The Legend of Lorridon

Turn your ears towards me, good people; gather round and hear what a tale I have to tell of a Hero among Heroes; a king among kings; one of the greatest and most glorious of our history; a man who will be remembered as long as men have tongues to tell tales and ears to listen; a man named Lorridon the brave.

It was in yesterdays, far yonder ; when our nation was not counted among the great and mighty as it is today nor a single realm ruled by a single king but two small island kingdoms,  Borrudad and Kershagen, separated by the sea of Athmoor.

Lorridon was the prince of Borrudad; son of King Althane, the valiant and Queen Margirom; heir to the dynasty of Tarn and descended from the bloodline of the giants who first founded their kingdom in the days before legend.

Now it is said of Lorridons birth that Althane and Margirom prayed to the Lady Sharnon who is the green goddess of marriage and maternity for a son but Sharnon was too busy with other things and so she asked her blacksmith Rothron to forge a child out of the heavenly metal of the stars and that is why Lorridon was born with the brawn and courage of a hundred and why, before he emerged from the womb, a roar was heard like a lion that made both the king and queen fear that perhaps their son would be a monster.

But, inspite of such a strange beginning, there was never a child more gentle, sweet or fair than the infant Lorridon; his hair was silk of gold and his eyes, two drops of emerald; his smile, a blossom of red and his infant cooing like the murmurings of a songthrush.

Still, from such a pretty seedling he soon grew tall and treelike; strong as the arm of a bear; swift as the eagle’s wing; nimble as a flame and cunning as a viper and he took to the blade and shield as most men take to breathing.

It was he who, while still a lad; sealed the fearsome Gornog, the beast too hideous to be described, in the black cave near the forest of Larknil.

He was swimming in lake Silerin when it’s single, gigantic eye rose above the waters and it swallowed a boat full of his servants pushing it, stem to stern, down its black gullet and, crawling onto the bank, he ran to the cave for safety.

When the Gornog entered the cave after him, he slipped from a narrow crack too small for the barrel headed beast to fit through and, running round to the mouth of the cave rolled a great boulder in front of it so that the howling monster was trapped inside.

And it was then that brave Lorridon won the sword of Ormadoon from Larroth, Queen of the mer-fairies whose kingdom lies under silerin.

“For freeing our lake from the dreaded Gornog who has plagued our people for tortoise years”.

And the sword of ormadoon was truly a weapon of wonder; a blade of finest fairy metal that, when willed could be hard enough to cut through a foot of steel  and Lorridon was hailed by his people as a champion when he returned home to his castle of Glarrion holding the blade above his head.

But then, as the years like swift horses, ran by  soon Althane and his wife thought it was time that their son should be wed to a princess and they ordered that all the fairest and the brightest daughters of the nobility be sent to the castle and that  Lorridon choose a bride from among them and they gathered, like a garden of the fairest flowers, at Glarrion but, after seeing them, Lorridon turned them all out and told them that he would not wed one of them for his heart had already been struck from across the waters by the foreign Princess, Sheyen of Kershegan.

Sheyens uncle; Dorithan ruled over the black island of Kershegan. He had killed her father because he longed to marry her mother and killed her mother because he began to grow desirous towards her.

But he knew that, by Kersheg law, an uncle could not marry his niece unless no other man was able and so he had the great Magranoc built by his engineers; a dragon made of iron and steel and run on hellfire to which he gave half of his evil heart and soul so that it would become not just a machine but a living thing and he declared that none but the one who could slay the Magranoc could marry his niece.

Now Lorridon had had a dream of a white lion and a black unicorn that were in love and the black unicorn being the crest of Kershegan and the white lion being the crest of Borrudad he interpreted it as being a dream foretelling a union between those two kingdoms and, in that same dream, he had met a beautiful young woman, pulling a thorn from her finger that became a golden crown and, upon asking her name the woman had answered, “Why, do you not know,I am your wife, Sheyen”.

And from the moment of waking from that dream, the prince of Borrudad was convinced that only Sheyen could be his wife and, seeking the permission of his father and mother, he had the great boat Seafarer built and with a crew of a hundred men sailed across the Sea of Athmoor to Kershegan, stopping only to defeat the Fierce Sea Serpent of Athmoor that wrapped up the seafarer in its coils and tried to crush it’s hull to splinters.

Lorridan climbed up to the top of the tallest mast of the seafarer and leapt from it onto the head of the fearsome seabeast before driving the point of his fabulous sword into the beating heart between its horns.

Then, as the creature wailed and wept seawater, it sank below the surface of Athmoor and Lorridon emerged victorious from under the waves.

But then they sailed on to Kershegan, their white sails stained with the sea-monsters blood, and at Dorithan’s castle of Varaforge they were greeted by he and the fair Sheyen and Sheyen wore a long black veil which she said was to hide her tears.

“I weep for all those who my cruel uncle has fed to the Magranok”, she said, “And I shall weep for you if you do not return”.

“Hope for me, instead”, replied the prince, “And smile for me, for your smile is enough to fill my heart with courage for a hundred”.

The princess lifted up her veil and she was smiling underneath.

But then Dorithan showed Lorridan a room called “The room of lost suitors” that was filled with a mountain of skulls and bones,

“This is all that is left of the brave suitors who came before you; who dreamed, just like you, of slaying the magranoc and marrying my niece. Give up your quest and go back home to your kingdom unless you wish your skull to become the pinnacle upon this gristly mound”.

But Lorridan replied that the next head upon the mound would be the iron head of the beast and that the crown of Kershegan would be upon his head.

Then Lorridan was lowered into the darkened lair of the Magranok and heard the gong like pounding of its metal heart and the hissing of its steam like breath in the darkness, then its two eyes began to blaze like lanterns full of orange flame and seemed to glare at him in anger.

“Why are you men so eager to die?”, it asked in a voice that sounded strangely like the voice of Dorithan only booming like shellfire, “I sup upon their blood and crunch upon their bones; I burn their eyes out with my flame and my lair echo’s with the sound of their cowardly screaming and yet they never give up their foolish hopes of becoming heroes”.

“Why are you so eager to live when you are nothing but an empty black hole full of evil and death and bones”, said Lorridan, “At least the heroes, the ones who live, bring more hope to the world; their legends are a light to others”.

The metal beast only threw its gigantic head back and laughed but then, suddenly and taking the prince by surprise, it threw its head forward again, almost like a trebuchet and spat out a cannon ball from its jaws that flew towards Lorridons head and the prince might have been made headless if it were not for the fairy sword of ormadoon with which he sliced the flying cannonball in two.

However, then it was the heroes turn to strike and he did, with all the force of a blacksmiths hammer upon an anvil; he lunged towards the beast and drove his blade, which upon his will became hard and sharp enough to pierce through a wall of the hardest metal, deep into its iron heart and spouting out blood from the wound that glowed red like molten steel and screaming like the hissing of steam through a whistle, the creature rolled over onto its spiky back and its lantern eyes, flickering, ceased to glow.

And the moment that it did, a wound opened up in the heart of King Dorithan, blood spouting from it, and then he too fell upon his back and died.

“The monster and the man who made it are the same”, his niece, Sheyen observed.

But now, raised up from the monsters lair, Lorridan was embraced by the smiling princess; joyous as a bird to be free, finally, from her uncle.

“My uncle was as evil as he was old and repulsive and I shuddered when I thought of being embraced by his cold hands stained with blood”, she said, “But I give you my heart, Lorridon, freely and filled with gladness”.

A thousand gold trumpets were sounded from the parapets of the castle, calling the people of the land to come and witness the marriage of their princess to the new King of Kershagen and then, outside the gates of the castle they were wed by a priest of Sharnon; the priests prayers of consecration almost drowned out by the cheers of joyful crowds.

And that is how the lands of Kershagen and Borrudad became united; why there is now both a black unicorn and a white lion upon the crest of our nation and why the name of Lorridan the brave shall be remembered forever in our legends.