1.........Title Page
2.........Dedication [not included]
3.........Table of Contents
4.........Introduction
5.........Omens of Glory
6.........The Testament of Ignacious
7.........Analysis & Conclusion
9.........References
10........Raven to Crow Tongue Index

-
INTRODUCTION

Much like the shadows of yore, the great change of the forest of
Gloriana has been often hailed in many pieces of scholarly transcripts
in a general manner, an overview that has lead to sweeping over many
grand details of the Wyrd and its adaptation. It is the author's will
and intent to focus upon the singular, and important transformation upon
the Raven Circle which occurred and unfortunately was glossed over in
the compiling of the histories of the Basin. With the illustrious
privilege of being allowed within the depths of the tree of the Murder
of the Blacktalon, the author stumbled across several old sheaves of
parchment that had a quite tattered, ratty appearance and by all
accounts have been verified as altered documents of the Raven Circle
before their final evolution to the Wyrd itself, becoming daughters of
Crow.

With these discoveries, the author knew without one shred of doubt that
her search for their transformation would grow to be a lesson to all
Druids and perhaps, all of the Glomdoring. Continuing in her quest, many
years passed and as a decade flew by across the glorious, thriving of
the Wyrd their began to be enough evidence to see the vision of the
Raven Circle. Though their names have been long lost to legend, the
Circle itself was composed of three women all alike in their worship and
dedication to Wise Raven. As the Taint infected the forest of Gloriana
there was very little option to prevent it spreading throughout Nature,
as weak as Nature was, they knew at least by their own narrative that it
was possible that the Raven Circle would be no more. How they cowered in
fear of Rowena and Brennan's infected minds as they sought to devour the
fae, their cries of 'F'ai Glomdoring!' Muffled by their lack of
understanding, the blind eyes of Wise Raven, the Raven Circle managed to
survive from nest to nest and tree to tree.

Then came change, perfection upon the delicate features of the Lady of
the Summer Song, who began the great change where Raven was no longer,
and the forest of Gloriana itself began to blossom into the flower that
is the perfection and superiority of the Wyrd - Nature improved, nature
beyond its own evolution. And while the broken seal of Nature surely
left its mark, and the conflict of sealing Kethuru lead to great strife
for the Basin it was Glomdoring that grew and rose up, never to be
weakened as Gloriana was. This brought upon the first Wyrden
renaissance, the Song of Mahalla saw the rebirth of Glomdoring and its
truth and like the Raven Circle, understood that the Wyrd was beyond
reckoning, beyond the eyes and minds of mortal ken.

Yet, through their own hands and these documents the author has
collected and translated from the speech of Raven and Crow, we see the
testament to their acceptance of the Wyrd and its unfathomable glory.
And we see that even the Raven Circle, as small as it was is due to the
creation of the Lady of the Summer Song, the Lady entwined in precious
rose and thorn. While some of these documents may be narrative, there
are some transcriptions of rituals within them that show over the course
of the pieces the author managed to combine from the many odd pieces of
literature segregated by the negative effects of oxidization, bad
preservation process in the library of the Murder and the quality of the
vellum involved.

-

[A shred of a faded document detailed in Gloriana's leaves has been
pressed meticulously upon the page here in old, calligraphic script that
has been scribed in carmine ink that glitters and gleams with each
shifting of the text when lifted to turn to previous pages or those
after. Author's notes are carefully scribbled within the text, notating
the differences between current Crow tongue and that of Raven, which is
written below. Just above such is the introduction to this section of
the document titled, 'OMENS OF GLORY' or 'K'haim Oari M'kei.' ]

Loire k'zlia ekha'l ki mor'k'al tzyai morth'mor Delmoire d'liom
K'gloranai q'th m'kal t'zer oari rel'k'sza v'sli v'iaz (a tribal
pictograph of a Raven in flight is drawn here, faded in black ink as if
stamped then filled in) *

Fe'l'D'iom Hion ehki q'wi K'gloranai fih nacht'chi n'h paz fa tyza
ri'vz*

K'z'lia fih d'ur k'z'lia ej kl'kal'z (a tribal pictograph of a Raven in
flight is drawn here, faded in black ink as if stamped then filled in)
k'les ki k'z'lia Loire q'th t'ral-kee'd d'rua *

[The next several strands of Raven tongue are very faded, but enough to
pick apart under a magnifying glass. The script on these particular
passages seems to have been written with extreme haste or carelessness,
leaving it both messy and disorganized. Each new line break is followed
by a smear or stain, which has been with all attempts and purposes been
reduced or cleaned up to provide a clearer look. Pictographs are clearer
in several of the last segments of text towards an illustration of a
billowing fire marked by a crude 'x' shape and swirling ink lines for
tendrils of flame.]

Dha'cree l'ek ve siall,
Hai'luna l'ek ve dha'crul
Hai'hamja l'ek ve dha'crul

Du ska ve Glorianafelorah
Est szell ka rzuim
Du trai est brukha y'llelen
Skhal est desvrati kollo thuin
Thuin, thuin, thuin

[While the last section and several the lines of the document seem to
bear heavy notation, the rest appears intact, leaving ample space for
the translation below in black ink.]

The bright spirit of Sister Moon greets the deathly void of Gloriana's
Mother Night with strong harvest of tidings as we have settled to
worship wise Raven. It was when Father Sun shone bright that we stood at
the Gloriana Tree and met with them in peace, their words inciting us to
go wander the forest by the river. She-who-was sister, and
she-who-was-second sister came alongside me this day, conversing in the
glorious tongue of Raven and teaching those of Sister Moon that there
were similar goals that the Spirits held within their all-seeing hearts.
It was there by the river-bank that we danced and spoke of many things
by the fire, the great circle of life that ebbs and flows beneath our
feet, thriving like the waters itself that rush across the great emerald
sea, through the trees. It is Raven that lifts his ever-sweeping wings
to bring us the whispers of the trees, the Gloriana elderwood know His
touch, as much as they know of the Dark Mother and her gentle Sister,
Moon.

Despite the peace that cradles us and those who-dance-in-light, we sat
by our crackling fires and the rushing tide that drove us into easy
dreaming. My eyes fell into rest, as did my sisters and those who had
shown us Sister Moon's soft-lit wonders. And when I awoke, the smoke was
thick and talon-like upon the laurels of flame that blew like a great,
towering tree. With a high, trilling cry I woke the others in warning as
the haze encompassed us all and the banks which were kissed with its
many colours. Like masks of ancestral spirits the smoke grew and shaped
with many visions, the crackling flame spoke in the tongue of fae with
great whispers unlike that of the silent language of tree, root and
soil.

Those of the light were afeared, but I was not as it began to speak. I
rose to my talons for the ground, and into the smoke that was as cold as
the flames were warm. Faceless was the voice the echoed into the depths
of my head, haunting me, calling me to listen:

/Shadows will fall/
/Moonlight will darken/
/Sunlight will darken/

/The sky of Gloriana/
/Will fill of smoking doom/

/The trees will break and bend/
/All will know sorrow soon/
/Soon, soon, soon/

There was a waning in those of who-dance-in-light, each of them feeling
the inevitable pull of something within the formations of each licking
tendril of flame that turned and spoke with such ferocity. My sister's
faces were of pure terror, and I could only look on as each part of the
smoke dissipated just as Night began to fall as Father Sun slept. Like a
song, the words lingered, and all that was left was the echo of them in
the still air. Wondering what this would mean, all thought and uttered
prayers to the Spirits, and I felt a sense of dread creep into my heart
that the wise Father already knew of the portents. Would he fear as I
fear? Would he accept them, prevent them, allow them? I tended my own
thoughts with silence, as those already voiced theirs. The panic of the
expressions of my sisters told me all that I needed to know, and in mine
own they found the disturbing clarity of the truth of wisdom.

We parted from those of Sister Moon and walked to the Gloriana Tree, and
stood at her roots which dug deep in the dark, fertile earth and we
called in hopes of summoning Father Raven. And upon this, it is where he
lost the first of His eyes.

-

THE TESTAMENT OF IGNACIOUS:

[Author's Comment: This testament, by a young druid several years within
the new Murder of Brother Crow depicts the first views of Crow's
teachings as well as the thought process thought to be reminiscent of
the renaissance of neo-druidism. While there are very few, if at any
records of Druid Ignacious in existence within the Murder's library,
there is the small mention of him within the footnotes of some texts
long crumbled with the age and damp of the wyrden swamp. In his style of
writing, it appears he is more akin to the lines of a peppered scholar
who has sought many journeys of the mind and body with success.]

-

The universe is, has and will be. In answering one thing, it cannot
answer another unless the question you pursue is what you desire. Borne
of this, the Wyrd is last the answer and the first, where reality is,
has and will be. The Wyrd is thought not yet chiselled, the half-truth
of paradoxical reasoning and the final rush of in the death of the mind
in its glory. All of these things, to past, present and future are
revealed in its inevitably consuming machinations where my sight is and
will always be, to protect of those that seek perception of its
teachings.

Many of these things I have been, the unreachable, the temptation of the
scholar, prophet and warrior. To crave of knowing, to feel wonder of the
blindness before the vast illumination of comprehension in the mortal
condition within all who wish to find it is of my design.

Design. The universe grants us each with our own, to make that which is
favourable to us from our births, by the actions in which we gather the
knowledge to create, to build and war. The design, within the self is
unique, chaotic, consequential and rare. Only in the gathering others of
our likenesses do we see the threads of common designs, entwining like
strands of time to hide or reveal what is known. This is, in philosophy
one of the core principles of the Wyrd.

And in its darkness, I fall betwixt that which I knew from birth and
what mortality has perceived as truth. With the visions from the Wyrd
always changing, the riddles of Fate, forbidden and serene, the great
cleansing will and shall fall upon the dawn of a new age.

Without prediction is the mortal condition, and much like the Wyrd, we
are of its reflection without realizing our actions entwine to its will.
This idea is not a void, but a vision above that which is understood to
be of divine perception from the Lady Viravain, it is the realities of
the Basin we as mortals cannot see. Harsh in nature, raw, grit and
without yield, yet a changeling within the fabric of mortal actions. And
it is of this that the Wyrd sees, and knows?

[Several of the lines of translation from Crow speech to the common
language are broken, as if this part of the document had been marred by
oxidization and fading ink. The author has marked in several indents
where it appears to fade in and out, merely guessing within the confines
of the text to glean the words from within.]

What lies within the Wyrd is both looking glass and veil, what we gaze
to know is what we wish to see, and in the images in my minds eye, they
unfold as the rose. One petal may flare, revealing the depth of the
colour of what may come in a blossom that may flower regardless of
season or environment and yet what other petals may reveal the beauty of
knowledge that has meaning through truth? Will such things die, or
flourish in the bloodied soil? And what design within their waters might
they have that possibly fit within the grandest one of all? Creatures
composed of thoughts live as we do, and die, but return. They are locked
within the eternity of a circle, which revolve in directions that sight
itself cannot find.

Those that which embrace the Wyrd find enlightenment, whatever this may
come to be of their design. Dangerous paths lie in wait for those who
navigate its brutal nature, just as much as fortune favours boldness,
and your emotions without rule within the grace of it shall condemn you
to madness. Gone are days where the inferiority of the stepping stone of
Nature has meaning, the Gods themselves concealed what the Lady
Viravain, the forest of Glomdoring give to you as free, should you wish
to accept its embrace: Knowledge, unburdened truth, actuality as
bloodied and whole as the battlefields of insight that all mortals
stand. Potential, boundless freedom is realized within the Wyrd, when
the veil of a clouded dream world is removed, the banishment of
ignorance fulfilled, and the purity of self revived.

What one senses as bliss and nirvana are only brief foretastes of the
thin layers of the Wyrd encompassing the mortal vessel. Your thoughts
may take you there, but unlike the void of which were dreams are born;
there is conscious action, decision, and awareness. The prophets of
divine have known of the sensations through visions, portents of the
Dark Pantheon, each of their flavours of thought sampling from the Wyrd
to allow inspiration through forwarding its growth.

Without realization, this concept extends all around the designs and
outer designs of our Basin, the Fates, coming and going at will
regardless of what may rule with powers absolute and immortal. One may
access it as easily as searching for what one cannot know upon
searching, or even gazing into a mirror to examine the self which is
created in the Wyrd to do the fates which you have not done or have yet
to have done.

In this, a wyrden to a new disciple is a protector, to assist with these
experiences of mystery, to take to the vines of passion, creativity, and
the understanding of the secrets of the Wyrd, which, up until now, has
remained as such. As it is new to me, it is new to you, and we must dare
to explore that which we should know on our path.

All before us is without illumination, in our lives and within those of
others. Mortals share obstacles, beliefs and obsolescence? The act of
desiring objects, that are not needed, the perceived opulence of your
social hierarchy. You are burdened with purposes in your lives that
chain you to be within illusions that you may see, but deny in your
self. The impurities of what one harbors of these things can be seen as
undeniable, inevitable as the Night, your vision blinded by what things
you feed into your soul without knowing what they mean. But do not
despair, for as we are blessed with the eternal gift of endless life and
a death without true meaning, we have the means to overcome these
misgivings with the power of knowledge, truth and wisdom.

To begin upon this path, you must contemplate within yourselves the
acquisition of objects and goals in your lives. What do you desire to
acquire, both in the material and immaterial? Then, in the following
thoughts, meditate upon what you truly need within the design of your
self - Will these things assist you in the success of untethering you
from burden? Or do they not?

The act of amputating your deadened or scarred self cannot harm you
despite it being the path less taken. There, upon this labyrinth of
ravenwood trees, obstacles are common, creatures of light and
inferiority will attempt to snare you and the temptations of comfortable
ignorance beckon you off from the shadow of enlightenment. In these
challenges, you shall find your strength, your fears, your sorrows
within them purify you, and the knowledge you gain educates you to be
above others that walk paths devoid of inner peace.

Do not mistake the act of purification for the view of the concept of
order. What can be pure to you is not to others. Their own journeys upon
this path will not be as your own as what commonalities you may share
are far and few in between that those differences. You can only share
the balance of your self when it is mastered to a level of satisfaction
that is never reached, and then, as you all strive, the peace and
understanding of the knowledge you all gain and share makes you
unbreakable. In this, there will be chaos in this conglomeration of
paths, to the subtlest extents and to its maximum.

You must recall, that each of your designs is a chaotic segment of a web
yet to be woven, in death, in life, your constancy is only found in this
cycle. Chaos, as I mean it, is something that derives from a place of
balance, where prey and predator meet to overcome and grow strong. It is
how we master and harness chaos that allows our reflections in both the
Wyrd and this realm to become clear.

-

ANALYSIS & CONCLUSION

Over the course of the years that the author has continued to uncover
the documents surrounding the transition from Spirit Raven to Brother
Crow, there has been up until now very little success with the
translation process involved around keeping these documents fresh as
well as deciphering them. Within these documents, as sparse as they are
- there have been many revelations and discoveries that have lead to a
higher understanding of how the Spirit changed through cultural aspects
as well as linguistically. Some nuisances in the complete technical
aspect of linguistics are how Spirit Raven's tongue is a softer form of
what we hear from the sacred mouths of Druids today. And while most of
these aspects and comparisons cannot yet be fully revealed through the
discovery of these several documents, we have a brief glimpse into the
Druidic based languages which seem to derive from some parts of the fae
speech which is a language of the natural and spiritual world used by
both Glomdoring and Serenwilde. In one particular passage, we see in
comparison to others with Crow tongue how there is no word for the
common tongue word 'me,' while there is only 'I' within Crow and 'we'
within Raven's own tongue. What would one draw from these connotations?
Was there a cultural shift that happened to cultivate the Wyrd and
refine it?

More evidence of such refinement and cultivation can be found within how
Raven speaks the Crow word for 'Moon,' which is Loir. Due to the
preservation of the script, the author was able to discover that Raven
tongue added extra femininity in their 'e' sounds much like that of
elfen or fae tongue to allow for a smoother, more rapid speech. While,
Crow tongue is harsher and more guttural, truer to the self and
individual. We can also see this change in words such as 'Delmoir,' the
word for Mother Night which also adds the feminine 'e' sound in the
tongue of wise Raven. A cultural discovery, perhaps along the lines of
anthropology within the Glomdoring - Is the use of pictograph to depict
a symbol of worship, which we see in 'Omens of Glory,' in several of its
clearer lines. There is no sacred name for Raven, perhaps due to the
devoutness of the spirit's followers, or perhaps they were in the midst
of evolution themselves when the time struck for the Wyrd to be born and
thus Crow named himself Doim.

The neo-druid philosophy testament of Ignacious is quite the find as it
was nearly all intact and preserved in the tighter folds of the bottom
shelves of the Library of the Murder, in short it reflects many of the
aspects of Crow which are still taught today within the Dark Forest. And
while the prophetical words from the fire of the Daughters of Raven, now
Crow were merely the foretaste to come in a long line of miracles which
revived and strengthened Gloriana into Glomdoring - the author believes
there are many more discoveries to be had concerning the reasoning of
how Raven lost one of his eyes, and why the murders of Crow are also
one-eyed in sight. The transformative changes that are seen within this
conflicting time through the documents rings clear. That the Wyrd
ultimately revived and changed the forest of Gloriana for a greater
purpose, to serve its glory and will to evolve Nature from its weakest
to the stronghold that it is today.

-

REFERENCES

"The Crow Tongue," by the Blacktalon Guild.

"Dark Book of the Blacktalon," by the Blacktalon Guild.

"A Short Interview of Xenthos An'Ryshe" - dated 421 CoE.