The Legend of Allarius

Worthy Reader,

This is a story I wrote a year or so ago about the world and our problems with climate change. It’s annoyingly metaphorical, but hopefully of some interest. I pray you read and enjoy, since I’m going to carry on building some silly apps.

Now made English for the very first time.

Over two thousand years ago a story was told, and ever since has been passed down from generation to generation, throughout war, peace, grandeur, and ruin it was told, and finally now I present it written and recorded in English for the very first time.

It begins that there once existed a small kingdom somewhere in the land that now makes up Greece, which was led by a king called Allarius, son of Illios, who held his court in the only town within his meagre lands. This town was called ἀκουσιάζομαι, which roughly translates as Ignorance, and was a ram shackled, dirty place, scattered here and there with chimneys and furnaces all fighting to produce new products and wares to advance the riches of that long forgotten people. Past it ran a great river that the citizens of Ignorance called κατελπίζω, which later came to mean Hope, although they did not know that at the time. This river was used to remove the constant waste produced by the city, and soon ran black with all the dirt, tar, and other disgusting materials that flowed into it.

The first years of Allarius were the hardest; each spring great clouds would roll in from the East, bringing storms and poisoned rain; ruining the crops of his people as well as washing away their homes and livestock. For five years Allarius did all he could; spending fortunes of his income and risking hundreds of the lives of his soldiers to fight the floods, saving what could be saved, but the losses that the floods caused could never be recovered.

After five years the continued ruin of crops meant that his people were starving, his coffers were empty and he hadn’t a penny left to spend on helping restore hope to his kingdom. The start of spring came and the lack of seeds to plant as well as fear of what was to come brought anger from his people; they marched to the doors of his palace and demanded the food from his table to save their starving children. Stricken with terror that he might lose a kingdom ruled by his family for centuries, King Allarius called an emergency meeting of the wisest men in the town and asked them what he should do. Some suggested sacrificing riches and praying for salvation, but Allarius had seen that blindly hoping in the past had only brought more ruin. Then the oldest and cleverest of all the men there stood up, he surveyed his company and considered the dire trouble they were all in.

“The rain comes from the East and ruins us,” he said, “Then the waters are borne away on the river back towards the east only to return again the following year, surely whoever makes the rain lives at the end of that river.”

There were murmurs as the room shuffled with thought; there was little time left to act against the floods and Allarius knew he must do something or his people would depose him. With few other suggestions from his councilmen, the king called the captain of his guard and ordered the best hundred warriors of the town to be gathered and be ready to move at sunrise.

True to his word, the next morning the sun rose on a hundred finely armed men all addressed by their king and readied for a long march; their aim was to find and destroy this dreamed up threat that the king called the Rain Maker.

Allarius led those men for ten long days, following the twists and turns of the river by night and day, until they finally spied the end of it – a great and seemingly endless sea. As the men watched, a great cloud formed from the sea and rose up, twisted by the wind, before drifting off in the direction of their town.

“It is true, sire!” cried one of the soldiers, “But what is this? Why does this try so hard to ruin us?”

“How is there so much water here all set to destroy us?” asked another.

“It destroys us for no reason.” replied Allarius, “Simply for its entertainment as all cruelty does. And this river is ages old, no wonder enough water has flowed down it to fill such a vast sea!”

“Then we must stop the river up,” said a young soldier, called Idyea. “That would surely stop the water from flowing back from our drowned village, and then where will the new rains come from?”

“Then bring me the wood of great trees!” shouted Allarius. “Let us block it up.”

Forests were felled and used to dam up the river, tree after tree placed, but at every surge the river pushed the wood away and soon there were few trees left that could be found.

Next Allarius brought furnaces from the kingdom’s town and tried to use these to evaporate the water, but the furnaces caused so much smoke that the workmen fell into the seething flow of now boiling water, killing them.

Then he decided he would try and harness the power of the wind against the river, and attempted to blow back the water with great fans, but these were not powerful enough and were overcome by the torrent.

Finally, Allarius heard of the bark of the δέντρο της λογικής, in English the Reason Tree, which was named after a great hero of the past, and he heard that this bark could conduct the sun and turn it into incredible heat. He quickly had this placed over the river to try and evaporate the flow, as he had tried with furnaces.

A wandering merchant passed by and observed this incredible bark, and word quickly got back to Ignorance, where the smoky coal furnaces were replaced with those bark boards generating far better.

Remarkably, once the smoke from the furnaces had cleared, the people of Ignorance saw the sky and knew they didn’t have to fear it any more.