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question game – the river

Anyone know the name of this river?

What else do you know about it?

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2 Comments

  1. Myrtil Igaly Myrtil Igaly August 29, 2013

    The River Lore is a peaceful stream that runs between green hills and shadowed by centenarians trees, in which actually edible trouts frolick, far from the tainted Babbage Canal waters.

    Many believe that its name comes from the bucolic aspect of the river, which looks like it could belong to a fairytale.

    But the little shepherd knows of another story and will tell you, while he keeps a lazy eye on his flock, what his grand-mother taught him:

    The name comes from the gold specks that used to be found in the bed of the river, and that triggered a huge gold rush some fifty years back. The hills were covered in gold-diggers, coming from all over the country and sometimes even from across the seas.

    Amongst them, a big group of Frenchmen, who kept speaking about “l’or” (the gold) when designing the river, which then became mispelled as “Lore” by English-speakers.

    The little shephered will then drop his bored and nonchalant look and will lean closer to you to whisper the rest of the story in an excited tone:

    The gold rush fever lasted only for a couple of months. Not because of the lack of gold, but because immigrants kept disappearing mysteriously one after the other. At night, they would hear bloodcurling howls coming from the mountains and sometimes even closer, just at the edge of the woods nearby.

    One night, they came in a pack and did a razzia in the camp, snatching many of the gold-diggers and destroying the precarious huts. The day after, all the remaining immigrants deserted, never to come back.

    What was it, you will ask. Wolves?

    But the boy knows better and will shake his head with a grin: Monsters they were. Not mere wolves. And they still are around as their howls can be heard at night, and sheep disappear mysteriously…

  2. Arconus Arkright Arconus Arkright August 30, 2013

    In the years since its discovery, the Pasnomeer River has had over 30 different names. It was first named the Bovagen Moc by wandering barbarians who never located the river’s source and concluded it must be of divine origin. But as farmers and others began to build settlements near its banks, someone discovered “Bovagen Moc” meant “the war god’s urine.” Inspirational for pagan barbarians, but everyone else considered it disgusting. So it was decided that a contest would be held to rename the river. Unfortunately, several different villages along the river decided to follow a similar course and in short order, the same river came to be known by over two dozen different names as various farmers, aristocrats and wealthy merchants declared themselves contest winners.

    The situation was most frustrating for surveyors attempting to create maps of the region for their wealthy landowning employers. Presenting a finished map with the wrong river name to the wrong landlord meant instant dismissal and possibly a black eye (such was the passion held by individuals on this particular issue). Map makers soon adopted the practice of creating maps with a small, blocked off space containing the words “Paste name here” which left room for a small piece of parchment with the appropriate river name to be pinned or glued in place thus avoiding causing offense. But adhesives at the time were thoroughly unreliable and as traders from the far east came west, they more often than not found themselves with maps designating the river as the “Paste Name Here.” Folks living in the area soon became accustomed to eastern traders, only slightly familiar with the language, asking where they could hire a boat to go up the “Pass nom ‘ere” river.

    The small villages grew and merged into a large-ish town and the name of the river became official at a dinner party when the wife of a prominent and powerful town official — the daughter of one of those eastern traders — spoke of how much she loved to go punting on the Pasnomeer River. None of the surveyors present dared to call the river anything else after that.

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