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Long, long ago there was a time of great hunger. Ernalda the Earth slept, dull and grey. The rivers were brackish and black. Elmal Sun Thane was just a pale shadow. The winds hung limp and weak as Orlanth was so far away. The Gods had left the world, people were hungry, and evil was everywhere.
The weaponthanes of the village had gone off to fight evil, and they hadn't come back. When Ernalda stopped giving food the carls had mustered the fyrd and gone marching off to fight evil too, and they hadn't come back. When the forest gave no more meat the hunters had packed up and gone off to fight evil, and they hadn't come back either. Soon everyone in the village was hungry and tired of chewing on dirt and old leather.
Some of the children decided that it would be better look for some food - any food - in the forest. Those with the strength went off and foraged, and they met back in the centre of the village. As they trickled back, one had discovered a few beetles, another some moss - but that was all they had found all day long. Everyone was very disappointed, but thought that at least they could have some beetle and moss stew. Then, just as the people were starting to cook, two young boys came back to the village, yelling happily and jumping up and down. "Perhaps they've found some bark," said their mother hopefully.
But instead the boys had got a very odd creature that they had put in a sack. It had a strange looking head with a weird beak, lots of legs, and was covered with feathers. It was almost as big as a rat, and would round off the beetle and moss stew wonderfully. Excitedly the people began to pluck it for the pot. But every time they pulled out a feather, the creature grew twice in size. Everyone was so hungry they couldn't believe this great good fortune, and they plucked and plucked away, imagining the feast that would follow, until the strange thing was twice the size of a house. Slowly a great silence fell over the people as they contemplated this suddenly enormous beast, and regarded its beak, which they now saw was full of teeth.
"Oh," said one of the boys.
And then the monster let out a scream! It rounded on the villagers and chased them all about, and every time it closed down one of the people it would grab them in its legs, stuff them into its mouth, suck all the life out of them, and then spit out the dry husk that remained. It grabbed grandmothers, it grabbed babies, it grabbed children, it grabbed anyone it could, gobbled them up and spat out the dry husks that remained - *fluah-splat*, *fluah-splat*, *fluah-splat*.
The people ran around in panic, terrified by this evil thing in their midst, not knowing what to do. Mothers threw ladles at it. Old men, remembering the glory of their youth, yelled challenges and charged it, brandishing their walking sticks. *Fluah-splat* went the monster, as their dried-up corpses were spat out on the ground, *fluah-splat*.
One of the boys who had found the creature drew up his courage like a small rock in his stomach and threw it so hard that it cut off the monster's head. Everyone jumped on the monster with knives and saws and cut it into seven pieces. Then they stood back, panting, and congratulated themselves on killing the evil thing.
But they saw that the monster's arms were still moving! They saw that the monster's head was rolling towards a small child, desperately trying to get close enough to suck the life out of her! The relief washed out of them like prunes through grandpa! "Quick!" they yelled, and picking up pieces of the monster they ran and threw them on the cooking fire, hoping to burn the monster into ashes.
The monster, trapped on the cooking fire, screamed and screamed and screamed. Folk went blind, frogs turned upside down at the sound of that scream. The bits of the monster writhed in the fire, wriggling in a yukky way that made peoples' minds gibber and shake. And then, as the screaming and wriggling climaxed, the monster exploded into ten hundred thousand million pieces that rained down all over the village. And each little bit of the monster was still alive, still evil, still hungry, still determined to suck the life out of everyone in the world and eat them alive.....
And that's where mosquitoes come from.
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