Yig at Amaranthe

 A bit of world-building that I put into a handout during Session 11 of my current Amber Campaign.

This note arrived on the leg of one of Julian's messenger birds. The bird was dying, shot by one of the silver-headed arrows that Nix had given to Julian yesterday.  

(Nix is one of the PCs, the son of Prince Julian. The day before, Fiona had provided Nix with silvered arrows and asked him to give them to Julian without saying they were from her. Nix called Julian, and found him at just that moment being attacked by Werewolves, so the arrows were quite helpful.)

The blood on the note makes it hard to read, but it seems to say either "Yig it Amaranthe" which doesn't make any sense at all, or maybe "Yig at Amaranthe" which makes only a tiny bit more.

The handwriting is not Julians, but it is the handwriting of one of Julian's staff. Sir Tucker of House Bolero, who is a scribe and falconer in Julian's employ and often handles his messages.

Two facts known to Nix, that might help make more sense of this:

1) Amaranthe is the name of Nix's mother, who has been dead for many years. She lived in a cottage deep in Forest Arden during Nix's childhood.

2) As an academic from Oberon's Loupe, you know that tradition holds Yig (or Ygg) is the name of a tree that once served as a border marker at the limits of Amber's reach. There's an old poem that Nix read in Oberon's Loupe some years ago, about the creation of the sea routes between the Golden Circle Kingdoms during the Gahmery-Karm war. Off the top of his head, Nix can remember a few lines:

"Oberon's fleet in Hepania woke,

with beams of bone and sails of blood,

Oberon's fleet in Wallahall broke,

and Yig did sprout from wrecked wood."

Scholars who have analyzed the poem, and compared it to what is known of Royal History in that era, say that Yig was a tree that at furthest point south that Oberon's fleets traveled in that war. When a quarter of the fleet was dashed upon the rocks by a terrible storm in the shadow world of Wallahalla, Oberon interpreted it as a sign that there was no point in pursuing conquest any further south. Indeed it would be impractical to support fleets that far from Amber. This set the practical outer limits of the Golden Circle. There was a large oak growing at the on the rocks at which the ships were thrashed, and Oberon declared it the marker beyond which no captain should try to sail. The final boundary of the Golden Circle actually ended up several worlds north of that point by war's end, closer to Amber. Today, Hepania is part of the Golden Circle, but Wallahall is not.

There's another reference in one of the travelogues Nix has read, written centuries after that poem. It says that inhabitants of the world of Wallahalla worship a mighty red-leafed tree called Yigg, which they also call the World Ship. Things that are real cast shadows all about, so things done by the Royal Family of Amber are reflected in myriad shadow worlds. As a result magical trees appear in the myths and legends of a hundred worlds at least, and are often named something along the lines of Yig, Ygg, Yigga, Yggr, Wgga, Yrrda, Yggdrasil, Vggdrssil, etc.