A few Bee goddesses and spirits

From: hcarteau_at_Kl8zPHbtzpJhl_cD-EAxacZfgUTVjJzqk85BvSMkfh6tlUjEE0EtOPNew-PrztBRo3L
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:57:50 +0100

The Uz of the Bee Tribe worship the Great Spirit Jikibir the Bee Mother (mentioned in the Uz HW book p.39). They live in a huge hive and their Queen is said to be a huge uz-bee hybrid who never leaves her/its cave under the Hive. She is the only one that gives birth to uzko babies in the whole clan, having focussed all fertility in her. It works well enough and the Clan feeds her and worships her as a living Goddess.
These uz produce the famed Black Honey, sometimes lacing it with a bit of Bee Venom to spice it up. It is a rare produce worth many times its weight in silver - Joh Mith always tries to get some on his travels through the Vale of Flowers. I used these trolls when players in my Tarsh Campaign had to fight off chaotic broo / giant bee hybrids (lifted from Sartar Rising 1), which led to trade relations between their Blackwater Tribe and the Uz Bee tribe. Originally, a giant bee had been caught in a Giant's hair and he had swatted it to the ground where it was impregnated by broos. Thus did the Blackwater tarshite tribe have a very tough fight on its hands, coordinated by the players (of course), who won by allying the uz Bee tribe after a minor Heroquest.

At least one Caladralander tribe uses Giant Bees as riding mounts and wages an ongoing war with the Wasp Folk from Heortland ; more I do not know about them.

In "The Book of Heortling Mythology", we are told Minlister, son of Elmal and Esrola, used his powers to transform himself into King Bee and spent time among the bees.

I never read or heard anything about bees in dara happan mythology, but do remember something about why bees are striped gold and black. They came from the underworld initally and were all black, but got touched by the Sun and recieved their new patterned colors.

So we have myths from Darkness, the Earth and the Sun, from three very different cultures. I wonder what the malkioni or the kralori say about bees !            

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