Perhaps the origin of this composite personage lay in the confusion erupting from the very shallow pool of names. It is quite likely that several different heroes existed with a name such a "John Smith". In time the deeds attributed to the several became attributed to one composite legendary figure. Another factor may have been the naturally retiring nature of the Fenlings. A heroic deed invariably brings down the ire and ill will of the powerful. Thus it was safer to hide such a deed behind a generic name "The Fenman"

The greatest accomplishment attributed to the Fenman was to work out a means of crossing the Firehose, thus opening up a vast new portion of the Fens, and also enabling the Plains diaspora to occur.

As related in the legend of The Fenman's Revenge he was forced by the Despot of Edge to guide an army to capture the Plains and re-enslave the Plains Folk . The expedition only arrived at the Firehose once the first floods of the season had started. Military idiocy resulted in all but the lead boat piloted by the Fenman being lost in the flood. Then followed a saga of Crock-like cunning in which the Fenman disposed, one-by-one, of all the Officers holding him captive.

In revenge for the loss of so many thousand ordinary troops, the Fenman lead hundreds of Crocks into the fortress of Edge where they consumed and destroyed forever the political and military power of Edge.

All we have is a crude hasty judgement of the survey team that the Firehose River had "ten times the flow of the Amazon and 100 times the load."

Thus it could be the higher diurnal rate of our planet, or that the planet orbits closer to the suns. Or perhaps it is due to the fact that the planet is much larger, and thanks to a lower density, the surface gravity only 20% greater than Earth. Or perhaps the vigorous tectonic processes are fueled by the tidal forces imposed by the binary star system.

Whatever the causes, the facts remain impressive. Every year, 8 to 12 typhoon systems, tighter, fiercer than any of old Earth, come from the sea through Harrer's gap, and get robbed of all their energy and moisture by the Flame peaks. Every year the erosion caused by the death of these storms is more than compensated by the eruptions, explosions, lava flows and flood magma of the Flame peak tectonic belt.

The Firehose river is squeezed between the uplifted grassland plate and the Flame peaks, finally winning free of all geological controls at Deafman's Gorge.

At this point the Firehose river demonstrates why it was so named. It behaves exactly like a firehose turned on full and let loose to squirm and fling it self across a delta plain the size of a continent.

Whatever the origins of the Firehose River, the impact on the Firehose Fens, and thus on all our subsequent history is clear.

The Fens are a vast continental sized nutrient soup, vigorously stirred by the Firehose and abundantly fed by the super-rich atmosphere and overstoked with sun energy.

Any carbon based lifeform is in essence bound to store its genetic encoding in the DNA molecule.

The one parameter of freedom available is how that DNA molecule is packaged and passed on to succeeding generations.

Earth life DNA strands are relatively long compared to Planet life. The striking feature of Planet life is that DNA comes packaged in capsules. These capsules contain the encoding form some basic building block of life. The capsules are strung together like beads to form Frameworks. A Framework is a collection of genetic traits that stand some chance of producing a viable feature when the entire string of beads is passed onto another organism.

For example. The encoding for the scales on a Flutterbye wing is encoded in a capsule. The same capsule creates the scales on a Mothstake wing. A string of capsules encode the scales, the veins, the structure, musculature etc. for a complete wing. (A near universally found capsule encodes the "symmetrize" and create a mirror pair trait.)

All Planet life is symbiotic to the transporter `flu. The transporter virus packages arbitrary Frameworks found in its current hosts and "gifts" its next host with the Framework.

Thus after a bout of Transporter `flu a Crock may suddenly sprout a tiny pair of Flutterbye wings!

As universal as the "mirror trait" capsule is the "no use trait" capsule. There is a feedback mechanism. If a Framework successfully establishes itself, and is welcomed by the host, the created Framework organ feeds a message back to the Framework. If no "I welcome" feedback occurs, the Framework dies.

The feedback loop is continuous, the Framework unit grows a bit, sends feedback to the Framework, the Framework sends further details on how to grow and so on and so forth.

If the Feedback loop is blocked, either by the removal of the Framework unit or by Sayno tea, the growth of the unit is halted for lack information and the Framework itself dies. Once the unit is completed a "lock" signal occurs and the the Framework and the unit becomes permanent, and no further exchange between the Framework and the unit is needed unless for healing. If the lock signal doesn't occur within a certain period of time, both the Framework and the Unit die off.

In the case of Crocks with Flutterbye wings, the movement of the massive animal through water immediately rips the wings off, and no feedback occurs and the Framework is lost.