Synopsis: Comparative Mythology of the Kingdoms of Avin and the Sugdenian Empire, by Cai Zander Eriksson

I first conceived of the idea of compiling a work of this sort when I was still in my twenties and my oldest son, not yet ten years old, declared himself too old for bedtime stories. I set him the task of reading a few pages and discussing them with me each night. He quickly proved himself adept at understanding a humanistic diversity of subjects, but his chief interest still lay in the myths I had previously told him in my own words. He devoured Thistle's three-volume Interpretations of Avinese Legend over the course of his twelfth year, then asked me about the mythology of my own homeland. I had no text to offer him -- he read only Avinese, and all the available literature was in Sugdenian.

As a translator, I tried to help him, but my offerings came much too slowly to sate his ravenous appetite. Around the same time, I wrote to a friend in Sugden who was in the process of writing a comparative text on Avinese and Sugdenian religious structure. Might it be, I asked, that with increased communication and immigration, there was a need for something in dual languages, collating as much of the history, religion, and politics of both lands? He answered in the affirmative, and before I knew it, scholars and priests and translators from all over were clamoring to get involved. Their tireless labor you will now find between these covers.

My son, sadly, is now much too old for me to force him to a read a page or two before bedtime. It is my hope he might nevertheless do so -- and that his own young children might find something to entertain and enthrall herein. It is to him that this volume is dedicated.

C.Z.E.
Payl
Mychun 1390 FD / Deamonth 2794