Gwydr carreg

Life on the border is beauty incarnated. We work in the harsh conditions of Gáláwá and return home to rest by the Cymrian woods.

— villager at Gwydr carreg

Summary

Gwydr carreg is a village situated on the northern border, between Gáláwá and Cymru. Established many years back as a small outpost by Luaithre - the ash folk, who mined Tinkal and other minerals for production of the forest glass. The village started to flourish once the minerals were found extremely useful for prodution of high quality glass.

How it came to be?

The story goes back to the first skalds of the mountains (later to be known as the Gáláwá mountains), who were searching for new ores and minerals. On their travels north they struck some interesting rocks from the bottom of what looked like a dried out lake. They gathered some more interesting pieces and continued towards the woods. As one of the minerals turned milky and opaque when confronted with humidity of the forest, it was decided that the barrels should be tightly sealed. Back then, it was common to use wooden barrels and crates to store the cargo and pitch was already in use as an easily available sealing agent.

As the skalds began to fill the barrel with interchanging layers of hot sand (to eliminate moisture) and the strange humidity-whitening mineral they noticed that the crystals started to hiss and boil. The matter was to be decided in the morning. Meanwhile part of the minerals was stored with hot sand and the other with none; both were tightly sealed with pitch.

When the new day came, both barrels were opened and the mineral reviewed. The stones from the one without the sand have turned even more opaque and brittle. However, the ones kept with hot sand were covered with a rough, slightly gleaming crust. But when broken, the mineral remained colourless and transparent. Hence, the hot sand was used for preservation of the mineral, later to be identified as Tinkal. And the village was named Gwydr carreg after the discovery the first skalds have made in this very place.

Source of income

The main source of income for the village are the mineral deposits in the Gáláwá mountains.

Type

Village