Legends III: The Severance

Posted: March 19th, 2011 under Background, Contents.
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Legends that cross racial boundaries (elf/human, human/gnome, elf/dwarf, etc.)  look very different in versions from the different groups.    The story of The Severance between elves and kuaknomi is perhaps the most complex of these, as it involves elves, humans, and trees.  This is necessarily a simplified version, and would be hotly disputed by some of those involved.

When the First Song was sung, and the firstborn of the Singer, the Sinyi, began to sing, they sang also living things upon the earth, and among those things (but with the Singer’s guidance) was the One Tree, from whom all trees came.    The One Tree recognized the songs of the Sinyi and responded to them, and the Sinyi loved the tree and learned its own song, for in those times all beings sang.  Of all the Elders, only the Sinyi sang with the Tree, for those Elders given dominion over the rocks were rocksingers, dasksinyi, and though they respected the green blood, they did not sing to it.

Later, humans came upon the earth, one of the lateborn races.    They acknowledged the Elders,  and their kind were of the earth’s surface, where, like others of red blood, they fed upon those of green blood, but without malice, learning from the Sinyi some elementary songs as well as some crafts.   They learned also from the dasksinyi, to sing some of their songs, and do simple work with stone.

Short-lived and passionate, hasty and curious, humans sought ever more the powers of the Elders, and eventually a human singer sought out the One Tree, for the Sinyi had many songs of its beauty.   And in time, he came before the Tree.   Astonished at its size and beauty, he sang to it, a song of admiration and even love, which was no wonder…but he sang so beautifully that the Tree was moved to respond, and stretched out a limb and the man stretched out his arm and they twined together, until none could tell what was wood and what was flesh.   The man entered into the taig of the Tree, and thus into the taig of all green blood.   When they separated again,  he had partaken of the nature of the Tree, and the Tree had partaken of the nature of a human.

The Sinyi who observed the Tree’s response were astounded, appalled,  and angry with the man…some of them, with the Tree as well.    It was arrogance, they said, that led the man to sing to the Tree, and an affront to them, the Elders, that the tree responded.    But the Singer who had sung into being both Sinyi and Tree rejected their complaints: if the man sang beautifully enough to move the Tree, and the Tree enjoyed it, what business was it of the Sinyi?   It need not mean that the Tree cared less for them, that it cared for another.

The Sinyi split in twain: some, obedient to the Singer, though still upset with the man, withdrew a little from the lateborn and poured all their thought and heart into creating more beauty in the world, and with that the  Singer seemed content.  Others, angry and unwilling to submit, set out to punish both humans and those of green blood, killing men and trees, and also their former brethren, the Sinyi.   So their name was taken away, or they gave it away, and they became known among some men as kuaknom, tree-haters, and among others as un-singers, iynisin.    Battles were fought, Sinyi against iynisin, for the territories and forests once held in common.   The Sinyi had no love for battle or dissension, and thus were in some ways weaker than the iynisin.    Although they prevailed,  in many lands, with the help (which they wished they did not need!) of humans, the iynisin weren’t fully or permanently defeated.   Of all the elven leaders, only one made alliance with the dasksinyi to rid his realm of iynisin (and this is how the iynisin in Kolobia were finally locked in stone.)

Most  Sinyi, still harboring some resentment against humans, though they scorned to attack them directly, refused to admit that such as kuaknomi or iynisin existed and depended instead on the magical protection of elvenhomes.    They despised the Kuakkgani, who, following that first singer’s lead, made a direct connection, red blood with green, and so entered into the taig.   They despised the kuakgannir, who followed the Kuakkgani and gathered in their Groves.  (To the Sinyi, a Kuakgan’s Grove is a travesty of an elvenhome.)

23 Comments »

  • Comment by Eir de Scania — March 19, 2011 @ 5:18 pm

    1

    So I should really be in bed, it’s past midnight in Sweden. Instead I sit here reading Paksworld legends. 😉


  • Comment by Mike G. — March 19, 2011 @ 6:31 pm

    2

    I’m really enjoying these legends. The Kuakkgani have always been very interesting, since the first trilogy.

    Maybe the Editor would be interested in a series about Oakhollow’s Youth sometime down the road 🙂 (If I’m remembering the name of the Brewersbridge Kuakgan correctly…)


  • Comment by Linda — March 19, 2011 @ 7:32 pm

    3

    Yes, yes, more Master Oakhallow please and the Kuakgani in general. It’s funny, Brewersbridge feels the most like “home” of all the places you’ve described.

    Again, many thanks for this wonderful bonus material.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 19, 2011 @ 8:13 pm

    4

    Editor wants me to finish the main story and then it will depend on “numbers.”

    I’m not sure that any of the ideas I had for more stories in this world, back when I left it, will work out as I then thought if written now. (What was going to be “Kieri’s book” certainly didn’t!!) And it wasn’t Master Oakhallow who told me (then anyway) that he had a story to tell. It was someone else I haven’t met yet–just a sort of hint and then it went away. We’ll have to see.


  • Comment by Merewen — March 19, 2011 @ 8:46 pm

    5

    Somehow, when reading the books for the first and second time, I never connected with the fact that iynisin is mostly Sinyi backwards. Did you do that on purpose, to highlight both the similarities and the opposite natures of the two types of elves?


  • Comment by RichardB — March 19, 2011 @ 8:53 pm

    6

    Fascinating and beautiful.

    Also wonderfully, satisfyingly consistent both with itself and with the already published works. So *many* questions answered in one deft stroke!

    The satisfaction is all the greater in that these mysteries are only now revealed, after they were first set up in my mind by reading the books.

    Thank you *so* much for sharing this!


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 19, 2011 @ 9:42 pm

    7

    I’m so glad they’re giving you and others pleasure and not just bothering you with more stuff you didn’t really want to dig through.

    If I have time tomorrow (Sunday, singing in choir, plus other chores) I may get to another one.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 19, 2011 @ 9:58 pm

    8

    Yes, exactly. Only after the first books came out, I thought perhaps it was too obtrusive.


  • Comment by Robert Conley — March 19, 2011 @ 10:30 pm

    9

    This stuff is great. It comes across in Deed and other Paksenarrion stories that you put some thought into the world behind the stories. That this background not just dressing but a vital reason for why things are. So by reading this it helps me appreciate the various Paksenarrion stories even more.

    Thanks again.


  • Comment by Alaska Fan — March 20, 2011 @ 12:44 am

    10

    Please tell your editor and publisher that there is at least one reader who would pay cheerfully for a book of collected legends, tales and stories like these last two. After you finish the current series, of course.


  • Comment by Sully — March 20, 2011 @ 2:21 am

    11

    I’m enjoying these legends as well, thank you.


  • Comment by Anne — March 20, 2011 @ 7:00 am

    12

    I agree. I would love to have a (small?) book of legends.
    If the Editor thinks not, perhaps as an appendix (or appendices) to Book IV (or V)?
    🙂


  • Comment by Naomi — March 20, 2011 @ 11:34 am

    13

    I second the suggestion by Alaska Fan!


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 20, 2011 @ 12:20 pm

    14

    It will still depend on how well the books sell. Editor likes me work a lot, but she has the bean-counters to contend with, and they care about the sales history.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 20, 2011 @ 12:20 pm

    15

    Thanks, Sully; glad to know it.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 20, 2011 @ 12:21 pm

    16

    A separate book is much more likely than an appendix, since this would make Book IV or V longer and they’re looking a big, um, big already.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 20, 2011 @ 12:22 pm

    17

    Thanks, Naomi. We’ll just have to see how things work out.


  • Comment by Richard — March 21, 2011 @ 4:13 am

    18

    elizabeth,
    from the above story I reckon I’ve now guessed the irony you mentioned in your SpoilerSpace1 Dec 16 reply (#143) about Kuakkgani. Nice one.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 21, 2011 @ 8:28 am

    19

    There’s a hint of the animosity elves have for Kuakkgani in the Deed itself, when the Lady realizes Paks asked a Kuakgan to raise the taig, and a hint of the Severance in some of the things elves said during both Divided Allegiance and Oath of Gold.


  • Comment by AMMBD — March 21, 2011 @ 7:45 pm

    20

    Very nice 🙂

    1 set of elves ‘acting out’, 1 set ‘lashing out’ & 1 set ‘sitting out’ (mostly); all behaving poorly out of jealousy.


  • Comment by elizabeth — March 21, 2011 @ 9:41 pm

    21

    AMMBD: Yes. Elves not always nice, though as with any group there’s a wide range. They arrive with great privilege–immortality, the talent for magery, enchantment, etc.–and being born with privilege is itself a form of enchantment, a distancing that disguises realities others have to deal with. Very easy to become used to privilege and power.


  • Comment by arthur — March 23, 2011 @ 5:42 pm

    22

    This is Arthur. The great thing about your elves, as opposed to EVERY other fantasy world I know of, is that these elves look exactly the same. They are not “dark elves” as in the “Forgotten Realms” or other such tales. That I thought very interesting.


  • Comment by Antoine — June 15, 2011 @ 3:57 am

    23

    Good one and another hint that we will begin to see some differences within the Elves in the coming books.

    There was already a pointed hint in Kings of the North, after all.


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