NationStates Jolt Archive

There was a time before this world but our tales does not go back that far, merely to the moment of creation. It was not just a moment during the earth's forging but the moment. An instant before, there was no world. An instant after, there was. It was the moment she was born, Dana. She was not some distant being, existent from all time, any more than she was just another creature upon the earth's face, albeit of divine power. She was not the creator but creation. She was not the mother but motherhood.

Dana was not the only power in the world. She travelled far and wide and spoke with many beings of great majesty and power, ancient gods and goddesses. There was a race then, whose name is now lost, which lay claim to being the makers of all things and another which sprang into being as the living essence of all that was. Yet, Dana was greater. Had she choosen, she might have been their queen. However, she left them to their own devices and made her dwelling in Hibernia.

Dana lived alone until the birth of man. He did not travel to Hibernia, not yet. But Dana felt his dreams, the same energy of creation of which she was formed. The stuff of dreams made her fertile and she sang a song of yearning that sounded throughout the world. One other came to her then, the Dagda. Dana was beautiful beyond anything before or since. Her radiance was the radiance of creation itself. Yet, the Dagda was not beautiful, or not by the standards of Dana at least. But he was strong. He was the strength of mountains born of stone and no force known could resist his blow. He took Dana and went into her and she was with child.

The children of Dana were the Tuatha de Danaan, or Tribes of Dana. Among them are numbered many great gods and heroes. Among them were numbered Brigit and Lugh, Badb and Macha, and even Morrigan Triple-Goddess. Not all of these were born directly of Dana, for the Tuatha too took lovers and bore children. Lugh's father, especially, was not of the tribe, for Lugh, Sun God though he was, was born of a Tuathan Goddess raped at the hands of Balor of the Burning Eye, the vile king of Fomorians, the gods of nightmare.

Eventually, however, the gods came to bear children who, while sharing somewhat in their divine nature, could no longer be called gods and goddesses. The firstborn children of the Tuatha de Danaan were the mer, born by the powers of the ocean deep beneath the waves. Three in number were the great Houses of the merfolk. The oldest and greatest was the House of Syrinx, descendants of the first great queen of the sea people. To this day, her House rules the undersea denizens of the fairy lands. Their kind are bound to the true fish. Second, was the House of Lorelei, descendants of the greatest of noble warriors. Their kind are bound to predators and fighters, to sharks and eels and other such fighters. Third, the House of Melusine, mages and scholars who study the world above. Their kind are bound to that which swims and yet partakes of the air, the whale, the porpoise, the sea bird, the seal, and the like creatures.

After the mer, the Tuatha begot a second race, the sidhe. Many noble houses trace their lineage back to a great lord or lady of the Tuatha. Gwydion and Balor were born of Lugh, Fiona of Brigit. Varich traces its lineage to other gods in other lands, yet its sons and daughters are undoubtedly sidhe as any other. The Tuatha took the sidhe as their heirs, taking them outside of time and leaving part of their souls forever there. This is why sidhe are both ancient beyond the telling and as young as a newborn babe throughout life, regardless of how recently they came into the world.

This done, the Tuatha began crafting the great races of fairy. These were not children of their loins but works of their hands. They made them all. They created the boggan from the dreams of a carpenter, from the love of hard and honest work. They created the pooka from the wistful envy the farmers had for the idle and playful animals of the wild. They created the nocker from the fires of the forge and the redcaps from the ever hungry winds. They created many others, as well. There were said to have once been thousands of peoples, though scarcely a hundred survive. Yet, among the great races, the satyr, the sluagh, the troll, and the eshu were not crafted by the Tuatha in those days.

Soon, the children of other gods, yet like to the fairy in nature, made themselves known to the fae of Hibernia, and to their rulers, the sidhe. The Nunnehi were learned to dwell in western lands beyond the great ocean, children of powerful spirits. The satyrs, sons of Pan, were found in the southern lands. From farther south, came the eshu, children of the Orishas. From the east, came word of the Hsien, servants of the August Personage of Jade, who were themselves once gods before being cast down for their pride. All these and more joined the race of fairy.

In Hibernia too, there were other gods at work, and the nightmare gods made races in their own image. They made the savage fuath from the fiercesome beasts of the woods and the acheri from the terrors of disease. They travelled further than the Tuatha and peopled the world with their foul races, contesting gods of good and honor wherever any were to be found. The Fir Bold they ranked first among their creations and appointed savage lords of the Dark-kin, the peoples of the Fomorians.

Dana stood with the Dagda and looked down upon her people with worry in her heart. She loved them as any mother did, moreso, for Dana was not just a mother but Motherhood. Dana and the Dagda saw all the dangers in the world and, for all their power, the goddess and her consort were but two and could not guard their people by themselves.

It was then that Dana sat down and carved the first trolls from the mountains. She made them with the strength of stone and with honor as firm as the unyielding mountains. Of all the fae races, the trolls alone come directly from Dana and she is said to love them best, though the sidhe claim otherwise.

It was the Dagda, however, who was the divine patron of the trolls after their creation. He gave them their law, strict and inviolable. He bound them to unflinching honor. He trained them for battle, gave them the knowledge of arms that combined with their strength to render them nigh invincible.

((I know there's no ic posts on this thread, but OOC feedback would be greatly appreciated.))

It was then that discord came between the ancients. The Tuatha de Danaan felt that their age of the world was coming to an end. It was time to let the lesser races make their own destiny and for the Tuatha to move on to the next phase of their existence. The Aesir and the Orishas stood with the Tuatha. Messengers of fate declared that the Norns had spoken of the end of the Age of Gods.

The Fomorians, however, had other plans. They wished to use their power to dominate the younger races, to rule all that lived. They rallied the Dark-kin to their banner, as well as many redcaps and certain sidhe related by blood to the nightmare lords. War had begun.

The first battle took place between the trolls and an ancient race known as the Lords of the Mound. The Lords were every bit as honorable as the trolls. They were chivalrous warriors, not savage hordes. Yet, the Lords had given their oaths to the Fomorians, and not to the Tuatha. The trolls understood that the Lords could no more break those oaths than the trolls could break their own.

Before war came, the trolls and the Lords of the Mound were as brothers. They shared the same strengths and the same unbreakable code of honor. They thought in similar ways and respected one another. There was nothing between the two peoples but respect and brotherhood.

Now, the two races stood on opposite sides of a great battlefield, gathered in their entirety. Both had sworn oaths and neither would ever break them. The battle between brothers was joined. Quarter was neither asked nor given. No one surredered and no one ran. Honor did not allow it. The trolls won and their victory whiped the Lords of the Mound from existence forever. Not one of that lost race lives, nor has ever come again into the world.

War was now joined in earnest by every fae and the gods who bore them. The great races did battle, side by side with the strange inanimae and gallain. The fairies of those days dwarfed the power of their descendents as the sun dwarfs the light of a candle. Battles rages which shook the foundations of the earth and legions of dragons flew at the behest of the gods and their sidhe generals.

This is an excellent account of the legends of the fae. Eventually I'll have to get around to writing the origin legends of Akaton.

The war raged for millenia, until an understanding was finally reached. It would be wrong to say the Tuatha de Danaan and their allies won. Victory was never certain and at least one court of the Fomorians was never once bested in battle. However, the Fomorians departed beyond the world, settling down to a sleep of ages. The Tuatha de Danaan and the other gods left the world, departing for lands unknown and leaving only a few lingerers behind them. Alone among the divinities, the Norns remained in a realm far from earth but not beyond the journeys of fairy into the land of dream. They alone still speak sometimes with their children, though their words are rare and spoken in riddles.

Left with all the powers of the ancients as their inheritance, the sidhe began to rule as kings and queens did among the mortals. To the Summer Kings fell the reign from Beltaine to Samhain. The rest of the year belonged to the Winter Kings. This system of seasonal rule was to last through many an age.

It was then that the founders of the great houses came to be, Gwydion the Grey first among them. Yet, in his youth Gwydion was not a noble man. He was a rapist and a pillager, who took what he wished from whomever he willed without shame or blame.

One day, Gwydion pillaged the lodge of one of the few remaining Tuatha. He and his men sacked the place while its lord was away. Like bandits, they stole his possessions and Gwydion took a human chambermaid by force. Even as Gwydion violated her, a sword pressed to her neck, the lord returned. Gwydion raised his blade to defend himself but the there was no contest. The Tuathan lord was easily victorious.