phroims; so existence was quite safe and tranquil. Eibon, at least, was really in his element; for the news which he brought of Zhothaqquah, who was still worshipped in this region of Cykranosh, had enabled him to set up as a sort of minor prophet, even apart from the renown which he enjoyed as the bearer of the divine message and as the founder of the new town of Ghlomph.
Morghi, however, was not entirely happy. Though the Ydheems were religious, they did not carry their devotional fervor to the point of bigotry or intolerance; so it was quite impossible to start an inquisition among them. But still there were compensations: the fungus-wine of the Ydheems was potent though evil-tasting; and there were females of a sort, if one were not too squeamish. Consequently, Morghi and Ejibon both settled down to an ecclesiastic regimen which, after all, was not so radically different from that of Mhu Thulan or any other place on the planet of their birth.
Such were the various adventures, and such was the final lot of this redoubtable pair in Cykranosh. But in Ejibon’s tower of black gneiss on that headland of the northern sea in Mhu Thulan, the underlings of Morghi waited for days, neither wishing to follow the high priest through the magic panel nor daring to leave in disobedience of his orders.
At length they were recalled by a special dispensation from the hierophant who had been chosen as Morghi’s temporary successor. But the result of the whole affair was highly regrettable from the standpoint of the hierarchy of Yhoundeh. It was universally believed that Eibon had not only escaped by virtue of the powerful magic he had learned from Zhothaqquah, but had made away with Morghi into the bargain. As a consequence of this belief, the faith of Yhoundeh declined, and there was a widespread revival of the dark worship of Zhothaqquah throughout Mhu Thulan in the last centuries before the onset of the great Ice Age.
Cormoran and Cormelian
Some of the most interesting of the folk legends which have come out of England concern themselves with the doings of the Giants who, it is said, for a long time inhabited the bleak and inhospitable hills of Cornwall. To this day, scattered about that region, one finds many rude masses of rock which it would seem impossible were ever placed there by the hands of ordinary mortals. On every side one finds a Giant’s Chair, a Giant’s Punch Bowl, or perhaps a Giant’s Castle or a Giant’s Pulpit.
Some of the legends woven around these remains have been preserved. One of these has to do with a giant named Cormoran, who desired to build a home in Land’s End above the trees, so he could keep watch over the surrounding countryside. For a long time he worked, toiling mightily to carry and pile up huge masses of squarish granite rocks found nearby, and compelling his wife, Cormelian, to help him. The labor of lifting and carrying these great stone masses from their primitive beds was titanic, and Cormoran saw to it that the heaviest loads of stone were borne by his wife, who carried them in her apron.
Then, one day while her husband was sleeping, Cormelian, seeing no reason why a nearer patch of greenstone rock would not do as well as the granite, gathered an apronful of such boulders and carried them to the castle, now nearing completion. It chanced that the sleeping Cormoran woke in time to see that she was carrying, contrary to his wishes, green stone instead of white. At this he was exceedingly angry, and he rose, rushed to her, and with an awful curse gave her a kick. Cormelia’s apron string broke from the jolt, and the boulders fell from her apron to the ground.
And there the greenstone remains to this day, not far from the nearly completed white stone castle. No human power is sufficient to remove it. At Cormelia’s death the pile of greenstone became her monument, and it still may be seen resting on clay slate rocks where she dropped it. Later this famous rock came to be considered as sacred, and a little chapel was built on it.
