myth for monkshood

There was a forest where wolves reigned alongside trees as old as memory and patterns of life sustained so many plants and animals it was nothing short of the most complex labyrinth you can imagine. Balance, however, is not a static thing, and even though the ecosystem had long time been self correcting and adapting on its own stasis produces a rot that longs to be set free. A wind, one day, emerged from this longing. It rose from the center of the earth and traveled for thousands of miles to touch the glacier that fed the land. The warmth that summer eased the glacier much further down than it ever had before and from the core of the ice a god emerged who came in the form of a shimmer in the water. It came to the humans, who had just arrived and were learning how to interact with the forest with the most care.

Two brothers saw the light in the water and found they were able to read it. The light instructed them to go to the wolf den because there was something there they needed to learn in order to be truly part of the ancient forest. The wolves were the highest predator and every other creature had agreed upon boundaries with the them, except for the humans.

But these brothers had been given words to speak by the light. They were gifted stories that the light had told them to relay to the wolves. The wolves were enthralled. It was not long before the people made friends with them. Their babies even played with wolf cubs. The wolves taught the people to work together and make home and the people taught the wolves stories. They shared food; they danced. But one of the brothers kept going back to the light in the stream, to find out what new things it would tell him. The brother listened to all the words intently and the light’s stories began to shift his thoughts so that all he saw were the twists of light that reflected and refracted from the water to all the things around. It was nearly unbearable for he was often blinded.

One day when the people and the wolves were out on a long hunt the brother found the light in a nearby stream and it asked him to lift it from the water. The light was the most beautiful thing the man had ever seen and he would do anything for it. It asked him for food and offerings of all kinds and soon the brother could wrap his arms around it and carry it from the stream.

The light told the brother what power felt like. It told the brother what it feels like to ask for the soul of a being and then eat it. The light told the brother how to kill and explained to him how very powerful and strong the wolves were. As the brother watched the wolves he began to believe that if he killed one it would mean that he was as strong as they were, stronger even. One day the brother saw a wolf drink out of the water where the light god sat and the human was overcome with jealousy and fear that the light might whisper words of wisdom into the ear of the wolf that he killed the animal.

The wolf fell beside the water and its blood mixed with the god. The light was brought than back into the earth again, and together they became wolfsbane.

Now every time a wolf dies, a wolfsbane grows from the earth because of the eternal spirit the light gave to it. So for the rest of its days it eats the sun. The human, however, taught the beings of the world to kill out of fear. Now living things must understand their fear or else it will become deadly, so stasis is much harder to come by.