The following stories are both from the journal labeled "From the Cottar," but the subject matter - a myth of the Aldryami and a myth of the Uz - and its position later on in the journal suggests that, frustratingly, Mianmo reused one of her journals to jot down myths from farther-flung climes after filling most of its early pages with wisdom from a salt-of-the-Earth cottar. The alternative is that whoever this cottar was, he was familiar with elf-lore and troll-lore - not impossible, given the cosmopolitan nature of Kerofinela, but certainly a stretch.
"Tree Mother" is an interesting glimpse at a more humanized interpretation of Aldrya. Most Orlanthi stories about her agree that she is an uncaring mother who desires to see trees blanket the world without care for the creatures who live in them, or the peoples who live beside them, beyond the value they can provide for the forest. It is possible that this is not so much a story about Aldrya as a story about Yelmalio-of-the-Wood forming a bond with an unlikely ally, and just as likely that it is an oral history of how some Heortling clans survived the Great Darkness by pursuing the secrets of the Earth.
