Gille, The Bard of Falutia

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Between the treacherous forest where only foul spirits dared to tread and the wide waters of the Alamanthanine Sea, there stood the small kingdom of Falutia. And in Falutia, there lived a bard of such renown that his name was spoken in hushed whispers from the sandy shores to the peaks of the snowy mountains. The mere mention of his arts upon the lute strings sent a shiver through even the most brutal mercenary, for he was, without a doubt, the worst singer ever heard in those fair lands.

                His name was Gille.

                His singing brought to mind the scratch of dead branches against gravestones, and his lute playing stirred even the most war-hardened soldier to tears of despair. Wherever he went, always in cheerful song, the road cleared before him. Thief, trader, brave wanderer, or stalwart servant of the king, it made no difference. All fled at the first echo of his strains through the trees, and the birds migrated south no matter the season.

                In the spring of that year, the king’s daughter and only child was to have her twenty-third birthday, and as tradition dictated, it would be the year she chose a suitor to take up residence with her in the stately castle of Falutia. Lords, ladies, dukes, duchesses, knights and squires, minstrels and dancers, and most importantly, eligible princes came from all reaches of the land. Tents and pavilions sprang up. Sweet strains of music and the mouth-watering scent of delicious treats filled the air. Jesters jested, knights jousted, and wild celebration ensued, all to culminate in the day when the princess would choose her prince.

                Gille had been staying in a small fishing village, gracing them with his song, but the place seemed to be getting smaller and quieter each day. Men who spent their days on ships came to the inn at night and told stories of the exciting travelers and exotic wonders gathered at the palace. That was the place for a bard to be, Gille decided and left the next day. The villagers gathered to see him off with grateful and teary cheers.

                When he arrived at the palace and saw the wonderful scene before him, swirling dancers, leaping acrobats, nobles in elegant dress, and troupes of singers and players, Gille was awed and filled with inspiration. Upon seeing the beauty of the princess, he leapt onto a nearby crate and broke out in jubilant song.

                The palace fell silent. Every eye turned to stare at the singing bard. One of the knight’s horses, a noble and war-hardened steed, spooked and trampled a squire in a wild dash to get away from Gille’s voice. The princess clamped her hands over her ears and begged him to stop.

                “Enough!” cried the king, and Gille fell silent. “What is that ungodly caterwauling?!”

                “I only wish to take part in this wonderful occasion,” Gille said.

                “Then do it far away and where none of us can hear you!”            

                Gille stared at the angry and horrified faces around him. “Do you truly all wish me to leave?”

                A cry of assent rose around him, and one ill-mannered jester threw an apple at him. Gille slid off the crate and left, dragging his lute behind him. As he walked, turning his feet toward the north and the towering mountains, he strummed half-heartedly on the strings. “Maybe I was not meant to be a bard,” he said sadly. “But I love it! And this heartbreak only makes me want to sing more.”

                He lifted his voice and did just that. As he walked through the forest at the base of the mountains, the woodland creatures, stag and hare, lifted their heads, swiveled their velvet ears, turned, and darted away with flicks of their snowy tails. For weeks after he had passed, the hunters returned to their homes empty-handed, and their children went to bed with rumbling stomachs.

                But Gille passed on into the mountains, his voice growing louder and more triumphant with every step. As he sang, the stone walls caught his song and threw it back and forth until it had magnified a hundred times a hundred.

                “This is a place I can be!” he said happily. “The world sings along with me.”

Deep in the heart of the mountains, there lay a beast, a wyrm of fyre that had slumbered there long ere the cornerstone of the palace of Falutia had been laid. When Gille’s strained strains shuddered through the mountains, a golden eye opened. Lifting its great and terrible head, and opening its terrible mouth, the wyrm spoke:

                Ňŧůšţэ пфзж гбЮ Ẅǽ ƒƒƒƒƒƒ ŧŹłώ

                (As everyone knows, dragons only speak dragon-speak, which is too old and terrible for mortal ears to understand – or perhaps dragons don’t have the patience to translate – but roughly translated what the wyrm said was this: “GREAT DRAGON LORDS OF VARKNETH, WHAT IS THAT AWFUL *%#^ING NOISE?”)

                With a shriek of rage, the dragon rose from the mountains and plummeted like a red arrow toward the celebrating kingdom of Falutia. The cries of revelry turned to screams of horror, and the tents blazed with the wyrm’s fire. The nobles fled into the palace, locking themselves away, while the citizens of Falutia scattered in every direction.

                A few of them ran into the safety of the mountains, and there they found Gille (who was oblivious to the terror he’d unleashed). When he learned that the kingdom was under attack, he was dismayed. Picking up his lute, he resolved to return, hoping that he could offer some small help.

He found the charred remains of the beautiful tents and saw that the palace had become an island in a sea of fire. The wyrm was tearing at the walls, scratching at the stones with razor claws and scorching them with plumes of fire. A few survivors, who had been unable to flee, huddled in the ashy remains of what had once been a great and beautiful city.

                Gille, horrified by what he saw, could only do what he always did. He picked up his lute and began to sing, a heartbroken and mournful song. The dragon, who had been trying to extract a particularly plump soldier from a tower, turned its terrible head toward him.

                БЎ ωϊψбёљ Ъσςξ λκκ θЖ, it roared.

                (Which translates to: “UGH! NOT THIS GUY AGAIN.”)

                With a furious screech that shook the mountains, the dragon rose into the sky and fled across the seas.

                When the king emerged from the palace and saw that Gille stood untouched amid the destruction and heard the tale of how his voice had chased away the vile wyrm, he immediately went to his daughter, the princess, and begged her to marry him. “Who else but this humble bard could have ended the threat of the wyrm? His action deserves some reward, and what else is left?”

                The princess considered this in silence before she spoke. “Fine. But only if he puts that damn lute away. And we tell him that kings aren’t allowed to sing.”

The king eagerly agreed, and Gille was bathed in the warmest waters and dressed in the finest silks before he was brought before them in what remained of what had once been the great hall. When he learned of the princess’s offer and what all it entailed, he knelt and took her hand.

                “Good lady. Fine lady. Lady of unmatched beauty. It’s a very fine offer, but are you sure about the singing part?”

                “Very sure,” she said, extracting her hand from his.

                Gille considered before he rose. “Then I must decline. For the music of my heart will not, cannot be silenced. I pray you find it in your gracious heart to forgive me and that I have not caused you too much pain. I would never forgive myself if a single tear fell from your beautiful eye. Just the thought makes me want to sin—”

                “Whatever. It’s fine,” the princess said. “None of this was my idea anyway.”

                In gratitude for what he had done, the princess gifted Gille a lute of ebony and ivory and a ship manned with the most hard-of-hearing sailors she could find (after all, she wasn’t cruel). And Gille left Falutia behind for the open seas, singing the songs of his heart to the waves. Legend says he sails still and that even the sirens flee when they see his ship on the horizon.