Account of the Clan Elverhilin (SA 171)

[Esterlen 4462]

 

 

ACCOUNT

OF THE

CLAN ELVERHILIN

Sachin Luerane el’Belethi

4 Amber Cold SA 171

 

 

The Barbuturr Irrinites, also known as Barbuturran (pl. Ancient Elven) or Black Sheep Irrinites, is an umbrella term for various Irrinite mali’ame seeds, tribes, or clans, distinguished by their practice of a nomadic pastoralist tradition which favors life on the grassy steppes and sparsely wooded frontiers of the known world. The semi-military communities of the Barbuturr are also characterized by their adherence to a blend of the mystic, monotheistic San’taliyna (also known as the Path of the Living Word) and certain Aspectist folk traditions. Their name in Ancient Elven is derived from the roots ‘barbu’ and ‘turr’, meaning ‘black’ and ‘sheep’ respectively, though this moniker was not originally a euphemism but instead refers to their tribal totem, a black ram’s head. 

 

 

 

 

An envelope, sealed by the wax imprint of a tobacco sprig, contains the following letter, sprawled out upon many pages in the practiced calligraphy of an elven style. 

 

---

 

4 Amber Cold SA 171

 

laurir’saneyir Adriel Acal Vallei, @Sefardi

 

iyul’maele asiol oem Acaelan ito kae’leh. I, Sachin Luerane el’Belethi, deputy clerk of the Raell’uvuliran (Spicer’s Guild), have written the following account in relation to the loss of our latest caravan westwards. I plead that the circumstances described herein may mitigate any punishment visited upon me by my fellow Raell’uvuliran, and I humbly beseech your person for any such forbearance as you are able to muster for the losses incurred by my failings. el’Tuva Uelln’ehya el’Bilokir Tuva’leh, illern’leh el’Taynuel maele’ehya ay evarn’sae ahe’Malin’onn Lye’ehya. 

 

After around two elven miles after fording the river that makes the western border of Maruruknor, our caravan was waylaid by an ambush. Though at first we presumed our attackers were urukan, by their mounts and their silrivan I could later determine that they were Mali, specifically fellow mali’ame. They carried themselves in the manner of the steppe peoples, clad in furs with lassos in hand, and the mercenaries charged with protecting our cargo were dispatched by their arrows forthwith. By this time it had become clear to me that this was a roving clan of Barbuturr Irrinites and when they inquired who the caravan master was, I told them it was I, and they clapped the survivors in irons and took us to their encampment. 

 

The clansmen led us a short time through the plains until we reached their village. The Barbuturr settlement was a collection of perhaps ten yurts, with wooden beams only as their latticework and walls of animal pelts. All these yurts were centered around a spruce tree, and as it was clear that the encampment was temporary and movable in nature, by its age this tree had preceded their residence here. Some flocks of sheep grazed around the gathering, but their raucous reaction on the seizure of our cargo suggested that their economy was driven by pillage rather than this agriculture. 

 

Other than these momentary celebrations, this clan of Barbuturran seemed a cruel and miserable people. Their conditions were generally meager and degraded. Much unlike other Irrinites, their women were clothed head-to-toe in tuvehan, leaving nothing uncovered save their eyes - they speak very little, and are creatures who exist wholly to serve their masters. This was unfamiliar to me, and I thought it a barbarous practice. On their part, there was some recognition when a clansman confiscated my velulai-celia’ehya (moon-and-star) signet, being evidently familiar with this symbol. Consequently, I was taken to their leader, who was seated upon a carpet within the largest yurt. This was a mali’ame called Valandosii (Valandos the Lesser), who said he was of the blood of Valandos Uthir, sometimes called Khan amidst men of the plains, who was himself a laurir’faesu (horse-lord) and shaman of yore. 

 

This Valandosii was short of stature, like other Irrinites, with a broad chest and small, furtive eyes. His beard was thin, but his mustache thick and drooping. His skin was swarthy, and he was clad in furs. While he articulated himself relatively well, between his sentences he would chew sunflower seeds, spitting out the husks onto the dwelling’s dirt floor. Sheathed at the mali’ame’s hip was a fine silriv, ably curved and quite similar to my own, and so we compared the two. It was much akin to those wielded by we Lye’naeran, albeit clearly designed for use on horseback rather than in close-quarters.  

 

After introducing myself as a representative of the Guild of Spicers, Valandosii understood me to be an Acaelanite, and uttered a few words about the kinship between ‘our two tribes’. He told me that I could go without our cargo, but that as recompense for my release I must record his histories, being illiterate himself, and thereafter convey the legend of his clan to my fellow Raell’uvuliran. 

 

Upon some cursory questioning, Valandosii told me his kin and clan, the Elverhilin, were Barbuturran, and that they and the tribes subject to them worshiped only one god, but that he was present dually in the skies and nature. I assumed that this was the same god of the evarn’sae, so I encouraged him to tell me more about his eponymous ancestor. On the chieftain Valandos Uthir, his tale was as follows:

 

The Barbuturr Irrinites under the clan Elverhilin had disputed with the other tribes of Irrinor, and the leader of all the tribes, an Aureon of little repute or influence, had failed to settle this feud. Moreover, having different doctrines of belief, the Barbuturran also quarreled over several religious matters with the druian of Irrinor, who were the clergy of the orthodox Aspectist practice of these tribes. Hence, under the inducement of a valah official called Hash (Haas), the Elverhilin drove their flocks westwards to the lands of Petrehael Valahuthir (Emperor Peter III), whom they served as mercenaries and irregular troops. This was the era of the eternal winter of the First Age and so their sheep grazed well in the milder climate of the Valahnoran than they would have in Irrinor, growing fat and profitable, the latter more so than usual given that valah wars had disrupted the normal agriculture of the region. Besides, Valandos Uthir’s clansfolk earned much loot and manifold bounties in the service of the Valahuthir, even having a concession of land reserved for their settlement. Parallel to that, at this time Valandos Uthir was recognized as the ‘spiritual grandmaster’ of the Barbuturr tribes, organizing these followers into a militant San’taliyna order called the Malin’onn. 

 

These arrangements continued until an incident surrounding a cursed artifact brought back from a raid by Barbuturr cavalry, which Valandosii claims afflicted the Valahuthir with a minor plague of sorcerous origins. After this ignominious incident, Valandos Uthir fell out of favor with the valah monarch and was replaced as leader of the local elven community by one called Lathladlen, who was not of the Barbuturr Irrinites. Valandosii had relatively little to say on him, but clarified that the Barbuturran resumed their transhumance, driving their flocks where the pastures were good and occasionally returning to the Valahnoran when the seasons permitted. While the Malin’onn were formally disbanded, the members of these clans remained the sworn students of Valandos Uthir throughout their migrations. 

 

 

Naturally, Valandosii’s account took us back onto the matter of religion, and somewhat emboldened, I pressed him for more details on the faith of his ancestors. He explained to me that the being who the Irrinites called Cernunnos was God, el’Oem, and that consequently Cerridwen was the female manifestation of el’Oem. I considered this a blasphemy and contradiction, for Acaelan is indivisible and unknowable, and therefore cannot be dismembered into parts or personified as was the Irrinite custom, but I did not say so given his fearsome character. 

 

Perhaps sensing my unease, he explained that Cernunnos may be referred to as el’Maln’acaelan, the Sky Father, and Cerridwen may similarly be called el’Haelun’tayna, the Earth Mother, but that these were but alternate names for el’Oem to the Barbuturr Irrinites, who adhered to the practice of the San’taliyna school by worshiping one being in general. I privately thought that they could not truly be evarn’sairan given they maintained the Aspects with some independent characteristics, but this nonetheless was resemblant of the dualistic order of Acaelan and el’Taynuel in Creation. Moreover, according to Valandosii, there was also another being beyond the planes, a devil called Nimadreth who embodied all that was darkness, and whose worship his ancestor Valandos Uthir had fallen into in a time of despair. This also felt to me as if it were a diluted polytheism, which is the greatest crime against the evarn’sae, but again I dared not say this. He also specified that the spruce tree around which this Elverhilin settlement was built was itself a representation of el’amelye, the world tree, and was an icon of sorts. I was unfamiliar with this practice but thought that mayhaps it had evolved from the Mother Tree of Laurelin. 

 

These barbarous Irrinite notions were plain wrong, but my interest was piqued. I wished to know more about the origins of these beliefs, and how they had developed in this way amongst the pastoralist Barbuturran. Valandosii’s only answer was that his ancestors, the Elverhilin, and their junior clans and seeds as well, had ‘always’ made their offerings to el’Oem el’Asiol’ehya. Though I did not realize it at the time, upon reflection I suspect that this meant one of two things. Firstly, it could mean that these Barbuturr clansmen are partially Irrinized Acaelanites, originally of Lye’naeran blood, with practices that progressively mixed with Irrinite Aspectism since the time of that great devil, aca’Caerme’onn. Secondly, it could mean the reverse - that the Barbuturran are of ethnic Irrinite stock (meaning that their ancestors of antiquity followed Irrin Sirame into a nomadic lifestyle with the other seeds) but later embraced certain components of the San’taliyna brotherhoods at a more recent time, perhaps even influenced by we Lye’naeran in the epoch of the Dominion. I am not yet decided on which it could be. In either case, it was clear that this tribe had not kept continuously to the evarn’sae through lineal descent and so could not be true Acaelanites in the modern understanding of our people.  

 

Evidently satisfied that I had documented his words sufficiently, Valandosii released me from my irons and escorted me west to the border of Bortunor, where I write this missive from the city of Kalkadrelaz. In any case, I regret to inform you that the cargo was lost to Barbuturr rapacity and is by my estimation irrecoverable. Per the carriage documents this amounts to ten barrels of salt, ten of rice, seven of preserved mandragora, six of preserved gislocinovi, six of salt pork, two of rum, one of Whitespire sherry and one case of saffron. 

 

I plead once again for your forbearance. iyul’maele asiol oem Acaelan ito kae’leh, el’Tuva Uelln’ehya el’Bilokir Tuva’leh, illern’leh el’Taynuel maele’ehya ay evarn’sae ahe’Malin’onn Lye’ehya. 

 

I remain the humble servant of our brotherhood,

Sachin Luerane el’Belethi 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 13 by Esterlen

[Zonty 457]

"What? . ." A flabbergasted Elverhilin stammered out, scanning the parchment beneath his studious gaze over and over; his brow was puckered, and the confusion only waxed. . .

[Johann 1417]

Within a Rael'uvuliran meadery an idling Tarem pours through the deputy clerk's accounts of the eclectic yet venerated clan and their exotic doctrines.

[Laeonathan 3968]

Similiar to Anordal the Younger, Raziel too was rather confused about the account about the Elverhilin talonnii; his eyes gaze over the writing. "I ought to ask Anordal the Elder about this..."

 

"Was he not a canonist, of sorts?"

[Lhindir_ 3436]

Valandos listened to one of his scribes that recounted the account to him, being illiterate himself, and snorted after each couple lines.