Goblins

[WP] The goblins who dwell just outside your village are small and dumb –in an oddly endearing way. The villagers humor their innocuous raids and sometimes even give them advice. In the village’s darkest hour, the goblins send aid.

*****

When it first started out, they say it was awful. The yearly raid. Then we discovered metal weaponry and advanced our civilization, and the raids became less of a problem.

But the goblins… they just don’t quite keep up. They still live a few miles away in a section of the forest that we left for them. Once upon a time it was a deep and thick forest. Now it’s just a glorified copse where you can hear them stomping around when you get too close.

But anyway, yeah they say it was a horrific sight to behold. They’d come out of the forest, torches alight and bone-tipped spears in-hand, chanting their war song, with their Shaman shooting fireballs at our measly wooden buildings. They’d kill those who resisted, take what they needed for the season and then they’d be off for another year.

Here’s the thing, when you’re a small town working with stone tools and have a population of 300, it’s easy for goblins to do some damage. But after around 800 years, our village has become more of a city. We have stone walls, a fully armored militia numbering in the thousands.

But the goblins are creatures of habit, no matter how many times we beat them back, no matter how many times we raided their village and beheaded their shaman, they kept coming back with more shamans, more numbers, more war-chants. They reproduce like rabbits so it’s no surprise they’re always ready for another raid by the same time next year.

After a few hundred cycles of decimating their civilization year after year, we learned that they aren’t the most intelligent creatures. One year as a test, our ancestors filled a whole carriage with food, medicine, and valuable metals as a peace offering. They had apparently grown tired of the yearly goblin slaughter. So they left it outside the gates with a man on the wall to explain that we desired peace. The goblins ran to the gates, surrounded the carriage and started chanting “Chu-wa! Chu-wa!” which means “Victory! Victory!”. They couldn’t even hear our man on the gates over their own victory chant.

That’s when we first learned how harmless they actually were. They don’t understand peace, they’re too simple. They think they MUST raid and pillage to survive, and we started to view that as a sad thing. Simple creatures, trying to survive. They can’t help how they are.

And so after some adjustment time, we began the “Festival of the Raid”. We adopted their war-chant, added some instruments and made it more up-beat. We all get ready on the streets, our pockets filled with copper and gold coins, our baskets full of bread and berries. The children ecstatic and the elderly leaning out their windows to catch a glimpse of the raid.

As soon as we hear the chant coming from the woods, our orchestra begin. Oh the sound, you’d never believe what it sounds like to have thousands of 2 foot tall goblins singing harmoniously with a full orchestra. The moment they break through the tree line, the fireworks start. Originally a display of power and an attempt at intimidation, the lights and sounds of the shaman’s fireballs exploding over our heads now brings wonder and amusement to even the youngest of our village.

When they arrive at the gates we open them wide and allow them in, and the official raid begins. They march through our village being showered with gold and sweets, they smile and wave their weapons in the air as children, who are already much taller than them, cheer them on and offer them gifts of shiny rocks and candied cloudberries.

When they arrive at the town hall (which is more of a castle these days) our Duke comes out with the ceremonial carriage, full of goodies for the goblins to utilize however they see fit. The Duke gives the same speech every year, something along the lines of “We offer this carriage-of-plenty, as a sign of our undying submission and fear to your people. May this successful raid sustain your people for another year.” The Shaman scratches the head of the kneeling Duke (customary in goblin culture among acquaintances), and then starts the song of victory. “Chu-wa!”. And the whole village, humans and goblins alike, begin the victory chant. And the streets ring with “Chu-wa! Chu-wa! Chu-wa!”

It’s such a lovely time, there’s music and dancing and everyone is so happy for days after it’s over.

Of course, there was the year of the failed raid. The time when the goblins saved us for a change. We had a horrible draught, which lead to a famine, which itself lead to poverty. By the time the raid came, no one was waiting on the streets. No orchestra came to answer their song, and when the gates opened the town seemed to have died. There was no food to offer, no candy or fruit to bestow.

The silent and confused goblins marched to the town hall as they always do, and our Duke came out to offer his apologies and knelt as he always does. “My noble goblin neighbor, I’m afraid we have no bounty to offer your people this year. Our mead-halls have run dry and our coffers are empty. We must humbly apologize for our failure.” He said this as he bowed his head in shame.

The Goblin shaman scratched the head of the Duke, and said in a guttural, scratchy, high-pitched tone “You… Raid… Us.”

The Duke raised his head. Not only was he shocked that a goblin was speaking, but that it seemed to want them to raid their camp. “You- you want us to raid the goblin village? We haven’t mounted a counter-raid in hundreds of years. Not since our ancestors burned your village and took the head of your chief, not since we started the Festival of the Raid.”

“You… raid… Goblins. Goblins… give… raid… to… tallthings.”

Then they marched out of the village and back into their forest. The next day the Duke did as instructed, he brought his half-starving and weak forces into the forest.

The moment the militia entered the trees, they heard a war-chant. But this time, the chant had more to it. The goblins had mimicked some of the instruments that we had designed. And though it was crude and didn’t sound very nice, it was fully recognizable as the music we had written to accompany their war-chant. Once they got closer they realized that the goblins had constructed a stone wall, much like ours. Of course, the wall was only about 6 feet tall with a gate that any normal human would have to crouch to get into.

They opened their gate and allowed the Duke and his men into their village, the chanting and music now surrounding them as young goblin children gathered around to see the “tallthings”.

Incredibly, they’d mimicked quite a bit of human culture and architecture over the years. Just shrunken and much more thrown-together. When they arrived to the large central goblin hut (which resembled a particularly large pile of rocks) the shaman emerged.

“You… raid… us!” He yelled to the large group of humans gathered in his town square. After saying this, he pointed his twisted and warped staff at the pile of rocks that he emerged from. A fireball ripped out of his staff and exploded the pile. The men shielded their faces from the blast, but when they heard a slight “ting… ting…” on top of their helmets, they looked again.

Gold coins, hundreds of year’s worth of gold coins rained down on them. Enough to fill their grain stores, and get the mead flowing again.

The shaman said “Shiny… no… help… goblin. You… take… shiny… back.”

The Duke, overcome with relief and thanks, turned to his men and yelled “Chu-wa men, Chu-wa!”

The goblins saved us. And ever since then the yearly raid has changed, or at least the people’s attitudes about the raid. It used to be a way to poke fun at the goblins, to fake fear and submission to a lesser people because of our own superiority. Now, it’s a way to say thank you. Thank you for saving our village, our people, our way of life.

All in all, we may have changed the definition of a “raid” for an entire civilization of goblins. But, I’d say it’s mutually beneficial.

*****

THE END