Eorl

Foreword

In recent times, much has been made of Eorl's forthcoming biography, causing no small amount of anticipation in certain scholarly circles. This is no doubt due, at least in part, to the particularly colorful background attributed to this rogue as popularized by the ballad which bears his name. Indeed, the difficulty in bringing this life to publication stems directly from the startling tendency for researchers to discover that what had long been considered well-known facts from Eorl's life were later found to be slander spread by his detractors, which was then found, still later, with the application of additional academic scrutiny, to have actually been true all along. But the history of a man -- or in this case, an elf (for there is no question he was full-blooded High, despite the many aspersions cast on his ancestry) -- is not merely the agglutination of details culled from apocryphal anecdotes; it is the narrative throughline of who he was, who he became, and why he became so. This, then, is the adversity faced by every biographer, but here it is especially extent because of the interminable wealth of documentation from certain specific periods in Eorl's life and the equally profound dearth of information regarding others.

With no facility for letters until middle age, it would be unreasonable to expect Eorl to have kept his own memoir, as Pepys did, or to have revealed himself through reams of correspondence to peers, as so many more erudite individuals have done throughout the ages. Instead it falls to an eclectic patchwork of documents bearing his name to tell Eorl's melancholy story: the minutes of an Elven High Council meeting during the Suevi wars of independence, the scrupulous ledgers of the Radhanite caravans in whose employ Eorl crisscrossed Europe, the very earliest of dramaturgical texts from the famed monastery at Gandersheim, and, indeed, a steady stream of records from the government annals at Üsküdar, which continues to trickle, even at the time of this writing, new biographical data concerning Eorl's tenebrous career there as self-appointed protector of that city.

With such disparate sources the need for synthesis is twofold. First, it is necessary to reconcile the data presented by the texts with one another, and, to the greatest degree possible, this has been done. Second, it is necessary to harmonize the manifest history divined thereby with all prior understanding of that age. This proves a somewhat greater challenge, and has been the source of a more than incidental amount of anxiety on the part of the author.

To this end, the decision has been made to serialize Eorl's biography here, as soon as each component part is hashed against the standard, rather than foist the completed tract, undigested, into the spotlight. Also, formatting text for the wiki is irritating and best if done piecemeal.

May what follows live up to expectation, even if its subject never did, quite. If this history has been correctly compiled, the narrative should strike the reader as a reflection of the life it describes: earnest, persistent, and, despite all efforts to the contrary, sublimely fallible.

Enjoy.

A Note on the Text

The term 'Saltus Svarzwald' as applied to the general area of the Black Forest, and especially to those parts encompassing the territory of Baden-Württemberg, has a tradition almost as old as the Schwäbisch dialect from which the title is derived. An exact translation to English which gives the full impact of the majesty implied is difficult, but taking cues from the Old Latin, the descriptor 'saltus' can be taken to mean 'leaping'; not in a physical sense, but rather an ontological one. That is, as colors can 'leap' from the canvas or fire can 'leap' from the hearth, so does vitality leap from the Black Forest. It is the ancient home of the elves and what remains of Hercynia Silva, the legendary forest that halted the seemingly uncontrollable advance of Gaius Julius Caeser himself.

If "the Black Forest" is the name given to the geographic location, Saltus Svarzwald is the name for that region's spiritual counterpart.

Eorl of Saltus Svarzwald

Eorl of Saltus Svarzwald, known in his later life as Eorl the Confessor, is the uncharismatic elven thief who joined the quest to prevent octopus resurgence in early 987 AD, while traveling along the outskirts of Finland with the Polish fighter Jannish. He grew to be a dedicated supporter of the cause, eventually becoming vice governor of Chrysopolis in the hopes of transforming the city into a bulwark against the threat of cephalopod tyranny.

Early Life

Born in the Black Forest around 863 AD, Eorl's childhood was marked by persistent disobedience in school and at home that would have severe consequences for him later in life.

The elfling of Alaterial, a dressmaker, and Itarildë, a minor functionary in the court of Baron von Württemberg, Eorl was raised with all the comforts lower-middle-class elf society had to offer. Around the age of 22, his parents employed their social connections to gain him admittance into kindergarten, where he soon showed no potential and demonstrated far more interest in pilfering his classmates' wefzgeneschter than acquiring skill at letters. While expulsion from kindergarten was unheard of in elf society, after Eorl’s ninth year of repeating the first-year curriculum, the school politely misplaced his reapplication petition and dropped him from the roster. As a result, Eorl entered his young adult life illiterate and his father became the laughing stock of the baronial court.

With the road to a professional career forever closed to her son, Alaterial pressed Eorl into an apprenticeship as a dressmaker and, surprisingly, he demonstrated appreciable talent with a needle and thread. Unfortunately, Eorl’s transition into young adulthood negated any benefit on his morale that this might have had. His endearing elfling features gave way to a decidedly unattractive countenance which caused a sharp decline in his mother’s business. Since Alaterial’s clientele consisted almost entirely of ladies-in-waiting from the Sidhe court (and were thus largely dependent on maintaining their unearthly beauty to preserve social standing), mere word of Eorl’s poor looks was sufficient to drive them away (for fear that his ugliness might rub off on the threads of their new gowns). Within the space of a year, commissions dried up to nothing and creditors began dunning in earnest.

With his family teetering on the brink of financial ruin, Itarildë desperately appealed to his employer von Württemberg for aid. The baron was not known for his kindness, but for reasons unclear until much later, he was willing to lend his support and granted Itarildë a sizable bridge loan. Alaterial turned Eorl out of the house and into the Black Forest proper, there to do as he pleased, while she attempted to restore her reputation with the Sidhe.

Despite being shunned by much of the elven population of the Black Forest, this was a time that Eorl would fondly remember. He wandered all over the woodland, sleeping on moss beds and drinking rainwater, sometimes traveling for many months at a time without anyone placing demands on him. Eventually, however, the regular isolation led Eorl to a deep yearning for companionship. Because the other Sylvan creatures mostly ignored him and humans tended to be wary of lone elves, it wasn’t long before Eorl found himself once again on the outskirts of the elven settlements. He managed to inveigle himself back into his parents’ home and pulled his weight by doing piecework mending and occasional garment repair for costumed players. This could have led to a content, albeit dull, existence for Eorl, had it not been for three things.

First, in 917, the tide turned against the Alemannian forces under Duke Erchanger and the German king Conrad I was finally able to lay claim to disputed Swabian territory, including wide swaths of the Black Forest. Baron von Württemberg – whose considerable wealth was dependent on keeping Conrad I’s long-reaching hands out of his coffers – began calling in debts to assemble a martial force sufficient to rescue the captured Erchanger and restore the Alemannian stem-duchy’s independence. When Itarildë received word that he was to repay his debt by joining a detachment of elven infantry being sent to Franconia, he summarily fled, fearing the campaign would end in disaster (this was prescient; Württemberg’s militia, though very well-equipped, was routed by loyalist forces and Erchanger was executed that Spring).

Further clinching Eorl’s fate, Itarildë made the weighty decision to disown his son, afraid that under the Edict of Hereditary Ties young Eorl would be pressed into the baron’s service in his place. This was a double-edged sword; it kept Eorl from dying on the muddy banks of the Altmühl, but lost him birthright recognition in the eyes of elven society. The disinheritance carried with it no immediate material impact, but the stigma would preclude Eorl from establishing any pledges of kinship until demonstrating his heritage by departing for the Grey Havens. He could continue to live among his elvish brethren if he chose, but to them he would be a cipher.

If this wasn’t bad enough, the troubled Eorl slipped further into delinquency. Arriving at last into elven adolescence, he developed a pastime of spying on elfmaids while they bathed (an offense which frequently led to Eorl’s ears getting soundly boxed by the constabulary). His shenanigans eventually escalated into out-and-out depravity and he was dragged before the Elven High Council after being caught with a formidable number of lacy unmentionables. Alaterial, still waiting for the other shoe to drop with von Württemberg’s retribution over her husband’s disappearance, declined to pay Eorl’s bond-price and thus placed him at the mercy of the Council. With his long history as a public nuisance, a deviant and a general ne’er-do-well, the verdict was a foregone conclusion.

In 933, at the tender age of 71, Eorl was exiled from the Black Forest and sent forth into the world of men.

[FORTHCOMING: CHAPTER 2, EXILE]