Editing Pagan Sacred Texts

=Chapter one - The Beginning of all Things=

==The War for Power==

At the beginning there was fire and ice and two worlds. The first was Neja, the freezing World of Ice, and the second was Umao, the burning World of Fire.
When the first cold wind of Neja touched the fiery surface of Umao, the first giant, Korsos, and a goat, Raha, mother of life, were born.

With every step that Korsos took, and every footprint he made, new young giants were born. One day, whilst Korsos was drinking Raha’s milk, the goat licked a salt stone, and, the life essence from the goat united with the power of the giant gave birth to a female, Ghaya.
She is the mother of the Earth.
Raha hid Ghaya from Korsos and his giants and fed her with her own milk, rich with the power of life.

Ghaya gave birth to three children: Xanex, Zuperius and Maia.
When they grew in power they wanted to take control and so, with the help of Ghaya, they forged a powerful war axe and tried to slay Korsos.
The first attempt was a failure and they were all condemned to live in the flames of Umao.
Maia, the goddess of Wisdom and Knowledge, persuaded their guardian Morpheus, the giant of fire and protector of Umao, to free them and so they tried yet again to kill Korsos.

Raha poisoned his milk and Korsos, drinking as always from her udder, fell in a deep sleep.
It was Xanex, when he finally found the sleeping giant, that slew him with his war axe.
Then they created the World as we know it:
From the flesh of the giant they made the earth, from his blood they made oceans, rivers and lakes, and from his brain they made the sky.

On this world lived only Korsos’ and they soon attempted a revolt against Xanex, Zuperius and their sister Maia.
They won the battle, and they chained Xanex, Zuperius and Maia on an island.

The mother of the Earth saw this, and helped them bring to life new brothers and sisters: the twin brothers, Schytus and Abner, and the twin sisters, Ana and Batiara.
They helped the other three escape from the island where they were imprisoned and together they hid in the Underworld, the world beneath the Earth and at the beginning of Umao.

There they forged weapons and with the help of Morpheus and other creatures of that world they declared war to the giants on the Earth.
Xanex and Schytus were the bravest in that war, and each of them slew hundreds of giants, while the sisters Maia, Ana and Batiara assisted them with their powers.
Abner was the crafting god who gave axes and swords to the allied gods while Zuperius controlled the water of the oceans to drown the giants.
They fought with courage and killed almost all of the giants.

==The four parts of the Earth - The Seven Gods==

After they won the war against the giants, Ghaya’s children began to divide the Earth between them.

'''Xanex''' - the Supreme god - was the leader of all and he took the throne of the skies. He possessed the powerful axe as his weapon, which slew Korsos and the giants and gained the power to cast thunderstorms and blizzards.

'''Zuperius''' - the god of the Oceans, lakes and rivers - took the Kingdom of the Oceans. He had the Trident of Water, which could cast sea storms and command every living form of aquatic life.

'''Maia''' - the goddess of Wisdom and Courage - for her help in the "Giant War", was put alongside Xanex in the sky to watch upon Earth and look for potential threats. She later became Xanex’s wife.

'''Abner''' - the god of Death and Crafting - took the throne of Underworld and forged a prison of fire for the remaining giants. He had Morpheus to help him rule the dark kingdom. He had Korsos’ sword as his weapon, gifted to him by Xanex for the bravery and courage he showed during battle. He controlled the fire of the Underworld and could put life into weapons forged by him.

His twin brother '''Schytus''' – the god of War - lives on Earth and is always plotting beginning wars whenever he has the opportunity. As his weapon he got the mighty spear of Korsos, made from his bones after he was slain by Xanex.

'''Ana''' - the goddess of Beauty and Love - was taken by Zuperius to be his wife and to rule with him the Kingdom of the Oceans.

'''Batiara''' – the goddess of Hunting and of the Forest - was the preferred daughter of Ghaya, which stopped her before she was corrupted by Xanex, and lived with her in the forests of the Earth. Batiara gave birth to several Aras - half man half beast that live in the forest.

Among the rulers of the Kingdoms of the Sky, Water and Underworld there was hate and greed; Zuperius and Abner always tried to take Xanex’s power, but they feared his Battle Axe, which had slain Korsos, and the power of his thunder.

==The Gods from the second generation==

From the union of the First gods, Ghaya’s children, a second generation of gods was born.
The first was Lux, son of Xanex and Maia, that fell in love with Tiara, daughter of Zuperius and Ana. But when their fathers found out, they prohibited them to see each other.  
During the day Lux – the god of the Sun - with his big FieryStone taken from Umao looked for his love in the skies, and during the night Tiara - the goddess of the Moon and the night - looked for her lover with a disc made from the ice of Neja.

Then there was Manias, the trickster, born from Batiara, that took the shape of a snake and tempted Xanex.
He looked half god and half animal, he possessed a great speed and the power to lie, persuade and steal, and so he was later called the Trickster god or the god of Lying.

==The making of Man and Woman==

When all of the gods met on mount Erogos, they decided together to give life to another creature without powers.
Thus they created humans, giving them some gifts - wisdom, courage, love but also hate and fear – that soon started reproducing themselves and spread on the entire surface of earth.

They got together in small groups, then tribes and villages.
But then the God of War, Schytus, put his tail in the relations between the villages and so wars began. Seeing all that hate and all those battles Xanex, Zuperius and Abner met on the mountain Erogos once again and decided to destroy all humans.
So, they sent a great flood and huge earthquakes, followed by droughts and glaciations.

Batiara, being a merciful goddess and seeing that the wars were caused by Schytus with his tricks and games, took some humans and hid them in a forest.
After the three brothers made the plagues against mankind stop, Batiara went to see Xanex and attempted to convince him to forget the sins committed, and the humans, to show their regret, built shrines for each god, praying to them every day to have their mercy.
Xanex agreed, but promised that if they did not keep the rituals alive he would destroy them once more. And so, the human race spread and populated the entire Earth, praising the gods and thanking them for their mercy, building many shrines and altars in their honor.

Seeing that their mercy was being repaid, the god of Crafting - Abner -  gave them the necessary for making tools, the god of the Oceans - Zuperius - gave them orientation to guide them across the seas, the goddess of Love - Ana – made their feelings stronger, and the goddess Maia gave the human race great courage and great wisdom.

=Chapter Two - The Man and the Gods=

Lux, the Sun god, taught the humans how to make fire, and Tiara, the Moon goddess, gave them dreams.

Xanex often travelled through the skies on his flying horse, and thunder would strike all around him. Once, a bolt of lightning grazed Tiara and hit her ice disc, and little ice crystals filled the sky. Tiara found them so pretty that she decided to leave them there forever, even if now her disc wasn’t perfect.

Once, Xanex’s Axe was stolen by an evil giant called Zymm, who wanted to have Ana for himself to marry her and he threatened to use the Axe to destroy the Earth should she not become his.

Manias, the Trickster, disguised himself as Ana, and travelled to the World of the Giants taking an old woman and a young boy with him. When they arrived, Zymm wanted to kiss Manias, that still looked like Ana, but he said that he wanted to hold the Axe first. Zymm agreed, but only if the three of them would win two of three contests against him.

The first contest was an eating contest, and the young boy won, because he was Lux - the Sun god – and everything that he ate was burned.  
The second contest was a wrestling contest and the giant was sure he would win so to show off he did it himself, but the old woman won, because she was Old Mother Age, and the giant crumbled into dust.
The three gods went home with the Axe, and the world was safe once again.

But the world of the humans was falling again in chaos and destruction.

A rich and powerful sovereign had conquered hundreds of Kingdoms and had declared himself Lord of the Earth.
He had continued to bring war everywhere until the world was completely subdued to his will. But still not satisfied he challenged the Gods: he would declare war to them and wanted to destroy them, so that the whole of Creation could be under his control.
In his Capital he started building a Tower that could reach the sky and he ordered to build thousands oh ships that would go to the Kingdom of the Oceans and he hired all the magicians he could so that they would pervert the souls of the soldiers to send them to fight in the Underworld once they were killed.
The Gods, and Xanex most of all, where ready to fight against him and destroy once and for all the human race.

Rik, the god of Fertility, was Zuperius and Ana's youngest son.
One day Rik was walking along the shore and came across an old wooden hut, where a woman called Ay lived, that offered him shelter and a small meal.
Rik slept in her bed and then departed. Nine months later Ay gave birth to a son whom she called Thrall.
The boy was strong but ugly, and he married a slave girl, with whom he had twelve sons and nine daughters, whose names suggested ugliness and short stumpy stature. Their progeny became a race of slaves.

Travelling further Rik came across a small house where a craftsman lived with his daughter.
In the middle of the night Rik snuck into her bed.
Early next morning he travelled onwards, and nine months the daughter of the craftsman had a son who she named Barl. He married a woman called Sni, and together they had twelve sons and ten daughters: they became the ancestors of farmers, craftsmen and herders.

One day, Rik came to a mansion, where Eko and Elba lived. Elba – the goddes of Motherhood – was one of Xanex’s daughters, that he had given in marriage to Eko, so that they would give birth to a progeny devoted to the Gods. But Elba was never able to conceive with Eko.
Rik stayed with them for a long time, and after nine months Elba had a beautiful son whom she named Earl. Rik taught him the secrets of magic and to respect the Gods.
Earl soon became a great warrior, he married Isa, and had three sons and one daughter. From their progeny the Warrior Nobility was born.

Earl and his first offspring, thanks to Rik and Elba’s blood and their teachings, had great strength and cunning and an unnaturally long life.
Earl with his sons and nephews, young and beautiful for hundreds of years, where the favorites of the Gods. When the Lord of the Earth declared war to the divinities, they offered to fight in their name, praying to the Gods to let them show that man kind could still be saved. And so it was.
Mani passed away, and Earl himself died. But the battle was won, the Tower destroyed, the ship sank, the soldier’s souls freed.

The Gods, moved by Earl’s Love, were merciful.
However, the human race had still been decimated and it took many thousands of years for Man to return to its previous glory.
Earl’s progeny was blessed and it was granted to them to be Lords among Men, but Rik’s blood was always more diluted and his descendants always less devoted to the other humans.

=Chapter Three - The Heroes of the Gods=

Life on Earth was as we know it. Many kingdoms and their kings chose their gods and their influence over their lives on earth, but the envy of the gods soon made conflicts start on earth. This is how the Age of the Heroes on Earth starts.

==Aladir==

In the northern lands, far away in the upper map of Europe, a blacksmith was born, his name was Aladir.
The kingdom where he lived was menaced by a dragon who woke up every hundred days, destroying farms, crops and killing people. This dragon was called Ragnir and he was the son of Korsos. After the first giant was killed, his blood was hidden in a cave amid the Drake Mountains, there lived the monstrous dragon.

One day Aladir was working in his shop outside of town, when he saw the dragon destroy his village: in that moment he swore to revenge the death of his family and friends.
He waited three days and, when Ragnir went to sleep (for another 100 days), he climbed the Drake Mountain looking for his den. To help him, the Supreme god Xanex gave him a piece of his Axe so he could restore order on the Earth. From that piece, Aladir shaped a fabulous sword – Aladir’s Sword.
Maia, Xanex’s wife and goddess of Wisdom and Courage, made the dragon Ragnir fall in a deep sleep, and gave  Aladir Courage.
Aladir killed the dragon, while he was sleeping, and covered his body with the beast’s blood, becoming an invincible warrior. He became protector of his kingdom and after death of his king he took the crown.
Even today the crown of the Northern kingdoms has the name 'Aladirian crown' and has a dragon tooth set in the middle.

==Alexander==

Another hero of the Gods was Alexander. When Abner - the God of Death - saw that on the entire Earth no one worshiped him and no shrine was built in his honor, he decided to enslave or kill the entire population of the world to build one sole kingdom under his protectorate.
He trained some great soldiers in his lair in the Underworld and sent them on Earth to begin building his kingdom and making a mighty army.
The leader of his army was Atira and his army was named 'The Horde of Huin'.
Then the war began.
The Kingdoms of Europe made the Great Alliance uniting their armies, but not even all their strength put together could stop the Huins.
After a battle, ended with the Great Alliance’s defeat, the remaining allied soldiers made a camp in a forest.
Atira found them and burnt the forest in order to destroy the remaining forces. Seeing what was happening, the goddess of the Forests, Batiara, took the soldiers and saved them from the fire, then she walked in front of Xanex to tell him about the harm that Atira had caused to her forest, showing him her shrine in flames.
Because Xanex had feelings for Batiara he blessed one of the surviving soldiers, Alexander - son of the King of Wallachia - with immortality and asked Scytus to provide him weapons and soldiers to prevail in the war against Atira.
Three year after this happened, there was a final battle in Óbuda: on one side there was Alexander, that lead the Great Alliance’s army and on the other there was Atira the Conqueror with the Horde of Huin; they fought for three days and it was a carnage.
On the third day Alexander and Atira came face to face, and seeing their encounter Zuperius provoked a heavy rain.
Because he was a very big man, Atira sunk in the mud of the battle field and Peleone cut off his head. Seeing the final moments of their commander the Horde of Huin began to pull back and run.

The war war finished like that, with victory of the Great Alliance. Alexander became king of a great Empire of the East, but he hadn’t understood that his victory was a gift of the Gods, and soon he begun having wars with his neighbors, conquering half of Europe.
One day he was preparing for battle in the camp of his army that was in a forest.
He walked to a river and he saw faces in the water; when he moved closer to them they would go further away from him, but they kept calling him in the water.
While following the faces and the voices in the middle of the river, was the last time Alexander was seen by his companions. He perished alongside his mighty sword - Narquill – which had slain the dark warlord Atira. This was a revenge of Batiara, because he didn’t understand why he had been helped.
Shortly after he disappeared the Empire was divided by civil wars and from it’s ashes many little Kingdoms were created.

==Zigizeth==

In the city of Ilipa, there was a King who was half god and half man.
He forced his people to hard labor, and he made them build mighty towers, walls and fields.
This is the story of the cruel King Zigizeth, who raped women and exhausted men.
His people begged to the Gods, and the Gods replied.

The gods created a man of clay; his name was Tizuki, born in the forest, raised by animals.
He came to civilization and was taught the ways of men, and here he heard about King Zigizeth.

Outraged by the stories on the cruel King, he travelled to Ilipa and challenged the half-god; they wrestled fiercely for a long time, and in the end Zigizeth won. But having seen in him a valid opponent, he spared his life and he was hit by Tizuki’s fervor that he changed life style to follow the path of rectitude.
Soon the King and Tizuki became friends, and traveled together to find fame and glory.

They travel far and arrived at the Forbidden Forest, to fight a succubus.
With the help from Lux - the god of the Sun - they killed the succubus and they cut down all the trees and traveled back home.

Ana - the goddess of Love - hearing about these deeds, wanted to be united with Zigizeth, but he denied her.
For this reason Xanex punishes Zigizeth, sending his thunder horse to bring seven years of famine in his kingdom, but Zigzeth and Tizuki fought the horse together and killed it.
As revenge, the Supreme god killed Tizuki with his lightning.
Zigizeth grieved for many years, but then decided to set out to the wilderness to find the old hermit who had eternal life.
After a long while, he arrived at a twin peaked mountain, where the sun set on one site, and night raised on the other. Zigizeth met an old woman, and told her of his quest, but she warned him, that immortality is futile, and that he should be satisfied with the pleasures of the world.

Later he met an old ferryman, that took him over the River of Death to the immortal hermit, that told him of all the punishments of the gods against mankind, that the gods regretted having done it, deciding that men should die, but mankind should live on.
But Zigizeth insists on living forever and so the hermit gives him a test: if he could stay awake for a week, than he could live forever.
Zigizeth tried but failed, and the hermit sent him back home.

When he returned to Ilipa he had nothing left, but the he realized that he still had his life, because he understood that no one can live forever, but the human race would still prevail on in another life forms and it would last through time.
He saw his great city, that had been built first with pain and then with love, it was magnificent and that’s the closest he could ever get to immortality.

==Aristide==

Aristide was a famous architect and sculptor, he was so talented that his sculptures were practically lifelike. He took his nephew Crasus as an apprentice and taught him everything, but Aristide saw how exceptionally talented the boy was: he was jealous and feared he would surpass him, so he killed him.
When Crasus' body was discovered Aristide was sentenced to death, but he was able to free himself and escape on the Prettanike Island. The King of Prettanike Island, Carataco the Wise,
had heard of Aristide's greatness and so he brought him to his palace, where he had the architect design a structure that could keep in his sacred minotaur.

This building was named the Labyrinth and was a maze from which no one could escape without knowing its secret.
Aristide designed and built many other beautiful buildings for the King, that was very pleased with his work, but also worried that the great architect would leave Prettanike.
For this reason he locked Aristide and his son Esido in the Labyrinth.
Aristide thought of a way to escape, and he constructed two pairs of wings from light wood and feathers, gluing them together with wax, so that he and his son could fly away from Prettanike.
Before they left, Aristide gave his son some advice: "Don't fly too high because Lux would melt the wax and the wings would fall apart, and don't fly too close to the sea, because the wings would get wet and heavy and you would fall into the sea".

Aristide and Esido started their trip and everything was going fine but unfortunately the young man was so excited that he was flying and forgot his father’s advice: he flew too close to the Sun and when the wax melted he fell into the sea, close to a small island, and drowned.
Aristide saw his son falling and landed on the island, he found his son’s body and buried it close to the beach.