Seelinja

A bond of perpetual love

Differently from the other ethnicities of elves, Silvan Elves don't often get infatuated with other creatures, if they do it's usually for life. A series of rituals are celebrated some publicly, to inform their settlement that what nature made separate it's going to became one and to share their joy with them, and other privately, to vow to each other for eternity. The most important part of the public rituals are represented by the Seelinja.

The unsolvable knot

Young Silvan Elves are raised as children of the whole settlement where they live, because of this use often more than their natural parents they feel linked to a chosen elderly elf that acts as their mentor. It is common use that the young elf may request the loose hair of their mentor to produce a braid with it to use as a rope at the beginning of the Seelinja. Each of the two elves that desire to join in front of the community bring their own hair braid and one of their extremities get tied together in a convolute pattern called the unsolvable knot, Karadí, each community has a different pattern. The remaning extremity of each braids gets used to tie the wrist of the left end of one to the right of the other of the two Seelinwith the Karadí sitting on plain formed by the two crossed hands.

Not every Silvan elves' couple will join with the Seelinja, but the stronger the community the more Seelinja are celebrated. Because love if the source of Seelinja that brings back every abundance in the community. The very fabric of the community begins with one single Karadí.

— An elderly Silvan Elf

A convivial ceremony

Besides its strong symbolisms the Seelinja is a community celebration focused on the renewal of the social pact that is the root of every community, for this reason the elves closer to the two Seelin will present multiple gifts to them, the most important of which is a special mead made of sweet wild honey, obtained thanks to the blessing of some Bee shepherd, and a traditional mix of plants and berries. Only the two Seelin can drink this red sweet mead, as the blood of lovers, very hot through two wooden straws from a wooden vessel often carved from the heart of an ancient dead tree. After sipping the hot mead the two Seelin release their breath that mingles lingering in the colder air, according to the shape of the cloud formed various type of good omens can be prophesied. Then the community welcomes the new formed couple with bountiful meals, music and poetry. Later on, the couple will be allowed some intimacy to fulfill their private rituals of which the most important is the planting of the intertwined trees.