The Birth of The Cossan
Long ago, when we were but young in the land, the great Cossan River, which we are so used to seeing, thundering its way in the Old Hills, was not there. Instead, in its place, there were many smaller rivers, each one winding its own, separate path. Now, one day, this myriad of rivers stopped and for a month and a day, in the summer, there was no fresh water. And our people languished for the lack of it. We cried out “Why are there no rivers! Does the rain not fall on the mountains? Do the icy hats on the mountain not melt, as they always have?”
Mother Tresnaya heard our call, and, like a good mother should, she asked us what was wrong. She showed herself, in a dream, to each of the 17 wisest elders in the land, and asked “What is it that ails you?”
And they answered. “There are no rivers! Does the rain not fall on the mountains? Do the icy hats on the mountain not melt, as they always have?”
And she asked “Do you know why this is as it is?”
And they cried unto her “No, good mother, we are woefully ignorant.”
And she said “Then I cannot help you.”
She showed herself to each of the 17 most powerful lords in the land, and asked “What is it that ails you?”
And they answered. “There are no rivers! Does the rain not fall on the mountains? Do the icy hats on the mountain not melt, as they always have?”
And she asked “Do you know why this is as it is?”
And they cried unto her “No, good mother, we are woefully ignorant.”
And she said “Then I cannot help you.”
Dejected, she was about to leave back up the First Moon, where she lived, when a young girl, around your age, caught up with her, and said…
“I know why the rivers don’t flow.”
Tresnaya looked around at the little girl, and asked her “Why do the rivers not flow, young girl?”
The girl looked Tresnaya in the eye, and said “The rivers don’t flow because the ice blocks it.”
And so Tresnaya flew up to the mountains, to see if it truly was that the ice blocked the river from flowing. And, true enough, a great wall of ice had formed, and blocked up the paths that the waters usually took. Behind the wall of ice, a great lake of water sat, where the waters had been pooling up, instead of flowing the Ocean.
Tresnaya called down fire from the sky, and destroyed the wall of ice. All at once, all the water from the great lake rushed down, and, instead of breaking into a thousand small rivers, it had such power behind it that it made one single course, a single river, with only one break in it, where before there had been hundreds.
And, children, that is how the Great River Cossan was formed.
The Legend of the Ard-Ri Cormac ui Gairarn, of the Three
The first High King, or, in the old tongue, Ard-Ri, was the mythical Gairar. He managed to unite many of the tribes of Harnnes under one banner, his own. Noone knew where he came from, though he would always say it was the Mother Tresnaya that sent him.
Anyways, many of the other tribes, seeing one man so powerful, rose up against him, and aimed to fight him. He spent the rest of his life fighting to stop the two sides coming to blows, but, ultimately, failed. He was killed in the first battle of the Wars of Unification. His enemies, thinking their job done, dispersed their forces. However, Gairar's eldest son, Cormac, took up his father's cry, and, in a mighty battle against the hastily re-mobilized enemy, routed their army. They say he killed much of them himself. They say he lost an arm and an eye that day, which is why he is called 'of the three'. He captured many of them, and those he didn't went into hiding.
They say he took the prisoners to the River where it forked, and they feared he would drown them all. That is why it is called the River Cossan-Aelle, the River of Expected Death.
But he was merciful. Instead, he told them to head along the southern branch of the river until it met the sea, and never come back north again. In their fear, they agreed. He wove himself a crown of knotted nestles, and made them swear fealty to whoever should wear the crown, and crowned himself. And then they ran, as far south as they could go, to where the river met the sea.
Then the Ard-Ri Cormac told many secrets that he had been told by, he said, like his father before him, by Mother Tresnaya herself. He told them, chief among these secrets, how to burn coal for heat, and how it was a much better source of fuel than the wood logs that they had spent so much of their energy lugging around. Now, they could use the wood for other things, and, most important, he told them what other things to use the wood for, but, ah, that's another story.
Anyways, he showed them how to dig for the coal hidden under the foothills of the mountain, and, though they could not dig deep, dig they did, and the coal made their lives, for a time, easier.
The Kings of Old
You know, of course, of the age-long rivalry between Mumhan and Laighin? Of course you do. Well, it was not long after we began to settle in the cities, still divided into the tribes that the kings of old had divided ourselves into. It was around this time that a great tragedy befell this state of Mumhan. Conaire Mirfoire, the High King, died without any children (they say he suffered a horrible injury while fighting with a wild bull to prove his manhood. Ironic, that.). In Mumhan, a civil war broke out, as different cousins or uncles fought for the throne. It took the direct intervention of Bressal Mirmenach, King of Laighin after he took over from his uncles regency, and, now, High King of the Harnnes, to put an end to the fighting, and he put a pretender on the throne, one Sanbh Mirceit.
Mirceit was no more than a puppet of Bressal’s, and, when Bressal’s son, Crimthann Mirbress succeeded him, he did nothing. It took a long while for Mumhan to recover. For many long years, the High Kings of the Harnnes came from Laighin, and the people of Mumhan suffered as their kings grovelled. It was to this background that the people of Laighin began to settle in cities (especially around the Hill of Tyesfri), and commence serious business. They began to log the foothills in large amounts to facilitate their village’s construction. Meanwhile, the people of Mumhan struggled for food.
5 kings of Laighin enjoyed their greatness: Findchadd Mircrim, Froech Mircrim, Illan Mirfind, Ailill Talt Mirillan, and Cormac Mirail.
4 kings of Mumhan grovelled at the feet of Laighin: Aed Mirsanbh, Amhalgadh Mirsanbh, Nath Miramhalgadh, and, lastly, Ailill Molt Mirnath, last of the Pretender Kings.
It was the 6th King who redeemed his predecessors. Daiu Tenga Uma was the result of a peasant’s revolt killing Ailill Molt. He led a raid on the King, and killed him in retaliation for the taking of Daiu’s wife. We do not know Daiu’s real name, nor his father’s name. His tribe seemed to have disappeared, no doubt killed when the last of the Stargazing Kings was murdered. It was he who deemed that Mumhan should be the equal to Laighin.
First, he mimicked Laighin’s actions, sedentarizing the population, and starting up some proper mining of coal in the foothills. After that was done, however (and it was done with miraculous swiftness [some suspected direct divine influence]), he began what he really wanted to do: he built an observatory.
It doubled, of course, as a palace, but that did not make it any less awesome. Simply the fact it was built out of stone, the only structure from that time, would have made it unique. But no, it was more than that. The tower stretched 3 or 4 lengths into the sky, and, being built on a tall foothill, was the closest any Harnne could get to the stars without climbing the mountain (which a few did), or dying themselves (which many did).
Daiu’s son, Eogan Bel, was the first to relish the results of his father’s work. He moved into the structure, and a town slowly built itself around him. This town grew to be much larger than the town at Tyesfri. For a long time, Daiu’s Tower was the largest town in all of the Harnnish lands. Eogan was the first of the Stargazing Kings, who garnered knowledge and power from the skies. This power was what allowed him to gain the High Kingship: it is said that the unearthly power he had garnered from the skies allowed him to befuddle the king of Laighin, Coirpre Mircormac.
The 7 Stargazer Kings ruled for long time, and it was a prosperous time, before disaster struck again…
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