Novel Title: Withstanding Trials
Time Setting: VI17151
Genre: Fantasy
Minimum Word Goal: 90,000
Timespan: September–November
Locations: Finscéalta, Inis Neamhaí, Taoiseach Finscéalta; Inis Faireoir, Taoiseach Finscéalta, O’Enne
Main Characters: Aodhán Ó Maolmhuaidh, Saraid Ó Caoimháin2
Background Information:
Located in the easternmost reaches of Ureonaiea, O’Enne is both the easternmost and southernmost country in Ureonaiea. It is comprised of thousands of islands which, according to local legends, were created for a race of people who left the realm of the gods to live on Ureonaiea, and were persecuted for their immortality.
Fleeing this persecution, they headed for the realm of the gods, but were stopped by a storm and told by the gods they could go no further, so they settled on the islands and worshipped the gods, to whom they sent their dead in unmanned boats.
Legend also states that their first king was the son of the demigoddess Enne, and that because she loved the people of the islands so much, they all came to be identified as her sons, and thus the islands were known as O’Enne, because when foreigners arrived, the locals introduced themselves as the sons of Enne, or O’Enne.
This first king died in VI391, and it is held in tradition that the current monarch is descended from him, and so has the faintest strain of demigod blood in his veins, however, the traditional polytheistic religion is no longer the majority in O’Enne.
Owing to the complexity of the language of O’Enne, communication with foreign peoples was difficult until it was discovered that the language of Aifos was similar — which the people of O’Enne explained by saying that when their forebears were fleeing persecution, four boats of the party of twenty were lost, and that the people of Aifos are the descendants of those boats’ occupants — and as a result, the people of Aifos were able to pick up the language of O’Enne the best.
As a result missionaries came from Aifos proclaiming other religions, of which only two have taken hold, the one was initially known as Universalism3, while the other was known as ‘Aloneism’ owing to the five ‘alone’ statements that its proponents proclaimed.
Universalism arrived first, in the VI700s, and was initially resisted by the population until the King of O’Enne was converted. His son was also converted, and when he became king, he slaughtered adherents of the traditional beliefs who would not convert to Universalism.
In the years thereafter Universalism merged with the traditional beliefs, taking on many of the traditional festivals and superstitions, although there remained people who refused to mingle Universalism with the traditional beliefs.
Aloneism arrived in the VI1500s, when it was accepted by a nobleman whose territory is the only part of O’Enne where it is the majority. The rest of O’Enne, not liking Aloneism any more than they initially liked Universalism, reacted against it strongly, with a revival of sorts coming along and creating a second branch of Universalism, known as Truism, which has expunged much of the traditional polytheism from Universalism, and is adhered to by most of the nobility, as well as the king himself.
The only two groups that somewhat coexist are the Universalists and the traditional believers, although the Truists can, for the most part, tolerate the two of them. The Aloneists try to live at peace with everyone, but since everyone is hostile toward them, it’s easier said than done.
Matters have not been helped by the difficulties that have come to O’Enne in the last century and a half or so either, as each of the religious groups consider the others to be the cause of these misfortunes.
The first misfortune to arrive in the VI1550s was the itch, a disease which afflicts the sheep from whom many — especially in the north of O’Enne — make their living in the northern reaches of O’Enne, where the landscape is made up of rocky highlands.
It is named because it’s first symptom is the sheep scratching itself on anything it can find, but it isn’t merely a case of fleas, but a degenerative disease that is uncontrollably contagious, which led to the creation of laws banning the sheep on O’Enne’s largest island, where the disease first appeared, from being sent to any of the smaller islands, whose flocks remain untroubled by the disease.
Second, in the later VI1600s came the blight, which affected O’Enne’s potatoes, which are grown in abundance in the south, with a series of severe years of blight forcing many to abandon their farms for the cities.
Thankfully, the last of O’Enne’s major industries, fishing, has so far been unaffected by any plagues, but considering that the third plague, of sorts, is affecting the citizens themselves, that’s not necessarily heartening.
The third disease to affect O’Enne was a disease known as spots owing to the spotty rash that erupts on the skin of the infected. It first appeared in VI1712 in the slums that had developed around the cities as former potato farmers and shepherds, having lost their livelihoods to the blight or the itch, flocked to the cities for some means of provision for their families.
Initially it was suspected to be a disease of the poor, but in three years that myth has been dispelled as the disease has spread rampantly not only in the slums, but among the wealthy, as well as spreading across O’Enne as people who’d gone to the slums fled them in order to not die, but inadvertently carried the disease with them.
As a result, things look incredibly bleak for O’Enne, and the fact that many people in each of its religious groups are inclined to believe that the fact that their religion is not the only religion in the kingdom is the reason for the troubles isn’t making things any better.
Born the ninth of twelve children and youngest of six sons, Aodhán was one of only three sons living when he was born. His father was the cousin of the King of O’Enne, and Aodhán was second cousin of the Crown Prince.
His grandfather was the Chief of Gealach, and the oldest living younger brother of the previous King of O’Enne, but his health was failing and, as his oldest son, Aodhán’s father had taken on day-to-day management of the Chiefdom, thus Aodhán was born in the Chiefly Castle.
When he was two, his grandfather died and his father became the Chief of Gealach, and Aodhán became the third in line for the title after his brothers. As a result of his father’s being a Chief, which was second only to the King in rank and power, Aodhán was given a good education, even if he wasn’t slated to become a Chief by inheritance.
Things changed two years later, however, as Aodhán’s second cousin, the Crown Prince, had a fatal riding accident while vacationing at one of the royal estates ahead of his wedding, and his death devastated the King, whose health deteriorated rapidly until he died a year after his son, who had been the only one of his sons to live long enough to nearly get married.
As a result of the King’s sons all being dead, and the fact that all of the kings brother’s had predeceased him without producing sons, Aodhán’s father, as the oldest living son of the King’s uncles inherited the throne and became King of O’Enne, which made Aodhán now third in line for the crown.
This caused a great stir in elite circles as Aodhán’s mother was descended from the Chief who’d accepted Aloneism in the VI1500s, and just as her forefathers before her, was a devout Aloneist, making her the highest-ranking Aloneist in the history of O’Enne as Queen.
People were thus concerned that, although her husband remained a devout Truist, Aodhán’s mother might convert her sons to Aloneism, and considering how the King who’d accepted Universalism had enacted state-sanctioned persecution against the traditional beliefs, there is fear that an Aloneist king would do the same.
Many were reassured that it wouldn't be so over time, however, as Aodhán’s oldest brother became a devout Truist like his father, and his middle brother was also strongly inclined in that direction, while Aodhán owing to the death of one of his little sisters from sickness, was terrified of taking ill and dying.
When Aodhán was eight his family went out to visit his grandparents in the northwest of O’Enne in the summer, where Aodhán and his brothers went out sailing with their cousins. Aodhán’s oldest brother was quite cocky about being the Crown Prince, and looked down on his cousins not only because of their low rank, but their Aloneist beliefs.
Furthermore, he believed he was a better sailor because he’d spent a portion of the summer training with the Navy of O’Enne, and so when storm clouds loomed one day and all of their cousins turned back, Aodhán’s oldest brother called them cowards and refused to heed Aodhán and his middle brother’s calls for him to turn back also until the storm was bearing down heavily on them.
Additionally, when they arrived at the docks, Aodhán’s brother refused his uncles’ help mooring the boat, which was suddenly launched at the rocky cliffs by a severe wave.
Aodhán was flung from the boat by the wave and found by one of his uncles, who carried him up through a secret passageway in the cliffs into his mother’s arms. It wasn’t until the following morning that he learned that his oldest brother had been killed, having been crushed between the boat and the dock by the wave, making Aodhán second-in-line to the throne, and his middle brother the Crown Prince.
The storm which had killed his brother raged for several more days, during which Aodhán remained in a terror, even as his mother explained that the storm was a famous Guardian storm, which traditional legends said the gods had created as a protection for O’Enne from invasions out of the west, thus why all major routes to the rest of Ureonaiea from O’Enne went either north or south for a ways before finally turning west.
Eventually, Aodhán’s mother, wanting to relieve Aodhán of his fears, shared Aloneism with him, and Aodhán accepted Aloneism, finding comfort in the fact that Aloneism taught that God was in control of storms and diseases, while his brother was driven even more to Truism by the trauma of the storm.
Aodhán spent time living with his maternal grandparents — during which he became less afraid of storm and sickness as his faith grew — learning more about Aloneism and becoming friendly with the locals, as his grandparents taught him, but when he was fifteen, he was called back to the capital of O’Enne, and sent to Gealach with his brother, who was now the Chief of Gealach, which had become the territory of the Crown Prince.
Since Aodhán’s brother wasn’t yet married — although he was actively seeking a wife — Aodhán was to be trained by his brother in how to manage affairs at Gealach in order to take over whenever his brother became king, either as the outright ruler, or potentially as the Regent for his brother’s son in the future.
Although Aodhán wasn’t outspoken about his Aloneist beliefs, he was more inclined to be friendly with the locals than his brother was, and when the locals asked him about Aloneism, he answered them, which actually caused some of them to become curious about Aloneism.
His brother didn’t appreciate this, not wanting to be overthrown by radical Aloneists wanting an Aloneist ruler, and so ordered Aodhán to leave Gealach, prompting Aodhán to return to his grandparents’ home.
However, with the rise of the spots outbreak, Aodhán’s father wanted to split up the royal family so they couldn’t all catch spots and be wiped out at once, and he wanted Aodhán’s youngest sister to live with her grandparents, so Aodhán was ordered to go to Neamhaí, where one of his father’s younger sisters lived with her husband, the Chief of Finscéalta, both of whom are devout Universalists, and whose territory is close to one of the most sacred sites on O’Enne to traditional believers, meaning that Aodhán is headed for a place far from his fellow Aloneists.
Born the seventh of nine daughters and twelfth of fifteen children to a shepherd and his wife who made their home on the northernmost inhabited island of O’Enne, Saraid was part of a hardworking family.
Owing to the rough landscape of the island, the majority of the approximately 700 people who lived on the island raised sheep, and if they didn’t their business had something to do with sheep, whether dealing with the wool, the leather, the meat, or the milk.
Even though Saraid’s family was large, it was not long-lived, as by the time Saraid was born, six of her siblings had already died of disease, cold, or accident, and by the time she was ten she’d lost four more siblings.
Because one of her sisters died as a result of a head injury sustained when a frisky weanling lamb had knocked her sister over, causing her to hit her head on a rock, Saraid was wary of being around the sheep, although she willingly worked with her mother to card and spin wool, and weave it into wool garments for the family to wear, as well as making cheese from the milk, shoes from the leather, and meals from the meat.
Saraid’s family was close-knit, with all of them living on the same island, although they would often travel together to visit her mother’s family further east, who, like Saraid’s family, were devout Aloneists, although her mother’s family were part of a small minority group, while Aloneism was the majority belief on Saraid’s home island.
Her oldest sister lived the furthest away by living at the lone major settlement on the island, which was where, eventually, refugees from the spots outbreaks started making their way as islands further south refused to allow them mooring.
As a result, it was her oldest sister’s family who first came down with spots shortly after Saraid’s thirteenth birthday. By Christmas they had all died.
Wanting to help her daughter, Saraid’s mother had gone to care for the family as they were ill, and came down with spots for herself, which was passed on to the rest of Saraid’s family from there, first claiming the life of Saraid’s little nephew, the son of her widowed older brother, then her younger brother, her mother, her father, and her two older brothers.
Saraid caught it as well, but somehow survived her infection while the rest of her family was wiped out, leaving her with little to no family on the island less than a year after the first member of her family had fallen ill.
The whole island, in fact, had suffered, with over half the population being wiped out in just under two years, which meant Saraid’s prospects for finding a husband were slim, and since her family’s possessions had been burned in an effort to prevent spots from claiming more victims, she couldn’t live on her own.
One of her mother’s brother’s and his wife, however, agreed to take Saraid in on the larger island they called home, which hadn’t been so badly hit by spots, but when Saraid arrived at the island she learned that between their sending the letter that they’d take her and her arrival, her uncle and aunt’s family had been wiped out by spots.
However, one of her older maternal uncles — who had died years ago in an accident — had a daughter who was still alive and living with her husband on a nearby island where her husband was an Aloneist minister, who expressed willingness to take Saraid in.
Although she dreaded finding her cousin’s family similarly deceased when she arrived, she found them alive and well, and has stepped into something of a motherly role with her cousin’s three little children, as her cousin is expecting her fourth child, and needs the help.
Additionally, since the island on which her cousin lives is an island very close to one of the sacred sites for traditional believers, Aloneism is very unwelcome, and thus anyone who is an Aloneist, or even associates with an Aloneist, is treated very cruelly, which is hard for Saraid to adapt to, but she’s trying.
The most disappointing things are, however, that the island on which she’s now living is smaller than the one she grew up on, and there are few young men who’ve been converted to Aloneism, as they prefer the power over women they have in Universalism or the traditional beliefs, both of which don’t view women much higher than livestock, meaning that her husband prospects are closer to nonexistent than they were on her home island, not that she’s in a hurry to get married, being only fifteen, she just wanted to maybe meet a young man sooner in order to know him well before they were married.
1does not correspond to 1715 AD
2pronunciations are limited owing to the lack of access to resources on how to pronounce Irish.
3does not correspond to the real-world doctrine of universalism.
Pronunciations:
O’Enne: ohehnay
Taoiseach: teesahkh
Aodhán: eeon
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