An ancient collection of fairy tales originally written on riverstones by the Goblin poet Inkfinger. Like allfairy tales all of it is a lie, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It was transcribed into paper by the Witch Aunt Offal, though she admits in the introduction that some of the deeper meaning is lost outside of it’s original Gobgab.
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Here, in the fog kissed shallows of grot in muck, are the hunting grounds of the bear-footed Hidesmen of the River Aise. While they hunted bears and wolves and mighty beasts, they were furtraders by livelihood, and these prized prey were only fit for cash and clothes. Thier bellies bore only the meat of Fish, and so the knots of the snare were matched by the knots of the net, and the Hidesmen could do with rope what few managed with iron and heavier metals.
Above the River Aise lay the domain the Kingfisher, who rode the winds with the easy the Hidesman rode the waves. The Kingfisher was encased in a blue plumage whose hue was equal to the blades in the armories of all neighboring kingdoms, and the kingdoms neighboring them. For a bird of such rich mysticism, it was natural that rulership would be given. So naturally that rulership came to the Kingfisher, that even the Hidesmen, who did not live among the trees and wer enot counted among the bird’s kingdom, dutifully left the meats of the landbeasts as tribute.
Indeed such a partnership flourished for three generations, as Kingfisher watched the hidesmen bear sons, then daughters, among the reeds and ropes that marked the kingdom of one and the trade of another. In one time, that story did not cease, and the Kingfisher would learn the arts of rope and hide and the Hidesmen to lead and fly, and the King’s Wealth and the trappers Hide would forever be one in the same. But that is just one of the times, and this is another.
Rather, the Hidesmen, one starless afternoon, came across the Honeyguide. It was a small bird, where one wing stretched to dawn and the other stretched to dusk and so heaven and earth were divided and the two spoke in silent congress. Seven hours later, the Hidesmen returned to the river, their pelts shorn and their net longer, not several interlocking cords but a single braid of knots that snaked along the river. The fish the Hidesmen caught were not fit for eating, but were fit for wearing. And soon the trappers belonged to the tides.
Seldom do the Kingfisher remember them, but often they are missed.
