Editing Chandling (section)

==Chronology==
The rise of the middle class and improved living conditions hurt them badly.<ref>They were a common fairy who found a good trick. Do a task, help with a quest, or grant a wish, but tie it to a restriction.  The markets boomed all of a sudden.  It seemed as if every other boy who was tired of sweeping the barn was getting an offer; his chores would be done for him every day, but if he ever lifted a hand to do a chore in the future, the help would stop and he would feel the task twice as bad.”<br><br>“How big of an idiot do you have to be to mess that one up?” Verona asked.<br><br>Toadswallow waved her off.  “A girl who thought if she met the local lord’s son, she could win him over, was told the meeting could be arranged, but she would have to choose a curse to wear: her nose would become that of a pig, she wouldn’t be able to speak, or her clothes would secretly be as fish-hooks digging into the skin for as long as she wore them.  If she could win him over, the curse would be lifted.  In some versions of that tale, three sisters each choose one curse.  We don’t hear much of the failed experiments, but some stories persist.  The Broomfield Wager.  The full tale of the Wee, Wee man.  Black Crack Anne’s Barrow.  Efforts by powerful Fae and a few rare goblins to make a great play for land, power, or lives.  But the small efforts aimed at small, lower-class dopes prevailed.”<br><br>Toadswallow rubbed his hands, smiling.  It looked like the students were listening well enough.<br><br>“They worked out a system and then they locked it in enough they became locked in as a group.  Chandlings, in some tongues, of which Brownies were a large subset.  Guilds of brownies with fences and sellers for the lives, happiness, and other qualities taken as part of the bargain.  Families of the little blighters would compel the their lot to work family service into the deal.  ‘I’ll milk the goats,’ one will say, ‘and if you wish it I’ll have my brother tend to the kitchen.’  Done enough and the numbers stop adding up, and the family grows.  That’s one part of how the little peckers got organized, see?  But the other?  The best deals they could offer were ones tying to high society.  Lord’s sons, ladies, the chance to be noble.  To taste wealth, to get an education or to see the world beyond the hamlet the peasant schlub was born in.  The better the offers and arrangements they could make, the better they could do.  But all good things come to an end.”<br><br>“Was it really a good thing?” Lucy asked.<br><br>“For them it was.  I’d even say it’s a good thing for mankind.  Even if the deals are unfair, it’s a chance for those who had none.  None at all.  For most, the station of life was a crushing, unavoidable pressure.  Born a peasant schlub, die a peasant schlub.  No time or chance to do anything else.  The deals gave a way.  Or they did.  See, to start with, your practice and most things Other like to build things or destroy things, but it doesn’t like to downsize.  The forces we operate by?  They like a good pitch, a good show, a rising star, and a dramatic fall.  But if we say our family of brownies is too large for the amount of work there is?  They don’t have a language for downsizing.”<br>[...]<br>Brownies and Chandlings benefit if the uninitiated can get a feel for what they are in their hearts, and are then open for the discussion and deal, but they’re also tied down.  When the rubes stop lining up, they lose their raison d’etre.  The poop for their scoop. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/12/26 Excerpt] from [[Gone Ahead 7.7]]</ref>