General Information/Misc/Holy Font

From Westaven

The "Holy Font" first became of interest when the scroll of "The Scroll, the Oracle, and the Holy Isle" was read to the Oracle of Trin; the oracles answered, "The holy font on the holy island---drown your birds, and see what you will." The men surmise that the holy island is actually the Trepindian "Holy Isle", and travel there--twice--in attempts to locate it.

Information about this mythic font is scant, but here is what has been gleaned to date:

• The old Fish Side "priest" was asked about the "fountain" on the Trepindian "Holy Isle" (which he had visited); he angrily shouted "I have spit at it from the sea... You ask Veek, he saw me do it!"
  
• On 4 Nov. 985 Nak'hat remembered lore dealing with an island (Trepindia?) and a holy font: "The 'thrice isled font' because it's on an island 'in an island' in an island ... whatever that means. The font was a place for ritual cleansings ... early national rites of Aenea. Not associated with any one god. The songs don't mention any specific one. But the ones I 'know' have them fighting over it, drinking from it and bathing in it. Sort of like a preferred piece of land. Miracles supposedly happen from it ... and it's said to be the source of the sea itself."
  
• Gereth also read "vagaries" about Trepindia in a book he inherited from James: “It appears that the gods and goddesses at one primeval time or another, gathered around a temple of Aeneus and declared it their seat of earthly power, and defended it against the forces of chaos, from which they spread out the life of the world. It was said this may be the heartbeat of their collective parent--the progenitor of the entire Westaven Pantheon, it seems. It is where the older gods seem to have stabbed him and drank his blood (?), and then used it as their life spring. On the other hand, the Holy Isle appears to be some sort of temple fortress, where they defended their worldy power. And finally, the font mentioned here was also the source of the oceans on the surface of the world.”8 Nov. 985
  
• Upon Yule's request the Keepers of Scrolls (a.k.a., "Greybeards") uncovered some mention of “holy fonts”: the holy font, the Greybeards found, was usually associated with early national rites of Aenea, such as priests cleansing the bodies of the dead, or even of mass cleansings of entire armies. The gods’ favors were reputedly given to drinkers or bathers in the water of Trepindian fonts. Mythological tales also exist of gods fighting over waters (“fonts”), as desert nomads would fight over an oasis. (26 April 986 log)
  
• Although not about a font, the Greybeards also discovered a myth of a Trepindian island which included water flowing: This island was called “Most Holy” (or “Holy Holy”/”Truly Holy”) in the myth, and it was once a mountain top looking down over a chaotic mist. Nothing existed but the mist and this one peak poking out of it. Into this tip of rock some of the gods, bored it seems, stabbed their weapons in sport. From the cut a waterfall flowed--which served as the source of the seas, and eventually of the land, for as the sea rose it floated continents up out of the mist, into the sun. Unfortunately, this mountain was no mountain, but the “crown” (head) of the weapon-wielding gods’ mother, and the water was not water at all, but her blood. They had killed their own mother. In grief, the gods deemed that both the waters and the island from which it flowed was “Most Holy”; they also created men (the ancient Aeneans) to construct a temple around it and protect it for all eternity. This temple fortress was to continually burn sacrifices to the gods, at all times and forever, to keep them strong, and to protect the Holy Water’s source. As long as they did this, the Aenean kings were granted permission to drink the flowing water/blood, which would give them the wisdom (“sight”) to subjugate the world. (26 April 986 log)
  

What in fact this "holy font" is--or whether it exists at all--remains to be seen, and may never be known.