UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES OF THE YELM CURSE
Was that a curse or a blessing?
Most bird species disappeared in the lesser and the great darkness without
the support of the sun. They lost their references and were easy target to
darkness creatures and chaos.
Without Yelm's curse it's very likely that ducks would be part of the
victims.
The advantages of the curse are twofold: since ducks loosed the ability to
fly, they had to become land dwelling creatures. In the darkness it was
easy to find shelter and avoid danger in land than in sky.
Since they couldn't lay eggs, they were preserved to the dangers of having
to stop in a place for hatching the egg, a very dangerous period in the
life of any bird. By giving to birth live young that are almost fully
functional the capability to survive of ducks was very greatly enhanced.
A third aspect of the curse was that the ducks lost the ability to
speak/sing birds languages. A side effect of this is that they became able
to communicate like humans. Not very well, and not very pleasant to ear but
effective.
Some humans think that the curse was not the work of Yelm but of some minor
god like Vrimak. IMG that's anathema for ducks.
Sergio Mascarenhas