Guest lectures at The College of Aberffraw
Apr 12, 2017 5:41:43 GMT
King Oden Sleibhin of Dumonia likes this
Post by ET (Kerberos) on Apr 12, 2017 5:41:43 GMT
On the creation of the sentient races
By Mirthal of Nagnati
“A point on which humans often wonder about elves are why we have historically not worshipped the gods? Surely their existence and power is obvious? In the past before elves recently became less isolated you might find some elves who believed that the gods were myths or that divine magic was no different from arcane, but this opinion has never been held by any serious Aelven scholar. Rather the traditional Aelven position towards all gods is similar to those that the temples to the One God have traditionally held towards druidic faith. Their existence and power is acknowledged, but they are held to be something different and lesser than true gods. The archpriest of the ToG is know to hold many druidic gods to be aspects of the One God while the Hibernica temple that is known to be more hostile to druids often regard them as demons. “
”So what do elves believe then, and how do Aleven myth explain the existence of the world and of the sentiment races? Interestingly elves have no cohesive belief about how the world came into being. There are many stories to be sure, some of which I might share at a latter point but no one story that can be described as the Aleven creation myth. Most Aleven scholars simply regard the creation of the world as a mystery beyond our current understanding. One story does however exist for the Dawn of the Sentient races. This is the story of the first bindings.” Mirthals voice takes on a practices melodious turn like a well rehearsed story told many times before.
“In the dawn of time there were no Elves, no goblins, no ogres, no dwarves and no men. There were only beasts and spirits. The beast were dumb things lacking the ability to understand and their bodies decayed over time. The spirits could understand and time did not touch them,, but they could touch the world as the beasts could. So it was that the spirits of the forest bonded with the beast of the forest. They would shield the beasts from the ravages of time and age and through the beasts the spirits could touch the world and shape it to their desires. Through this bonding between spirit and beast was born the Aelven race. And when their bodies died through violence, disease, or because they were done with life the spirits would be freed to find new bodies in the next cycle.”
“The spirits of darkness saw this and were envious, but most did not wish to bond themselves as bonding yourself comes with the risk that once the body dies the spirit is scattered losing much of itself before it can gather again. It can even be destroyed entirely through dark magic. Also most of the beasts recoiled from the spirits of darkness recognizing their evil. So the spirits of darkness tortured other spirits and the beast themselves and bound them together with pain and hatred and thus was born the race of goblins. Goblin like elves do not age as men do, but as the binding is coerced it is more fragile and the bonds dissolves before to many years have passed. Some of the smaller of the spirits of darkness also bonded of their own will with the most sinister and violent of the beasts and this became the race of ogres, immune to the ravages of age as are elves. The greater spirits of darkness however remained outside, but forces their new creation to worship them gaining power from this and thus was born the first of the greater spirits, the spirits that the shorter lived races call gods.”
“The spirits of the mountains saw what was done, they wished to influence the world, but they were unwilling to risk all of their essence. Thus they split their essence binding one half to the beast of the mountains forming dwarves but retaining another in the spirit realm the most powerful of these gathering worshipers from their creations and becoming greater spirits. Because the bindings that created the dwarves contained only half a spirits essence they gained some protection from age, but it was imperfect and so dwarves do age though less quickly than men.”
“Last the spirits of the sky came. They saw what other had done but they were more distant from the beast in both space and characters and they could not bond directly with them. So they crafted spirits for the purpose and bonded those to the beast of the plain creating man. The spirits created gave man understanding, but not agelessness as did natural spirits. The spirits of the sky gaining worshippers from their creation and through this process they to became greater spirits.”
Mirthal ends the recitation.
“there exist different version of this myth of cause, in some stories there is only one spirit of the sky who became the one god with the druidic gods being related to the spirits of elves and dwarves save those worshiped by the Feral ones who are in most version considered to be related to the spirits of darkness or perhaps being themselves spirits of darkness. “
“New version have arisen recently. When the Hibernian temple was invited into Nagnati they attempted with rather limited success to eradicate beliefs such as these. More recently however some of their more liberal clerics, particularly those that are elves have begun to adapt the story saying that the world was created by the one god and that only the other gods are ascended spirits either directed by the one god for those considered benevolent or acting against him for those considered malevolent such as the dark fey. They also tend to adopt the belief that the Aelven reincarnation cycle ends at some point with ascension into paradise or decent into hell depending on the worth of the spirit. This is similar to the Archpriest of the ToG’s stated belief that other gods is a reflection of the creator and is often associated with a more positive view of the druidic faiths.”
“You might also wonder why it is that religion has recently been invited into Aelven lands if this is what most elves believe. This is no doubt for several reasons. For one you can worship the gods even if you think they are powerful spirits, their power is as I said in the beginning beyond dispute whatever their origin. Some might also have come to believe the adapted version I mentioned, or rejected the traditional beliefs altogether in favour of more traditional religious dogma. One might even suspect were one of a cynical mind that the benefits of clerical magic became to large to ignore, though obviously such speculation of base motives would be entirely unfounded. “
By Mirthal of Nagnati
“A point on which humans often wonder about elves are why we have historically not worshipped the gods? Surely their existence and power is obvious? In the past before elves recently became less isolated you might find some elves who believed that the gods were myths or that divine magic was no different from arcane, but this opinion has never been held by any serious Aelven scholar. Rather the traditional Aelven position towards all gods is similar to those that the temples to the One God have traditionally held towards druidic faith. Their existence and power is acknowledged, but they are held to be something different and lesser than true gods. The archpriest of the ToG is know to hold many druidic gods to be aspects of the One God while the Hibernica temple that is known to be more hostile to druids often regard them as demons. “
”So what do elves believe then, and how do Aleven myth explain the existence of the world and of the sentiment races? Interestingly elves have no cohesive belief about how the world came into being. There are many stories to be sure, some of which I might share at a latter point but no one story that can be described as the Aleven creation myth. Most Aleven scholars simply regard the creation of the world as a mystery beyond our current understanding. One story does however exist for the Dawn of the Sentient races. This is the story of the first bindings.” Mirthals voice takes on a practices melodious turn like a well rehearsed story told many times before.
“In the dawn of time there were no Elves, no goblins, no ogres, no dwarves and no men. There were only beasts and spirits. The beast were dumb things lacking the ability to understand and their bodies decayed over time. The spirits could understand and time did not touch them,, but they could touch the world as the beasts could. So it was that the spirits of the forest bonded with the beast of the forest. They would shield the beasts from the ravages of time and age and through the beasts the spirits could touch the world and shape it to their desires. Through this bonding between spirit and beast was born the Aelven race. And when their bodies died through violence, disease, or because they were done with life the spirits would be freed to find new bodies in the next cycle.”
“The spirits of darkness saw this and were envious, but most did not wish to bond themselves as bonding yourself comes with the risk that once the body dies the spirit is scattered losing much of itself before it can gather again. It can even be destroyed entirely through dark magic. Also most of the beasts recoiled from the spirits of darkness recognizing their evil. So the spirits of darkness tortured other spirits and the beast themselves and bound them together with pain and hatred and thus was born the race of goblins. Goblin like elves do not age as men do, but as the binding is coerced it is more fragile and the bonds dissolves before to many years have passed. Some of the smaller of the spirits of darkness also bonded of their own will with the most sinister and violent of the beasts and this became the race of ogres, immune to the ravages of age as are elves. The greater spirits of darkness however remained outside, but forces their new creation to worship them gaining power from this and thus was born the first of the greater spirits, the spirits that the shorter lived races call gods.”
“The spirits of the mountains saw what was done, they wished to influence the world, but they were unwilling to risk all of their essence. Thus they split their essence binding one half to the beast of the mountains forming dwarves but retaining another in the spirit realm the most powerful of these gathering worshipers from their creations and becoming greater spirits. Because the bindings that created the dwarves contained only half a spirits essence they gained some protection from age, but it was imperfect and so dwarves do age though less quickly than men.”
“Last the spirits of the sky came. They saw what other had done but they were more distant from the beast in both space and characters and they could not bond directly with them. So they crafted spirits for the purpose and bonded those to the beast of the plain creating man. The spirits created gave man understanding, but not agelessness as did natural spirits. The spirits of the sky gaining worshippers from their creation and through this process they to became greater spirits.”
Mirthal ends the recitation.
“there exist different version of this myth of cause, in some stories there is only one spirit of the sky who became the one god with the druidic gods being related to the spirits of elves and dwarves save those worshiped by the Feral ones who are in most version considered to be related to the spirits of darkness or perhaps being themselves spirits of darkness. “
“New version have arisen recently. When the Hibernian temple was invited into Nagnati they attempted with rather limited success to eradicate beliefs such as these. More recently however some of their more liberal clerics, particularly those that are elves have begun to adapt the story saying that the world was created by the one god and that only the other gods are ascended spirits either directed by the one god for those considered benevolent or acting against him for those considered malevolent such as the dark fey. They also tend to adopt the belief that the Aelven reincarnation cycle ends at some point with ascension into paradise or decent into hell depending on the worth of the spirit. This is similar to the Archpriest of the ToG’s stated belief that other gods is a reflection of the creator and is often associated with a more positive view of the druidic faiths.”
“You might also wonder why it is that religion has recently been invited into Aelven lands if this is what most elves believe. This is no doubt for several reasons. For one you can worship the gods even if you think they are powerful spirits, their power is as I said in the beginning beyond dispute whatever their origin. Some might also have come to believe the adapted version I mentioned, or rejected the traditional beliefs altogether in favour of more traditional religious dogma. One might even suspect were one of a cynical mind that the benefits of clerical magic became to large to ignore, though obviously such speculation of base motives would be entirely unfounded. “