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 ten (Olgish) or 13 (Besokian) 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.

Origin and Distribution

Like the Divine Sequence, the myth is extremely widespread among the religions of Elondor, to the degree that its recognition was considered the hallmark of a ‘true and right cult’ (nauman artib i dírik) during the early and religion-centred years of the Lécaronian Empire. It is first attested in the early Bronze Age Besokian Cosmogony, dated to c. 2900 B.E.B., but seems to have a significantly older origin, appearing in almost identical form in the Third Kingdom of Abreshahar (c. 2600). Possibly native to Avalian mythology, the myth could have been propagated west by early Besokian explorations and from there made its way into Belkondíl and Geran. As equine domestication in Oakshire cannot be assumed before 2300, however, these journeys would have to have been undertaken by foot or boat, and no record of Proto-Soskish explorers is retained in Dasmilian writing. An alternatively proposed Nokimi origin would explain the story’s almost simultaneous appearance in Belkondíl and Seligon, but the written record of the myth in Nishûnâc predates the assumed arrival of Nokimi colonists in Seligon by 200, and presumed Nokimi activity in the Gulf of Seligon by almost 400 years.

The story’s consistency across cultures provides for another puzzle. This includes the propagation of seemingly unimportant or obscure details, such as the introduction of the 13 guardians in the Besokian Cosmogony, never to be mentioned again, or the strict specification of both the deities’ and the first humans’ gender in even the oldest Olgish accounts, which are otherwise known to omit such information entirely.

Identifications

Virtually all religions recognizing the story of the Three Hills posit them as real locations, rather than mythological or symbolic sites. While most traditions explicitly name the hills, the names are rarely found to apply to real locations, and if, this is usually true only of the hill closest to the culture in question. All traditions vaguely agree that the hills are spread out over Elondor, the first lying in the west, and the third in the east, the second variably in the centre of the world (so suggested for Nishûnâc), in the mountains, or in a forest.

First Hill

The First Hill is located in a vague west of Elondor. With the spread and dominance of Olgish culture and religion, this site is almost universally identified with the Hill of Ortûlék in northern Belkondíl and its three nations as the Géni (usually identified with the Aribelians), the Olgs, and the Auls. The Lonsorigi give a detailed account of the events at this hill, the only they mention by name (then merely adding that ‘and thus it was done again upon a hill in the mountains, and again upon a hill far to the east’). In this account, Ilgar and Elgeka, having descended from the Shea’voch, climb a hill on the bank of the Cëlac river ‘in the west, in Ortûlék’ and on its summit plant the Seed of the Old World, thus creating all plantlife. On the hill itself grows a Hawthorn bush, which bears fruits on three consecutive days, from which the Pacasgila, animals, and finally humans are formed. The goddesses then move on, creating humans at the second and third hill.

The Besokian Cosmogony, naming all three hills, lists the first as Kâmârod ‘heart, soul, life’ but does not go into detail about its location beyond placing it ‘in the west’; while otherwise following the general narrative, the Besokian version does not explicitly identify the sites as hills, only introducing them by name. The Old Besokian World Map curiously omits a location labelled as Kâmârod, suggesting that the site was either not considered real at the time of its creation (c. 2200 B.E.B.) or the name had fallen out of use by that time. The map does include one hill on each side of the Besokan estuary, however, which might indicate two concrete locations that had become identified with the First and Third Hill. The western site is labelled M.EN.ÂR.ÎM.OR, possibly with a meaning ‘cult site, holy place’. It has later been identified with the hill of Telassin near Nendem-Tinar, which features prominently in the Book of Seligon narrative Of the Curse of Etherin.

While mostly accepted in Lécaronian times, the identification of the First Hill with Ortûlék is persistently challenged by the Kalparian church, who assert the second hill was located on an island in the estuary of the River Kalpa that drowned in the Great Flood.

Second Hill

The location of the Second Hill is the least consistently designated, mythologies variably placing it in the centre of the world, in a forest, in the mountains, or even simply between the other two hills (so in Kalparian mythology). The Besokian Cosmogony identifies it with the real-life hill of Nishûnâc, placed at the centre of the Old Besokian World Map, and this identification is widely accepted and was even remarked upon in most annotated versions of the Lonsorigi. It is widely associated with the Iilish people.

Kalparian doctrine locates it further north, tentatively in the Kernogori or near the Pass of Yan, possibly even identifying it with Mt. Andaron.

Third Hill

No accepted identifications of the Third Hill exist. The Lonsorigi merely place it ‘in the west’, and scholars of the Olgish church have variously placed it in Old Selgion, Ukkar, and the Armundic Valley, identifying it with, amongst other locations, the Twins of Carandol, the Inisberg, or even the Shea’voch itself.

The Besokian Cosmogony names the hill Nôrâshet ‘Land of Summer’, a term later applied to Old Seligon as a whole. The Old Besokian World Map already reserves this designation for the lands east of Nishûnâc; the hill marked east of the Besokan estuary is labelled M.ÊN.ÂR.ÛN.Û ‘halidom’ and located on the shore north of either Kirospel or Margnan. It can been identified with the hills of the Gnangar or the Besokan estuary, or possibly the Beahal of Loskilón.

Most attempts to place the Third Hill assume a location in Seligon, associating it with the Seligonian peoples, in particular the Armundians. The Seligonian religions compete over the exact placement of the hill, each generally attributing it to their own central area.