As all know, many years ago Orlanth sought the wisdom of Lhankor Mhy on how to defeat Opanbobos the Great Thrower. Orlanth was told to take up the Talking Flint, which cut out his heart. So great was his power that Orlanth did not die, but instead used heart and flint together to make Great Weighty, the Thunderstone, and defeated Opanbobos at his own game.
Now, the great secret that you must now learn is that Great Weighty was not just or only a slingstone, however powerful those may be, but also a magic curling stone. For look again, the rune is of a curling stone, and the handle by which one throws it!
Orlanth and Opanbobos were the skips of the greatest curling teams ever. They were rivals of long standing, and each had boasted to his own friends that the other was no match. So the challenge that Orlanth set for Opanbobos was to best him in a game of curling.
Opanbobos had a mighty throw, and if ever a rock remained in sight, he could hit it out or shatter it, no matter how heavy the stone was. But he was unsubtle, and could only throw straight and hard. A rock guarded behind another was a rock he could not reach unless he threw so hard that one were driven back on the other, and both went out. However, that would not always happen.
Orlanth, now Orlanth was a cunning man, and knew that there is more than one path to every place. He would pretend that he was throwing at a completely different rock, but then his stone would curve gently on the ice and sneak up on Opanbobos' rocks from the side, even from behind! Great Weighty would growl down the ice and smite his opponents' rocks full hard. No hit of Opanbobos could shatter Orlanth's heart. But so great was the skill of both men and their teams that neither could take a decisive lead.
In the final end, the teams were tied, but Orlanth had the hammer coming home. Opanbobos' team had been very lucky, and had managed to hide a rock right in the eye of the storm and then guarded it so well that Orlanth could not reach it. Oh, how he tried! He called for draws, he called for takeouts, but nothing could get through the forest of guards that Opanbobos put up.
At last, Orlanth was down to his last rock, Great Weighty. He looked at the shot from all angles, and all lines, but the only way that Opanbobos had left into that rock was straight down the ice, through a tiny, narrow port only a rock's width across. But Great Weighty was made of a part of Orlanth himself, and embodied the curling, curving air rune itself. It *couldn't* go straight! Opanbobos started to taunt Orlanth, crowing about how easy it would be for HIM to throw that rock.
Ernalda saw Orlanth's dilemma. She knew that sometimes the best path to one's heart's desire *is* the straight path. She thought of a way to help her beloved. From her own heart she brought the stalks of her precious grain, and bound them to staffs. She told her husband to throw as hard as he could and to command his sons to sweep back and forth in front of the stone for all they were worth. Each time the brooms hit the ice, they made the sound of Ernalda's own heartbeat. Great Weighty, made from Orlanth's own heart, followed his wife's beating heart straight through the port to strike hard and true.
Ever since then, the greatest of the bonspiels has been the Tournament of Hearts.
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