Saint Yanige and the Dragon of Eselvehr

30 years ago, give or take a few to account for unreliable witness accounts and overeager storytellers, a dragon descended like a plague upon the fields of Eselvehr and northern Rosdravia. A Saint was called to service, asked by the goddess to destroy this evil.   20 years ago, give or take a few to account for poor understanding of the Sainthood process, the dragon was bound and imprisoned on top of the mountain it lived on, at the price of a Saint's life. Many stories are told of this; some of them have some truth in them.   A few years ago it came back.

There was indeed a dragon, and it is true that it was imprisoned somewhere in the mountains by Yanige, Saint of the Burning Meadow, at the behest of Nemia, Lady of Skyfire.   Yanige was 17 when his goddess called him to kill the dragon, and 29 when he finally defeated it. This much is known to all, though ages are often approximated.   The rest is known only to some Eselvehrians and, to some extent, to Nemia. The dragon - Tiasen Sias - was gifted a human form by parties unknown. A dragon's age range is different from human's, but Tiasen was about 19 when this story started. He came from over the seas, maybe from as far as Sayag-Emaht, maybe the unexplored areas north or east to the continent. He was a witch of some skill, experienced in dealing with and destroying spirits -- even the powerful ones Rosdravians called 'gods'.   Yanige and Tiasen met when they were 19 and 21, respectively. Tiasen knew Yanige was a Saint, though not whose or what his purpose was (but he had a few ideas Yanige knew Tiasen was some sort of a witch, though he did not suspect he was a dragon. They bonded over experimenting with nature of witchery and not falling off mountains. They didn't discover who each other was until few months after becoming lovers, a few of years after they first met.   It was a difficult situation. In the end, their relationship won and murdering each other lost. By then Yanige wasn't so keen on the idea of Sainthood and dying fighting other people's battles. Over the next few years Yanige and Tiasen worked to untangle what makes a Saint a Saint, and if they could be cut off their gods.   This did not make Nemia happy, when she learned (and it did not take her that long). It took her years, bound as she was to remain in her domain, but eventually her plans bore fruit. 10 years after they first met, Yanige poisoned Tiasen and bound him, in his human (and weaker) form, deep into the mountain. This probably saved Tiasen's life, but it killed Yanige, which was part of Nemia's goal.

A sanitised version, with no mention of the relationship between the Saint and the Dragon, was spread by Nemia's priests throughout all of Rosdravia.

In Rosdravian stories, the dragon is a villain bent on destruction, burning villages and stealing cattle. They say the dragon's wings were broken and torn away, that it was chained looking up at the sky in a cruel reminder of what was taken from it. They say the it was cast down from the sky into the deepest valley, only a sliver of blue visible high above, its wings weighted down with rocks. Its piercing cry can be heard sometimes, with the rising or falling of the sun.  

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The people of Eselvehr, who did not appreciate being liberated, tell a different story completely. The Dragon wasn't a nameless threat to them, he was a guest and a friend. They tell of Yanige differently, too: the Dragon's lover, the witch and the traitor.

The people of Rosdrav rejoiced at the news, and tell the story of the Dragon's Fall as a triumph of their goddess over evil.   In Eselvehr the story is told as a warning against trusting gods and spirits, and the treachery of people who give their lives to them.

Songs started to emerge within months of the Dragon's Fall.