From “A Study of Goblin Mythology and Culture”

By Professor Lucien Whitefield

This is a collection of stories I have collected over the years from different tribes, all centered on the same theme. Many times the same story is told again in another tribe with a few details altered, but for the sake of simplicity I am ignoring minor variations and condensing the variations of each story into one.

Many years ago, when spirits walked the earth and animals spoke, goblins scrambled in the dark to survive, hiding in caves during the day and only going out at night. Most other animals were bigger and stronger than the goblins, so they had to survive on what little food they could scavenge and life was very difficult. They hunted only very small animals, and to a goblin most animals are not small.

One winter, food got scarce and one of the tribes could not find food no matter what they did. The little ones cried for food on empty bellies while the gaunt-eyed hunters and scavengers ventured farther and farther to search for food. Some of them never returned.

Girkat saw this dire situation and said, “time for a different approach!”

So he left the burrow at dawn, which was seen as crazy by all the others, and snuck through the forest until he found a deep ravine, with two sides of sheer rock separated farther than even a wolf could jump. And so he started making a flimsy bridge out of wood and clay. He worked and worked on it, disguising the thing until it looked as sturdy and trustworthy as the ground itself.

When he was finished, he started imitating birdcalls as loud as he could, until he attracted the attention of a bear. It was more than three times Girkat’s size and the bear licked its chops when he saw the goblin, thinking of him as an easy meal.

“You’re out of your burrows, little whelp!” Said the bear. “And now you have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide!”

“Day or night matters little to me! And I can outrun you any day, you old, fat bear!” Replied Girkat while making a rude gesture. The bear let out a loud roar and chased him.

So Girkat ran across the bridge he had made, and the bear followed him. But the bridge was much more flimsy than it looked, and Girkat kicked one of its supports once he reached the other side, making the bridge break apart under the bear’s mighty weight, and sending it splatting down into the ravine below.

That night the tribe ate their fill, the children eating until their small bellies hurt, and the fur and the meat of the bear would help the tribe make it past winter.

“You see?” Said Girkat, as he taught the others how he achieved this feat. “It does not matter if they are stronger, or bigger, or faster than us if we are smarter than them! If we make traps and set up ambushes, we can hunt animals even three times our size!”

And over the next few days Girkat created many more traps and hunting plans. Some small enough to snag a squirrel, some large enough that half the tribe needed to help in digging a pit deep enough for an elk.

When that winter was over Girkat was gone. He had left to teach the other tribes what he had learned, but the tribe would never forget the brave goblin that had saved them.

One day Girkat came back from a hunt to see most of the tribe huddled around one young whelp.

“Help us, Girkat!” Begged the burrow queen. “This young boy sucked on the tip of one of the arrows we use for hunting, and there was some poison still on it. Now he clutches at his stomach and I fear he might die!”

“It is my fault!” Said the poisonmaster, wringing his hands. “I forgot to clean the poison from the arrows after the hunt!”

“I have a solution for this!” Said Girkat confidently.

Then he searched the poisonmaster’s supplies until he found what he was looking for, a redwort root. He took the root and started slicing off pieces.

“But, Girkat! Redwort root is poisonous! How will that help?”

“Do not worry, I know it’s poisonous. But watch this!”

And he took the redwort root peels and boiled them in water. Then he took the tea and diluted it into more water, until there was barely a red tinge in the water. This, he made the young goblin drink, despite the worried protests of the others.

The young goblin got sick after drinking, and threw up all the poison he had swallowed. By the night the whelp was pale and weak, but alive and well. His life had been saved.

“You see,” said Girkat. “The difference between poison and medicine is how you use it! If certain medicine, when taken wrongly, can kill you, then can’t the opposite be true? Cannot certain poisons heal rather than harm, when used correctly?”

And this is how poisonmasters became healers as well as killers, their art expanded by the ingenuity of Girkat.

Back when the trolls walked on this land, their greed and appetites were never-ending. They slowly spread their rule over the whole land, inch by inch, until the whole known world was under their command, and neither orc muscle or goblin cunning was capable of stopping them. No matter how badly they were hurt, the trolls just got back up. No orc javelin nor goblin poison could keep them down, and they were always hungry and wanting more. Those that were captured by them were lucky to be enslaved, the unlucky ones were eaten.

Girkat saw this dire situation and said, “time for a different approach!”

So he snuck close to a troll fortress and observed them. For three weeks the goblin hid and watched them, while surviving by licking the morning dew off leaves and eating what little he could catch without drawing attention. And he tested different ways to kill the trolls. He tried different weak spots, the heart, the eyes, the head, but all wounds were healed in seconds, no matter how dire. He tried all sorts of obscure poisons, but the trolls shrugged it off with nothing worse than a headache. He managed to drown one, but when the other trolls found and rescued it, the troll recovered. They were unstoppable and unkillable.

After one night where it rained heavily, a frustrated and thoroughly drenched Girkat decided to risk a small fire, some distance away from the fortress, to dry himself. He did his best to conceal the smoke, but the trolls were all vigilant while looking for the one that had tried to kill so many of their fellow fighters, and Grikat was found by a single, terrifying troll that towered over him like an oak before a grass-flower.

Girkat was caught by surprise, and in a desperate fight against the troll he tried attacking it with any weapon he could find, to no avail. Then at last, in desperation, Girkat grabbed the still-burning remnants of his campfire and burned the troll’s eyes with it. He jumped away in terror, ready to dodge the fearsome troll’s next attack… But it never came.

The troll remained blind, crying in pain while its eyes refused to heal. Other trolls were approaching, attracted by the noise, so Girkat took this opportunity to slip away. But it was not the end.

A few nights later, Girkat snuck to the troll fortress and slowly, carefully, circled the fortress while leaving behind a trail of flammable oil on the grass. It took four sacks full of oil and a few trips, but he made it through the night without being found, and when the circle was complete he lit a fire.

The fire quickly spread and surrounded the fortress, and surrounded by an encircling wall of fire all trolls within the fortress burned and died. And so the first victory blow against the trolls was dealt in that long, gruelling war.

His fellow goblins heaped praise and glory on Girkat, while eagerly making plans for further attacks and strategies, but he interrupted them.

“This knowledge will do us no good if we keep it to ourselves. I will spread it among the other goblins and orcs that are still fighting against the troll menace!”

And so he left the resistance group, and nobody truly knows what happened to him after that. But he must have succeeded in his quest, because soon afterwards all resistance groups started using fire against the troll tyrants, ending their empire for good and starting a long alliance between the goblins of the south and the orcs of the north.

Girkat was now starting to get famous. Wherever he went, goblins fawned and clung to him, paying rapt attention to his every word and asking to hear his stories, again and again. They would ask him a million questions and talk without giving him a chance to reply. They would declare rivalries with him, fall in love with him, grow to hate him and beg him to teach them how to be like him, all at the same time.

The kings and queens of every clan requested his help for every minor decision and nobody got anything done, out of fear of displeasing Girkat.

“This is ridiculous!” He said, after fleeing and hiding from his admirers. “Time for a different approach!”

So he snuck inside his own dreams, ducking under the gaze of Azagog, the great eagle that watches over every dreamer to make sure they do not leave their dream, and made his way to the land of spirits.

He climbed a tower that stretched beyond the horizon, and swam through the river of stars until he reached the furthest possible place from the world of the living, and there was a mighty temple there, the house of the gods themselves. So, of course, Girkat snuck inside there as well.

First he asked for help from Jerhat, but he replied, “sorry but I’m far too busy right now.” Before he returned to the sky and resumed his resplendent shining.

Then he bumped into Mung, who was very cheerfully helpful. “Don’t worry! I can make any problem go away! No problem is a problem for long with me!” But Girkat panicked and ran away before the god could do the Sign of Mung on him, and so Girkat managed to survive.

When he finally met with Nobol, he was starting to get desperate. And this is why he confided in her about his problems.

“I have an answer to your problems,” she said. “The problem is that you do too much, but you’re still a single goblin. Of course they would all flock to you.”

“But I don’t want to stop doing things!” Protested Girkat. “There’s still so much that needs fixing! So many places to see and things to do!”

“Then I will split you into many. A hundred faces, a thousand! So many no one could keep track of what you do! They will always remember your deeds, but not your face!”

“So… No glory for what I do? Nobody will know it was me?” Asked Girkat, cautiously.

“Does that bother you?”

And Girkat smiled, her teeth showing joy for the first time since stepping into the domain of the gods. “That suits me just fine,” she said.

Then she left and returned to the waking world, where nobody knew who she was. Girkat rubbed her hands happily and looked at a world full of wonders to explore. She had time again to find and fix things, and she set herself on her next task without ever looking back.

These are some of the most famous of his stories. Girkat is also credited with all sorts of other impressive feats, from discovering the secret of Gunpowder to building their great capital, the city of Yud Sahat, (where the modern city of Meridia currently sits). Sometimes they’re portrayed as a female, sometimes as an old man. It seems every tribe has its own versions, its own variations of the story.

I asked them if they believed Girkat existed and walked among them, in modern times. The answers I received were vague, but from my understanding they know Girkat isn’t actually real, but still believe in their existence anyway. Perhaps as a symbol of goblin heroism and inventiveness, a mythological figure that could still, theoretically, walk among them.

When I asked them if they believed one of their current, living fellow goblin could be Girkat they replied, ‘If they were, they wouldn’t say it out loud, would they? If there’s one thing Girkat would never do, is announce who they are.’

And indeed, goblins sometimes boast they are Girkat in hiding, as a joke, and I’ve heard a goblin say one day ‘if the governor’s innocent then I’m Girkat-of-a-thousand-faces!’ as an expression of disbelief.

One of the more recent myths of Girkat say they helped save the lives of the so-called ‘two embers’ in their time of need, during the civil wars of Viridia two hundred years ago. Although some challenge that claim, and say Girkat would never aid a human noble. The subject, as one imagines, is as extremely divisive, as is their opinion on prince Damien himself. Some call him their liberator, others as nothing but a self-serving manipulator.

I understand their mistrust, however. In their times of servitude, many goblins were prohibited from speaking the goblin tongue or assembling, and many of their oral traditions were forgotten, including their stories. There are, perhaps, many more stories of Girkat that we will never know. Stories that have been forgotten.

Perhaps Girkat would appreciate being forgotten. But me, as a historian, cannot help but lament this loss.