Anndrais' Folly is a minotaur legend and core aspect of their creation myth. The story of Anndrais' Folly tells of a young man named Anndrais who, in a chance encounter, accepts an offering of bread from a mysterious entity. The bread was cursed, such that when the bread was eaten, it would turn the consumer into an animal. Anndrais, none the wiser to the entity's machinations, shared the bread with Isibel, another from his tribe. As they had each only eaten half, the curse only half-worked, transforming them into the first minotaurs.
Myth
The following is the complete text of Anndrais' Folly, as it appears in the
Codex Tauranius.
Anndrais' Folly
In the early months of Man, before the Fall of the Wingbearers, yet still long after the Banishment of the Divines, there lived a tribe of men in the foothills of the Old Mountains. Among the tribe was a young hunter known only as Anndrais. Anndrais was a simple sort, spending his days collecting food and water for his fellow tribesmen.
During one such hunt, Anndrais had managed to collect a fair few animals, including a large bull that had been wandering the forest alone. He was returning to his tribe when a mysterious figure appeared. The figure spoke in a way unfamiliar to him, yet still like a member of his own tribe. The figure congratulated him on his successful hunt, and wished to offer him a reward. He granted him a small piece of bread, and urged him to keep it for himself, as only he had earned the prize.
The mysterious figure, unknown to Anndrais, had a nefarious purpose behind his generosity. The bull that Anndrais had managed to kill had belonged to the figure, a prize he had won from a gamble with a lesser god. With his pet now gone, the figure was determined to find a suitable replacement. Using an ounce of the bull's blood, he placed a curse on the bread, so that when Anndrais would eat the bread, he would transform into an exact copy of the bull, allowing the figure to reclaim his stolen prize.
Upon his return to the village, Anndrais was met by Isibel, a woman of the tribe and close companion to Anndrais. When he told her the story of the figure and the bread, she begged him for a piece of the bread, as she believed the figure to have bestowed upon Anndrais a blessing, and wished to share in its splendor. Anndrais offered her half of the bread, so that they may share in his spoils. When the pair ate the bread, the curse the figure had placed upon it came to life, though neither the curse nor the figure had accounted for what would happen if one were to eat only half. The magic was unable to change them both fully, instead only half altering their forms.
When the others in the tribe saw what they had become, Anndrais and Isibel were banished from the tribe, mistaken for monsters. As part of the curse, they had lost the ability to speak, and were unable to explain the truth to the frightened tribe. In the evening, when the figure came to collect his prize, he was shocked to find the two half-bull figures instead. Enraged, he sealed the curse on the pair before leaving them in the wilderness to die.
