The Third Book of Bao Dan: The Way of the Horse

Before the Year of Falling Fire, the Sea of Grass was unknown, for it was covered with snow just as the North Face of the Ice Rift is now. In those days the Ancestors of men lived in tribes and hunted the Margon as they wandered back and forth across the Steppes. They did not know the Way of the Horse as yet, and did not make war or herds. Rather, they followed the Margon and ate of them as they would and made Gergs from their furs, tools from the bones, and bows from their tusks. So the Huang Spirits slumbered and troubled not the Ancestors of men.

The Margon, it is known, carry Winter in their bellies and when they were hunted down the Winter left with them. So, the Dragon of the North Wind ceased to blow and the snows began to melt. The Sea of Grass began to rise upon the steppes and lakes were left behind in the shallow places. From the Ice Rift, the nine mighty rivers began to flow to the Southern Seas. There were fertile places in those days, but the Ancestors of men did not know farming and most of the grasslands were hard and neither the hoe nor the plow had been invented. So it was that the Ancestors of men suffered greatly until the horses came.

Before the coming of the horses, there were Buso that fled from the Falling Fire. Once they had known peace with the People and had kept to the rocky places of the mountains among the Kala and the Oni. But when the fire fell, the Buso came down from the Pillars of Heaven and made their way across the Steppes eating and slaying all they encountered. So the Sea of Grass was watered with the blood of the Ancestors of men.

Then the Huang Spirits were roused and bid the West Wind to bring the horses. These were they which could eat of the grass of the steppes and turn it into milk and meat. The Ancestors of men began to husband the horses and to herd them. They milked them and made cheese, they slew them and hung meat. They rode them to escape the Buso and they made Gergs from their stretched skins as they once had made them from the margons of old. This was the beginning of the Way of the Horse, which is the way of Chaos and endless war and also the beginning of the People.

Of itself the Way of the Horse is not weak. Rather it is like the way of a child when compared to the Way of Order. The way of the child serves the child until the child can reason and take stock of all that he is and thus become a man. The Way of the Horse is like the milk mother of the child who leads it, but only until it is grown. For the man who is grown, does not act like a child any longer and should not follow the way of the child. He should follow the way of an adult, which is the Way of Order.