The Wolfsong Tribe, or in Old Elkish ‘Draulirim’, is one of the oldest and most distinguished of the Deer Tribes surviving in modern Equestria. It dates back as far as most known Deer histories will go and is in no short supply of tales to be told.
Like most deer, they take their name from their founder but the Cervine tongue is ancient and refined and other names for them include...

• Drow
• Dreer
• Drarasi
• Lupacervine
• Lycalaphar
• Ithildar

The Wolfsong were first founded by a master huntress appropriately named Singingwolf or Gaurglir.
[Note: Miss Dawnwind wishes it to be known to all equine unfamiliar with Lapharim, the traditional language of the deer, that Gaurglir is pronounced Gower (Like Tower)-Glear (Like Clear) NOT Gargle-er as some ignorant sources maintain]
Singingwolf was a member of a struggling band of deer living in the great Eldergrove Forest (What became the Everfree and several other different forests) a hazardous place to live, dominated by harsh conditions and fearsome wildlife.
The most widespread and dangerous of these beasts were the wargs, great semi-sentient wolves whose kingdom encompassed the centre of the forest and had spread out swiftly, every living creature without the teeth and claw to defend itself little more than meat for their kind. The deer’s propensity for magic was great but against the wolf’s tenacity and force, they were no match. No deer could stand against them.
No deer except Singingwolf.

When the wargs attacked the tribe, she alone stood against them, fighting them off with tooth, hoof and horn, ferocious and unwavering. When the pack pulled back to ready a charge, Singingwolf produced a bow of Silvanbeam, a hardy but dextrous wood perfect for the craft, and slew hundreds at a time before they even reached the clearing. She then pursued the retreating horde to their den where she stood before their king, Garmur the Savage. She challenged him to single combat for control over the Wolf Kingdoms. The warg king accepted, amused at the notion, and the two clashed. Fierce and bloody was their duel but at last, Garmur pounced...howled...gurgled...then lay still, having impaled his throat upon Singingwolf’s antlers.
Tales purport that Garmur was a tyrant to the wargs and wolves and his downfall was celebrated as Singingwolf was taken into the lupine society as the deer and wolves made a pact of brotherhood. Nonetheless, the forest was still a harsh environment to live and near impossible to maintain safely. Singingwolf however, saw fit to do what she could, guarding over her realm with surety for several centuries until she was gravely wounded in a war against the malevolent giant spider queens who were swiftly gaining ground across the Eldergrove. Practically paralyzed, Singingwolf was no longer able to fight and defend her subjects.
Things seemed lost for the Wolfsong.

But Singingwolf had become a mother in the eons she’d ruled, giving birth to a daughter named Ithilgelin or Gleamingmoon.
[Note: Her father is only known by the name of Lokar and nothing else is written about him. It’s uncertain whether or not he was a deer or, perhaps, a wolf. Gleamingmoon and a great many of her descendents are known for their peculiar protruding canine teeth which may add credence to the latter theory.]
Gleamingmoon hadn’t inherited a great deal of her mother’s tenacity, she was said to be a slight little thing with small antlers and a silver stripe down her muzzle, but she possessed a similar adventurous spirit. At a young age, she’d ventured as far into the wolf dens as she was permitted to go and, as she grew older, further still. It was in the bowels of these dens that she discovered her tribe’s life-saving grace.

Veins of mithril, a rare and powerful material, light as a feather yet hard as dragonscale and gleaming with magic by the light of the moon. With this abundance of metal, she set about crafting high towers of mithril that shone bright at night and illuminated the entire expanse of the Wolfsong domain, revealing attackers wherever they mustered and providing able means of communication and observation in such cases. The Wolfsong trained in the ways of war, becoming able warriors, hunters and scouts and drove away the Spiders and after them many other foes.
Her wish fulfilled and the future of the Wolfsong safe in her daughter’s hooves, Singingwolf finally and gladly passed on.

Gleamingmoon spread out her domain, peacefully if she could but forcefully if she had to, and found, to her tribe’s wonder, other deer like them. The Tribes of the Hawkflower, led by the Brother Princes Fanuiloth Whitecloud and Fanuimith Greycloud, and the Owlstorm, led by the Grandmother Glingwilith Watch-the-Sky. Together, the three tribes entered an alliance, joining their respective specialties for their collective confederacy to prosper. The Hawkflower were masters in matters of agriculture, the Owlstorm in magic and mysticism and the Wolfsong in battle. Working to hone each other’s skill and make up for any weakness, the triarch became profoundly prosperous, its reach stretching further and further across the forest. This kingdom and others like it saw the Eldergrove wax and wane over the many centuries of its existence.

Then came what is known as the First Invasion of Tirek.
The Great Horde set out from the south, dominating or destroying any kingdom its Warlord came across for Tirek, though young at this stage, desired nothing more than total subjugation of all rivals, wherever they hid.
The Horde struck the Eldergrove viciously, the mighty centaurs ploughing through rows and rows of trees in their marches and Tirek set about felling the Mithril Towers.
The deer struck back with fierce assaults and counter-assaults, the woods their greatest ally but against the might of Tirek it was a losing battle. Against the largest and most crucial of the Mithril Towers, Gleamingmoon fought Tirek herself and, though she gave the centaur warlord a hard fight by all accounts, she was struck down, mortally wounded.
Before Tirek land the killing blow, however, the Mithril Tower shone brighter than the moon itself, dazzling the Horde. Tirek stared up at the tower as it cast its light over the horizon, far to the west where a great rainbow had formed.

This may have been the ascension of Princess Rememberly which would in time bring about Tirek’s Invasion of Equestria, the destruction of the Flutter Valley, the rise and fall of Midnight Castle, the supposed coming of Megan the Mysterious and eventually the Great Rejuvenation.
Due to the immortality of deer and conflicting calendars, this is difficult to date exactly.
But Tirek and his Horde left there and then, leaving the Wolfsong alive but destitute, a fraction of what they’d once been and the Eldergrove in much the same condition.
It was after the great War of the Deer, when the near-destroyed Elken Kingdoms made an exodus to the forests of the west that the Wolfsong recovered. Gleamingmoon’s son, Fairfortune, welcomed the refugees to his kingdom. One of them, a princess of the Golden Shore-Deer named Winterpearl, became his wife, giving him two sons, Palestride and Cinderstone, and a daughter, Fallingleaf.

Palestride and Cinderstone were twins in build but distinct in coat. Palestride had a wide streak of silver running from the tip of his muzzle, over his head, all the way down his back and over his tail while Cinderstone had two streaks of ruddy ginger over his eyes and cheeks, running round his shoulders and at the peak of his flanks. Fallingleaf, meanwhile, was a flash of black and white, the tips of her hairs as if dipped in silver and a pair of tiny grey antlers unlike most other doe species. The three were expert scholars and warriors but the brothers competed heavily and each sought to outdo the other and, if they could, their sister. In every war the Wolfsong fought, the three children of Fairfortune and Winterpearl accomplished legendary feats. Then in the Second Age of Magic, approximately several years into the early reign of Princess Laurelore, Fallingleaf slew the King of the formidable Ettens (Two-Headed Forest Trolls) with the help of a hardy stag she’d rescued from its cave. His name of Runningwind, an able warrior-poet with famous wit and courtesy, descended from the great deer of the Misty Isles with antlers near as long and wide as his own body. The two began a partnership on their ventures and were married soon after.
However, after their engagement was announced, it’s recorded that Palestride behaved caustically toward his siblings and, before the wedding, entered Fallingleaf’s chambers and ‘attempted a most coarse of displays’, stopped in the midst of it either by Runningwind, Cinderstone or Fallingwind herself. It had become clear that Palestride believed Fallingwind’s hoof and heart belonged only to him and at the wedding he and a cadre of his close followers stormed the place as he drew a blade on the groom. In the chaos, he accidently (Or not, depending on sources) stabbed his mother in the heart. Consumed with grief and dismay, Fairfortune banished Palestride from the Wolfsong domain and broke his heart in the process, dying within the year. Cinderstone henceforth took up his father’s crown.

Palestride, however, was not finished, his wrath and spite becoming his sole driving-force. Finding life among the Whitetail Deer, a tribe equal in prosperity and influence to the Wolfsong, he offered the King, Alder, a bag of mithril he’d stolen from his lands before his departure, in exchange for a daughter to wed. He wed Princess Damson, a spoilt, shrill and sharp-tongued doe and, while not by any accounts in love, the couple enjoyed similar past-times including, but not limited to, spitting on those lower than them.
[Note: This is one of the first and primary causes of the feud between the Wolfsong and the Whitetail that persists to this day. By such a joining, Palestride became a cousin of the future Deerking Aspen, who sought to venerate him as an enlightened member of his otherwise savage and deluded tribe in the Whitetail histories.]
[[Dawnwind: Such pretentions are typical of his kind.]]
The Wolfsong Deer were one of the several tribes to war with the griffons in the First Raptor War alongside the Equestrians and suffered heavily as a result. When Cinderstone sent a request for aid in recovery, the Whitetail accepted. But to his dismay, he was greeted by Palestride and Damson who gleefully announced that the Whitetail would be happy to grant the Wolfsong all the aid they required...once it had bent the knee.

With no other option available, Cinderstone bent the knee to his hated brother who immediately ordered Runningwind executed and Fallingleaf granted to him as a concubine. Fallingleaf argued bitterly with Cinderstone, claiming this to be the height of cowardice and the Wolfsong to be able to fend for themselves as they always had but Cinderstone would not take the risk. The two nearly came to blows but the King of the Wolfsong was adamant that Runningwind would not have to die. So it was that Runningwind faked his death and went into exile...and Fallingwind joined him. Fallingwind’s best friend and lady-in-waiting, Hazelmay, disguised herself as the Princess, dyeing her fur with a spell, and tearfully but willingly subjected herself to her brother’s perversions for the sake of her Princess’s safety. Runningwind and Fallingleaf would live on as the remnants of the Free Wolfsong.

Under the Whitetail Confederacy, Palestride and Damson oversaw the Wolfsong, Hawkflower and Owlstorm territories in a manner, described by Miss Dawnwind, ‘as a fawn in a difficult household would oversee a daddy long-legs’; taxed and mistreated constantly, mocked incessantly and treated as second-class citizens of the Confederacy. This age of humiliation continued for some time until a plan was hatched by the reclusive Wolfsong Shamaness, Dawnwind, the elder sister of Runningwind, daughter of the Greathorn Chieftain, Farseerer the Wise and Princess Silversong. Dawnwind was a doe who had passed off the title of High Chieftainess of the tribe in favour of the studies of Shamanism. She'd studied under Fairfortune and Watch-The-Sky and had perfected her craft, a legendary shaman, a beastmaster without equal and a peerless tactician.
[[Dawnwind: I dare say Mr Patch has a gift for flattery. I wonder that’s why he fawns over so many Queens and Princesses. He tries anything around me and I’m going to rip his acorns off with magic brambles.]]
[Patch: She does know I read these, right?]
[[Dawnwind: Yes. Yes, I do.]]
[Patch: How was that was there before I read this?]
[[Dawnwind: Because I knew you were going to write it. Seer, remember? Try to keep up.]]
[Patch: I am never going to get used to this, am I.]
[[Dawnwind: No, you’re not. I’ve checked.]]

During the Vernal Equinox, the deer kingdoms partake in a festival of scrying, soothsaying and oracular studies. They study the movement of nature and the behaviour of plants and animals. And it was at this time that Dawnwind put her skill in beastmastery into action, a skill the Wolfsong, Hawkflower and Owlstorm were famous for. It took even a novice seer to know when an animal was being controlled by magic but a tame beast can only really be identified by one with the beast itself, particularly if that tame beast has been trained to act wild. Using the wildlife at her disposal, Dawnwind duped the Whitetail prognosticators into believing their fortune lay with aiding the Equestrians against the Draconequui, the Wolfsong having already shed enough blood for their pony allies in the Raptor War. So Alder gathered his full host and headed west, leaving Palestride and Damson with only a hoof-full of guards. Dawnwind then sent word to the couple-in-exile, Runningwind and Fallingleaf, who broke into Damson’s Palace at dead of night, took their overseers prisoner and declared the Wolfsong free once more. Cinderstone arrived to welcome his sister home and Hazelmay was liberated.

When King Alder received word he was uncertain of what action to take. His first-brother, Huorn (Aspen’s father), declared that the Wolfsong should be annihilated for such an action while his second-brother, Mallorn (Damson’s father), asserted that ending the threat of the Draconequui was imperative and that peace was needed to ensure the Whitetail did not return to a war-torn kingdom.
Consulting the seers, who were still adamant that the prophecy had to be fulfilled, Alder left Mallorn to oversee the war while he headed home to negotiate with Cinderstone and Dawnwind in what became known as the Pact of Laughing Hounds.
[[Dawnwind: By the Whitetail. Hounds, indeed, what garbage! We prefer to call it the Wolfsong Restoration]]

Cinderstone brought forth his terms. The Wolfsong would, once more, be a free kingdom in the Everfree, Palestride would have his antlers removed and exiled from all the deer realms forever and Damson would be returned after three weeks in exchange her weight in Mithril (Which, thanks to the metal’s abnormally low density, was around thirty-thousand chests-full) and three-hundred acres of woodland. Before Alder could sign the treaty however, his nephew Aspen emerged. The young prince declared he’d uncovered Dawnwind’s deception and that the Whitetail had been duped into leaving the Everfree and joining Equestria’s war against the Draconequui. Alder, furious, demanded to know if this was true.
It was then that Cinderstone and Dawnwind grinned, admitted that it was true and that the price had now tripled. For were it to be revealed to all deerkind that the great Whitetail Confederacy had been played in such a spectacular manner, they would become a laughing-stock, their authority would be toppled, their armies would mutiny and the Confederacy would likely fall. The likelihood of this threat remains uncertain but Alder, after a weighty pause, agreed before leaving as a nerve-wracked shell of the stag he’d once been, raging at his nephew that keeping his mouth shut would have saved the Confederacy sixty-thousand chests of mithril and six-hundred acres of land.
[[Dawnwind: I remember Aspen’s face all throughout. Indignation positively burned through his features. As for Damson, for the three weeks she spent as our captive we saw fit to keep her in a place most befitting of a doe like her, the cesspits. She’d thrown dung at us in spirit for ages without end, we repaid in less-proverbial terms. A sweet day indeed for the Wolfsong.]]
Through such means, the Mithril Towers once lost to Tirek were at last rebuilt and the Wolfsong prospered like never before.
[[Dawnwind: What can I say? Except 'You’re welcome.']]

Fallingleaf and Runningwind’s adventures were to reach their peak during the War Against The Necromancer, a mysterious figure taking refuge in the ancient ruins of Mor-Fenn-Dun, who swarmed the Everfree with a plague of Undeath. Deer fought and died and rose again now forced to slay their fellows. Cinderstone led the Wolfsong into the fray, striking hard against the dead hordes and venturing with Fallingleaf and Runningwind into Mor-Fenn-Dun. There, the Necromancer brought forth his lieutenant, a willing servant and henchbeast, all too happy to wipe the Wolfsong from the face of the Everfree.
Palestride.

Cinderstone fought his brother once more and, after much brutal fighting, was felled by a dagger to the heart, in much the same way as their mother had been. Bathed in the blood of his hated brother, Palestride then went for Fallingleaf who, filled with rage and fervour, at last slew him with a moonstone blade that cleaved his head from his shoulders. Runningwind and Dawnwind then set about battling the Necromancer himself, subduing him and driving him from the Everfree, never to be seen or heard from since. The Whitetail also fought in that battle, their affinity over light magic adept at countering the necromancy and closing dark portals. But Alder, Huorn and countless other royal kinbeasts were slain. Mallorn having lost his mind long ago in the war against the Draconequui, the throne passed to Aspen who would show nothing but scorn toward the Wolfsong for the entirety of his reign.
[Note: Huorn was confirmed dead by the hooves and teeth of the Sianach, a monstrous flesh-eating deer the Necromancer kept as its most dangerous beast of war, but Alder’s death is somewhat ambiguous. Sources vary on just when he died in the war and whether he was killed by a necromantic assassin in his palace or facing the horde on the battlefield. Aspen’s swift rise to power could even purport his own hoof in his uncle’s demise.]
[[Dawnwind: It’s a colourful theory but I think that’s giving Aspen far too much credit]]
In the wake of the calamity, the deer kingdoms joined as one, the Confederacy extending to preserve the cervine way of life, now that so many deer had died and whole tribes now ceased to exist. The Whitetail took charge of the Confederacy but the Wolfsong were always their equals in strength and influence, despite any rights and claims.
[[Dawnwind: Equals? Really, Patch, you don’t have to sugar-coat. It’s not like any Whitetail are going to read this.]]
Runningwind and Fallingleaf were at last crowned Lord and Lady of the Wolfsong Deer and have since ruled justly and well for the many centuries the Wolfsong have dwelt in the far reaches of the Everfree, birthing three children, Sharphorn, Wintermist and Lighthoof, and adopting a fourth, the mysterious pegasus known as White Wolf the Stormrunner.

Very fascinating and interesting backstory you have here

6168789 Indeed.

6168609 I love it!