Three Hills
The Myth of the Three Hills is a common myth shared by the majority of Elondor’s major religions. It tells the story of the creation of the first humans by the deities associated with life and death (or characters with similar attributes) on three separate hills, laying the foundation for three races or nations.
Description
Details of the story vary between cultures, but certain core elements are almost universally present. The Three-Hills events usually follow those of the Divine Sequence, with the creation of humans often considered the last step in the latter. The narrative is centred on a pair of divine sisters, usually associated with such attributes as life and death, birth, fate, fertility, soil, decay, or memory: so the Olgish Ilgar and Elgeka, Besokian Kônôwîs and Kôdâlon, Iilish Èglaman and Èglamir, Armundic Faena and Fērecca, Ni‘ian Nana Tua and Ma‘a Nū, amongst others.
The sisters are absent or passive during the previous events of the divine sequence, either waiting for their turn, usually on a sacred mountain (so in the Olgish, Iilish, Besokian, and Armundic mythologies) or not yet in existence (so Ni‘ian and Kalparian, besides others). They are awoken by the creation of the sun and the lighting of the first day. Following this signal, they wander across Elondor in search of the appropriate place to create life. Mythologies vary with respect to the duration of this search, ranging from a relatively brief and only marginally described journey in the Lonsorigi to ages of travels and battles between good and evil in Armundic stories.
Irrespective of the nature of their journey, the sisters identify three sites as suited locations for the awakening of life, three isolated hills, vaguely in the west, centre, and east of Elondor, travel to each in turn and create the first human beings. Again, narratives vary as to their other actions, many including the creation of plants and animals, either in stages progressing over all three hills or in one event occurring at the first hill. The creative substance for humans is usually a kind of fruit, so an apple in the Seligonian religions and the berries of a hawthorn bush planted at the first hill in the Olgish, Iilish, and Besokian versions. The latter narratives additionally include the creation of a separate class of guarding beings before the creation of humans on the following day, either at the first hill (Olgish and Besokian), in which case 13 guardians are created, or separately at each hill (Iilish, nine guardians). These guardian beings are given free choice over the form they wish to take and given the task of dispersing into the world and watching over its course. This episode remains somewhat obscure in Iilish and Besokian writings (and does not appear in the latter beyond the Besokian Cosmogony) but plays a core role in Olgish religion, where the Pacasgila are revered spirits and personally appear in legends and myths (most prominently, the figure Master Twine in the Book of Seligon).
The exact number of humans created likewise varies, but is more consistent across cultures, with usually four to six humans created per hill. These tend to be presented as couples, oftentimes framed as progenitors of nations, so explicitly in the Lonsorigi and the Besokian Cosmogony. Some traditions confidently name these first individuals while they remain anonymous in others. Consistently, the young populations remain at the hill of their creation until dispersed by further events. The sister goddesses either remove themselves from the sphere of humans, having accomplished their task, or remain to nurse and teach humanity.