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The land between the Ironheart ranges and the white ocean is an area most gods did not pay too much attention to over the ages. One could say it is part of the quiet half of Galbar. There are quite a few rivers and in the northern part of this land the country is composed of the great rolling foothills of the Ironheart, of fertile soils and forests and steppes. Not as touched by the gods as the Waeld or the Deepwood, these woods still are a magnificent sight. For ages Hain and Humans lived reasonably peacefully alongside each other. There even is trade with the Rovaik of the close mountains, especially Troll merchants and Tedar herders are a common sight, roaming the land.

Jakin had been living in these lands all his life, and he had witnessed his surroundings change a lot, and he even had changed it himself a lot. He was a elder by now, maybe the greatest elder in these parts, respected by people far and wide. 
As on most days the young of the closest villages had started to gather and sit in a half circle at his hut, to listen to his stories a little before sundown. Not only where two dozen human kids here, but also a few Hain. One of them an adult, a very welcome chipper and his two younglings. Even a young Troll girl, daughter the trader often coming through every few months was sitting in the back waiting for the famed Jakin to come talk to them.

As the sun came down to about a hand breadth above the horizon a shuffling and muttering could be heard, and the wizened figure of Jakin emerged from the hut through a curtain door of wooden beads. He sat down on the perfectly formed root of the old tree hugging his hut. And harumphed. Deep sat his dark eyes in his deeply lined leathery face. A face that seen joy and sorrow and the coming and going of seasons, of herds, of people. His skin was dark as ebony, maybe even as dark as the night sky. He looked around smiling toothless at the gathered youth.

“So you want to listen to an old fools ramblings? Do you not have anything better to do?” 
His voice was very deep and smoky and warm like a well build campfire.
“Well seems like you don’t, well well.”
 He scratched his hairless scalp then leaned forward, drawing into the dust at his feet, figures and landscapes, as he talked.
“When I was your age younglings we did not live in such fine huts as these. Oh no we had big tents of hide and leather and would only stay at a site as long as the herds then we moved on to another place.”
“From village to village, like dads and me?” 
asked the troll girl in the back, her bone necklace making xylophonous sounds as she moved.
A warm smile spread and the old man chuckled.
“No, in these days there where no real villages in these lands. We had a few places we would always set up shop. Some even had a few buried supplies we did not want to carry around the land, but we only staid for a time, and then moved. Ask your dads some time he should remember it too.” 
His smile diminished shortly.
“In those days we Humans would attack all Trolls on sight. He should still have a few scars my Father gave him.” A deep sigh

A bit of bickering sprang up between the kids “Children this is long ago, we all where scared of each other, it was a worse time. Do not fight because of it.”
“Anyways, I think I was about your age when the Hain of our friends the Seaside Clan where visited by strangers from a foreign land. Can you tell me what these foreigners brought to them?” 
“Tools!” 
“Pretty stones!”
“The red stinky water!”
“Foodstuffs.”

“I might as well tell you. It was really food.” He rummaged in his sporran then held up a pale loaf of bread. Then handed it to the kids to share.
“Never had any of us seen a food like this. One that tasted so well when it was fresh, that smelled and when dried would not spoil for a long time.”
“I don’t like it..its too fluffy.” Mumbled the troll girl. Good natured laughter.
“No I bet you don’t.” He handed an air dried brick of clay over then nodded smilingly. ”Anyways, soon the Hain had started to work the land and as they had something we wanted, we started to have more contact with them. It wasn’t quite easy, no one had thought up our common tongue and we had to talk with hand and feet, but soon friendship bloomed and we learned the secret of planting fields.” 
He chuckled again 
“And I must tell you, I didn’t like it one bit. Working an acre is hard work! But the harvest and the easy to stow away bread and grain allowed us to stay, to not have to roam and to build nicer homes, homes that did not need to be carried all around.” He proudly patted his own hut.

“It wasn’t always great though, we and by we I mean Hain and Human had to figure it out of course. At first our fields often failed us, where smashed by hail or rain. How should we have known when to sow and reap? When the rain and when the dry season would be upon us?”

A human boy piped up “The Stones! The Holy Stones!”
Jakin laughted.
“Well not yet, but yes the Stones is what we have now. It works like this: Days over the year are not all the same. Each day the sun rises a bit further to the side than the other, when we where wandering no one knew! How should we, we never had paid that much attention, or staid long enough in one place to see the difference. Anyways there are two days each year where the sun stops wandering and moves back again, and as it hurts to look at the sun we found a way to find this day.”

“Shadows!” Said all the kids in unison

“Yes Shadows, see you know my story already. We build a circle of wooden posts and marked each day where the sun had set and sunk. We found the Year and soon we knew where the sun had to sink for there to be rain season soon and where it had to rise for the right day to sow our fields. When I became shaman myself, I had an Ideas to make this better. As everyone will tell you, Jalkin is a very lazy man. Well I didn’t want to have to replace the rotten wood posts after each rain season. It took some time to bring the other shamans and wise women around, but after a year or two of me unrelentlessly blabbing at them, we started. With the help of our good friends like Stonesong here.”
He indicated the seated Hain who looked around shyly.
“With the help of the chippers like him and lots of people from the other villages, and with a big chunk of help from your dad and his brothers.” He nodded to the Troll girl who grinned proudly, a toothy wide grin. 
“We build the great stone calender. Here at the purple beach, where the wise people of Hain, Human and Rovaik have always come in wonder. Here we erected it for the benefit of all of us. And now here it is where we all gather for the great holidays of solstice, and where all the wise men learn from each other and where the young come for healing, or to have their children. Also where the old come when their time is coming to its end.  To its End like this story ends now.”

Exhausted the old man concluded his tale and soon, but not without protesting for more story and tales the kids went to play and eat. He sighed, tomorrow would be his last Solstice, he knew it in his bones. And still he did not know, did not understand why here there was a beach of purple sand they had build the calendar at. Had the Gods just willed it so? Was it a gift to have a place all the thinking people cared for? Where the old animosities could end?

The purple sands. No one knew why they where purple. Why they where the color of all these tiny garnets carried here from the rich deposits in the Ironheart by rivers.