Hermits of the mythical world are of many sorts. To some people, they seem moderate to highly eccentric. There’s a common type of hermit that lives deep in the forest and desert or seashore, there is some type that lives in a city, and there are hermits that live underwater or deep in the mountain in secluded caves. How do they make their living? They probably do work for people by creating and building things. Once the work is completed, it’s picked up and delivered to people who commissioned it and who need the item and use it. They grow their own food and make their own stuff, they are self-sufficient, and they make everything they need. They have no need for people. It’s said their interests are different from the rest of society the reason for staying by themselves. There are hermits that live very high in the trees where no one exists. One hermit lives in half a sphere with the things of nature, making fires and cooking out in the open. Underground tubes exist that house people, hermits often live in such places, which have become abandoned. Some live in a building on the side of the cliff.
Like the lantern homes, the hermit had so much space in a place that looked small; the interior has a whole earth for a living area; it’s not the actual land but an artificial one, a different earth as a living room. What would a hermit have? Many collect thousands of books; some hermits are scholars, and others just like collecting. They receive their collection from people discarding things; they search through old ruins for old books and items. A hermit once built a large structure over a small island, the ceiling lets in all the sunlight, and all he cares about is the sound of the waves on the shore and contemplating what he’ll write. They created and had created their own pretend society; some have human-size dolls pretending they are people. Hermits are diverse people. They can’t be generalized. This means for the mythical world they are fascinating people.
There’s a hermit who designs robotic spiders; some are toys, others are tools, and they crawl all over the place even when he sleeps, spiders crawl on his body. The larger mechanical spiders guard his seclusion. There’s even a spider that makes his breakfast. An aerial spider up high on the ceiling uses its legs or arms to build things such a device is controlled by the hermit’s mind. His world is his; no one enters, sculptures are everywhere, ceramics and glass things. He has built an empire of his own ego. There’s a particular hermit living in a floating sphere on the ocean; when it comes to shore, he collects sea shells and old discarded children’s dolls; hundreds of them are collected, although, from a distance, the sphere looks small, but like some homes in the mythical world its so roomy that a hermit living there can get lost in his own home. Parts of dolls’ limbs, heads, eyes, and whole dolls he collects from the most modern to the ancient. The dolls are his society. There is another hermit who lives in a canopy of leaves and grass the surrounding natural area is his home. There’s an underground passageway beneath the canopy, with rounded corners and all-white walls filled with potted plants; this is where he takes comfort from the rain. These are a few descriptions of what hermits have in their living spaces.
Ruins are where some hermits live; structures are there already, and it’s not necessary to build anything; there are secret passages and places where they raise their own food or store things they had stolen from other hermits or the dwellers of towns and cities, they collected items from the ruins, or make things themselves. Parts from other structures are used to build a hermits house; materials are metals, stone, ceramic, glass, and light. Some are arranged in a pleasing, artistic form; others are put together haphazardly in a disorganized manner. Their dwellings are in buildings to not bring attention to where they are. Although there might be many hermits in a ruined city, they don’t wish to know about one another. One of the best forms of seclusion is underground, with the growth of weeds, fungus, mold, moss, grass, and trees. Total natural seclusion is a door into another existence; the entrance is a stonewall, a wall of light, a forest, or a grass hill. In some of these existences, a hermit can live inside the seclusion of natural foliage and another wall of seclusion constructed of stone. There’s a structure, and inside another structure and another, there are hermits that don’t want people around.
The panorama of the oceans was considered an excellent place for hermits, ship-like dwellings that sail all around the sea. These water homes can submerge underwater, similar to a submarine. What happens when a hermit dies? The ship deteriorates and washes up on an unknown shore, where perhaps another hermit or fisherman would take it over. People would collect the things that once belonged to them. It seems that possessions didn’t belong to anyone; some people in the world of myth are not too materialistic. It’s natural to think that old things are worn out, falling apart, and dilapidated; in this world, objects heal themselves, renew themselves, and look as new as anything just made. Some hermits, when they sense death, sink their ships. Even possessions are destroyed, so no one gets to use them again.
Some homes are called chambers of light, a structure made of light that could take on any form to disguise it from being noticed. The lights don’t always remain on, eventually, the shapes fade into another world as the hermit needs their privacy. In the night, lighted homes might be seen, then they might disappear. Life is exciting for the hermit; they’ll do anything, live anywhere, and make it comfortable for themselves, never letting the world tell them what to do. The hermit likes to craft things independently, because most of them are craftsmen. A type of dwelling exists that is woven out of rock; it can be twined into any shape as a dwelling for the hermit. These are the few things about hermits in the mythical world on the mythical continent of Uaulsavaekiphzen.
Hermits of these mythical lands have struggled for individualism; they had won their battles to become such people; many of the people ask them for help; some are called scholars and wise beings.
Robert J. Matsunaga
