The Voyage of The Gongoozler

Greetings people of the Earth Year 2021. We are Janus Sonic Travels, collectors of sonic curiosities and archivists of the waterways. We have been journeying through time and space on our good ship, The Gongoozler, exploring the canals of your fine city, and have uncovered some songs, myths and stories which you might not have heard before….

We invoke the spirits of the waterways to help us relate these tales to you. O watery ones, guide us safely to the fabled Basin of Cofa’s Tree!

CISSA is a goddess who picks up discarded objects from the canal in her net, in an act of harmless theft, or gentle hoarding. These items contain souls which were distributed by THE CARRIERS but were left unwanted, and must be returned to the Other Place to be redistributed. Cissa is permitted to keep the shells of the souls (the rubbish) as payment. Sometimes sailors get caught in her net and are transported to her treasure trove of rubbish.

Her three daughters are different elements of the water, and each has a finely balanced role in maintaining the equilibrium of the canal system. PUDDLE is responsible for plugging leaks in the canal with clay, SINK is responsible for drainage, and LOCK keeps the currents in check and tides at bay. Her daughters are joint mothers of NIKOLA who guards The Carriers’ Bridge, the connecting point of The Here and The Other Place.

If you are caught in Cissa’s net and sent to her hoard, you will need to find your way to the bridge through the rubbish dunes that have been forming for over a century, whereupon you will meet the Carriers and try to persuade them to take you back to The Here.  If you fail to persuade them you will be left to roam the rubbish piles of Cissa for eternity.

Based at the bridge between The Other Place and The Here, THE CARRIERS are bird-gods who ferry the souls of various beings between the two. If you look closely, you can see spirits trying to pass on the walls of the bridge, flickering and bumping into each other. Only when the sun reaches a certain point to form a perfect triangle on the wall (their favourite shape, like magpies like silver, Carriers like triangles) will souls be allowed to pass.

Once they have carried fresh spirits to The Other Place, they collect souls to bring back. They redistribute them in The Here as the souls of all material things in this world (people, animals, plants, rocks, toys, crisp packets...) dropping them onto any vacant object. It’s down to chance as to which object will be dropped upon; The Carriers deliver fate, not decide it. These dropped souls are known as ‘Culver Drops’

The Carriers share the bridge with NIKOLA, the guardian of the bridge. Nikola is very attached to the bird-gods, who he considers his most sincere friends and cares for them if they are sick or wounded. He brings them coconuts as gifts for their hard work distributing spirits to all the material objects.

A mysterious Holy Man from the East risked his life to smuggle mulberry seeds into the wasteland, which grew overnight into tall, strong trees. From the mulberry trees the silkworm known as THE BOMBYX appeared, growing bigger and bigger until he was a giant.

Before the trees and the Bombyx arrived the land was scorched red by the sun and nothing could grow there. The tribes in the area were desperate; their land was ravaged, their recent conquerors had abandoned them, leaving them to fight amongst themselves without enough food, means of trading or rules to live by. They performed rituals and rites to try and better their luck. And then the mysterious mulberry monk man appeared, bringing the rains with him from the East.

The mulberry trees grew; provided roots and shelter for other plants to grow, and soon the wasteland was a great forest stretching far and wide. The people named this new oasis Arden and gave thanks for being delivered from their fate.

The Bombyx began to produce silk which he gave as a gift to the tribespeople, who wove it into fine garments which brought them great wealth. They repaid him by preserving mulberry leaves through the summer for him to eat through the winter. Eventually the tribespeople asked for more and more silk as their fortunes grew, and the Bombyx tried his best to keep up with the ever increasing demand, but he could only make so much.

His friends the Luddites saw his suffering and tried to sabotage the now city’s silk-weaving tools, but were overcome and banished from the land forever. Overworked and exhausted, the poor Bombyx, who had dutifully produced as much silk as he could, gave so much of himself that all that was left of him was a dry husk.

Outraged by what they had done, a descendant of the holy man cursed the land to become dry and barren once more, with the red soil from their fallen fruit being the last reminder of the mulberry trees that once stretched as far as the eye could see.

A mysterious Holy Man from the East risked his life to smuggle mulberry seeds into the wasteland, which grew overnight into tall, strong trees. From the mulberry trees the silkworm known as THE BOMBYX appeared, growing bigger and bigger until he was a giant.

Before the trees and the Bombyx arrived the land was scorched red by the sun and nothing could grow there. The tribes in the area were desperate; their land was ravaged, their recent conquerors had abandoned them, leaving them to fight amongst themselves without enough food, means of trading or rules to live by. They performed rituals and rites to try and better their luck. And then the mysterious mulberry monk man appeared, bringing the rains with him from the East.

The mulberry trees grew; provided roots and shelter for other plants to grow, and soon the wasteland was a great forest stretching far and wide. The people named this new oasis Arden and gave thanks for being delivered from their fate.

The Bombyx began to produce silk which he gave as a gift to the tribespeople, who wove it into fine garments which brought them great wealth. They repaid him by preserving mulberry leaves through the summer for him to eat through the winter. Eventually the tribespeople asked for more and more silk as their fortunes grew, and the Bombyx tried his best to keep up with the ever increasing demand, but he could only make so much.

His friends the Luddites saw his suffering and tried to sabotage the now city’s silk-weaving tools, but were overcome and banished from the land forever. Overworked and exhausted, the poor Bombyx, who had dutifully produced as much silk as he could, gave so much of himself that all that was left of him was a dry husk.

Outraged by what they had done, a descendant of the holy man cursed the land to become dry and barren once more, with the red soil from their fallen fruit being the last reminder of the mulberry trees that once stretched as far as the eye could see.

The AILM trees grow at the very centre of the earth. They have long and tangled roots, but above ground grew straight up without branches for miles into the sky, and are used to mark the burial place of great warriors. No mortal could find a grip on the soft, smooth bark, only the souls of the warriors buried there could climb to the heavenly realm.

ORAN is the brother of NIKOLA and is keeper of the Ailm trees. He shows mortals many things through visions but cannot directly intervene in human affairs. Oran is a keen musician, making instruments out of anything he can find, and loves to show the humans how to make their own. You would often find hoards of people playing with him by the waterside.

Oran’s job is to watch the forest and make sure that no souls try to climb up who should not. One day whilst Oran was asleep, several mortals, curious to see what wonders lay above, made their way up the trees by standing on each others’ shoulders and broke into the heavenly realm. Enraged at the arrogance of the mortals, the gods rained down explosions on the mortal realm as punishment, razing the peoples’ cathedral to the ground.

Seeing her people suffer, OOILITH petrified the forest and its canopy into concrete, permanently sealing off the two realms as both punishment and protection.  Ooilith then set to work helping the people rebuild what was destroyed. The concrete canopy became a trade road for the humans’ ever expanding silk trade and the rumble of traffic drowned out the shouts of the angry gods above, distorting the music left there by Oran.