Life of Morogyad

Life of Morogyad is a biography of the wizard Morogyad written by Ramoran bureaucrat and biographer Godanqs the Younger.

Content

Written in the Ramoran dialect, Life of Morogyad focuses almost exclusively on the wizard's childhood education and relationship with his mother during his young manhood in Ramoros. The book is the canonical literary reference for the story of Remyalan being swept out to sea, impregnated by Zargyod in the form of an octopus and returned to land, where she gave birth to two sons, one an amorphous mass of tentacles which strangled its midwife Talys (Godanqs is the only source who names the unfortunate woman) and the other the wizard Morogyad. He also covers the abduction of the young boy by his father in the shape of a lammageier, provides some (otherwise unattested) information about his education on the island of Kobolon, and tells the story of his protection of his mother from royal aggression. In his version of the story the soldiers sent to attack Remyalan suffer, successively, disfiguring blue-grey scars, blindness, a horrendous illness of the bowels and a shaking palsy, but recover from all four by the time they report back to their master. Gondanq's version of the story ends with Morogyad's victory over the ogre Pholdons, with no mention of his various subsequent adventures.

Commentary

Godanq's unabashed Ramoran focus may well be attributed to parochialism. So far as is known he never left Ramoros and it is not clear how common the stories of Morogyad were in his lifetime, placing it within the bounds of possibility that he was genuinely unaware of the wizard's wider reputation. This has been marshalled as evidence that Morogyad is a composite of multiple historical wizards.
The book is noteworthy in that it devotes some considerable space to describing what Zargyod taught his son during their retreat on Kobolon. Godanq not only describes Zargyod feeding Morogyad fish, but dissecting them for him and explaining their anatomies, in relation both to other species and to those of seabirds and other marine life (crabs are specifically mentioned). He also provides a lengthy parable about Zargyod leading Morogyad to the rocky shore of the island and showing him in great detail how the waves and tides flow around and burst upon the rocks. The story is of questionable historicity because - as the poorly-travelled Godanqs can be forgiven for not knowing - Kobolon has no rocky shorelines; its southern and western coasts are all sandy beaches and it is dominated by sheer cliffs to the north and east. Nevertheless the stories would dovetail with Morogyad's attested affinity with sea life and interest in the contrasts between the solid and liquid states of matter, as expressed in his Esoterica of Morogyad. As such he book is of interest to thaumatologists.

Availability

The book can be had for a modest price from multiple scribes in Ramoros, and is somewhat less commonly available elsewhere. No particularly authoritative translation out of the Ramoran dialect has yet bee composed, however.