Ilviran sermon given by Joren the Mystic in the fens near Noriel:
Thank you for coming. I have walked through our villages and towns and have seen the injustice done to us by the Northmen. But I have also seen new babies being born that will grow up to be great warriors. One day we will meet in our homes once again and not have to look at the foreigners any more. This I have seen in the holy places in Misyn.
Much else I have seen also. I have seen the dreamers in the forests and the dreamers in the mountains and it is of them that I wish to speak now.
Before the Sandmen came and before the rivers overflowed with blood this land was ruled by the wisest of our people. All the land was divided fairly and all who dwelt within were happy and prosperous. We, the Jarin, lived among our farms and valleys, our lands bounded by the forests and the sea. In the forests dwelt the Sindar dreamers and beyond them the Khuzan dreamers in the mountains. And there was friendship between these three people. And the days belonged to us and the nights belonged to the dreamers.
In those days the Gods themselves walked among us, speaking with the wisest. Many a day one could see the creatures of Ilvir working side by side with our people. Sometimes, during the night, one could even see the passage of Siem's silvery chariot, on its way to his people.
It is said that this is the land of the Sindar dreams. For they do not live here except in their sleep. When they awake they spend their days in Siem's domain. But this land is not foreign to us either for, as we live our waking lives here and the Sindar only dream, so it is that in Siem's land we dream and they live awake. And this peaceful state had lasted longer than the mountains but there were men who could not dream for they were cruel and ugly and had not the spirit in them. And so, thinking that dreams were like jewels, they came here to steal them.
The wise had seen them coming from afar and so we gathered at the shore and drove them back, but they were not so easily to be repulsed. They gathered in their murky halls and plotted. The second time they came they waited until night to land for they did not need to sleep like us. From then on they fought us only once the sun had gone down and the dreamers they attacked in the light of day. And so it was that they enslaved us.
But their conquest has not brought them dreams. Even though they have learned to sleep their nights are empty, their crude souls wandering with nowhere to go.