Friday, September 30, 2011

The Witch Madir and the Wizard Peven

Madir was from the land of Hel before it was conquered by An.  Peven of Aum was a Lord of Aum of the Three Portions of An.  They both learned their power through books of wizardry that had once belonged to the Wizards of Lungold, and it was through their actions that the Land-Rulers of An grew to bind spell-books.

Madir
Madir is an ancestor of the land-rulers of An.  It is ironic that Madir would eventually conceive a child with a King of An given the fact that King Oen of An built a tower to trap Madir.  She lived for nearly two hundred years during which time seven kings of An ruled.  The Witch Madir, sometimes called Wizard, took her knowledge of wizardry from books written by the Wizards of Lungold.  These books would later pass into Peven of Aum’s hands.  One of the duties of the Land-Rulers of An is to maintain the bindings of Madir’s spell-books. 

Raederle learned some of Madir’s tricks through Nun.  She can do things like make a net out of grass, make a bramble stem seem like an impossible thorn patch, find her way out of Madir's Woods, where the trees seem to shift from place to place, make a pebble seem like a mountain, and make a small puddle seem like an endless lake.

She was most likely from Hel as she maintained a pig herd.  Madir was, at some point, the pig herder of King Nemir of the Pigs ruler of the land of Hel.  She had a shouting-feud with Lord Col of Hel over the land-right to an oak forest in which their pigs fed.  She used ninety-nine curses on a man who stole one of her pigs, turning him into a boar. 

Raederle uses the first of the ninety-nine curses on Ghisteslwchlohm.
“I curse you, in my name and Madir’s, with eyes small and fiery, to look no
higher than a man’s knee, and no lower than the mud beneath—”
By Madir’s Bones and simply Madir’s Bones are common oaths in the Realm of the High One.

Peven of Aum
Peven of Aum was a Lord of Aum and thus a descendent of the kings of Aum.  He was a wizard who learned his power through books of wizardry that had once belonged to the Witch Madir and before that to the Wizards of Lungold.  He killed seven of his sons with misused wizardry and then himself in shame and sorrow.  He was bound by Oen of An and the later Kings of An too his tower. 

The crown of the kings of Aum was passed down through his family.  It was sealed with him in his tower.  He earned the black robe of Mastery from the College of Caithnard.  He had a standing wager going that no one could win a riddle-game with him.  Lords of Aum, An, and Hel, and riddle-master from Caithnard have all challenged him to a game.  The first man from Hed to challenge him, Morgon of Hed, won the game against him.  He won by asking the riddle about Kern of Hed, the only riddle to come out of Hed.  Upon asking it, Peven shouted “There are no riddles of Hed.”  Morgon knew the game was won.

Those who lost against him forfeited their lives.  King Hagis of An and Master Laern are among those who lost their lives in Peven’s Tower.

After five hundred years of imprisonment, Peven had a hard time remembering all of his sons’ names.  Morgon, who had learned them at the College of Caithnard, told him.

Auber of Aum, one of the descendents of Peven, went to his tower to try to win back the crown of Aum.  When he arrived, he found the crown gone and Peven pleading to be set free to leave the tower.  Auber demanded the name of the man who had taken the crown; Peven said only that he would answer no more riddles.  Auber then told Mathom.

King Mathom made a vow at his daughter’s, Raederle’s, birth to give her only to the man who won the crown of Aum from Peven.

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