Stop Me If Ya Hear This One Before

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But there were three lions and a lost girl…

Oh, ya heard of that one have ya laddie?

How bout this one?

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But there was a lost king…

That one too, eh?

Well, I guess it be me own fault then, eh? Every babe born on this side of the Shrinking Sea has heard all them Ol’ Nan and Grand stories. Am I right laddie? Not sure where ya from, but that’s what we southern folk call those Ol’ stories. Because if ya didn’t hear it from your Nan, then ya must have heard it from ya Grand!

Ha!

Why don’t ya take a seat here laddie? Ya look like ya been on those legs of yours for a good long while. Here, have a drink. I’m feeling generous and a wee bit gooby tonight. I’d ask where ya from laddie, but I got a feeling ya just want to rest them bones of yours by the fire first, don’t ya laddie? Here, I saved ya a seat. Even though I didn’t know ya were coming here tonight laddie, I feel like it be the God’s fate that you and I be the only ones here in this inn for the night. Let me get a good look at ya. Oh, I’ve seen your like before laddie. Still pretty much a babe, but near old enough to stomach a few flagon’s of ale. I be guessing ya been around these parts more than once, but that just be me assuming laddie. Take no offense, and I’ll beg for ya pardon, but even I think you’re someone special. Either ya are, and don’t know it yet, or ya don’t know ya are when ya are. But that be none of my business. Bad manners to assume as such.

Here. Warm ya self by the fire. Rest them bones and have a drink.

It’s getting cold out there ain’t it laddie? Winter’s coming awfully fast. Faster than it was last year, and the year before that. Or I just be getting old. I bet you’re cold there laddie, but believe me, the winters, especially in this part of the Kingdom are only going to get colder and colder. Even though it be for only a few months, the cold has a way of creeping up on ya. Like a mountain cat pouncing on ya when ya least expect it. The first frost is nothing compared to the last storm of the season. But then again…the snow melts…as it always does. But then ya got the heat of summer ahead of ya. Ya wish for the snow, but then, before ya know it, it comes and ya wish for the heat! A bit of the Ol’ give and take as the priest’s of the Church would say. Am I right laddie?

Oh…sorry bout that laddie. Didn’t mean to go off the path like that. Been a while since I’ve had a pair of ears to listen to me gob on and on and on…

Been on my own journey ya see, and what I have learned on said journey has got me riled up for someone one to hear it. That’s why I think it be the God’s fate that you are here, sitting next to me and this fire.

I bet ya wondering what it be what I do. Why, I travel! Travel far and wide and further. I’ve traveled to the peak of Mount Zorn in the north, swam in the salty waters of Blind Bay in the south, and been across the Shrinking Sea a few times. But…

You’re wondering why, aren’t ya laddie? I can see it in your face…

There! There it is! That face! That rude face ya making at me right now…

Don’t play dumb laddie, I know traveling isn’t the most exciting thing to do in the Kingdom or the God’s Lands…but I chose to do it. Same as ya! Now if ya make that face…one more time…I’m gunna…

Ha!

Oh, laddie, I’m only pulling ya boots! Oh! Ya should have seen the look on ya face!

Ha!

I must beg for your pardon again laddie. To remind ya, it’s been a long while since I’ve had anyone to talk to. My manners may have suffered a wee bit along me journey, but I think me sense of humor has gotten a little darker as well!

Ha!

Again, I beg for ya pardon. I didn’t mean to make ya nervous. You letting me gob on and on and on like this is a glorious blessing from the God’s. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Ha!

Ya see laddie, much like them Scholar’s at King’s College, I have made it me life’s work to go round the Kingdom, and further, looking for stories to inspire my own. At least that’s what I started to do. But at the time, I didn’t know what kind of stories I wanted to tell. So, I made it me duty to find different stories. Be they happy stories, sad stories, funny stories, sad stories, stories of great heroes long gone, or ghosts and demons that are believed to still be roaming the God’s Land’s, any kind of stories that I can learn from. Learn from and create a great story. Greater than Zarnder the Swift and his Labor’s for King Moncer. Greater than any story ever told that even those white robbed blokes at King’s College would have to make an entire room just for my story in those while marble halls in that Grand Library of theirs.

And those white Scholar blokes are very particular(or snobby as my Grand used to say) about what they make and put in those white marble shelves.

But sad to say laddie, I was never the best at putting words down on parchment with ink and quill. Even though I did learn to read and write faster than anyone in my village, I never did have the brains, or patience for that matter, to make a story out of nothing. I just learned that a little too late on me journey. That, and most folk tell the same stories no matter where ya go. Only the potato farmer changes between an apple farmer and a cattle farmer.

Not to say that every story I had heard from different folk was the exact same…

Well they started to sound more and more alike as they went on and on and on. There were a few good ones here and there, but I’ve heard more stories bout farm boys falling in love with a rival farmer’s daughter, stone mason’s who found their true calling serving the King’s Church, wild horses that seemed impossible to tame…

Ya know what I’m getting at laddie. Not all stories are as good as the ones we hear from our Nans’ and Grand’s. Or even the ones we make from the deeds of men in metal armor, or the ones where blokes in white robes make discoveries we common folk still don’t fully understand. Not everyone has a story to tell.

Or stories that are worth telling. Believe me Laddie.

By the time I had reached my second and seventh year, I didn’t want to hear any men or women gob on and on and on bout nothing. Even though it was the greatest stories they had ever experienced, I didn’t have the heart to tell them their stories were boring as any of the others I have heard of over the years. I had felt, at that point in time laddie, that I wasted me life, and had nothing to show for it. No woman, no children, no coin, or even a bed to call my own. I started to feel like that lost girl, that one from the story. Just trying to find a place to sleep for the night and hope that tomorrow would bring something new. But I haven’t even found where that damned lion’s den could be.

That’s when I started to think of those Ol’ Nan and Grand stories again. At the time, it had been years since I had even thought about them, and by the God’s fate…if ya could call it that, I came upon something very interesting.

Now, again laddie. Stop me if ya heard this one before.

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. But there was a white ship with a…

Yup, I thought as much. Ya know that one too eh? Not surprised a bit

You’ve heard of all these stories before, but have ya ever wondered where they came from? Ya see, in the South, we call those stories the Ol’ Nan and Grand stories. Like I said before, but they go by different names in different places in the Kingdom. I’m still not sure where you're from laddie, but Yonder Tales is what the Scholar’s and those high Lords and Ladies call them in the West. The North call em Nurse Stories, to the East…I don’t much remember, or much remember why but all of them always started the same way. There weren’t always dragons in the valley…

But why is that?

I’ve been round on this land longer than ya have laddie, and I don’t ever remember seeing or even hearing bout dragons in the valley, or where that valley be.Even those white Scholar’s, the ones who had the gall to enter the God’s Land’s and try to map it haven’t seen anything close to a dragon ever.

But why is it that we start our stories like that? It was something I started to think in me own head one night when I was talking to a sailor in some pub out west. Near King’s college. This sailor was telling me a tale of how he wrecked his ship by seeing a mermaid. Swears to the God’s that he did, and so on and so forth, when a memory of my Grand telling me and my brothers the story of Yarnar the Black and his white ghost ship popped into me head.. I smiled at the memory of my Grand sitting me and my brothers down by my home's hearth. As if I were sitting by that very hearth then and there instead of a dirty manure smelling pub with a sailor who may have never had a bath in his life. I could smell the wood smoke coming from the hearth mixed with my Grand’s pipe tobacoo and sweat.

Ya, know laddie. My Grand would always tell us those Ol’ stories, but, to me, it was like hearing them for the very first time. Every time…

I hadn't realized I was in thought until my sailor friend asked where my head was.

Not to be rude, I told him bout Black Yarner and his ship. At first, I thought I didn’t say Yarner’s name properly. Something I had trouble with when I was a babe (any babe would, ha!) but my sailor friend was confused bout the story entirely.

As it turned out, my sailor friend had never heard of those Ol’ Nan and Grand stories, or those other titles they be known for here and there, before, but had heard bout them being in a book that was made by them white robbed Scholar’s. He had been hired by one of them to take a crate of those books to King’s Port. He had stolen a copy, and had hoped to sell or trade it to some lord or lady for a higher price. But he never did. He had left it out one night when he dropped anchor at some harbor and it rained. The book bloated up and was starting to mold at the corners. He still had it but didn’t know why.

Mind you, laddi, there weren’t always books out there you could buy. Much like there weren’t always dragons in the valley, books were more of a luxury from some high lords and the Scholars that made them. Not to mention the King and his subjects at the capital. Even though you could find someone who would sell or trade them in every village, not everyone had the coin for books. Much less the knowledge to read them!

Ha!

But as I remembered it, the Ol’ Nan and Grand stories weren’t worth printing on parchment. Much less enough parchment to make a book. These were tales that were told over and over again that when it came your time to tell them to your babes, it would just be there in the back of your head, waiting for you.

Even though I know them stories by heart, I have always wanted to see them in that fancy writing all those Scholar blokes learn to use. It’s like seeing a Holy Knight’s battle that gets him the title of Ser rather than hearing it from drunk farmers later on. But that’s just me laddie. I’ve had me fill of drunk farmers for one lifetime.

I asked my sailor friend if he would be willing to part with that book, and said yes…if I got him one more flagon of ale for his next journey.

Now, this is where I start to tell you why I’ve been excited to tell someone what I had found laddie.

I hope that you are willing to listen to an oldman a little longer, and let the God’s bless ya if you are.

But I just want to tell you this. There is magic in this world. Even though you may not believe it, there is magic out there that is even older than those tales that we grew up with and tell our babes. It’s not like the way they did in the stories, but it is. You just have to know where to find it. But there’s a simpler magic I can show you right now that very few folk know how to use it and even fewer know how to use it properly. Folk like my Grand. The ability to tell a story is the most simple, yet powerful magic we have. I can only do so much, but what my Grand did when I was a babe by the hearth is something I’m going to try to do this very night.

My sailor friend gave me the book and went on his way with his flagon of ale. I got a room in the local inn and went straight up to my room, and started to read…

What did the lost girl's hair look like?

Sorry to spring that question on ya laddie, but it’s important to the rest of the story I want to tell you.

I think it’s best I ease up on the ale for a bit. Might Gob on a little too far off the path. But what did you think the lost girl’s hair color was? Haven’t thought of it have ya laddie?

Ha!

No pardon’s to ask for from me laddie, of all of the people I’ve asked on me journey they had the same answer. I think it just be me who always thought of the lost girl with dark hair. Mostly because most southern folk, especially our women, had dark hair. Sure there were a few I knew growing up that would dye their hair like those ladies in the west, but a girl with dark hair was what I thought of when she would go looking to sleep in that there lion’s den. When I opened that book that sailor gave me, I saw that there were paintings for each story on every odd page. Now, if this book wasn’t damaged by water and starting to mold, I would appreciate what the Scholar’s did. But instead of a darked haired girl three lions would find in their den, a yellow haired girl was what they found. I thought it might be because of the salt water that changed the colors of the books' paintings, but as I read onward, I saw that wasn’t the only thing that changed.

Now, I know what ya may be thinking there in that head of yours laddie. I bet it’s something like “why a bloke like you are gobbing on and on and on about something as ruddy as a dark haired girl having yellow hair in some painting?”

Well, to that laddie, that’s exactly what I thought at first, almost every word. Ha!

But there was something else they changed in those stories laddie. Something that sent me on the current journey I’m on, and what I found is why I’m glad that you're here.

Ya see, I know them Ol’ Nan and Grand stories by me own heart, and I don’t remember any of the Holy Knight’s saving the day in each story. Besides the lost girl having yellow hair, it was her that slayed one of the lions and went home having no fear of the wilds or the God’s Land’s. I don’t remember having a Holy Knight of the King’s Church save a girl and nothing else much else happening.

Not to mention that not all of the stories were in that book. Not the story of the White Ghost Ship, The Demon and Witch Tied to The Tree, you know the ones that may challenge what the King’s Church stands for.

But why change them, you may ask laddie, I asked myself that question again and again, and when I started to question a lot of the stuff I’ve heard tell of what has been going on as of late in the Kingdom, I have found some interesting things.

Of what I’m about to tell you laddie, is sort of a story that our Nan’s and Grands learned from their Nan’s and Grands, and on and on and on, all the way back to when there were no dragons in the valley. Back before metal armor was used to protect us from metal swords. Back when the first tree, ever, sprouted in the God’s Land’s. But the way I want to tell this story is the way I want it to be remembered. So when ya pass it on to your babes, and they theirs, it will stay a story about something that was long forgotten, and maybe should have stayed forgotten.

But that’s up to you laddie, and what your babes will think when the time comes.

Like my Grand, and many other Grand’s before him said...

There weren’t always dragons in the valley…

But there was a broken sword in the mud…