The Gift of Horses

A Bjoulsae myth, told to an Imperial anthropologist by an old Wise Woman.

After much persuasion, the Wise Woman of the tribe led me to the banks of the Bjoulsae, where she settled herself on the silt in an inch or two of water. My first request had been to know their creation myth, in the traditional practice of anthropologists, but she outright refused to share it with me, telling me it was the oldest memory of the Bjoulsae, and thus too precious to share with “dryhairs” like myself. But the story she offered instead proved every bit as enlightening. Once I had emptied my pockets of notes, I joined her there in the shallow water, and she began to recount the story of the Gift of Horses.

“I will tell you first what you must know first. When the Making-Spirits were done with their work, Bjoulsa the World-Spirit filled Mund with her tears, laden with the memory of all that had passed. And when Iulz the Shaping-Spirit was done with mortals, and had plucked his head bald tying us together, he bathed us all in the water, in Bjoulsa's tears, because he was a great lover of wisdom. He bathed us in the memories of Bjoulsa and the gods so that we might carry them with us.”

“Now, the Gift of Horses. The many shapes of mortals had busied themselves on Mund for a long time already, had bashed rocks and sharpened spears, lit fires and rolled wheels. The settled folks had stacked stone on stone to build houses and castles, where they spent all their days at the fire, baking in their houses like clay in a kiln. And in all that, their hair had dried and they had cut it off and they had all but shaken themselves of their memories.”

“But the river tribes had not been building houses and baking. The river tribes had been walking, running, swimming in Bjoulsa's holy river, and in all that time their hair had grown long and kept wet, and they remembered much. Like Iulz, Bjoulsa was a lover of wisdom. She treasured the memories she had cried into Mund, even the hard ones, and treasured the river tribes for remembering them.”

“The river tribes then had to fear the settled folk. While the river tribes had been running and swimming, living life on their feet as the gods intended, the settled folk had been building bigger and bigger houses. Farms, forges, mines. The settled folk had swords and axes and shields and walls and were of a mind to demand much of the river tribes. They hoarded the goods of the land and staked out great patches of it as their own. On every new hill they built a house.”

“Bjoulsa knew this was not right, and that she could right it by giving her favourite tribes a great gift, the gift of horses. She went to Iulz the Shaping-Spirit, and asked him to help her shape the river tribes by shaping a perfect gift. He took a little of the earth, a little of the water, and a little of the air – today, yesterday, tomorrow – and gave her the perfect shape of a the First Steed, her long hair thick with the wisdom of her choice.”

“On the Mund, Bjoulsa spawned her first foals in the shallow water, and showed the river tribes how to care for them, how to grow them strong, how to learn from them and teach them. Kintar, a great warrior of the river tribes, Bjoulsa took as her mortal mate, and bore her second foals, called by you centaurs for their father. They stayed with the river tribes even after Bjoulsa the first horse returned to the foam. She took also a mate from the noble dreughs, and her third foals bear the wisest and bravest of our folk deep in the river.”

“With the gift of horses the river tribes had no need to fear the settled folk. We were faster and stronger and wiser than them with Bjoulsa's gift. Now we ride among their houses and retrieve the goods of the earth, and vanish into the hills or into the river to escape their tyrannical wrath. The settled folk might ride now, but they know nothing of the wisdom of horses.”