There once
was an Iron Age village surrounded by rolling hills and a stream of water. They
had a surprising amount of political complexity for their era. Although it was
still not a democracy it still worked. They had a system of assembly which was
rather basic, similar to a jury. There was an assembly member named Merdden who
was walking down the high street of the village one evening. He was heading
down to the stream to gather more water for his family. Merdden knelt down,
with a heavy clay jug, and filled it with water from the stream. When the jug
was full he placed the jug beside him on the bank and just before he stood up,
he saw a un-moon like light coming from the stream. He was curious as to what
it was so he plunged his hand into the stream to investigate and pulled out a
silver object. As he thought of dropping it and running back home, he found
himself with the jug already back at his house.
The next day
Merdden forgot about the silver object and went to the assembly, not realising
that it was in his pocket. At the assembly building, they were all talking
about the previous evening before the meeting started. Another assembly member
said to Merddan, “What is that in your pocket?”Merddan responded saying, “Oh
this? I found it in the stream, I am unsure as to what it is.”Another different
member said, “Why don’t you put it where we keep the other treasured objects?”
They soon began to fight over this magical object.
Merddan was
an advocate for throwing it back into the stream and forgetting about it but
some of the other members were selfish and wanted to sell it off, as it
resembled a crystal. A couple of days had passed and they divided into
factions. The ones, who were for keeping the crystal and making them grow
wealthy, suggested a war against the other faction and so it was.
A couple of
weeks passed and they were in a fully fledged war – magic verses non-magic.
Plague swept the town and a counsel was called for the two factions to come
together and work out their differences for the greater good. As they were in
the meeting, with the mysterious object in the middle of the table, the object
turned a red colour and the table burst into flames. The factions ran from the
building and when the fire was extinguished the crystal was nowhere to be seen.
