A Brief Werld history

foreword to the first edition

by Professor Guyward Rulling, Senior Reader of the School of History, the Scola
VIII 52 Lenten

The education of our children is most poor these days: of this the evidence is manifest through the sloth of the youth and their limited industriousness. Quality education might prevent this perversion with the rigorous and studious application of the tools of the educator: lectures, discipline, beatings, public shaming, and quality books. With focused, repeated reading accompanied by exacting, word-for-word transcription by the pupil, it is by this text they will soon possess such a rigorous knowledge of the history of our great people such that even the dimmest of students will show something of the illumination of learning.

Though we are certain that this book shall be read for pleasure by all who are so able, it is also an effective tool of punishment, suitable either for beatings due to its thickness or quiet reading for unruly youth who have yet to learn the virtues of silence.

The many great merits of this book will be noticed at once by the educator of quality, discernment, and esteem, who, through its application, shall usher in a new golden age of enlightenment. For what is history, properly taught, but the ordering of the mind and the correction of the will? The child who knows not from whence he comes will wander into error, novelty, and vice; but the child who has been soundly instructed in the deeds of his forefathers will stand upright in the world, obedient to truth and not easily led astray by fashion. Let every worthy school therefore keep this volume close at hand, whether upon the lectern, within the rucksack, or beside the rod, and let no pupil say, upon pain of correction, that he has not been given every opportunity to improve himself. If by this means even a small number of our youth are made diligent, sober, and tolerably informed, then the labor of its composition shall have been richly justified.

book one

I Wheel

Of the Dying Sun
Of the Folk-from-across-the-Sea
Of the House of Good Hope
Of Brensa and the Hade
Of the Wels
Of Twicrownie
Of the Groundseol
Of the War of the Carriegh Tree

II Wheel

Of King Wiglathe and the Wolfings
Of the Great Eor and the Harrying of Twicronie
Of the Subjugation of Good Hope and the Flight of the Thede
Of the Death of Wiglathe and the crowning of Wolffolk
Of the Wielding of the West
Of the Wels-scourge
Of Wolffolk’s wars in Ardune and the death of Wolffolk
Of the Wolfcrown and the Wars of the Wolfings
Of the Successor Wars and the Wolfyoke

III Wheel

Of the Latrocies and the Mothic Rising
Of the Great Mothe
Of the Sundering
Of the Pentarchy and the Throng of the Thede
Of Millburhs and Stederiches
Of the Wretchpath of Eyrth

IV Wheel

Of the Century of Doubt
Of Harrow and Sisburhie
Of Eyr

book two

V Wheel

Of Sesbrea and the Court of the Moon
Of the War of the Wyestone
Of Arca and the Great Peace
Of the Ardine Wars
Of the Ardine Rising
Of Ardune, its Marechalc, and its hippum

VI Wheel

Of the War of the Five Wodes
Of Aldus and the Aldine Dynasty
Of the Conquest of Wichtland

VII Wheel

Of the Wode of the Werld

book three

VIII Wheel

Wheelfire and the Wode’s Washerwoman
The Brother's War

IX Wheel

The Westerners, the Wole, and the end of the Wode
Western wars and new alliances
The Escourts and the Settlements
The Marechalc’s Ardune
Kyneland
The Golden Mouse

the first wheel

Of the Dying Sun

It was long ago on the Antipodes that the history of our ancestors, the Thederim, first begins. Though these tales were first written down much later, and those first books are now long lost, fragments of the haunted times of our forefathers survive. They record a bleak existence, when dense ash filled the sky, when all was cloaked in fog and mist so thick that the sun could only faintly be seen at noon, when the land grew so cold that snow blew even in summer. Crops failed, cattle perished, and men starved.

They abandoned their homes and took to foot, vainly seeking reprieve from the frost and shade, but they found no end to the bitter torment. Once happy farmers and peaceful folk, they became wild thieves and roved the land like criminals, taking what food they could and killing any who denied them.

In desperation, they took counsel with a great sorcerer who claimed he could renew the sun with the blood of men. Fierce battles were fought by the followers of this wizard, and many captives were taken and bled to feed the sun. Much wealth and plunder was taken too, and the army of the wizard was soon rich and well-fed. Many flocked to this victorious magician, for he won many battles; but each success won him many enemies, and these enemies were soon united into a great army. What became of this sorcerer when that army destroyed him in battle, none can say, but his followers were made prisoners and dragged off in shackles and chains. In five great barges they were placed, to be sold in the great slave markets of the far-off cities of the north.

Of the Folk-from-across-the-Sea

The barges bearing these many captives left from the frigid homeland of our ancestors by hugging the shore, for they were not vessels fit for the sea, but a sudden and ferocious storm swept the ships far, far out into the Ocean. The great storm crashed upon the ships, terrifying captives and crew alike. Rudders snapped, masts fell, sails tore, and the barges drifted deep in unknown waters.

The captains, it seems, could not keep command, for mutiny spread from ship to ship, and soon the crews had seized control, though they would soon find they could hold it no better than their former commanders.

Drunk in celebration of their success, the crew did not notice when the prisoners aboard one of the ships acquired weapons dropped during the mutiny. Though still in chains, the captives quickly overran the drunken crew and freed themselves by force of arms, spreading from ship to ship, slaughtering their former captors and throwing their corpses to the waiting sharks.

The freed captives decided to break apart their most damaged barge, which had been badly burned in their fight for freedom, and with its timber repair the other four boats. Soon the ships sailed east upon the rocking waves, carried along by fierce winds across the tempestuous Sea.

For a year, it is said, they sailed onward, and a great many died of thirst and hunger as they exhausted their meager supplies. It was then, only after they had lost all hope and had contented themselves that at least they would die free, that they saw the shores of a new land. By tradition, this occured on the Ide of Lenten, now known to us as Lenten Fool’s Day, and was the start of the ancient calendar of the Thederim, before Wode Arca Law-breaker corrected the calendar and made the Kalend of Wyetenth the first day of the year.

So the Folk had crossed the Sea and arrived at last upon the Werld so that history might now begin.

Of the House of Good Hope

As the four barges passed the Ey of First Sight, a small rock unworth remark save for the memorable occasion from which it takes its name, they entered into broad and tranquil waters which they called the Sheltered Sea. Sailing onward, they came into a wide bay which they named the Good Water, for it was so full of salmon that they needed only dip a basket into the waves to draw up more fish than they could consume. Thus did the White Queen, having at last delivered them from bondage and the wrath of the Sea, set before them the first abundance of their new home.

Here the history of the Folk divides as it ever has, even before they had set foot upon the shores of the Werld, for one of the barges turned northward, while the other three turned to the south. Much speculation has in later times been devoted to this separation by men who have preferred conjecture to evidence; yet no known document records its cause, and the honest historian must be content to say so.

The Halvey, a long and narrow peninsula which juts out into the Good Water, ends in a prominent bluff which they called the Hardel, on account of its likeness to the back of a closed hand. At the foot of this bluff rests a great stone, embedded where the sand is churned by the surf, called Landingstone. Since those first days it has been held the frithstow of Good Hope, for it was there that the Folk beached their barges and first stepped upon the shore. Every student ought to remember this well, for from that landing proceeded in time not only the city of Good Hope, but the whole civil order of the Werld.

By this time the Folk had formed a crude pidgin speech, from which descends the magnificent Eyrsh tongue now spoken by us all. For they were made up of many diverse peoples from the Antipodes, and were united into one not by common language, custom, or religion, but by shared suffering and necessity. It was by means of this simple speech that they were able to accomplish the first great labor of the Thederim: the tearing apart of the barges, and from their timber the raising of the great House of Good Hope. Thus we see that even rude language, if rightly used, may serve the beginnings of a great people.

The House of Good Hope, of course, still stands in that city, though it has been much altered over the centuries, and the present structure dates chiefly from the renovations undertaken by Wode Cennera of the Triumphs. Instead of its present broad and magnificent chambers, however, we must picture a far smaller and rougher building, little more than a rude barn. The earliest description of it comes down to us from Oeerce, writing almost three hundred years later, who describes a long hall with many small side-chambers and partitions of heavy woven tapestries depicting beasts, monsters, and strange things. Along the walls stood many rows of benches, which at night were covered with furs and rugs to be slept upon. In the center of the hall lay a long and narrow fire-pit, over which many bakestones and spits were tended, and around which, he tells us, three hundred men could comfortably sit. From this constant fire smoke rose into the rafters and thence into the thatched roof, which was patched with pitch and painted with many bright stars. Such, in its simplicity and hardship, was the first home of our forefathers; and from beginnings so humble did our great people rise.

Of Brensa and the Hade

None can say how long the Folk of the southern shore remained as one in their House, if indeed they ever did so at all. Moerceine reports, citing books by Oureophages which now are lost, that not all the Folk took part in the building of the House of Good Hope, but that some splintered away before the barges were ever broken up. Bocaphenece, however, tells us that the sundering of the Folk occurred more dramatically within the halls of that House itself. As mentioned, those first Folk were not of one race, but made up of many peoples, but there was among them one group who were particularly numerous and, Bocaphenece says, still devoted to the customs of the wizard of the Antipodes. These wished to resume their raids for prisoners and to continue the bleeding of captives to feed the sun; but the other Folk rejected this counsel, arguing that their covenant with those practices was now broken, and that, besides, they had endured the Sea for almost a year adrift without sacrifice, and yet in all that time the sun had not perished. A fight broke out in the hall, Bocaphenece says, and the quarrelsome disciples of the sorcerer were banished.

Whatever the case, this great host of people, who called themselves the Hade, departed eastward from the House of Good Hope. Yet they had not gone far before squabbles arose among them, and a division appeared within the Hade, as so often happens among barbarous peoples, who are more apt to passion than to discipline. As the waters of the Flooding Fields began to recede, some desired to make their home there, while others wished instead to press onward, for there were not great numbers of Wels in those parts, and they sought more numerous enemies from whom to take captives in their grisly wars.

Those Hade who remained in the Flooding Fields made their home upon the great butte called Brensa, and from them descend the Brenslings of today. Brensa stands upon the banks of the great and broad Gardadamara, which fills with so much water each spring and summer that it spills over its banks and inundates the lands from horizon to horizon, leaving Brensa a small island in a vast and muddy lake. So much silt is borne down from the far-off mountains that the course of the river may change with great frequency, so that at one time Brensa finds itself south of the main channel, and at another year north of it. There they built great stone walls in a ring upon the stony height, and for this reason the ancient Folk called it Well-girt Brensa. Every student should remember this well, for in all its long history the city has never been taken by conquest, but has fallen only through treachery or through its own folly, which are the usual gates by which strong places are lost.

Those Hade who refused to make Brensa their home pressed farther north, crossing the steep Dwarrescarps into a vast and open prairie which lies upon the shores of the Blue, the greatest lake in all the Werld. Some fished along its banks, but the Hade were poor sailors and fearful of deep water, and so made little use of that great lake. Instead they turned to the open plains, where they corralled mustangs and took wild stallions for steeds. These barbarians lived a savage life upon the prairie, taking heads, eating raw flesh, and smoking much hemp. It would, however, be a grave error to think of the Hade as one people. Just as they had broken away from the Folk, and then from the Brenslings, so too did they divide yet again among themselves into many tribes and factions, making endless war upon one another, as is the habit of men who possess courage in greater measure than good sense.

Of the Wels

It was not the Folk-from-across-the-Sea who first gave the Werld that name, for the Werld has always been inhabited by peoples of one kind or another. In the far east are the Island Savages; in Wasteland, the Barbadines; in the rugged mountains, what remains of the Kyne—if indeed they may properly be called a people at all, as some assert and others deny; upon the banks of the broad River Oiore is the ancient home of the Ardines; in the dense forests of Orcadia and the Fyrdlands dwell the ancient Elandie; and in the woods and hills of the West live the Wels.

The Wels are much the same in stature as the Folk, though more often given to red hair and blue eyes. Professor Gallien Winter of Blackminster argued that these similarities arose because the Folk and the Wels had once, in the far distant past, sprung from the same regions of the Antipodes, and were thus cousins far removed. The archaeologist Oriel Hirste, however, showed quite conclusively in her research that the success of the Folk was due in no small part to their early assimilation of great numbers of Wels, so that any outward likeness between the two peoples is only to be expected. These two explanations do not disprove one another, and so the consensus has now been broadly established that both are true.

Every student will readily perceive that likeness in feature does not imply likeness in character, for whatever resemblance the two peoples may bear in appearance, the Folk and the Wels were in civilization nothing alike. If we concede that our ancestors the Folk were primitive by modern standards, they at least knew iron and the plough, and were industrious in their ways. The same cannot be said of the Wels, who used rough stone and simple copper for their tools and did not till the field or plant orchards, but instead roved after deer and buffalo while their women gathered roots, herbs, and berries from the woods. They were greatly idle, wasting much of the day in dancing, or else in the smoking of their pipes. It is therefore no surprise that the White Queen led the Folk-from-across-the-Sea to the Werld, wishing to see Her paradise tended by a people more worthy of Her demesne.

The wise men of the Wels came to the Folk with offerings of peace and with a desire to join themselves to their superior civilization. Their own tradition speaks of an age not unlike that of the distant Folk in the Antipodes: a time of ash and strife, when clan battled clan and family battled family for so long that nearly every man of fighting age had perished in combat. Many among the Wels had prophesied that a savior would come across the Sea and deliver them into peace. Thus the Folk needed hardly to coerce them at all in order to make plain that they were the chosen people of the White Queen, appointed to shepherd the Werld into peace and order.