A children's game, or the history of our world? Myth in Shards | World Anvil
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A children's game, or the history of our world?

The children at the village usually play this game, when they are all together, that involves walking in a circular line, with one of them standing in the center. They may run, skip, or dance, maybe walk moving their arms in a particular way, I don't think there is a rule for what they can do as they advance. All the time they are singing... well, more like chanting, this old nonsensical song. Whenever they reach the chorus, one (sometimes more) of the kids changes the movement and the others on the line will follow, letting the lone kid in the center to guess or spot who was the first to do that.   If the inquisitor finds the "leader", then proceeds to chase that kid all around the village, while the other kids count to fifty or a hundred.  
(...)

You have three chances
to change your fate
but there are many rules
and you have to play smart.
What happens with wishless
people in our world?

A fat man got a letter
‘will change wishes for cookies,
the shards in the forest
will turn into snow.
What happens with wishless
people in our world?
A woman is crying
maybe to cause your death
but use please and thank you
and she could make your day.
What happens with wishless
people in our world?

You answer my questions
The The snappish mage says
and offers you nothing
but what you deserve.
What happens with wishless
people in our world?

(...)
  If no leader is spotted and caught, the game ends when they don't have more verses to sing, but the song is so long that the kids get bored or have to go and do something else before the actual end of the game.   The official version is that the first kids to ever live in the village came up with both the game and the song, but there are also stories about the latter being a poem about the Granters of the past, and all their peculiar ways of help or trick those who couldn't make their wishes true by themselves.
If you ask me, this is not the history of our world, but the one about the different places where the employees grew up.   I can tell you that some of those verses have some basis on reality, and I've catch more than one administrator admitting that they recognize the person that trick them or refused to grant their wishes before The Granter had even born.   But there are strophes that make no sense at all, or that seem to be more related to a legend from some other world. Sometimes, they have a resemblance with something a ghost remembers, but is like the person who wrote it didn't really know the story.   Did the kids added lines as they played, including the myths their parents share with them? Was there a historical poem and it has been altered so much that now it doesn't make sense anymore?   I don't think that we will ever know.


Cover image: Original Image by Eduin

Comments

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Aug 2, 2023 17:14

I feel like I've played this game as a child (singin a different song of course), really takes me back! I'm finding the implications you've set up as very intriguing, and I look forward to seeing where this world goes. Looking at your summer camp pledge, I see you don't necessarily know where it's going either. What an exciting journey this will be!


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