🏰 Gallifreyan Legends And Fairytales

🏰 Gallifreyan Legends and Fairytales

Most Gallifreyans would have you believe that myths and fairytales are either historical records distorted by time or pointless escapades into fantasy. And yet, woven into the very fabric of Time Lord culture, legends persist—some as warnings, some as bedtime stories, and some as fragments of very uncomfortable truths.

Here are just a few of the stories passed down through Gallifreyan history.

📜 Lady Patience and the Paradoxica Cards

Long before the River of Time became what it is today, it was merely a small tributary flowing down Mount Perdition. The people of the Capitol had achieved great power, but they had severed their connection with the past and future. Their society was frozen in stasis—sterile, dying.

Lady Patience, a noblewoman, desperately desired a child. Every night, she searched for a wizard or soothsayer who could grant her one, but none could help.

Finally, she found a Stranger—a man working to expand the tributary of time. He gave her an old bag and told her to fill it with water from the Sea of Life. When it was full to the brim, she would find the child she sought.

But the bag had a hole. She tried to fill it, but the water ran out every time. For months, she tried, attempting to patch the bag, but the patches always fell off, spilling the water upon the shore.

With every failed attempt, something strange happened. The wet patches stiffened, forming cards, each depicting all of reality. These became known as the Paradoxica—cards that could chart the shape of existence itself.

She continued her task until the entire Sea of Life was drained. At its emptied depths, she found a child. And in that moment, the curse was broken, restoring Gallifrey's past and future.

🎴 The Paradoxica Cards

According to legend, Lady Patience's discarded patches became a tool of great power. The Paradoxica deck was said to:

Chart the shape of reality—some cards held the past, others the future, and some the forever-present.

Be capable of transportation through time and space—if used with the power of a TARDIS.

Induce amnesia or disorientation—especially in lesser beings with low artron energy. (Time Lords included, on occasion.)

They are exceedingly rare—but if you ever find one, be very careful what you deal.

🦢 Other Tales of Gallifreyan Children

Gallifreyan nursery stories offer a variety of explanations for where children come from:

🪻 Infants are found beneath gooseberry bushes at the bottom of Rassilon's Garden.

🕊️ The Great Gallifreyan Stork delivers them (though, considering Gallifrey's atmosphere, that's one resilient bird).

🧚 The Loom Fairy blesses certain Houses (or curses them, depending on perspective).

Of course, none of these stories hold up under scrutiny—but that never stopped a Time Tot from believing.

📕Cautionary Tales for Gallifreyan Children (and arguably adults, too)

⛓️ The Story of the Rock

Two Time Lords, traveling through a scorching desert, came across a massive red stone cube.

Chained to the rock was a man, thin, starving, his teeth sharp and yellow, his chains rusted with age.

'Please,' he begged. 'Come closer. Look at what's behind the rock.'

One of the Time Lords, curious, stepped around to the other side.

And vanished.

The other waited in the sand for a week, listening to the Chained Man's whispers. But they never gave in.

The first Time Lord was never seen again.

🦇 The Toclafane, the Watchmaker, and Other Gallifreyan Nightmares

I won't lie—many stories told to toddlers aren't exactly The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and many of these bogeymen actually exist.

💀 The Toclafane – A general term for scary creatures Time Tots were warned about.

🔧 The Watchmaker – A time-warping entity that exists to remove all time anomalies, including bringing death to Gallifreyans who have been touched by paradoxes.

🐦 Pandora's Ghost – The first Lady President of Gallifrey, executed via D-Mat dispersal, is said to haunt the Vaults. On Gallifrey, her soul lingers in the Matrix. On Earth, her legend became Pandora's Box.

🕷️ The Shakri – Live in an adjacent dimension known as Darkspace; they are said to exterminate species before they spread too far. Time Tots were told to behave, lest they attract their attention.

🌌 Koltroxa – The story of a being trapped drifting through time until she died of old age.

🧙‍♂️ Malador – the immortal, indestructible evil eventually imprisoned by the Ancients, who created an army of living statues called the Melkur. (Which, by the way, are still out there. Waiting.)

🧛‍♂️ Great Vampires – Gallifrey's history with vampires bleeds into their kids' bedtime stories, warning Time Tots of their terrifying power and their lifelong genetic obligation to kill them on sight.

🔵 Blue Fire (Mi'en Kalarash) – A Great Old One who lives in the 'wasteland between realities'. It stimulates a sleeping victim's limbic system and feeds on the artron energy produced by fear and nightmares.

🩸 Zagreus – Zagreus sits inside your head Zagreus lives among the dead Zagreus sees you in your bed And eats you when you're sleeping

➕ Others – Others include the Fendahl, the Fendahleen, Salyavin, the Krafayis, and the Weeping Angels.

🙀 Slightly Less Terrifying Stories

Thankfully, they do have a few 'nicer' ones by comparison.

🏙️ The Lost City of Altrazar – Said to appear once every thousand years in normal space on the planet Nirvana.

⏳ The Time Sprites – Legends claim there's one trapped inside every TARDIS.

🪱 Time Vortex Leeches – Said to hijack timeships and take them to their crew's lost lovers.

🌠 Higher Evolutionaries – Dimensional pioneers said to have woven the web of parallel timelines.

🌇 The Lost City of the Archons – A city belonging to the last of the Great Old Ones, existing in the Great Desolation.

👶 Humans – Some stories talk about the species 'wearing the skins' of Gallifreyans and abandoned Gallifreyan children being raised by humans.

📖 Classics – Gallifreyan children also know The Three Little Sontarans, The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes, and Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday.

👑 Benncuig III – Possibly Gallifrey's only intentional children's author, Benncuig III wrote Lullabies for Time Tots, including stories about Rassilon and the story of Rassilon's Tower in the Dark Zone.

🏛️ What Do These Stories Tell Us?

Gallifreyan fairytales aren't just stories for kids—they're warnings. Warnings about curiosity, interference, and the dangers of straying too far from order ...

(Assembled from ROOG + TARDIS Wiki)

Whoniverse Facts for Friday by GIL

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