Whoso heareth his voice, the voice of Roon at evening, he at once
forsaketh the home gods that sit beside the hearth. These be the
gods of the hearth: Pitsu, who stroketh the cat; Hobith who calms
the dog; and Habaniah, the lord of glowing embers; and little
Zumbiboo, the lord of dust; and old Gribaun, who sits in the heart
of the fire to turn the wood to ash--all these be home gods, and
live not in Pegana and be lesser than Roon.
There is also Kilooloogung, the lord of arising smoke, who taketh
the smoke from the hearth and sendeth it to the sky, who is
pleased if it reacheth Pegana, so that the gods of Pegana,
speaking to the gods, say: “There is Kilooloogung doing the work
on earth of Kilooloogung.”
All these are gods so small that they be lesser than men, but
pleasant gods to have beside the hearth; and often men have prayed
to Kilooloogung, saying: “Thou whose smoke ascendeth to Pegana
send up with it our prayers, that the gods may hear.” And
Kilooloogung, who is pleased that men should pray, stretches
himself up all grey and lean, with his arms above his head, and
sendeth his servant the smoke to seek Pegana, that the gods of
Pegana may know that the people pray.
And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the
house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he
sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or
until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he
sitteth by the river’s edge to lament the forgotten things that
drift upon it.
A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost.
There is also Triboogie, the Lord of Dusk, whose children are the
shadows, who sitteth in a corner far off from Habaniah and
speaketh to none. But after Habaniah hath gone to sleep and old
Gribaun hath blinked a hundred times, until he forgetteth which be
wood or ash, then doth Triboogie send his children to run about
the room and dance upon the walls, but never disturb the silence.
But when there is light again upon the worlds, and dawn comes
dancing down the highway from Pegana, then does Triboogie retire
into his corner, with his children all around him, as though they
had never danced about the room. And the slaves of Habaniah and
old Gribaun come and awake them from their sleep upon the hearth,
and Pitsu strokes the cat, and Hobith calms the dog, and
Kilooloogung stretches aloft his arms towards Pegana, and
Triboogie is very still, and his children asleep.
And when it is dark, all in the hour of Triboogie, Hish creepeth
from the forest, the Lord of Silence, whose children are the bats,
that have broken the command of their father, but in a voice that
is ever so low. Hish husheth the mouse and all the whispers in the
night; he maketh all noises still. Only the cricket rebelleth. But
Hish hath set against him such a spell that after he hath cried a
thousand times his voice may be heard no more but becometh part of
the silence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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