Ghraewaj                                                        Tidasus                                                                                                                                                            )	    @    Z      Ghraewaj and the Harpies       On the twelfth of Hearth Fire every year, the people of the Hammerfell township and barony of Lainlyn celebrate Riglametha. Riglametha in the Banthan dialect of the ancient Redguard tongue means "grateful-offering" and is a festival of the graces the gods have granted the people of Lainlyn over the centuries. Tradition dictates the performance of a number of plays about the great moments from Lainlyn's past, and one of the most popular is Ghraewaj, which may be translated as "The Crows Who Were Punished" or "The Crows Who Punish." Old Redguard is somewhat vague with its objective case.   The story of Ghraewaj, as any Lainlyn child will tell you, is of the wicked sisterhood of daedra worshippers who craft lies, curses, murders, and suicides to hurt the people of Lainlyn. Most of all, they use their beauty as a weapon to drive men to mayhem. Their leader, the temptress Noctyr-a, seduces the unnamed baron of Lainlyn and is about to force him to commit suicide to prove his love, when the baroness arrives. The baroness tricks Noctyr-a into wearing a beautiful white robe from the baroness' closet: "See how the robe glows with the lumniscience of pearl, but the inside is soft, feathered with down." Noctyr-a puts on the robe and the trap is sprung: the robe is magical and transforms Noctyr-a into an giant black bird. The baron, no longer enchanted, slays the great bird and calls in his cook.   The sisterhood has, by this time, taken over Lainlyn castle and turned it into a orgy-filled den of decadence. At the height of their frenzied debauch, the cook arrives with an enormous roast to keep their energy high. They dig into the deliciously prepared meal, and at the crescendo of their gorging, the baron and baroness appear to tell them all that they have just devoured their leader, Noctyr-a. The women scream and caw and suddenly they too are transformed by the magic of the robe, into harpies, vicious half-bird creatures.   The interesting thing about Ghraewaj from a scholarly perspective is how much the story has changed and continues to change over the years. In some versions of the story, Noctyr-a is an innocent peasant seamstress and it is the baroness who is the cruel and wicked leader of the harpies. Noctyr-a prays to Dibella and is given the charm to make the magical robe, and she and the baron live happily ever after once the harpies have feasted on the tranformed baroness. During the long reign of the virgin baroness of Lainlyn, Viana the Pure (2E 120 - 2E 148), the baron was portrayed as a willing conspirator of Noctyr-a. The harpies thus have two birds to dine on.   It is unlikely that trying to find the truth in the story is profitable research. Harpies are indeed a common nuisance in the Iliac Bay, particularly around Lainlyn. They do have their own tongue, and the few who have mastered it and not been devoured by their interviewees suggest that the harpies have no more idea about their origins than we do. In a different vein, one of the best known of the Daedra Princes is named Nocturnal, who is often portrayed as a beautiful dark woman holding two black crows. It is not a difficult etymologic trick to derive the name Noctyr-a from Nocturnal, or vice-versa.     