Many great heroes and gods walked through the world in the Bad Times
and we all know there names, but do we know the names of those lesser beings
who also helped make the world good but were perhaps not so great or powerful?
One of those lesser beings is known by many names - Dung Boy, Patty Boy,
Walking Boy and so on. He is known by the Praxians, Pentians and Orlanthi,
but few realise that he is known by anyone but the local people. Here are
some of his tales.
First he went to Orlanth and asked him for the secret of how to make
spirals. Then he went to Ernalda and asked her for some healing earth.
Finally, he went to the Cow Mother and fed her some new grass. He whispered
some words to her and gave her the healing earth wrapped in the grass with
the spiral at its heart. Cow Mother listened to what he said and agreed
to his request. As she walked, something new happened. Whereas before she
produced a constant slurry of dung now she dropped dung in a spiral shape
and in a firmer form. Instead of a lake, she formed a number of pats. The
youth followed Cow Mother wherever she went and picked up the patties when
they had dried. Every so often, he would stack all the patties in a mound
and call this his castle. In this way, the land was kept free of foulness
and the youth was called Dung Boy. [1]
The people called a meeting and all who were not fighting came. They asked the gods for help once again but were refused for they feared the Great Winds. They asked their friends, but they were powerless against the Great Winds. They looked at themselves but they had been beaten by the Great Winds. Finally, one youth stood up and addressed the meeting. "I am Dung Boy," he said, "and I clear up the dung from the Cow Mother and her daughters so that the land is made clean and fresh again. If you promise to remember me, I will help against the Great Wind." The people laughed at Dung Boy and threw stones at him, but one old woman rebuked them saying "If none of you are brave enough to stand against the Great Winds, how can you mock one who is?" Shamed, the people asked Dung Boy what to do. He showed them how to coat the walls of their huts with the fresh dung of the Cow Mother and her daughters, how to mix the dung with grass and use it to shore up the damaged walls of the farms and fields. The people filled in the holes in the walls that let in the Great Winds and sat and waited.
The Great Winds came and blew on the fields, but they could not blow through the freshly repaired walls. They moved to the farms and blew again. Enraged, they moved to the huts and blew on them, but even the tiniest holes had been filled and they could not get in to hurt the people, so they went away.
The people rejoiced and promised to always remember Dung Boy. Every
year when Earth Season ends, the people call on Dung Boy and repair the
walls of their huts, farms and fields with fresh dung or dung and grass,
filling all the little holes so that the cold winds cannot enter. [2]
Once, the world was not as it is now. The Sun had gone and the Sky
was dark. Winds roared through the Plains and the Clans were cold. Some
of the Great Spirits had helped heat us, but most had gone. Even mighty
Kargzant and his Star Horses had deserted us, leaving the Clans alone as
he fought the Darkness. The Clans had burned the children of Aldrya, but
her children had all gone and the Clans had forgotten that skill. They
called on the Fires of Heaven to help them, but they were too far away
and guarded by Angels who would not listen to the cries of mere men. At
last, a youth volunteered to help. He was one of the Walking Slaves, not
even of the Clans, but he was comely and clever with his tongue. This youth
promised to help the Clans as long as the secret belonged to him and his
descendants and the Clans agreed to this demand.
The comely youth asked the Horse Goddess for help and requested that
she give him that which she and her daughters threw away in such great
abundance and that was left on the ground and forgotten. The Horse Goddess
agreed for she had no need of it. He then asked the Grass Goddess for a
twist of dry grass and she agreed for she had an abundance of dry grass.
Finally, he asked the Falling Stars for a little of their starlight for
him to keep in his twist of grass and they agreed for a little starlight
was not a great treasure. With all these things, the comely youth returned
to the people and entered one of the yurts. He made a pile of dried horse
dung and put the twist of grass under the pile, breathing his magic on
it, and the starlight leapt out and embraced the dung above it, filling
the yurt with a sweet smell and a forgotten sensation - warmth. The comely
youth showed the people how to keep the fires going and how to collect
the dung and they thanked him. From then on the Clans always had fires
in their yurts and an inexhaustible supply of material to burn. [3]
Dung Boy is known to the Praxians and it is he who collects the
dung of the plains and uses it to make fires, using similar myths to the
Orlanthi How Dung Boy Cleared the Land and the Pentian Yurt Fires,
but their Dung Boy is simply a young child who does these things. The task
of collecting and drying the dung is given to the children of the clans
and there is no organized worship of Dung Boy.
The Unicorn Riders of Prax have a story where they capture a youth
who had crept into their camp. As their law was strict, they were about
to slay him when he fell onto his knees and begged to be forgiven and promised
to reveal to them a secret that only he knew. The laws said that he could
be spared if he taught them something new, so they listened to him. The
comely youth whispered into the ears of the unicorns and asked them if
he could have as a gift their dung, as they had simply thrown it away before.
The unicorns agreed and watched with interest as to what he would do with
it. The comely youth gathered all the dung together and showed the Unicorn
Riders how it could be used to heal wounds and even cure some diseases
if used when fresh, or could be used to grow healing herbs if used when
dry, or could be burned to drive away the biting insects that plagued them
on the plains. The Unicorn Riders were pleased with this and agreed to
release the comely youth. Now, these abilities are gained through the Yelorna
cult as Dung Boy taught them to Yelorna herself. Some say that the daughters
of the comely youth were trained by Yelorna to do this task, but nobody
knows for sure.
2. This was prompted by my wife telling me that whenever she goes back home to Bashkiria in the autumn, all the people in the little villages make sure the huts are warm for the Russian winter by covering the walls with dung so that there are no holes for the draughts to get through. I immediately thought of how this could be used for a peasant setting in Glorantha, which probably says a lot about me.
3. There is a vendref cult of the Walking Boy, or Dung Boy, that is known in the Praxian Tribes. Members of this cult have the duty to collect the dung of the horses and cattle, dry it out and use it as fuel for the fires in the yurts, for the Riders consider it unclean to handle dung. The cult teaches the skill of Firemaking, the Spirit Magic spell of Ignite and the Divine spell of Campfire (2 points, Reusable) that causes a fire to be lit and not to go out for the duration of one day or one night, although it must have enough fuel to be fed for the whole day/night.
4. The spirit cult of Dung Boy in Prax provides the Divine Spell of Disguise Scent (1 point, non-stackable, Reusable) that enables the user to disguise his scent for 15 minutes so that those smelling him will think that his scent is that of the creature whose dung he has covered himself with. It is often used by hunters to fool their prey.
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