The very few scholars who cared enough about such things to spend time talking about them eventually, and somewhat reluctantly, came to the consensus that two hundred years had elapsed between the Unknown Catastrophe and the writing of the first documents found in the Great Land. Some had announced that in their opinion it might be forty years or less, others insisted hotly that anyone with a proper understanding of the matter must believe it to be over a thousand, but since there was no way of determining the true figure the estimates came to be considered worthless and the discussion futile. Two hundred years became the standard assumption for no better reason than that the scholars wanted to argue about something else instead.
The earliest histories were, as early histories generally are, very vague. They consisted almost entirely of poetry on the usual subjects of love, the fear of death and hope that conditions would be favourable for hunting. While the artistry of the language increased over the years, the emotions being expressed remained much the same. Later, prose writing became more common, as did an enthusiasm for recording the passage of time and particularly interesting events.
During this period an eclipse of the moon was recorded, an event quickly followed by increased interest in astronomical study and an enthusiasm for experiments, neither of which appeared to have been of the slightest interest during the poetry era, at least among the poets themselves. Perhaps, some of the scholars postulated, the way people wrote about their thoughts affected the kind of thoughts they had. Others suggested that some things could be expressed only in prose and not in poetry, or vice versa.
Further eclipses of both the moon and the sun, and the realisation that the world did not necessarily stop at the horizon, led to an understanding that both the Great Land and the sea surrounding it were located on a giant globe rather than, as only a fool could now possibly believe, on a flat plane, regardless of what local observations might imply.
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