She notes that their crude cosmology fails to acknowledge the true glory of either Yelm or the Red Goddess herself. However it has a sort of rustic charm, which (due to the influence of the fashionable mystery cult of Invisus Lanatum) was highly popular in her lifetime.
ELMELA In the youth of the world Mornana's peaceful realm was not yet sundered from the heaving earth. But in later days two great trees branched forth and, intertwining, held the sky realm aloft so that we might not be crushed or set on fire by the sky falling on our heads.
One of these trees is a dark, bowing yew tree on whose longest branch grows a single sickly, poisonous red berry. Each night the birds of Blathmeala come and peck it with their flinty beaks, so that they might destroy it forever and free the world from its baleful glow. Each morning the birds that have gnawed at its sickening poisonous flesh fall dead upon the heath from its evilinfluence.
But this is to no avail for every seventh night the berry reappears whole,
as if the crows, the hawks and the sparrows had never broken its flesh or
gulped down its ensorcereled pulp.
This berry is none other than Shepelkirt, Poisoner of Blood. The branch,
the twisted rotten branch, upon which the shiny-bright red berry hangs is
none other than Kedderat, the perverted, evil dead god who brought Too
Big, Too Many and Too Small from Outside to destroy everything. The yew,
from which the dead branch, upon which the poison berry hangs is none
other than Jumat - the son of Earth and Sky who slew his father as he was
born.
The other of these trees is a tall, proud firtree on whose highest branch grows a bright yellow flower, which showers down golden pollen upon the Earth. Each night the wind rises as darkness approaches and buffets the high-hanging flower so that it falls down beneath the horizon.
But this is to no avail for each morning the flower sprouts anew on its lofty branch where it is guarded by a tiny bird, called Elmela or Robin, whose breast is red from its warm glow.
One time, in the guise of a windblown wren, Lanat was gusted about by the storm until he alighted on this high branch. Elmela thought the interloper was a foe come to disfigure his precious charge, so he lunged at him with his flinty beak. Lanat dodged aside and changed his shape into a grey squirrel and scurried down the tree. However Elmela went into a red squirrel and reaching the ground first went into a prickly holly bush into which Crooked-Legs fell with a piercing squeal. Not one to be undone Lanat lay patiently until he grew into a majestic oak which overshadowed his puny neighbour, but then Elmela metamorphosed into a man and hefted his adze to cut Lanat down for kindling.
Then Lanat went into a man also and as two burly warriors they met on the ford across a rushing weir to wrestle. At first one grabbed the other in a headlock and went to throw him over the falls. But the other kicked his legs from under him. Lanat would grab Elmela by the shoulder to regain his balance and he would duck down. They grappled long and hard but neither could wrong-foot the other for long enough to toss him from the slippery rocks, which he grasped with his bare and bloody feet.
Nine times at dawn they came against each other and nine times by dusk they fought each other to an exhausted standstill. Not once did one antagonist get one over on his foe but the other turned the tables in the blinking of an eye.
At dusk on the ninth day Mornana came by with her white companions, searching for Elmela. When she saw him on the ford with Lanat she was both relieved and amused to see the two struggling with grim determination. She remarked to her followers "See those two brave heroes matched alike in strength, virtue ...and stupidity." The good people burst out laughing and the two combatants, their pride stung by her teasing, slipped and fell into the river.
Finally they realised that neither could overcome the other and Lanat panted wearily "It is no use! Perhaps we will have better luck as friends than we have had as enemies." Elmela agreed with as much vigour as he could muster and they retired together to Mornana's hearth that evening.
This is the story of how Lanat met Elmela, the hearth guardian.
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Andrew
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