The Lay of King Rafn: First Stanza - The Gift of Raven's Rock

The Lay of King Rafn, First Stanza: The gift of Raven’s Rock

Read you now and learn, an epic story, of the first men and first spirits, and the gifts left to us from times long ago.

A long time ago, longer than any man can remember, there lived a boy-prince named Shorri-son-of-Padmijr, known far and wide for his good nature and love of pranking his friends. Now, Shorri was an inquinzitive sort, and traveled all around the kingdom that his father ruled along with his brother, King Anur. Shorri had an adventuresome time and learned much travelling the land and talking to its people, until one day he reached the edge of the land and looked back, and he saw what none had seen before: The whole of the land, laid out before him, glorious and beautiful.

As Shorri grew into a man, he devised a plan, to expand his kingdom to cover all the land, everywhere, every gilded beach and verdant gully in the land of Aur would be there for his people to enjoy.

On his Eighteenth Birthday, Shorri was given his father’s sword, named Akur, and with it the power and authority to rule his father’s kingdom. Shorri wanted to spread the people beyond their borders, but he knew that they were simple and afraid, and unaware of the beautiful lands that lay beyond. Unsure how to convince them to see the world as he did, he turned to the council of his wife, Kjnur Free-Falcon, and his best friend and wisest advisor, a warrior and inventor named Magni Dagnjr.

Magni Dagnjr, or Leaps-Like-Salmon, as he was known in those days, devised a grand scheme to build roads, inns, houses, and farmland in the fertile valleys that surrounded the kingdom of Mungard. To do this, he enlisted the help of their childhood friends, who were now themselves becoming respected leaders in the tribe: Stenjur The Jailor, Jhulannr the Priest, and Senthur the Tax Collector, among many other, lesser people who nonetheless held great influence within the kingdom of Mungard.

But this did not go as planned: The other leaders and their constituents were happy to remain in their small, dismal, kingdom, unaware of the greatness destined to their people. In secret, they met and made a secret plan: Shorri had to be deposed as king.

As Shorri returned home, he found his sword, Akur, had been stolen of him. Without this badge he held no right to rule as king, as the old law is written. Outraged at the insubordination of his lessers, he plotted in secret with Kjnur and Magni Dagnjr a great and terrible joke, the greatest trick ever played. He would host a feast in his mead-hall, and invite all of his subordinates to make amends. Once there, he would interrogate them to recover his lost sword, and not a one of them would be armed, as carrying weapons in the meadhall was strictly forbidden, as was the law at the time.

As the day of the grand banquet approached, the mead-hall was stocked with the finest harvest of berries and jazbay, fat, succlent hams, chickens and pheasant and rabbit and the finest freshly-baked breads from all corners of his kingdom.

When the tribal leaders were all gathered in the meadhall for their feast, Shorri barred the doors and stood before them, fury in his eyes. It is said his heart beat so loudly that all in attendence could hear it, booming like unto a kettle drum.

“Those who would betray me, hear the sound of your doom!” He cackled, looking over the crowd.

He and his friends, Kjnur, Magni Dagnjr, Stenjur, Julhannr, Senthur, and the mighty warrior Trinmjurir drew their hidden weapons and brandished them at the assembled guests.

“Return my sword Akur, which was stolen of me by one of you!” Shorri snarled, “Return it and see your lives spared, and our kingdom expanded! Or keep it secret, and see your heads lost and your lands given over to the great and glorious future!”

The tribal leaders remained silent in stunned horror, and Shorri and his friends took their heads, one by one, until nobody stood between him and the expansion of his kingdom.

And that is when King Shorri fell to treachery most foul. Trinmjurir turned his sword against Shorri, surprising him and cutting off his hands. As Shorri cried out at the betrayal, his own wife, Kjnur, revealed herself as the villain, withdrawing the Sword Akjur and cutting good King Shorri from chest to groin.

“With the blood of royalty upon its edge, I breathe life to this sword, to make for my kingdom a protector evermore!” and then she shouted a mighty shout, and the blade Akur sprung from her hands with a life of its own, taking the form of a well-buit man of pure golden light.

Shorri laughed a weak laugh with blood on his lips, “my greatest joke is complete,” he gasped, “I lay on my on my own blood a curse, that Akur is forever bound to my will alone, he will be the steward of my kingdom’s expansion, and my people will follow him far and wide, and prosper in happiness far from these meager lands.”

And Shorri’s blood turned black as coal, and the golden-man that was Akur took on the form of a terrible black dragon with wicked curved blades for scales.

Enraged, Trinmjurir and Kjnur tore Shorri’s body asunder, and Trinmjurir ripped the heart from his chest, and bade Akur to carry it far across the sea. A thousand thousand ravens sprung forth from Shorri’s chest, scattering into the air in all directions. The black blood covered their wings and turned the birds forever black. The blood dripped from their wings as they flew, and fell upon the ground where it hardened into ebony, known to the Atmorans as Raven’s Rock.

Magni Dagnjr, unable to betray his friends, even after their own betrayal, left in disgust, leaping right through the thatched roof of the mead-hall.

The chiefest of the ravens took the name of King Rafn, and made for himself a roost on the throat of the world, from where he could watch as his divine joke carried on for eternity, a never ending punishment for his betrayal.