V
Now the story will turn to an elf called Knale. He was a fellow of particular notoriety. As the tale goes, there was an occasion on which Knale decided to bring misfortune upon the troll Glamo. He brought his wicked tongue to Glamo’s ear, and into it he whispered many foul words, magic and curses, and drove the troll to madness. Thus did Glamo go stomping abroad, causing havoc and strife for whomever he chanced upon, until he came at last to the abode of a young woman named Leyva. By the time of their meeting, Glamo’s rage was wearing thin, the ire-light waning in his eyes, and when the warm-hearted girl took pity on the troll and took him into her home, her comfort was sufficient to expel the last of his madness.
However, Glamo soon discovered Leyva was betrothed to a fellow named Loffalo. He was descended from the elf Kawo, one of Knale’s brothers, and thereby the gods. Upon this revelation, Glamo was beset by shame, and he sought to make away and punish himself.
Leyva stayed him.
‘Do not fret,’ she said, ‘for I have beheld the warp of your body, as you have mine, and I see no chance that a child could come of it. This need not become a matter of concern.’
But Glamo was himself of elfin descent, and no torture short of gelding could assuage the great virility of their kind.
‘No!’ said Glamo. He pointed to her womb. ‘My seed will sprout, and the fruit that comes of it will be bitter indeed. Let never the light of day shine upon its skin! Unmake it! Unmake it, or all will be unmade!’
Then Glamo howled his shame once more and fled into the night.
Just so, Leyva came to be with child, but she did not unmake it. Instead, she went to Loffalo and said the child was his. Now, Loffalo was a man of single mind—he wanted to fashion for himself a fantastic troop of children, and to delight in calling them his friends. But despite his elfin stock, not one had yet been sired. He had taken many lovers in his time, each younger than the last, but none had yielded a pregnancy, let alone a child. It was, therefore, with astonishment that Loffalo heard he had wrought an heir at last. For the first time since his infancy, he wept.
The time soon came, and Leyva went with her friends to finalise the birth. But once they looked upon the child—a boy—there was no joy abounding in that room, for he was the very image of his father. The attending women said the boy was cursed, a herald of misfortune, a warning from mighty fate, and they bade Leyva kill her son. But she could not. She looked upon the warp of his flesh, and in it she saw that of his father, whom once she had loved.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There is no cause for killing unless fate would kill us both.’
Leyva named the boy Nawko, gave him to her auntie, and asked her to take him away. She proclaimed the boy stillborn, unnamed, and she said the truth of these matters was never to leave the birthroom. Each of the attending women swore themselves to secrecy, and they all upheld their covenant. Not one would speak the truth unless Leyva spoke it first.
For the first years of his life, Nawko was raised in secret on a faraway farm, and Leyva would occasionally sneak away to visit him. She soon grew weary of this arrangement, however, as did Nawko himself, isolated as he was, and so Leyva went one day to Loffalo. He was by then her husband, and she told him of the birth of Nawko. She said he was not stillborn, but that he was born in the image of a troll and yet lived in seclusion, where no harm might befall him, and where he might deal out none.
Loffalo was unimpressed by this news, though he agreed to at least meet his son, who was at that time nearly a young man. Yet when Loffalo first looked upon Nawko, he was moved to such unfettered hatred that he took up his sword and sought to deal the troll his death blow. With a cry, he swung forth, but the blow did not fall as intended. No, Leyva came forth and put herself between them, and as the sword fell, she fell with it, dealt a mortal blow. Loffalo cried out for his faltered wife, as did Nawko his mother, and kneeling above her, they received her dying wish.
‘My Loffalo,’ she said, ‘take pity on your son. Take him into your home, that he may know the love I have hitherto denied him.’
Then she died.
Loffalo heeded her words. He put his arms about Nawko, and they wept.
* * *
In the time between his meeting with Leyva and her death, Glamo went into exile, hiding himself away from all happy things. He was not seen for many years thereafter, and his grandmother, the elf Nela, became terribly concerned for his wellbeing. One night she looked up to the moon, and in it she saw the same terrible light that shone from her grandson’s eyes. She was taken by such sorrow that she cried out into the night.
‘O Glamo,’ she said, ‘my Glamo. If only you could hear me now, then you would know kindly arms yet long to hold you. O fate, I beseech you, bring my grandson home. Guide his heart and feet alike and lead him here to love. O fate, this oath I hereby swear! I would withhold no price at all, if only I could have my Glamo again.’
And though Glamo’s ears did not hear these words, two other pairs did. The first was that of Nela’s keenest brother, Swalo, the hunter, he who spent his days hearing past the silence and seeing through the darkness. He heard his sister’s plea, and crying, he swore to bring Glamo home.
‘That is my quest,’ he said, ‘to make this lost thing found, or else to lose myself.’
The second pair of ears, however, was Knale’s. He too heard his sister’s plea, but—his mind full of naughty thoughts—he heard more eagerly her oath. Nela was at that time in possession of a most marvellous thing, the heart of Ommaro, who was in the very old days a king of the seas and servant of the god Syokkoa. This Nela ever wore about her neck, and it was a much-coveted prize. Knale coveted it no less than anyone, so he went to another of the elf brothers, Syovo, the most violent and treacherous among them, and together they devised a plan to make themselves the finders of Glamo, that they could take up Nela’s oath.
So Swalo and Knale set out, and the hunt for Glamo commenced. Swalo went alone, though he later came into the company of an orphan girl named Lewva, whom he took as his daughter and apprentice. Knale and Syovo, on the other hand, were no fine finders. They therefore elected not to look for Glamo themselves, but to stalk Swalo from the shadows as he hunted his mark. So it was for eight years, until Swalo and Lewva—she was by then a formidable woman in her own right—found the troll in his cave. That cave would come to be called Syemvel, in the heart of Yaransyog. Lewva went in first, and Swalo followed her.
Now a great tragedy unfolded. As Swalo went into the cave, Syovo crept behind him and did his treacherous work. Murder-minded, he stabbed Swalo in the back, and the blow killed him. Lewva heard her father’s death cry, and upon seeing Syovo laughing above him, she forsook her quest and set her mind on vengeance. She ran Syovo out of the cave and down the cliff, where he turned to meet her, but that was his undoing. Lewva bested him with her sword, and she killed him.
Meanwhile, Knale stole alone into Glamo’s cave and found the poor chap huddled on the floor and muttering, a right pitiful sight. Knale went to him and put a comforting hand beneath his chin, but when Glamo thought he saw a friend, Knale brought forth his wicked tongue and filled his head with madness once more. With every word he spoke, Glamo’s eyes shone ever brighter, until the whole cave was alight, the rage betook him, and he burst forth into the sunlight.
How he howled! When he spotted Lewva below, he leapt over the cliff and fell thrashing upon her, and they fought. But although Glamo was invigorated by Knale’s foul magics, his strength even still fell short of mighty Lewva’s, preeminent as she was. She killed Glamo, hewed his head from his shoulders, and only once his writhing ceased did she weep for her father, stalwart Swalo, now slain.
Knale took up Glamo’s head while Lewva was distracted and brought it to Nela. He said the killing was Lewva’s work, as indeed it was.
‘O sister,’ he said, ‘look upon your grandson, and see that I have brought him home. The moonlit night has sworn to me its silver, so let me name my finder’s fee. You wear about your neck a finest thing, the heart of old Ommaro. I want it. That is my price: a head for a heart, and a heart for a head.’
But, weeping, Nela spared not a moment in refusing him. ‘There is no price so meagre I would pay it for this deed.’
‘Fie!’ said Knale. ‘You swore to pay the price, whatever it may be. I have named it. You must pay it. Give me what I want, or you will regret it.’
Nela put up her hand, and with the other clutching Ommaro’s heart, she said, ‘Out! Out with you! Out of my hall and out of my home, or else out of this mortal life! Out with you!’
Knale knew then he would not so easily have the heart. He threw Glamo’s head to the floor and spat upon it.
‘This,’ he said, ‘is the undoing of all your kin.’
Then he left.
Nela kept Glamo’s head, and she set it on a stool beside her bed so she could hold him in her arms each night and put a kiss upon his forehead each morning. Knale snuck into her bedroom one day and stuck his fingers into Glamo’s great, moon-forged eyes until blood ran from his nose. Knale collected this in a bottle before stealing away unseen.
That evening, Knale went to Nela as she feasted in her hall, halted the meal, and climbed upon a table. He said he wished to make amends, that she should keep the heart of Ommaro, for it was rightfully hers to possess. He took up a cup, poured into it Glamo’s blood as if it were wine, and made a toast in honour of his poor nephew, before taking a great gulp of the blood.
Yet Knale spoke with such artfulness and cunning that even wise Nela was moved by his words. She too took up her cup to drink in kind, but she drank no welcome wine. Knale had not swallowed Glamo’s blood, but instead, he held it in his cheek, and when he saw Nela take a drink herself, he skipped towards her and spat the blood forth into her mouth. Nela swallowed it, and before she knew what was happening, a great violence overcame her. She fell shrieking from her chair, and there on the ground twisted in agony as heat and hurt alike arose within her limbs. For a good long while did she convulse so, and a great throng gathered about her, but no helping hands could allay that torment, save those of time alone.
When at last Nela awoke, stretched out upon the floor, she found she was blind. For this, she cried out, but soon a young kinswoman of hers, Eyra, came to her side. Eyra put her hands on Nela’s face to soothe her in that moment of terror, and Nela likewise reached out for hers. Then, when each had a hand on the other’s cheek, Nela fell silent—she could see. But she did not see the hall in which she lay, or the kindly faces about her. Instead, she saw young Eyra, old and resplendent in a kingly mantle, her hands red with her sister’s blood. She saw not what was, but what was yet to be. To witness so terrible a vision, Nela recoiled her hand from Eyra’s face, and the sight was gone, and once again, she was blind.
Nela retired to her bedroom to rest. Yearning for comfort, she took into her loving arms the head of Glamo, beside her bed as ever it had been, and caressed it. But as she did so, a new vision seized upon her. She saw Nawko, Glamo’s son, his head parted from his body and put upon a stake above the sea. Beneath it sat Lewva, Glamo’s killer, to be the bane of trolls twice over. With a shriek, she dropped Glamo’s head, and she could see. In the darkness of the night, she saw the pale death-glimmer of Glamo’s eyes. She saw the killing of her kin, once done, to be done once again. This she could not abide.
At once, Nela found herself a sword, put on her wings, and flew away to a sea cave where Lewva had fashioned herself a home. That would come to be called Lewvanvek. When she came there, Nela went into the cavern and found Lewva standing beneath her waterfall, her sword drawn.
‘Death to you!’ said Nela. ‘You are the killer of my kin!’
‘The fault for that,’ said Lewva, ‘was Glamo’s alone. I sought to bring no violence against him until he brought it against me. I will not apologise for defending myself.’
‘I speak not only of the murder of my Glamo, but that of my Nawko. I have seen your deeds of past and future alike, and I therefore know there is no further joy allotted to me—all my life is to be spent grieving for what you have taken from me, and what you will. Thus I come against you now, to avenge what is done, and to prevent what will be!’
Nela then set upon Lewva with her sword, and they fought one another with vigour. The battle was brief, and it ended when Lewva, much the better fighter, cut a terrible wound into Nela’s stomach and knocked her backwards into the river. She moved to deal the final blow, but before she could, Nela clutched Ommaro’s heart about her neck and bellowed this invocation:
‘O king of seas, I bid you wake!
Your heart and mine but one shall make!’
A fantastic light shone out from Ommaro’s heart. Lewva stepped back and looked away, so painful was that dread light to behold, but it was short-lived. When it faded, Nela appeared to be dead, her body floating out of the cave and into the sea, the heart of Ommaro to be lost alongside her. Lewva deemed the day won and put the matter behind her.
But Nela did not truly die that day. When Lewva was readying for bed in the evening, she saw beneath the waterfall the figure of a woman. She called out to this uninvited guest, but she received no reply. When she came to look more closely, Lewva realised she was Nela, her spirit irrevocably bound to the river itself, to ever after haunt the cave. Lewva soon left Lewvanvek, and she hoped never to return.
* * *
The next turn in this tale concerns poor Nawko. While he was a member of Loffalo’s household, Nawko married a young woman called Orvoa, who was also beholden to Loffalo. It is said that, at their wedding meal, Nawko drank as much as everyone else in attendance combined, and still thought more clearly than any of them. In time, Orvoa came to be pregnant, and Nawko was the jubilant father.
The first person to whom he sang of his fatherly joy was the elf Feydo, who was his uncle and the brother of Nela, and Knale, and all the elf brothers. In the decades between Nela’s half-death at Lewvanvek and Nawko’s marriage to Orvoa, Feydo came to Water-Nela for counsel, and she told him nothing of interest. Instead, she demanded he protect Nawko as she could not. Feydo was generally a timid sort of fellow, and so he found himself unable to decline; he swore by oath to try his best. He came into Loffalo’s service, where he lived alongside Nawko, and he became his closest friend and confidant.
Knale was also quick to learn about Orvoa’s pregnancy, for his crafty ears heard only what they should not. He was outraged by the news.
‘I am outraged,’ he said, ‘that nasty Nawko would dare to deem himself worthy of love. This cannot go unpunished!’
‘My brother,’ said Feydo, ‘do not involve yourself in this, I beg of you. You need not heed your every impulse.’
‘So what is their purpose, if not to be heeded?’
Then Knale pushed Feydo over and went away to make right this wrong. He changed his body to resemble that of Lewva Thunder-hand and came to Orvoa while she was washing alone in the river. Elf-Lewva took off her clothes and used her wiles to woo the poor girl and lure her out of the water. When she had her in her grasp, she put a hand on her thigh and whispered a great many flirtations into her ear. Orvoa was quickly overcome with lust. Together they rejoiced by the river, whereafter Lewva scampered away. As soon as she left, Orvoa regained her senses, and a great shame beset her. She went at once to Nawko and professed her faithlessness.
‘These are unhappy tidings indeed,’ said Nawko, ‘but please, my dear, let me allay your shame. I cannot hold you responsible for this, for there can be none more faultful than licentious Lewva, she who has both killed my father and preyed upon my wife. I cannot tolerate the hostility with which she has ever regarded my kin and will thusly avenge this dishonour.’
‘I do not ask for vengeance,’ said Orvoa. ‘I ask only for forgiveness. If that is freely given, we need not pursue this matter further.’
But to this, Nawko roared. ‘There is nothing to forgive,’ he said, ‘and much to avenge. I do not have so little pride as to leave this be.’
Nawko donned his armour, picked up his mighty axe, and set out to visit Lewva. Feydo went at his side. After each step they took, he said they should take two back home, so Nawko, hard and pride-frenzied, told him to utter no more words than would a talkative fist, or else he would be introduced to one. Feydo had no more complaints after that. Behind them went Knale in his fox fur, for he was keen indeed to see what would come of all this.
When they came to Lewva’s house—it would in those days have been somewhere in southern Syoglonn, near where Yaransyog meets Remennas—Nawko knocked down the door and demanded Lewva come outside to meet him. This she did, and Nawko accused her of murder and also criminal adultery before she could greet him.
‘Kindly,’ said Lewva, ‘begone. If by murder you refer to the death of your father, he attacked me first. I will not apologise for defending myself. As for this adultery, I know nothing about it, nor do I wish to. I have neither the time nor the inclination to continue dealing with you and your lot.’
‘And I,’ said Nawko, ‘have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to your venomous lies.’
After this, Nawko loosed a battle cry and attacked Lewva with his axe. Though she was now an old woman, she remained a formidable fighter and quickly bested the troll, knocked him to the floor, and there killed him with well placed a blow to his throat. She pointed her sword at Feydo, and she asked him whether he wished to continue the fight. Feydo said he did not and went home empty-handed.
The killing of Nawko was Lewva’s last great feat. To commemorate it, she chopped off his head and took it to Lewvanvek, where she staked it on the cliff above the sea, washed the blood from her hands in the river, and shouted out to Water-Nela in the cavern.
‘I am the scourge of gods!’ she said. ‘Three times have you folk come against me, and three times have you faltered. Let this head stand testament to my immortal glory.’
After this, Lewva became a hermit priest in Yaransyog. She established in the woods a shrine dedicated to the old god Loffeyda, of whom her father Swalo had long ago been a disciple. There she kept his ashes, and there she also set aside the hermit’s life after accruing a handful of lovers with whom she lived well and contented until a peaceful death. She had no further dealings with elves or trolls, or even men.
It was Feydo who brought the news of Nawko’s death back to Orvoa, for Knale stayed behind to defile his headless corpse and fill it with spite. Upon hearing this news, Orvoa wept, and the grief swelling inside her was such that she immediately went into labour. Feydo assisted her with the birth, and she produced a pair of twin boys, each the very image of their father, whom she named Fowdho and Klovo. Then she died, her heart utterly broken. Feydo tried to revive her, but the effort was paltry and futile, so his thoughts turned instead to the baby trolls.
‘O Nela,’ he said, ‘I could not save your Nawko. Perhaps sparing these boys of hardship will redeem me.’
He took them up, one in each arm, and fled Loffalo’s house to stash them somewhere deep and dark, where no trouble might befall them.
Knale returned to Loffalo’s house shortly thereafter, for he meant to delight in Orvoa’s grief. He was, therefore, quite disappointed to find she was already dead. Wondering what had become of Nawko’s baby, Knale took a knife and opened Orvoa’s womb to see what he might find. It was empty, of course, so he went to Loffalo, now old and withered, and asked what had become of the child.
‘Tell me, what do you mean by this?’ said Loffalo. ‘As far as I am aware, Orvoa’s child has yet to be born.’
Knale said the child must have been born, for he could not find it in her womb. Upon hearing this, Loffalo went to Orvoa’s bedroom and found her dead, her body sliced open, and Knale wearing blood. A great commotion then ensued, and Knale slipped away before anyone could ask him any questions. He set out searching, hoping to find the baby troll, to kill it, and in doing so, to quell Glamo’s contemptible bloodline once and for all.
First of all, he went to Water-Nela at Lewvanvek and bade her see their future and tell him where they might be found. But there was no love left in Nela’s heart, and least of all for Knale. The moment she saw him come into the cavern, she whipped up a great tumult in the water and tried to drown him. This came to nothing, so she simply disappeared into the water and paid him no heed. Knale was not one to be brushed off. He picked up his skirt and went about yellowing the water.
‘How does that taste?’ he said.
For this foul provocation, Nela finally re-emerged from the river and asked Knale why he had come.
‘I have already said this,’ said Knale. ‘Nawko has brought about the heir to his hatefulness. Tell me where it is.’
Nela refused, and when Knale asked why she was being so obstinate, she spoke this prophecy:
‘I see deaths dealt, I see them plain, my delve-doomed twain each wrongly slain; my grandsons two, twice-over great, twice-over spurned by unearned hate! My last-loved two, twice-over scorned by spite-swung sword, twice-over warned that he who brings these wounds to bear will, bound in blood, his own wounds wear! Let he who deals be dealt the worst; twice-over doomed, twice-over cursed!’
Nela fell back into the river and said nothing more. These words did not please Knale, but they were useful to know.
After visiting Water-Nela, Knale wandered about aimlessly, expecting that, with enough patience, he should eventually chance upon some luck. This came along in the form of his brother Flawko, he who was called the shadow, the lord of roads, the eternal wanderer. Flawko told Knale he had crossed paths with Feydo in the last few decades or so.
‘Feydo reported to me,’ said Flawko, ‘that he had become a father, and a glad one.’
Knale disputed this. ‘There is no being in this world, or any other, who is both well made enough to bear a child, and ill-decisive enough to bear one for him. It cannot be so.’
Flawko agreed with this and clarified that Feydo was not the father by birth. He said Feydo had made himself the warden of two twin trolls at their sister’s bidding, although he did not know their provenance.
Giddy with bitterness, Knale said, ‘But I do! Tell me, brother, where are these trolls?’
‘They dwell in the deep and the dark,’ said Flawko, ‘as do we all. I know only that.’
‘Then where is Feydo?’
‘Talmakeyd, or so it was.’
‘Better. Whereabouts?’
Flawko said Feydo had put himself up as a shepherd in the south-eastern reaches of Talmakeyd, on the slopes approaching Fegennas, and he gave Knale directions to the precise location of his house.
‘And know,’ said Flawko, ‘light and dark are blinding both.’
Then he donned his hooves and vanished before Knale’s eyes, and that was their final farewell.
Knale went straight to Talmakeyd and found Feydo there, much as Flawko had described. He snuck into the house, and before Feydo realised what was afoot, he grabbed him by the neck and demanded he reveal the trolls’ hiding place. Feydo refused, and wracked with panic, he took the shape of a chaffinch, slipped from Knale’s grasp, and flew out of the house. Knale likewise put on his fox fur and gave chase.
The pursuit took them all the way down Fegennas, and then up the coast until they came to Klagenn. It just so happened that, as Feydo flew up the valley and over the waterfall, he spotted two young boys playing in the water—they were Thalo and Gaydeno. After days of flight, he was in terrible need of a rest, and he thought Knale might not attack him if he took it in the company of others. He flew to the floor and hid himself in a holly bush, and there Gaydeno found him, as has already been told. Of course, Knale attacked him nonetheless, but Thalo beat him back, giving Feydo time enough to gather his strength and set out again. Knale was quick to catch sight of him flying out of the woods, and so he resumed the pursuit, cursing Thalo the interferer all the while.
This went on for another few years, until Feydo was so worn out one day that he could no longer fly. He found himself a secluded spot where he believed Knale would not find him, and there settled down in an empty oak tree to rest. What he did not realise, however, was that this oak was already home to an old rook called Kroggazo. When Kroggazo came home to find Finch-Feydo asleep in his boughs (and on his favourite branch, no less), he made his temper known.
‘Squatter!’ he cawed. ‘Shoo!’
He attacked Feydo, and fate condemned him—Knale was passing nearby, utterly lost, when he heard Kroggazo’s fury. He trotted over to the oak, and it was not long before Feydo, startled by Kroggazo’s assault, fell out of the tree and into Knale’s foxen jaws below.
‘Call me chough-chuffed!’ said Knale, and he stole away.
Knale took Feydo off into the woods, bound him to a tree and planned to subject him to many tortures. And what tortures they were! He concocted every pain and cruelty he could, intending to test every one of them against Feydo’s resolve. Yet after only some preliminary choking, Feydo cried out and said he would reveal the trolls’ whereabouts, if only Knale swore by oath that he would not kill them. Recalling Nela’s prophecy, Knale agreed to this.
‘You fool!’ said Knale. ‘You wretched dunderhead! Do you not see what trouble you would have spared me, if only you had offered me this sooner? Do not worry your empty little head, for this I hereby swear: I will bring no harm at all upon these trolls. Now speak.’
Satisfied with Knale’s oath, Feydo said exactly where each of the trolls could be found, and Knale chortled with delight.
‘You are an excellent brother,’ he said, and then he scurried away to turn his vengeance against another. Feydo remained attached to the tree until a local woodcutter freed him a few weeks later.