I have undertaken this treatise with the intent of passing on what I have learned. My eyes grow dim and my hands cramp with the pain of too many years behind the quill and inkpot. My knowledge is hard won and did not come quickly. Many seasons spent I, wandering here and there across the frigid highlands of Northrun. At long last, I made contact with my quarry. The hunt alone might make an interesting tale on another roll of parchment. For this one, I give only the facts which I was able to glean.
The Glorious Lady is not loathe to speak when a soul is fortunate enough to have found her, but her voice comes as a song and she takes great pains to say things in verse which might have been answered in a brief word or two. As for the Wanderer, what can I say. A more sullen and withdrawn person I have not found. He laughs robustly when that reaction can be teased from him, but mostly he just glowers from behind a brooding chin and furrowed brow.
In Northrun, she is sometimes called the Forest Mother, but the Glorious Lady is an ancient being who has existed on Erenth since the beginning of time, perhaps before there was any such things as forests. She sometimes refers to herself as the First Person of Erenth and seems to think that every other being upon it is but a passing visitor.
To the naked eye she appears to be a middle-aged humanish woman of uncommon beauty, who nonetheless arouses none of the baser passions. Her golden hair is long and untamed, bearing bits of bramble and leaves in it like that of a ungroomed peasant child. She wears nothing of paint or perfume, but carries in her the scents of dark tilled earth, quick clean water and fresh mown hay. Her clothing appears to be woven of the finest tendrils of greenest grass and festooned here and there with flowers. I found her, easy to gaze at without feeling the least self-conscious.
For her part, she neither encouraged not discouraged my behavior, but simply seemed to accept that as her normal course. The fact of her own beauty was not lost on her, but she carried no pride in it. More than once, early in our conversations, I looked at her fully and embarrassed myself by announcing some version of, "You are beautiful." Her only reply to those statements was something answering, "Yes," and "I know," in her usual singsong manner.
The voice of the Glorious Lady sounds like many bells ringing. Somehow high and sharp and yet also, low and soft. She has songs for every moment and every thought. Never quite silent, she simply reduces herself to low humming. I don't know that she is always singing, yet In her mouth, everything sounds like a song.
The Glorious Lady seems to subsist solely on nuts and honey. There is never a meal time for her, but these things are continually brought to her in a steady trickle by birds, squirrels and even bears. For drink, she has only water. Usually stooping low to taste of every stream and pool. She rests but a few hours each night and I can attest that she softly snores.
She has an enormous facility with green things and is thought by some to be the goddess of plants. It might be more accurate to say that she is the enlivening spirit of every intelligent thing that grows as a plant. There is no term for this in the common tongue of Westrun. Other tongues are not so limited. The men of Eastrun have a name for this enlivening spirit which they call Huang. If that is what she is, then surely the Glorious Lady is the most personable and most capable of them.
While she can seemingly go anywhere on Erenth with great speed, she prefers that bit of Northrun now inhabited by the men of the clans. She has hinted in her way, that she loves that place most, but it seems to be but the place she saw first upon arriving in Erenth. By her reckoning, it is but one step from the great stair she descended to arrive upon this plane. I might surmise that her point of arrival was the Rampart Mountains at the edge of the Free Provinces. She readily admits she has not much cared to explore elsewhere.
The Glorious Lady is called by many names in various realms. Indeed all seem to have heard of her. This is not surprising given her long life. In the Eight Kingdoms she is often called Mother Nature. To the elves, she is Baere. To the Dwarves, Berronar. In Eastrun she is Linghua (sacred flower) and Sakuyomi (the blooming world beauty). Northruners speak of the Glorious Lady, while Southrun calls her Bahareen. The Halflings and Gnomes call her Alarvenya.
In regard to her long life, I can surmise that it must number 6,000 to 10,000 years, or more. When asked, she merely sings that she has seen the sun rise and set more times than there are grains of sand on the shore. Surely this is poetic license on her part for a number not easily reckoned. Or perhaps Erenth is a great deal older than any of us might think.
From what I have seen, she will remain in an area for a few nights and then walk off with steps that begin small and then increase in length until she is striding across fields in a single step and then over mountains. Twice, I made a fool of myself attempting to keep up with her during these movements, only to return to our last camp dejected. Each time, I found the Wanderer packing up and preparing to move after her.
He is difficult to pin down in his own right as he travels at a more natural pace (despite his injury) but never seems to tire. Indeed he will travel night and day until he finds her again, then unpack his bedroll and resume as if she had never left. He always seems to know where to find her next, though he will not answer any queries about how.
The Wanderer is a strange being in his own right. I have heard the Glorious Lady called him something which sounds like My Wota, perhaps a pet name. When I tried to use it, he merely scowled and I knew not to do so again.
He appears to be a older human male, dark-skinned with a snowy beard. He is broad of shoulder and thick of neck. His hands have seen labor and war. His face is lined with worry and regret which seldom subsides. He never eats nor drinks, nor sleeps. Yet, he is not spared from decrepitude. In his hand is a staff which he leans on heavily while walking. I have seen it transform into a great axe when threatened and I did not doubt for its lethality.
Aside from his staff, he is dressed as a vagrant with a bag upon his back, a tin cup at his side and a feet strapped in dry skins. He wears a worn-out shirt and hood, patched with scraps of leather and cloth alike. My first impression upon seeing him was that he was an escaped prisoner or a madman. That last description may not be far off. For the Glorious Lady once called him mad with grief.
I have surmised that the Wanderer found the Glorious Lady late in life and has pledged what remains of his to be her consort. He seems to follow her from place to place, whether she will have him or no. They have no relationship, per se. Save that the closest he comes to smiling is when she sings and the only time I have heard him laugh is at the lyrics of her songs.
The song she sings most often about her Wota goes something like this:
I come from mountains to the shore,
from valleys keen, to oceans roar.
I wander long and joyless here:
with sighs asking, Where? Oh, where?
Their sun appears to me so cold,
their breezes soft, their lives so old;
and what they speak of, empty fare:
I the stranger everywhere.
Where are you, home, beloved home?
Imagined, sought, but never known!
The land, the land, whence love will flow,
the land where all my passions grow.
My friends are perished lost in vain,
in fables dead, and selfish gain,
I wander here and careless true:
Oh land, oh land, where are you?
Some might think that they have some romantic relationship. I think not. First, the Glorious Lady seems utterly incapable of caring for anyone with any degree of partiality above the affection she seems to hold for every living thing and for everyone. Second, aside from occasionally dancing with her in my presence, her Wota never touches her, and only rarely speaks to her, except when sharing a song.
When prompted enough by her, he will sing snippets of a song about a family and a far-off land. It is hard to tell if it is autobiographical:
I left my wife when she was young
And left her without children,
Now I wander aimlessly,
and shall see her not again"
I cross the lake, I cross the sky.
The mother comes to meet me.
I cross the mount, I cross the vale
The mother calls to greet me.
"Let's go, let’s go, let's go my son,
To the house you've called a home,
Where no one misses her husband,
And all his wee are crying."
The relationship between the people of Northrun and the persons of the Glorious Lady and the Wanderer is a curious one. Not quite seen as gods, they are nonetheless revered greatly. The Druids of the Clans see her as the best of their number, though few can admit that they have ever seen her and it stands to reason they are of a different kind than her. The Wanderer, seems to be all that the Warriors of the Clans can stand to have as a paragon. No worship is offered either of them, but as both are great and powerful beings, their intercession is often asked or imprecated before certain undertakings.
In speaking of this strange relationship, the Lorespeakers of the Clans seem to agree that the Wanderer is of a different kind than the Forest Mother. She simply is and has always been. This is not true of the Wanderer. For he was once a great enemy of all mankind -- a would be slaver and reaver from a far-off land. This facet of his life they do not seem to hold in any contempt, actually paying it some level of respect. As their stories go, the Wanderer and his companions reaved and raided until their own dissensions broke them apart. His companions stranded him here as a kind of punishment. His wrath was tamed, it is said by the mercies of the Glorious Lady.
That is all the tale I have to tell for nearly sixteen years of wandering and learning. I have resisted sharing this knowledge for many years, but now I tire and the light grows dim. Perhaps I shall not get to that other tale I meant to tell, but I mean to have this one as a testament to my life's work.
