The Bard Brought Forth

Many have asked where the bard came from, and I have heard many tales told round the hearth at night. This is one of the tales I heard as I warmed myself near a fire one blustery winter night, when the wind was so cold it chilled you all the way cown to your soul...
It has been said that at the begining of time the gods of old had a great cauldron. Now in this cauldron was the essence of the gods themselves, the soul of creation. Everything that comes into our world starts as an image within the cauldrons dark watery depths... Soon the image evaporates, and becomes thought, and thought condenses into three parts, words deeds and the fabric of the universe. Now i'm telling you this so you'll know, so when the time comes you'll understand this process. For nothing comes into this world, nothing and nobody, that doesn't come into it this way. Nobody save for one...
Now it was in this cauldron that the gods of old first glimpsed the essence of the bard to be. And what they saw gave them a right start it did. For you see the gods of old were a jealous lot, and the man they saw within the cauldron could rival them in wit charm and beauty. And one god in particular even feared what he saw. You see in those dark days, the God of despair reigned supreme. He gripped the hearts of the people of all the races. But this Bard had the potential to overcome him, to wrest the peoples hearts from his icy grasp, and bring light to the shadows that had fallen across the land. So the God of despair, he reached deep into the cauldron and bottled up the essence of the bard to be. But fate could not so easily be thwarted...
You see, this could well have been the end of our tale, if not for the entry of a new character to our cast. The Goddess of trickery was different from the other gods, she wasn't so jealous, and even sought to make sport of the demeanor of her bretheren. Now this young goddess saw the fear in the eyes of her uncle, the God of Despair, and so she stole the bottle away from him and hid it in her keep. There she watched it every night before going to bed. Well soon she fell in love with the potential locked within the Bard to Be, and so sought to free him. She burst the bottle on the floor releasing the essence of the bard into the universe. Now if you recall nothing comes into the world without being distilled, and it was the lack of this step that gave the Bard the very traits the gods of old glimpsed within the cauldron. So he remained in the halls of the gods for a time, far from the world of men where he could cause the gods trouble. He was lover to the goddess who freed him, and she taught him the magics of the gods. But one god did not forget what he saw within the cauldron, and plotted to destroy the Bard, but that is a tale for another time...