The Legend of Mara

This story begins a long, long time ago, almost at the beginning of time. Think of times when dinosaurs roamed the earth then go back even further. Actually it was so long ago that very few people even remember it, lost in the annals of time almost. It happened in a little village called Hamburg, in a place far, far away, in a country called Germany. To call it a village is being very generous as it consisted of crooked ramshackle houses scattered higgledy piggledy everywhere. In between the houses the pigs foraged for food digging their snouts into the ground churning up the mud even more. Then they would, mud and all, go traipsing through the houses. And so begins the story that becomes a legend.