Lore of the Singing Golden Nuggets

This week’s post is a little different.  I have been telling you all about my writing, but I have yet to share a bit of it with you.  So, I have decided to share a little bit of world building lore from my WIP.  It is from The Cursed.  I hope you like it and will share your thoughts, comments, and critiques.  Happy reading!

Before her eyes, shimmering droplets of water fell from the bottom of her ritual skirt and cloak, as she stepped from the pond that bisected the cave system, she found herself in.  It was interesting to watch the little droplets bounce light off the cave walls and slither back to their home in the waters of the cave.  She wondered where the luminescence came from, as she walked slowly forward and heard the cave give a lusty sigh and something begin to hum a soft lilting lullaby.

It was the haunting, echoing lure of the sleep ballad that clinched it for her.  She smiled at the odd sounding echoes bouncing from the cave walls and the sparkles that danced in the air like fairy dust.  She remembered the story.  It had been told to her many years ago when she was a tiny taut.  It was her uncle joseph who told her the tell.

“Here now,” she remembered her Uncle Joseph coaxing her close to sit on his knee.  “Let old Uncle Joe tell you a tale of the wee folk and their magick.”

Uncle Joe had been the oldest looking man of their clan, and at first, Synder had been afraid of his gray hair, shaggy beard, and grizzled old looks.  Now, she remembered him fondly, as the lore of the singing golden nuggets was repeated in his lyrical Irish brogue in her mind.  As she nimbly side stepped the little creatures that could bring love and luck or curse and collapse to the places they gathered.

“It was said, many eons ago that the wee folk forgot the magick of the wisest of the wee.  These beings were beyond the folk of the land rock and water.  They were of the minerals.  All things gold and silver, coming from the God and Goddess themselves.

The wee folk became to big for their britches.  They thought they could outfox the God and Goddess.  They took all the magick they had and tried to use their powers to force their will on the land, air, fire, and water.  The most precious of the minerals were used to make weapons to launch their lethal campaign against the Gods.

They were a sorry lot, the God, Demaryius and Goddess, Varilyah, declared, trying to use their God given powers against the deities that gave them what they had.  No one, you see was able to overthrow those who were the omniscient.  But these men and women weren’t thinking beyond themselves.  They thought their power was something within them and that it was meant to be theirs.  They thought they were just born with them and they didn’t wonder where their gifts or curses, as some of them thought of their power, came from.

There were those of the wee folk who shied away from the idea of fighting for more than they had or being free of the Gods.  They would not lift their power or any emblems against those who had made them powerful, nor did they defend the Gods.  And these of the wee folk left and went to another land, far away, cross oceans and beyond the land of the fae.  The dimension they landed in was not theirs and they were no longer wee folk.  They were big and lumbering like the humans.  But what was to be done with this lot who thought they were better than the Gods? 

Demaryius and Varilyah had a dilemma of what to do with them.

‘We could get rid of them.  We could take their sorry carcasses and strew them across the land as a show of power and warning to those who would stand against the Gods,’ Demaryius thundered to his Goddess, whom he loved and wanted to see avenged against the beings He and She had given life and source and substance to.

‘Oh, but no, my dear,’ Varilyah was said to have paused her most high king.  ‘Please spare them.  They are young and cannot be held accountable for not understanding their wrong doing.’

‘Then, my love, what would you have of me?’ Demaryius inquired.

‘I say unto you, that you make an example, husband,’ she replied, tapping her chin in contemplation.

‘And that example, my love?’ he questioned, knowing his wife, lovely and cunning, would have an idea at her pretty little fingertips.

‘I say, that you push them into the lands with our others who fled.  Leave them powerless to make their own way in this new baren world filled with creatures they cannot know of, that they cannot understand, and that will eat them up if they do not find other ways to survive.’

‘And the ones who fled?’ Demaryius asked.

‘Leave them where they fled, as they had not the gumption to fight their brethren to avenge us.’

‘What a hard heart, my love,’ the God replied, rubbing his chin to think over what she proposed.

Demaryius nodded to himself in contemplation and answered his Goddess’s inquiring glance.

‘Yes,’ Demaryius drawled, ‘it shall be done as you say.  I will send them to this new realm with their brethren.  For their punishment, I will leave them powerless and shorten their lifespan.  I will leave the ones who fled to this new place with their powers and longer lifespans, but I will take from them the power to make precious metals with their powers.  I will punish them in a way I know will be an afront to them.  everything they have made with their magick that is meant to represent us: gold, silver, copper, and platinum will be taken from them and turned into what they used to be.  It will be more powerful.  And it will be considered our namesakes as the wee folk from this day forward.’

And as he said it and meant it, it became.  The precious metals that lived in the folk of that time and place were no more.  The realm of the place where the wee fled and became what they thought of as large and un-gamely merged with that of the wee, and all of a sudden, the wee folk who thought to fight the Gods were no more.  They lost everything they thought they’d gained on their own.  The fleet of foot had all their precious metal pulled out of them and remained only flesh and blood.  Their powers were limited to only the four elements.  Even they, who felt themselves superior had to use machines and tools to pull minerals from the Earth, as every power associated with the precious metals were removed from their repertoire.  And so, became the wee folk who glow, sing the lullaby and hide their powers deep in stone, water, earth, and other hard to find places.  And it was said that those who find a place where they glow the most will find treasure beyond measure or a curse worse than death.”

The last of the tale gave Synder pause.  Was it so? She wondered.  All lore has its foundation in truth, she remembered and pushed herself against an unlit wall, as she watched the little lighted particles move and glimmer against the wall and floor around her.  She was surrounded by the little mites.  She wondered what would happen if she tried to talk to them.  She shook her head deciding against it for now and chose to try and find whatever Kooper had buried here before trying to talk to the people of the Gods.

CSA