Bowmoths

Bowmoths are a species of insect, or possibly a group of species, that is occasionally found around the shores and islands of the Sea of Jars. Although they are popularly regarded as moths, sharing the papery wings characteristic of such beings, some commentators see them as more akin to bees. Although of minimal economic significance, these moths are a cherished feature of maritime culture in the Eleven Cities and regarded as good omens by Sailors on the Sea of Jars, a point that makes them of passing interest to some thaumatologists.    

Economic significance

  Bowmoths have no intrinsic economic significance to human society. A full-grown adult bowmoth is less than an inch long, with a wingspan of less than three inches, and is of negligible weight. Those with the temerity to catch and eat them have found them to be unappetisingly bitter and lacking in substance, and though they do, like bees, industriously produce a potentially valuable output, humans can gather that output themselves rather more efficiently. Bowmoths come into contact with humans due to a shared habitat, in which their behaviour has granted them cultural and symbolic significance.   Bowmoths are littoral creatures seldom found more than a mile or more from the shore of the Sea of Jars. This means that they are a fairly common sight in most of the Eleven Cities, particularly the southern and insular settlements. They are crepuscular, and can often be seen flitting silently about the cities, particularly their docklands, around dawn and dusk. What makes them particularly noticeable is the colours of their wings. Rather than being the dull grey or brown of other moths, bowmoths exhibit a variety of rich pastel colours, most commonly blue and green but sometimes purple, peach or - more rarely - reds and oranges. Their attraction to the lights kindled by humans emphasises these colours, because their wings, being semi-transparent, appear to concentrate the light through which they fly. A blue bowmoth who alights on the hood of a lantern, for example, will appear to glow with a soft blue light. Some who live far enough from the sea as to not have seen this maintain that the moths are in fact bioluminescent, but this is not the case.   Bowmoths are drawn to human communities because they feed on salt and the mineral impurities found therein. They are often seen alighting near rock-pools to gather the salt that is left as the rocks dry after the tide recedes. Human settlements create large flat surfaces where seaspray may condense and then dry, leaving salt residues, hence the moth's interest in humanity. The salt that individual moths gather is not eaten but taken back to the moth's hives, in much the same way bees collect nectar. Bowmoths are social creatures who live in nests where the salt is used to manufacture the chalky, pale green substance that the moths actually eat, and feed to their young. Humans can grind this substance into a palatable substitute for salt, but compared to gathering sea salt this is a labour-intensive process that few people bother with.   To those who live on land, therefore, the moths are little more than a picturesque commonplace of coastal life. To sailors, however, bowmoths have notable folkloric and symbolic significance. These animals occasionally build their nests in out-of-the-way places on ships - over the side rails or under the bowsprit, for example. The moths who build such nests gather the salt that collects on the surfaces of the ship as it sails the Sea of Jars, and thus flit around the ship at dawn and dusk. They often   On such ships, the consensus is that the moths are esteemed passengers whose business should not be interrupted. Their privacy, furthermore, should be respected; should a member of the human crew actually discover the nest, they typically leave it undisturbed and do not reveal its location to anybody else. Many sailors regard these passengers as good-luck charms of a sort. Should the nest be damaged or destroyed, such as in a storm, superstitious crewmen may well regard their voyage as ill-omened.  

Thaumatological significance

  As picturesque phenomena, bowmoths have an emotional impact which led to a profile in pre-Wesmodian mythology. A long-standing story tells of a young fisherman named Kolrahan who, while travelling down the Chondolos River to sell his catch, became enamoured of a village girl named Xellen. The two plighted their love for one another, but Kolrahan could not abandon the sea to be with his landlocked belle and thus stole off on the dusk before the wedding and returned to his old life. Zargyod, touched by the dedication of this young man to the sea but appreciating he would no longer be completely happy there as a person, transformed him into the first bowmoth. Meanwhile Dahan, noting that Xellen is similarly miserable and has taken to haunting marshy areas to try to understand her beau's attraction to water (for she has never seen the sea) turns her into a marshmallow plant, in which capacity she continues to do good for her community. The story is widely told throughout the southern cities where the bowmoths are most common and receives its canonical literary treatment in The Time of the Gods by the Pholyan poet Pindaros.    This closely associates the bowmoths with Zargyod, who is both the god of the sea and the god of fortune. This point would explain why the moths enjoy such a good reputation among sailors. A commonplace of popular thaumatological speculation has it that there may be some way of harnessing the moths in rituals to either court good fortune or manipulate the weather or waters. Ezynon Moronyad, the famous cataloguer of maritime superstitions, has dismissed this possibility, arguing that the superstitions surrounding the moths is an intergenerational echo of pre-Wesmodian efforts to commune with the moths themselves as spirits of the sea, and that by doing so the sailors of the past were able to coax greater performance out of their ships. This contradicts the mythological origin of the moths but remains an intriguing possibility for research suggested by an esteemed mind in the field.