Tales of lost lands are forever fascinating, legends about places that, once visited, could never be found again.
Ancient maps show hundreds of land masses that were either mistakes or downright fabrications. One such island, so it is told, guarded a bay far to the north of everywhere, lapping the shore of a shabby little fishing village that huddled under balsam-scented mountains. Generations of fisherfolk led simple lives there, until it was discovered that their forests yielded timber tall and straight, and their mountain caverns were bulging with valuable ores. Their sheltered bay could be exploited as a deepwater port. So all their riches were torn from the earth and shipped off to markets in the south.
Overseeing these developments were the gods, much amused at first by the dramas, the tales, the conniving, the conflicts. Inevitably though, some men began to overstep, and a misguided man could be tolerated for only so long. Deploying the oldest force in the world, as gods are wont to do from time to time, they could reset affairs whenever they wanted, and a hundred years later, no one would be sure whether Parrot Island had ever existed at all.
Nevertheless, their tales need telling, partly for the fun of it, and partly to immortalize one audacious and foul-mouthed parrot.
