In the course of digging, the miners came upon many of these natural
caverns. A few of them had far-off openings out on the side of a
mountain, or into a ravine.
Now in these subterranean caverns lived a strange race of beings,
called
by some gnomes, by some kobolds, by some goblins. There was a
legend
current in the country that at one time they lived above ground, and
were very like other people. But for some reason or other, concerning
which there were different legendary theories, the king had laid what
they thought too severe taxes upon them, or had required observances
of
them they did not like, or had begun to treat them with more severity
in
some way or other, and impose stricter laws; and the consequence was
that they had all disappeared from the face of the country. According
to
the legend, however, instead of going to some other country, they had
all taken refuge in the subterranean caverns, whence they never came
out
but at night, and then seldom showed themselves in any numbers, and
never to many people at once. It was only in the least frequented and
most difficult parts of the mountains that they were said to gather even
Madhuri Noah
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