Legends that cross racial boundaries (elf\/human, human\/gnome, elf\/dwarf, etc.)\u00a0 look very different in versions from the different groups.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The story of The Severance between elves and kuaknomi is perhaps the most complex of these, as it involves elves, humans, and trees.\u00a0 This is necessarily a simplified version, and would be hotly disputed by some of those involved.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Later, humans came upon the earth, one of the lateborn races.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They acknowledged the Elders,\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 They learned also from the dasksinyi, to sing some of their songs, and do simple work with stone.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0\u00a0 And in time, he came before the Tree.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 The man entered into the taig of the Tree, and thus into the taig of all green blood.\u00a0\u00a0 When they separated again,\u00a0 he had partaken of the nature of the Tree, and the Tree had partaken of the nature of a human.<\/p>\n
The Sinyi who observed the Tree’s response were astounded, appalled,\u00a0 and angry with the man…some of them, with the Tree as well.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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?\u00a0\u00a0 It need not mean that the Tree cared less for them, that it cared for another.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0 Singer seemed content.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Battles were fought, Sinyi against iynisin, for the territories and forests once held in common.\u00a0\u00a0 The Sinyi had no love for battle or dissension, and thus were in some ways weaker than the iynisin.\u00a0 \u00a0 Although they prevailed,\u00a0 in many lands, with the help (which they wished they did not need!) of humans, the iynisin weren’t fully or permanently defeated. \u00a0 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.)<\/p>\n
Most\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 They despised the kuakgannir, who followed the Kuakkgani and gathered in their Groves.\u00a0 (To the Sinyi, a Kuakgan’s Grove is a travesty of an elvenhome.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Legends that cross racial boundaries (elf\/human, human\/gnome, elf\/dwarf, etc.)\u00a0 look very different in versions from the different groups.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The story of The Severance between elves and kuaknomi is perhaps the most complex of these, as it involves elves, humans, and trees.\u00a0 This is necessarily a simplified version, and would be hotly disputed by some of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,4],"tags":[108,106],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-contents","tag-background","tag-contents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1122,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions\/1122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}