Mantfi

Mantfi is a folk tale commonly told in Hiblundiiun folklore which is arguably the most influential of the entire region. The tale was originally created back in the unification days of the Marigic Peninsula, and its exact wordings have been lost and changed throughout history.

Story

The story of Manfi roughly follows the lines of this: A rich farmer had past away, and he had decided to split his land evenly to his three sons moments before death. His oldest son was Erraunist, a strong and helpful man around the fields with an eagerness to get all that was available to him, was given the west third. His second oldest was Fiutred, who had all the traits of his brother, creating a stereotype of doing everything Erraunist did and following in his footsteps. He was given the east third. The youngest was Mantfi, who, unlike his brothers, was not very strong, but survived with a smart mind. He was given the middle portion.

One day, Erraunist had desired for more crops to grow. He had noticed that Mantfi was struggling to keep his part of the field intact, so one day he said: "Brother, I notice that you have been struggling to keep up with your stash of crops. May I help you with this in return for a small portion of your crops?" Mantfi knew that he had no other choice, as Erraunist would probably hold a grudge against him if he did not get his main goal, the crops. After he had agreed, each day Erraunist would take a little more crops each day, thinking that Mantfi would not notice. Mantfi would notice, however, he would not ever protest in fear of Erraunist's strength.

Erraunist would take more and more until he took all that he had worked on, that being half of Mantfi's area. Mantfi had been aware that this might happen, but luckily he had a backup plan. One day, he told his brother Fiutred: "I cannot keep up with the work in my area. Do you mind if you do the work on mine in return for a large portion of what you had worked and perhaps a nicely prepared dinner each day?". Fiutred had agreed, and had followed suit of his brother; as he took more and more of Mantfi's share until there was an unspoken agreement that Mantfi no longer had a share and it was split by Erraunist and Fiutred.

As more days went by, Erraunist and Fiutred had grown envious of each other's land, becoming greatly mad at each other out of pure jealousy. It had gone so out of hand, in fact, that one day they had vowed to fight 'till the death for each other's land. In the end of a terrible fight, both brothers had filled each other. Mantfi had predicted this all along, and now owned the entire share of his father. He then hired workers from his family's previous wealth and had lived a happy and successful life all of his days.

Origins

This tale was made up by Aurnuls Sverdingal sometime around the 1100s. In context, the neighboring tribes of Elonviik and Exivo had grown greedy for power, and in the middle of the two was the tribe of Maxhivisk. The entire Marigic Peninsula was going through a time of unification, where smaller tribes were being taken over by much larger ones. King Alicardan, the ruler of Maxhivisk, was going through great distress by the ever-increasing power of the two neighboring tribes. He requested that whoever was able to give him wisdom in this situation to meet up with him, and Aurnuls was one of them.

Aurnuls created this story to find an interesting way of saying to don't resist and everything will turn out eventually. King Alicardan loved Aurnuls' story, so much so to actually take his advice. The tribe of Maxhivisk would then be split and would witness a huge war between Elonviik and Exivo, which would only prove that this story was able to be in real life, as both tribes would weaken each other massively, and would lead to the native Maxhivists (who were not drafted into the war because they were thought of to be untrustworthy) unifying and fighting back to both tribes at the same time. This strategy resulted in the Maxhivisk tribe to grow 6 times its size, with neighboring tribes helping out to crumble both Elonviik and Exivo.

The Maxhivisk tribe would be conquered by the Hiblund-Kulz tribe not a century after its return, and is now a small city separating the current-day cities of Elonviik and Exivo.