Subject: How Grandfather Morocanth Won His Thumbs

This is another of daughter's bedtime stories inspired by the thumb

quest discussion.

You know that Great Waha gave us the Covenant of the eaters and the
eaten to save us from starvation. You know that He meant for more of
us four footed ones to win when it came time for the contest to decide
who would eat and who would be eaten. But those hairless baboons the
humans cheated and used loaded knucklebones they had gotten from
Hyena. Only Grandfather Morocanth was sharp enough among the four
footed ones to notice something was wrong.

After all the other animals had lost and it was his turn to throw he
picked the bones up in his forehooves (we only had single hooves like
the accursed horse or zebra does back then, and so did all the other
animals. Even the humans had hooves back then!) and got ready to
throw them. He shook the bones real hard and raised them over his
head to throw them down. Well when
his forelegs were raised right over his head he let the bones go and
they went sailing over his head to land in the Zola Fel. Well
everyone knew the River wouldn't give something back once it had it so
the humans were out of luck. The last human to throw turned to Hyena
for another set of rigged bones but Waha was getting suspicious and he
gave the human his set of knucklebones. The human couldn't very well
refuse Waha and had to make his
throw with unfixed knucklebones. Bad throw. Then Grandfather
Morocanth made his throw and beat that hairless ape. That's how we
were the only four legged ones who won the contest and how we got to
have herd men. Waha knocked that loser man right up side the head
knocking any sense and any smarts right out of him.

Well, Grandfather Morocanth was mad about the way the humans cheated
and how
Hyena helped them cheat. And he stayed mad and one day not too long
after
he was riding around on his herd man chariot when he saw something
strange.
There was a human perched on the back of a bison holding on to a rope
attached to the bison's head, waving a stick with a bit of sharp bone
attached to the end while singing a song about killing Morocanths and
hanging on while the bison was moving! Well this looked like trouble
to
Grandfather Morocanth so he decided to check it out. He got his
chariot to
move closer to the human. "Hey you," he called out. "What are you
doing."
Well that hairless ape looked quite embarrassed at having been caught.
He
dropped his stick and managed to fall off his bison. "Nothing,
Grandfather
Morocanth. I'm not doing anything." He hid his forelegs behind his
back so
Grandfather Morocanth couldn't see them. "Show me your forehooves,"
said
Grandfather Morocanth, and he gave the human his worst stare. The
human
blushed from toe to face and slowly brought his forehooves around from
behind his back. "What happened to your forehooves?" shouted
Grandfather
Morocanth. The human's forehooves had been split in five pieces! He
grabbed the human's forelegs and moved the split hooves around. He
made the
human pick up his stick and although the human tried to act clumsy
Grandfather Morocanth could tell that he could hold it pretty easily.
"How
did this happen?" asked Grandfather Morocanth. "Oh, you know how hard
it is
to hold a knife," said the human, "I, err cut myself." "Six, no
seven, no
eight, no ten times!!!", thundered Grandfather Morocanth. "Well, I
really
needed to cut something badly," replied the ape. "They certainly
healed
nicely," said Grandfather Morocanth. "Well, um, you know how it is."
said
the human. "Hmm, thank you human I guess I do." Grandfather
Morocanth got
into his chariot and rode slowly away thinking to himself. He knew
something funny was going on so he hadn't gone far when he stopped to
see
what the human was up to. Well he had climbed back up on his bison
and rode
off as fast as he could. As Grandfather Morocanth watched he fell off
a few
times but he always got back up and kept on riding. Grandfather
Morocanth
turned his chariot around and set off after the human. Eventually he
rode
up over a ridge and saw a serpent below him. All along the serpent
was a
long line of humans and right below Grandfather Morocanth sitting in
front
of a sweetgrass fire was Hyena. As each human came up to Hyena he
gave him
a leather bottle. Hyena emptied the bottle and then taking a sharp
knife he
quickly cut both of the human's forehooves into five strips. Then he
grabbed both split hooves and twisted one of the split sections so
that it
faced the other four strips. After that he rubbed some sort of salve
he had
in a big pot on the human's hooves and they healed up. Grandfather
Morocanth couldn't quite see what Hyena did when he twisted the fifth
strip
so he didn't know exactly what he was doing to the human's forehooves.
What
he did know was that this meant trouble. He quickly turned his
chariot
around and drove his herd men so hard that they dropped dead after
they
reached his camp. He yelled for all his people to get their chariots
ready
and to follow him bringing any liquid they had in bags with them.
Well all
that they had was herd man milk but Grandfather Morocanth figured that
would
have to do. They raced back as fast as they could go bouncing all the
way
as it was a rough path. When they got back to the serpent Grandfather
Morocanth could see that Hyena was almost finished the humans. When
the
humans saw the morocanths they yelled at them to go away shaking their
pointed sticks at the morocanths. The morocanths yelled back and both
sides
were ready to fight when Hyena staggered to his feet. Seems that the
humans
had been giving him what we now call liquor to drink and he was quite
smashed by now. Hyena said in a slurred voice that he would do his
forehooves trick to anyone who had a bag of liquor to give him.
Grandfather
Morocanth looked embarrassed. They didn't have any liquor (whatever
that
was), all they had was herd man milk in their bags. Well, Grandfather
Morocanth decided that at least he would try to get his hands done so
he
clambered down to where Hyena waited. He handed Hyena his bag and
Hyena
sniffed suspiciously at it. "What is it," he asked. "Herd man milk,"
answered Grandfather Morocanth. "Well I'll try anything. Once." said
Hyena. He drank from the bottle and said, "Umm, that's good. More,
give me
more." Seems that all the bouncing around had turned the milk into
what we
now call kumiss. (So Grandfather Morocanth invented that too!)

Grandfather Morocanth sighed in relief and answered, "Sure, but first

my
forehooves." So Hyena cut Grandfather Morocanth's hooves. But he had
drunk
so much that he forgot to cut Grandfather Morocanth's hooves into five
and
only cut them into four. And he forgot to twist the fifth strip so
that it
faced the other four. Well Grandfather Morocanth was too relieved at
getting his forehooves done like the humans and his people didn't know
any
better so nobody said anything about the missing strip. Well when
Hyena
finished the last morocanth He dropped straight down on his face and
nobody
could wake Him for seven days and seven nights. By that time
Grandfather
Morocanth had figured out that something was wrong with his "hands" as
the
humans were calling them. They were better than they had been but
they were
not equal to the humans. Well, Grandfather Morocanth was mad so he
went to
find Hyena. He found Hyena lying in a pile of His own shit covered
with
buzzing flies and he shook him until He woke up. "Whazzup," slurred
Hyena.
"What do you want?" Where's my thumbs!" roared Grandfather Morocanth.
(That's what he had learned the humans called their fifth strips).
"Thumbs?" asked Hyena bleary eyed. Grandfather Morocanth shoved his
hands
in Hyena's face and shook them at him. "Do you see any thumbs on my
hands,"
he asked. "Did I forget to give you thumbs too?" replied Hyena
slowly, "I
meant to. Now how did I do that again." Well poor Grandfather
Morocanth
submitted to all sorts of attempts by Hyena to give him thumbs but
Hyena had
drunk so much liquor that He could not remember how He had done the
trick in
the first place. Well Grandfather Morocanth roared and cursed and
swore at
him but to no avail. Finally Hyena said, "If you can bring me a human
I'll
cut his thumbs off and stick them on you." "Ugh," said Grandfather
Morocanth, "I don't want puny, hairless thumbs." "Whatever," growled
Hyena
finally starting to get angry as he realised just how hung over he
was,
"I'll change them so that they look like they belong on you. But
whatever
you do I need the person you get thw thumbs from to be alive."

Well Grandfather Morocanth still didn't want human thumbs so he got in

his
chariot and wandered while he thought about what kind of thumbs he
really
did want. He wandered so long that he finally found himself way up
north
past the plains his people usually wandered near the home of the dark
people
known as trolls. Now trolls have always been sort of friends to us
but when
Grandfather Morocanth thought about big, strong, dark, trolls he got
excited. He travelled around looking for a lone troll and when he saw
one
he challenged him to a wrestling match. "What do I get if I win?"
asked the
troll. "You can eat my herd men, " answered Grandfather Morocanth.
The
troll licked his chops. "And if I lose?" he asked. "You have to come
on a
chariot ride with me and do whatever I ask at the end of it," answered
Grandfather Morocanth. They swore by Waha and the troll's dark mother
that
they would abide by the agreement. So they wrestled and they wrestled
and
what a match it was. Back and forth it went with first the troll and
then
Grandfather Morocanth having the advantage. Finally Grandfather
Morocanth
beat the troll and made him travel south with him back to Hyena. When
they
got to Hyena the troll asked what Grandfather Morocanth wanted of him
and he
told him that he wanted his thumbs. "What!" screamed the troll. "You
promised," said Grandfather Morocanth. "So I did," replied the troll,
"but
you have to take some of my nature into you along with my thumbs."
"Agreed," replied Grandfather Morocanth. So Hyena cut the trolls
thumb's
off and stuck them on Grandfather Morocanth using some magic He had
stolen
from Eiritha. And Grandfather Morocanth finally had a pair of big,
black
thumbs with claws. And he was happy. But he had to take some of the
troll's nature along with his thumbs and that is why we like the
darkness
better than the sun to this day. This didn't give all the morocanths
thumbs
so if you want some you'll have to do just what Grandfather Morocanth
did.

Oliver D. Bernuetz
http://www.geocities.com/bernuetz