Did we mantion that we LOVE yu? AND animals? rofl All the voices are so happy, they're acting like Voice5! biggrin
now let's see if Voice1 can copy/paste the myth on here...
(*we* know this has nuthin 2 do w/Naraal, but *we* hope it makes Naraal's day!)
Hayel the Philosopher
During drought, or similar times of strife, we pray to Demeter, the rightful goddess of crops, to send rain. However, rain is water, and it falls from the sky. According to the ancient traditions, either Poseidon, the stormy water god, or Zeus, Lord of the vast blue sky, should be the master of the sweet rain. So why Demeter?
Why the gentle spring goddess? Why the winter-bringer? The answer can be found in the sands of time, when the gods were not quite as ancient as they are now. At that time, a great young philosopher walked the Earth among the mortals. His name was Hayel. (Pronounced: Hail)
Hayel was a man of great beauty. His appearance consisted of sea-wavy blonde hair, and the purest pearl-white robes that he always wore. And no one could quite remember the colors of his eyes. Perhaps they changed, along with the subtle flows and changes of the great world around him. In fact it was rumored -and it was quite possible- that he was a descendant of Narcissus’s neglected (and quite forgotten) sister. However not a single person, dead or alive, knew his origin. All countries claimed him for themselves.
They had a good reason. The kings back then were not he type to fight a war over one man. And indeed, no wars were ever fought over Hayel. Perhaps he himself had a turn in that. He seemed to have much influence on men’s minds.
He was noticed even before he opened his mouth and shared his vast amount of knowledge. Just being in his presence was enough. Everything that was him seemed royal, so that even his very being projected a nearly unbearable aura. His aura was so powerful, that if lesser minds stayed around him for too long, they would fall to their knees and cry out “All hail!”(As in “Hail to the king”) Because of this power, he was promised many kingdoms, and many princesses in the bargain.
However, Hayel had no fancy for worldly matters, and was always found to be wondering aloud at the mysteries of life, and the myths explaining them. He was not one to be satisfied with hearing and telling those tales. He was well aware that those were sometimes called “stories”. Someday he’d like to find out the truths about those myths for himself.
However much Hayel chose to reveal to man, most he held back. He knew the stories of those who meddled too far in godly affairs. There was only one who he felt was trusted enough to share the most complicated threads of the world with, and that was a minor sea goddess, just a nymph really, named Zephera.
Zephera’s realm was the foam, and she took pride in racing up the beach and racing back again, forever fleeting. She was probably one of the few things tying Hayel to Earth; otherwise it seemed like he’d just fly up to Olympus, he was so detached! Hayel enjoyed talking with her about all that he wondered about. She made it worth his while with her infinite patience and good-things-first personality.
Hayel:”…and Purseus and the Gorgon, first of all, there’s no real moral, or point, to it really -usually the gods know what their doing- or at least I hope….” He shifted his gaze to the sky, with an almost non-existent flicker to the Ocean. ”Furthermore, when it comes to Andromeda, the monster is said to have appeared and then been petrified, yet no fisherman reported anything out of the ordinary that day!”
“Huh…However they didn’t not say that something happened…”Zephera joined. She tried her best to keep up, on this discussion she was doing very well, but she tended to get lost on some of the broader subjects. But then, everyone did. “And of course the whole kingdom agrees with the myth…”
Hayel jumped back in: “But their stories have holes too! Some are very contradictory; while others seem to be fail-safe….that is if we assume the myth to be true…”
Zephera also seemed to have a serious side.
“Hades was actually kind of dumb to kidnap Persephone in broad daylight; he never thought someone would see him? I mean…” She then tried her hand at what was supposed to be the god of death with an attitude, but what really made her look like a swaggering, drunken goldfish. The notion (and the visual) was so absurd that Zephera succeeded in making Hayel laugh, a rare occasion.
However, her flippant nature soon showed through. At one point, she was said to have cheerfully agreed, “We’re all going to Hades in a handbasket!” Of course Poseidon noticed the both of them, but was intrigued by this man, and so gave mute approval.
However unaware may he be, Hayel needed a home. And so he found one. At the feet of Mighty Mount Olympus, a hilly village named Dion awaited him.
Dion was, in its entirety, probably the best place for Hayel to make his home. Dion’s proudest feature was it’s temple to Zeus. When a little town has something as grand as that, it tends to sit up and be noticed. But Hayel, once again, cared not for the lavish temples, the athletical happenings, not even the plays -comedy or tragedy- that always seemed to draw a crowd. No, the sole point of Dion’s appeal to Hayel was the fact that shore lay only 5 kilometers from it. For that reason, Hayel made the village of Dion his home.
Now, this was all very well and good. However not even a home could chain Hayel’s mind to the ground. Zephera’s presence helped, but it was the Sea that was one of his few sources of amusement. Not even the sky, or golden dreams of Olympus it seemed, could compare. With the flow and ebb of the tides, Hayel’s own thoughts danced and swayed. Poseidon became fast friends with him. Hayel was respectful towards, marveled at, asked of, and shared his thoughts with the Sea, and the sea god. Poseidon marveled at the mind of this mortal, yet barely ever answered, and if so, in a way to provoke more questions. Hayel was such a convincing skeptic, that Poseidon sometimes found himself doubting the real Myth!
Many months passed, and around this time that a change came over Hayel. Zephera was the first to experience it.
“O-Kay, are we gonna try our hand at creating a new myth, better suited for explaining why humans have to water crops by hand (Poseidon really should work faster on that thing called rain, if you ask me. He seems to have hit a rut or maybe he’s just lazy…) or shall we take a ‘dive’ (har har) and try something random again?”
“Nrrr…”
“Hell~o Hay~el! Earth to the high-in-mi~nd!” Naiad sing-song voices are powerful communication devices; it was the only thing to pull Hayel out of…wherever his mind went.
“Oh sorry, um what? Oh yes now’s topic Err…”
“What monster got into your brain and had a snack?’
“If you must know, it’s a monster called knowledge. We never want a little; we want a whole Kingdom of it. I and every man, woman and child on the gods’ Earth. To tell you the truth, I’m tired of not knowing the truth!”
“(Zephera feigning Hayel-ness) Huhwazzat?”
“Stoppit Zephera.”
“Okay, okay. We’ve been through this before, the gods have problems don’t let them hear us say that, yadda yadda. How come you’re so intense all of a sudden? You usually just breeze right through the day, looking at the clouds, looking at the fields, looking at thin air, talking to yourself…”
“Zephera.”
“What?”
“You misunderstand. I want the gods to hear me this time. I want answers to my questions.” That day’s discussion ended early.
No matter what, Hayel’s mind was pinned to this yearning. The yearning to find the truth. About the myths, about the gods, about the world.
It was a few days later that Hayel made his way up Mount Olympus for an audience with the gods. He packed little, said farewell to Dion, and began to climb.
So, so high, he was just a snow-white speck in the ocean of rock and ice. Boulders the size of young titans and their ancient pets enclosed around Hayel. As he went on, he found ice and snow in the place of dirt and mud. Twice he slipped, yet didn’t seem to be distracted. Mount Olympus is vast; the only known people to climb it have been demigods ascending to the gods. It was not meant for mortals to climb. Hayel couldn’t have been found, even if he wanted to be.
Before long, his breath became short, and his limbs numb. Yet on he climbed, a devoted seeker of mankind’s secrets.
He went higher than anyone had before, and soon his flesh began to shiver. The subtle sheets of ice seemed so much bigger now. Or did he just feel smaller? He let his mind dwell on that for a while. Old habits.
For every step Hayel took, his body slowly froze, until he was little more than a walking man of ice. But he did not die. His mind was already too close to the immortals.
Inevitably, Zeus began to notice this speck of a man, daring to scale the home of the Gods. And now…Zeus began to worry. The higher Hayel strode, the closer to godliness he became. Hayel would find the world’s secrets, and would bring them down to Earth. This must not happen, thought Zeus. There are things in this world that mankind must never know.
So saying, Zeus chose his smallest, thinnest lightning bolt, took careful aim, and fired. It hit Hayel perfectly, doing no damage to the landscape. And Hayel, already frozen whole, shattered into countless pieces.
Down from the sky fell the angry stones, hitting everything in their path. Some of them fell in the sea, with varying sounds. Some went floosh, some went zip, and still others decided to be silent, and twinkle in the underwater symphony. The giggly naiads made much noise in watching the “show”, so much that it was brought to the attention of Poseidon. He made his way to the biggest part of the hubbub, shooed away the naiads and began to think on these white pebbles from the sky. A brotherly prank? No. Poseidon remembered the white of the stones; he knew those handsome twinkles, and most of all he remembered that man who was unattached to this world, now more than ever. And Poseidon…was very angry.
They say that brotherly bonds are close, but those bonds can be shattered with ease; such as the murder of a close friend. And Hayel and Poseidon were close friends indeed. Different waves accompanied the sea god now. Waves of grief, which were quickly replaced by anger. (For humans it lasts a moment or two, but gods have never been good at letting go of grudges.)
To give those feelings an embodiment, Poseidon turned his face to the clouds, bellowed out Zeus’s name, and began to summon a giant wave, one that swept up all the hailstones in the Ocean, which was quite all of them, as the rest rolled down into the sea.
The wave was huge; a behemoth of it’s kind. A wave so huge, containing all of Poseidon’s grief and rage, that it seemed to be made of all the world’s oceans.
His attention caught by his brother’s cry, Zeus turned his face downward toward the sweeping giant, frothing in fury. Taken off-guard, Zeus looked around for something -anything that could be used as an able-bodied shield. All he could find were his storm clouds, great fluffy gray things they were, like giant sponges in the sky. He formed a hasty cloak, wrapping himself in a cottony cocoon. Poseidon’s wave hit as accurately as Zeus’s thunder bolt had, and was absorbed evenly by the storm clouds, which now looked none too cutesy.
Afterwards Zeus escaped from the clouds, now swollen with the weight of the behemoth wave. Poseidon had used up all his energy in forming and powering the wave, and took to silent grieving. After both brothers calmed down, they were left with the problem of this movable floating water. Poseidon wouldn’t take it (Even though it was water and his “invention”) because no one wants to be constantly reminded of a great loss. However, Zeus was not eager to be around something that if not watched closely, (and no volunteers from the other gods, big surprise) could kill him. It was that destructive, this “rain”. And so in compromise, Demeter was chosen to master that rain, and she used it for good purposes. Mankind no longer had to move water by hand unless it was absolutely necessary.
Along with rain, Hail falls from those black clouds, bonking people on the head. Hayel is still trying to pound knowledge into us, what he found at life’s end. But we can’t fathom the meaning of these rude interruptions. Perhaps we never will. Mankind was not meant to know everything.
But Hayel’s story will not end there. As long as the world turns, so will the pages of his “story”. Also, in passing, Poseidon had the hailstones melt, and, when they reached the sea, (as all water does) they would join with the foam, creating the pure pearl-white color -no matter how stormy the sea, it would always be calmed. So, Hayel would hear more tales as he floated around, many times invisible, on the crest of a wave. Zephera readily welcomed him into her realm, and they took up the sport of racing. (That’s why the sea is always running away from itself) Therefore, Hayel’s thoughts would go on forever, racing joyously with the foam, the ocean, and all of world’s secrets, which he finally found at last.
.....really-very long Voice1. This was a school project, BTW, tht's why it's a bt awkward in thar...
'sa well.
Hope yu enjoyed! 3nodding
