Legend of the First Padwell
Written by J-Haskell.
The first Padwell is an old legend detailing the origins of the Padwell family and the priesthood of the Marsh King, taking place at an unknown point in history before the Elder Drakes’ conquest of the rest of the Realm.
The exact details vary depending on the telling, but this is a standard enough version.
. . .
The marshes of Padwell were not always a home for humans, not even the family from which it is named, and the Marsh King was not always our protector. Just as the Elder Drakes and Xocrians were consumed by the swamp, tangled and drowned by its trees and rivers, so once were our ancestors.
They lived in the mountains of the Sunflecked Reaches, part of the griffon-taming hill tribes of High Heart that still call those heights home today, although none of them were of high status. The First Padwell was a young woman, sitting on a cliffside overlooking the vast wetlands to the west, and wondered why no one had explored there before. ‘It is haunted’, the village elders had told her as a child, ‘those swamps are no place for a human.’ But was it really?
One day she left at dawn to hunt, but instead of simply stopping in the forests lower down the mountain, she descended further. It took days, but eventually she stood on the brink of the marsh. The water was black and the canopy so thick that only the barest light passed through. It should have terrified her, but it felt like home. She walked along the edge of it, where the ground was still dry enough to stand, and lamented that she had not thought to bring a boat.
But she did not want to waste the trip, so she climbed along the trunks of fallen trees and into the waiting branches of still-living ones. All around her she could hear the sound of the marsh, like the very swamp itself was breathing; the wind whistling through the trees, the songs of countless birds and the shrieks of unseen animals. Each time she saw an animal and drew back her bow something lurched in her stomach and she could not bring herself to kill.
But she loved the place. The trees and water and animals of the swamp seemed so much more alive than the clear blue sky of the mountains, and each time she visited she stayed longer and longer.
She was an old woman when the accident happened. The branch she had balanced on so many times before, that had bore her weight without complaint, cracked and sent her crashing down into the water. The impact nearly killed her instantly and pain followed each breath, but her only thought was that this was not such a terrible place to die.
As she closed her eyes for the last time, she felt for the first time something other than the hostility of the place she loved; a blossoming of respect. The Marsh King embraced her in death, moved by her love for the marsh even as it killed her, and allowed her spirit to wander the swamps even after death.
A few years passed without a single other human stepping foot into the swamp and the Marsh King began to long for another that would embrace it like the First Padwell had. That was when her children arrived. They had grown up on the stories of their mother’s exploring and love for the place, but also the reality of her death there. They stopped at the water’s edge, staring at where their mother’s hand-carved canoe sat, sun-bleached and abandoned.
The Marsh King waited. Then, cautiously at first, they climbed into the canoe and rowed into the swamp. But this time it did not fight the encroachment; the water seemed to part easier than expected, and the rows did not dig into the mud and roots only a few shallow feet away. The marsh welcomed them.
A white heron appeared to the children and landed at the edge of their boat before flying off into the swamp. They followed it and it led them to food, to some of their mother’s old supplies, and then to her body at the heart of the marsh. It sat, serene and untouched by time under the surface of the water, and then the white heron began to glow.
Two figures emerged from that light; the ghostly image of their mother, smiling and happy, and the Marsh King himself, a twisting visage of feathers and tree bark and scales.
“The swamp will ever be your home,” the Marsh King told them, “for what your mother once loved now loves you. I name you Padwell, for I promise that you will never again lose your footing in my realm again.”
Their mother smiled at them and handed them a carved wooden mask, painted with the greens and blues and blacks of the swamp, and then the spectres vanished, leaving them alone with the bird and their mother’s body. One sibling wanted to stay, to watch over her in death, while the other wished to go back to the mountains and bring anyone who could come with them into the world that had now opened itself to them.
They parted ways there; one stayed in the heart of the swamp, clutching the wooden mask and a fallen white feather, while the other travelled back alone. Their tale was met with scepticism when they returned, but many of the younger and poorest villagers were eager for a new start and followed them back into the swamp. They could not find their way back to their sibling, however, and eventually settled in the place that would become Padwell’s current capital, Maddox.
A few years passed and the swamp became a real home. The land did not fight them and as long as they were not greedy, things were good. The first death was an old man passing in his sleep peacefully. Preparations were made to bring his body back to the mountains for a sky-burial when the other child arrived, shrouded in a cloak of white feathers.
Their sibling was shocked, thinking that they had died, and welcomed them back with joy. They told them that they had been spoken to again by the Marsh King and offered a place at his side, becoming their first priest. Now they were here to take the body away to be placed with their mother’s, where the Marsh King could watch over them.
The old man’s family was unsure of whether to accept this strange new custom or not, but eventually decided that the swamp was their home now, not the mountains, and their dead belonged here. The other child simply nodded, handed them a mask painted with the butterflies that the old man had loved so much, and vanished into the swamp with the man’s body.
Each time that someone died, the other child would appear to collect the body, giving a mask to their family and then vanishing. As time passed and their siblings had children and grandchildren, they took on apprentices and trained them in how to care for the dead and communicate with the Marsh King.
Although generations and years have since passed, these customs have been passed down to the priests and leaders of today.