Editing HC History (section)

=The Age of Giants=
'''In the Beginning – The Time of Giants, Hatha and Sird, The Making of the World and the Birth of Man (Sons of Lorn), Calla Queen of the Witches and Huth the First of the Gods.''' 

==The Making of the World. The Brothers Hatha and Sird==
The First Giants, the '''Rend''', were great workers of stone, and were driven by a great impulse. They strode across the world carving out mountains and valleys we see today. They wrought things of great beauty out of stone. To help them in their labours and people the world, they carved sons out of the rock. 

The names of most of the Rend are now lost, but two stand out and are known to this day. They are the brothers '''Sird''', wrought of basalt, and '''Hatha''', wrought of granite. Sird was carved first, he was the stronger and the more cunning of the pair, and the better craftsman. He is power and might in its starkest, most imposing form, and is desire, anger and vengeance. Hatha was wrought after his brother and was the wiser of the two, the more thoughtful, the lover of beauty. 

The pair made great mountain ranges together and wielded massive iron clubs in fierce battles with other Rend. They constructed the '''Rendwall''' which binds the east of the world, and made the great plain to the West which later became the '''Plains of Fire'''. In the south they carved out a great rents in the ground and this later became the '''oceans'''. They wrought great clubs of iron they had pulled from the ground, and used these to fight fierce battles with the other giants.

Sird’s desire and anger had transformed into a slow cunning. He had learned to pound his club, '''Niddighugger''', into an edge, and to hone this edge on the rocks. Hatha, considering himself wiser, stood apart from his brother and accused him of folly. This greatly angered Sird, so the obsidian Giant struck his brother almighty blow with his great edged club and cut him open.

==The Blood of Hatha: Water and Ice. Sird the Rendking==
The two brothers had fought one another many times before, and had fought the other '''Rend'''. But this was new. '''Hatha''' was cut open by the '''Niddighugger''''s iron blade and it was '''water''' which spilled forth from his wound; so much water that it filled the valleys, covered the lowest lands, and filled even the great rent in the ground, giving rise to the '''Oceans''' and the '''Seas'''.

'''Hatha and Sird''' never again quite understood one another, but from this act, much of the world was made. Sird called himself the '''Rendking''', cowing his subjects with his new weapon. Hatha was now creeping along the lowest grounds, his body long gone, having now no substance but Water. To show how different he was from his vanquished brother, Sird moved up to the highest of the mountains and built himself a '''great castle'''. Still he loved his brother, so he took some of '''Hatha’s blood''', the new thing water, with him. Filling his helm with water, he bore it up to his mountain fastness. But there, Hatha showed a cold indifference to his brother and the water froze and spilled out of the helm, turning Sird’s mountain retreat to '''ice and snow'''. At first, Sird was indifferent. He used the ice to carve for himself a '''throne''', to spy better upon the world. But in his isolation, only receiving occasional visits from below, he spoke to the ice and sent it south, in glaciers or in ice floes, to bring him news of the world. To his dismay, the ice never returned.

==The Crafting of the Sun ==
When '''Sird''' had made his geat blade of iron and sharpened it on the rocks, he had noticed that he also made great heat and sparks of light. So, seeking to relieve himself of the cold, he took his weapon and struck it against the rocks, many many times. He wore whole mountains down with his iron and gathered the heat up into a great bright burning ball. This ball of burning fire and light he named the '''Sun'''.

When he was done, though, the '''Rendking''' found he had no control over this new thing. In truth, the Sun was the first being to see Sird for all had been '''darkness''' before, and it told the King what a gnarled old creature he was and that he was too ugly to be in the Sun's radiant presence. Worse, the Sun told Sird that the only beautiful thing about him was his mantle of ice and snow; that is to say, Sird’s vanquished brother. So as not to risk melting this thing of beauty, the Sun said it would leave Sird's gloomy realm and take a place in the '''sky''' where it could gaze at things of beauty in the world. This it did.

==The Sons of Lorn – Man==
While King Sird was up his icy fastness, his subjects, the other Giants, were still driven to craft things out of rock. Now, though, they began to mix '''Hatha’s blood''' with their stone and they began to craft new wonders. Sird himself never did this and is known as the hardest, least malleable of beings. But the other Giants, themselves sons of the First Giants, began to make their own sons out of this mud. These were new, smaller, softer and suppler things and one of them, a Giant named '''Lorn''', noticed that the smaller and softer he made his sons, the cleverer they were, until they themselves could work the mud and make their own sons. This was '''Man''', although the first of the Men were great towering beings, larger even than our brothers we now give the name giants, or '''Sons of Lorn''' or '''Rendsons'''.

==The Daughters of Hatha – Woman==
While a part of '''Hatha''' was up in Sird’s Castle of Ice, he was mostly down in the lowest places of the world, unable to lift himself up and walk as he had once done. He saw his brothers and cousins, the other Giants, making things of stone, and regretted that he no longer could. He saw them take some of his waters and use them to make the new softer things, but he gave that no thought. Not yet. Instead, frustrated, he would fly into great rages and beat upon the stone, trying to do what he had been born to do, but he could do very little, only pound it into pebbles. The more he beat at the stone, the more formless it became.

Eventually, his rages died down and he grew calmer. He found he could little affect stone, as he had once down, but he could at least imagine '''forms'''. These forms, once imagined, began to speak to their father in '''whispers'''. This greatly pleased Hatha; he gave these spirits names, and so they became ever less formless, the first, and most powerful, of the '''Witches'''. Their whispers became the '''winds''' and they could fly freely through the world. They told Hatha of his brother, they told him of the Sons of Lorn.

==The First Great Magic and the Wedding of Man and Woman==
One thing that the '''Witches''' learned was that the Sons of Lorn were able to craft their own sons, replicas of themselves, out of rock and water. This was something the Witches were not able to do. Seeing that these sons of the giants would eventually be far greater in number than themselves, they grew jealous of the craft and thought to steal it. These Witches were great enchantresses. They went among the sons of the giants and stole an item from each and every one of them. Then they weaved a '''great magic''', a great spell which they used to wrest this power from the giants.

When the Sons of Lorn, in their rage, drove the Witches back into the Seas, they found they could no longer craft sons. But this was the first time the Witches had cast a great spell together, and it was imperfect. They were unable to wield this great power they had stolen. Inevitably, after ages of fruitless hostility, the '''Sons of Lorn''' and the '''Daughters of Hatha''' realised that they would only ever be able to wield this power in '''unison'''.