Avau-Paux

Avau-Paux [a.vɔ pɔ] is a town in Northern Central Beringion, located at the feet of Mount Paux. The town is a rather important cultural centre of Beringion and a prominent key location for Beringian nationalist ideologies and traditions of language and literature.

A festival of poetry and songs is held every three years in Avau-Paux, gathering participants not only from Beringion but also neighbouring predominantely Machoric states - Low Tarmanion, High Tarmanion and Magorion - and the occasional Coer or Ara. The festival is called "Beus Caçaires ne v'Hechele" - The Poems of the Mountain.

The Festival
The name of the aforementioned festival - pronounced [bø.ka.sɛr nə‿və.ʃɛl] refers to the fact that each day of the festival (the exact length may vary) is dedicated to a specific theme, and poets participating in that exact day are expected to eventually create a single, day-long poem or song. The length and composition of each separate part is free to be chosen by the participants.

The festival originally was held every year and was a very local event, established to commemorate the supposed birthday of a semi-legendary local bard Suchaque [sy.ʃak], who, according to the myth, was born on the side of Mount Paux and after growing up, saved the region from a raging dragon by singing to it and setting it to sleep. The same legend also tells that the dragon woke up twice after a song was done, but fell asleep forever after the third one. Because of this, the earliest instances of the festival were called Caçaires-Terrade - Dragon-Songs and lasted for three days.

Later the core three days were expanded with additional days either before or after, and the patterns vary frequently.

Etymology
The town is named after Mount Paux, but the origin of the name is uncertain and generally believed to predate both Machoric and Asatic settlers of the area. The first element, avau, is a common word in placenames and can be traced back to Classical Magorian afalun, meaning the castle, the fortress. Other nearby settlements with the same element are Queuchavau (leader-fort) and Avau-Leims (Fort Dagger).