Every Sunday I run a Special relating to my writing endeavours and the world of Aeyuu, which is the stage for many stories developed further through the Tales from Aeyuu Patreon. These Blogs are closely tied with my novel-to-be, The Age of Silence, which is basically a story about Love, Sacrifice, and Death.
Previous Special Arcs:
0. TAoS Themes (3 journals)
1. The Syrilae (7 journals)
2. The Necrolore (6 journals)
Today we delve again into one of the oldest topic of stories and myths on the continent of Aun: the Denumbra.
A favourite tale among young mothers and grandmothers alike who struggle to get unruly children to bed. Simple in its premise - a monster comes into the night to devour the children whole, this story has evolved over the centuries to depict the creature of nightmare (oft a formless shadow being) as being none other than the fabled Denumbra. Usually, it is followed up by another Denumbran myth, just to drive the idea home that children better behave or there will be consequences. Thus have most Denumbran myths survived over the millenia.
But fear of darkness is nothing new to the Humans; powerless creatures who have always lived in fear of the night, dreading their own kin. This fear only expanded once, so long ago that history never recorded it, the existence of the humanoid Vampires was confirmed. Yet, Humans kept using Nightmare stories to keep their children in line - perhaps because it is easier to frighten a child with something unseen, unknown, that can be shaped into anything the child most fears.
How this myth survived to this day is obscure at best - as is its origin. The reason for it is simple: there are no more asylums on Human lands.
Once a place to lock away the mad and the dissident alike, asylums slowly became obsolete after the apparition of the Vampires. Numerous bloody deaths, unpreventable by unarmed personnel, in time convinced Human society to convert their asylums into fortified prisons or, in certain larger cities, orphanages. With Human trade eventually branching out towards its neighbours and interspecies reproduction becoming a reprehensible reality, madness was no longer viewed as a mental disease but as a sign of latent power, rendering asylums not only obsolete but a a hazard to anyone working in its halls.
Yet in the north-eastern corner of the Human lands, around woodlands too dense and dark to be explored, subsists a myth that speaks of an asylum still in operation. A derelict place of madness, ruled by a phantom; and this belief exists because, from time to time, citizens of surrounding town and cities disappear, to be found weeks, months, even years later wandering the countryside. Maddened. No converging explanations have ever been obtained by these condemned individuals. Only the ravings of guilt that, one day, drove them insane.
A strange tale this one, oft subsisting among Human settlements that harbour Wyr individuals. These Wyr are the ones who speak of a 'revenant' - a creature of wolven form that smells like old death.
If anything, the Revenant is more of a cultural aspect of the Wyr population - as in, their own version of the Humans' Grim Reaper, which has led Humans familiar with the story of the Revenant to associate it with the Denumbra, as is the Grim Reaper itself. But according to certain sources, there might be more to the myth of the Wolf Revenant. In Korinda namely, the Wolf Revenant is perceived as a threat; a beast that, they believe, is the incarnation of all the innocents tortured and killed in the name of science... and of the Necrolore.
Pictured as a massive, skeletal wolf with disheveled and peeling fur, the Wolf Revenant remains a source of conjecture and fear for all sinners.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Sunday Special, same Blogger channel :D
Previous Special Arcs:
0. TAoS Themes (3 journals)
1. The Syrilae (7 journals)
2. The Necrolore (6 journals)
Today we delve again into one of the oldest topic of stories and myths on the continent of Aun: the Denumbra.
Nightmare
A favourite tale among young mothers and grandmothers alike who struggle to get unruly children to bed. Simple in its premise - a monster comes into the night to devour the children whole, this story has evolved over the centuries to depict the creature of nightmare (oft a formless shadow being) as being none other than the fabled Denumbra. Usually, it is followed up by another Denumbran myth, just to drive the idea home that children better behave or there will be consequences. Thus have most Denumbran myths survived over the millenia.
But fear of darkness is nothing new to the Humans; powerless creatures who have always lived in fear of the night, dreading their own kin. This fear only expanded once, so long ago that history never recorded it, the existence of the humanoid Vampires was confirmed. Yet, Humans kept using Nightmare stories to keep their children in line - perhaps because it is easier to frighten a child with something unseen, unknown, that can be shaped into anything the child most fears.
The Asylum
How this myth survived to this day is obscure at best - as is its origin. The reason for it is simple: there are no more asylums on Human lands.
Once a place to lock away the mad and the dissident alike, asylums slowly became obsolete after the apparition of the Vampires. Numerous bloody deaths, unpreventable by unarmed personnel, in time convinced Human society to convert their asylums into fortified prisons or, in certain larger cities, orphanages. With Human trade eventually branching out towards its neighbours and interspecies reproduction becoming a reprehensible reality, madness was no longer viewed as a mental disease but as a sign of latent power, rendering asylums not only obsolete but a a hazard to anyone working in its halls.
Yet in the north-eastern corner of the Human lands, around woodlands too dense and dark to be explored, subsists a myth that speaks of an asylum still in operation. A derelict place of madness, ruled by a phantom; and this belief exists because, from time to time, citizens of surrounding town and cities disappear, to be found weeks, months, even years later wandering the countryside. Maddened. No converging explanations have ever been obtained by these condemned individuals. Only the ravings of guilt that, one day, drove them insane.
The Wolf Revenant
A strange tale this one, oft subsisting among Human settlements that harbour Wyr individuals. These Wyr are the ones who speak of a 'revenant' - a creature of wolven form that smells like old death.
If anything, the Revenant is more of a cultural aspect of the Wyr population - as in, their own version of the Humans' Grim Reaper, which has led Humans familiar with the story of the Revenant to associate it with the Denumbra, as is the Grim Reaper itself. But according to certain sources, there might be more to the myth of the Wolf Revenant. In Korinda namely, the Wolf Revenant is perceived as a threat; a beast that, they believe, is the incarnation of all the innocents tortured and killed in the name of science... and of the Necrolore.
Pictured as a massive, skeletal wolf with disheveled and peeling fur, the Wolf Revenant remains a source of conjecture and fear for all sinners.
* * *
And that is all for this week. There's certainly more legends than these, but they're a good start. Next week I'll either switch to Vampires or Wyr (to stay on the Human lands topic). If you'd like to know about either one, let me know in the comments, and I'll switch to the topic with the most votes :)
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Sunday Special, same Blogger channel :D
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