didn’t stop him from helping people and seeing what he could do to keep these new times going.

There came the season that folk said the beasts were getting meaner. Man, woman, and child came back from gathering food with stories of snarlings in the grass, and too many came back limping from their wounds. More swords, more armor! Folk around the town started to say. They looked to Jon, hairy, big Jon, and said to him how good it would be if he could use those big tree felling arms to swing a hammer and beat out some metal so they all could be protected.

And Jon heard these words and hung his head in thought. He looked at his meaty hands and reckoned they’d be best put to use helping folk against the animals he had once so loved. For these were new times, and the dark times were not so long gone. He feared to see those dark times come again. And so with hammer in hand, Jon became Dundee’s first blacksmith.

For years he toiled, turning out sword and shield, boot and breastplate. New folk were coming all the time and he aimed to keep up with the demand. Folk around the town did whisper amongst themselves how fine his smithing was, but that he was still an odd sort of fellow. There was a span of years where he kept a tamed plains cat which warmed itself by the fires of his forge. Then was that other spell where he asked people to come and see the fine feathers on the dark vulture he had caught and kept. There were plenty of animals, and plenty of whispers. Jon would even work at the forge, hammering at a red hot stretch of steel with a swamp viper curled around his neck.

Jon just couldn’t let go of his love of animals. It was making folk uncomfortable. When finally he had somehow wrangled a wolf to start guarding his shop from bandits, folk said that enough was enough. Some were wondering how right in the head Jon was. Some were fixing on how it wasn’t natural that the beasts were so calm and biddable to Jon. A few passed mention of stories of Jon dancing in the moonlight with all those critters of his singing praises to the dark lord. None of this was true, of course, but folk were scared. Folk remembered dark times. And folk are liable to say anything to explain away the shivering they get laying in their dark beds at night.

One thing they all did agree on. Dundee could not survive without a blacksmith. So they pressed a strapping lad on Jon one day with their words of how tired Jon had seemed, that he had to give thought of retiring someday, and to see how tall and strong young Samael was and wouldn’t he make a good apprentice?

And Jon heard these words and hung his head in thought. He looked at his meaty hands and reckoned they had done enough. Folk had their armor, and Gods knew how many blades lay in the pile at the door to his shop. His arms were as strong as ever. He’d burned off most the hair on his face, head, arms, and chest from his years of hammering out gear for the town. Yet he saw that those meaty hands were now meaty old hands. And new buildings and new people kept coming in these new times, while Jon just got older and his love for his animals got stronger.

Took on Samael Jon did. Folk came around more often to see the new types of blades Samael coaxed from the forge. One day, Samael came to Jon and showed him a new blade, slick and strong, made with some strange mixture of beast and steel. Jon knew then and there, Sameal’s apprenticeship was about over, but near enough so Jon could go.

Go he did. Folk were sad to see Jon go, but they hidden their inner gladness. A good sized group followed him right to the edge of the Duberry’s swamp. He’d found a cave there, he said, a nice, warm one. And he told the folk that he’d be more than willing to forge more for them if they ever came to visit. And folk bobbed their heads and their mouths said the right words of goodbyes, but each secretly whispered to themselves that they’d stay as far away as they could. Let the man keep his beasts and their beastly council.

Long he’s been there. The Dundee streets are cleaner and mayhaps calmer without the prowling of his animals following his heels. But if you ask the right folk, the ones that let go the fear in their hearts, they would tell you true. “The man in the swamp? Aye, fine blacksmith he. Likes strange beasties. Ask him for some boots…â€
"... who, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." -Roosevelt

Sreip Enudreklaw #55234

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Maerad
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Postby Maerad » Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:16 pm

Well done!!!


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