The Seven Fights I

[Editor's note: The following excerpts come from their lengthier versions in The Aldudaggavelashadingas, or "The Songs of Dragon and Dagon"; they are shortened here, as is the title of their parent volume. The songs herein are attributed to Bretonordic skalds of unknown number.] 

  

These were the days of Hoag the Greater, born in a boot...[Long after] the two bells [of the All-Maker's Goat] rang out their clamouring, calling the end of days again in Sarthaal and the world, and Alduin's shadow was cast like carpetflame on east, west, south, and north...[he was] epoch eater. For as far as any man's eyes, only High Hrothgaar remained above the churning coils of dragon stop.

And Alduin said, "Ho ha ho."

But, look! Seven more mountains remained through Mereth like Hrothgaar and the Leaper Devil King (a kindly leaper demon, to be sure, but their king) jumped across the nilphony swirl. He came to Alduin (who always eats Nords first) and said, "Wait, wait, wait! Wait! It is not time to destroy the world yet!"

To which Alduin roared and laughed and said, "King of Leapers, you always bounce up to me around this time (for you are one of the only spirits that can last til my last bite) and shout, 'Wait!', but I never do and I will not now. Leap up to Hrothgaar's top and wait awhile longer in little dignity. The two bells have went 'Gong! Gong!' and that means the kalpa has turned."

The Leaper Demon King knew all this was true but still he said, "Wait, first and last of spirits, the kalpa-turning is brought too soon and I can prove it! Look over there on top of Red Mountain. See the Greedy Man waving his arms?"

Alduin swallowed more of Mereth (this was the destruction of Njorvela and Teed County) and looked over. Indeed the Greedy Man was waving his arms as if to tell the time-eating dragon to stop. Alduin snorted gruffly (a few farms shot out of his nose but he caught them with his tongue and pulled them back into his mouth, for he eats it all) and said, "And the Greedy Man always waves his arms about around this time as if to stop me just like you. It is almost as if you two work together to delay me. Is that what this is? Is some other low spirit hiding portions of the world while you two do this thing? Is this why the kalpa-feast always takes a little longer than it did the previous time?"

And then Alduin looked hard into the eyes of both the Greedy Man (far away) and the Leaper Demon King (close up), one of them for each eye of his own, and he knew it was so. These two spirits gulped big, and were caught.

"Oh crap," the Greedy Man said, "He knows my bargain with the king of leapers, I'd better hide under my mountain!" but he thought and said all this too fast and, without thinking, hid under his mountain even though its base had already been eaten and so it wasn't all still there. (This is how the Greedy Man became trapped both in and outside of kalpas.)

"Oh crap," said the Leaper Demon King, "You have found us out, World-Eater! Yes, just after the two bells of the All-Maker's Goat sound the Greedy Man and I and our servants hoard bits and bobs of the world so you can't eat it all. And when the world comes back we sort of just stick these portions back on and so that's why it is all bigger and bigger for you to eat each time. But it wasn't my idea! The Greedy Man hates you so much and it was his idea to finally trap you one kalpa when it was all much too big and so you would explode out from your belly and die so that the world would never have to die again!"

Alduin (whose stomach was hurting because it was a little too stretched, which had never happened before, and now he knew why) grew furiously angry and boomed out, "You stupid little f*cker, do you even know what would HAPPEN if that happened, my dying and being unable to eat and the kalpa left to run forever? Why do I even ask, you who are a little low spirit whose only real power is jumping around? It is the Greedy Man I should really be mad at!"

And the Leaper Demon King saw a possible way out of this mess for himself but he nodded too eagerly, saying "Yes, yes, yes! Yes!" and the dragon knew that any mercy he might give to this little demon would not result in any true learning. So he cursed the king of the leapers, calling him Dagon, saying:

"The Greedy Man has already f*cked himself up good, hiding inside something that didn't exist anymore, but you: you I curse right here and right now! I take away your ability to jump and jump and jump and doom you to [the void] where you will not be able to leave except for auspicious days long between one and another and even so only through hard, hard work. And it will be this way, my little corner cutter, until you have destroyed all that in the world which you have stolen from earlier kalpas, which is to say probably never at all!"

Dagon (no longer a Leaper Demon King) screamed, "Please no! We have stolen from you so much and crammed it all back on in the craziest of places that it will take forever for me to regain my jumping kind of happiness! Especially if I can only come back to this world through auspicious days long between one and another that also require rituals! I beg you not to do this, O Aka! I beg you one hundred thousand and eight times!"

Dagon did as he said, begging Alduin Time-Eater to reverse his decision one hundred thousand and eight times, and halfway through this number Dagon shut his eyes tight to really mean it and then three-quarters through this number he began to shout his beggings to really, really, really mean it, but when he was done begging Alduin was not near the mountaintop he stood on.

In fact, after many looks east, west, south, and north, and seeing only the churning dragon stop around him, Dagon realied that at some point when he was begging with his eyes closed that Alduin had eaten him, mountaintop and all, and he had not heard the big chomp because he had been begging too loud. And he knew that the last world had been eaten entirely, except for its stolen portions, and that when the new kalpa began to form The Greedy Man (who never stayed trapped for long) would begin sticking these stolen portions back on in the craziest of places, and that he himself could never jump again until all was put back right.

He also knew that the name of "Dagon" would no longer be that of a kindly leaper demon but one who would destroy and destroy and destroy whenever he could find some small escape [from his home in the oblivion]....