Tengir is the name of a wandering Spirit who crossed the threshold of mist in the most ancient time. Thereupon his Fate entitled him to birth as an exceptional Spirit who would go on to hold the Powers of Heaven, Earth and everything in between, and everything inside and outside the cosmos, within the palm of his hand. But those Powers were not to be gained so easily, even by so blessed a Spirit as he was, but came only through the bloody battle with and triumph over the very Powers which he was to gain.
That is why Tengir first appeared in the ancient forest, whose time and place has long been forgotten. There, when it so happened, he opened his eyes under the awesome sun and beheld Nature in its purest guise. The eye of Heaven was upon him, not knowing what to think of him, but only seeing him as he carried himself and the rags on his back across the land. He trudged through the forest, knowing neither whence he had came nor whither he was going. He trudged for the whole day, until his stomach cried out in the pangs of starvation and his limbs wailed as though they were melting. As his feet were unshod, every step he took tenderized his thin flesh, leaving blisters and calluses.
Eventually he came to rest under a the boughs of a shady tree, using his folded arm as a pillow, and when the sun went down he drifted off to sleep. That sleep was Heaven's only blessing. Its warm cradle healed him and relieved of his suffering.
As he slept, the Spirit of the Forest, seeing his extraordinarily beautiful countenance, took pity on him and visited him in his dream, with a mind to instruct him on all things he might need to know to live here. He had this advice for him: "Traveler, if you wish to make this Forest of mine into your home, to which I am not at all in opposition, then you should know that to live, one must comport oneself with the utmost attention to health, to diet and to the orderly exertion and rest of the body. Creatures great and small live by eating what is good for them, and abstaining from eating what is to them poison. Now within my Forest there are all kinds of plants and game which are edible, and all kinds which, if eaten, poison one, even unto death. That is why you must go around to those parts, and find spots to frequent, nooks and nests to haunt, where the things which are food grow in abundance. Do this, and you will never know sickness, nor even death. But beware of those things which are beguiling, which please the eye or have a delightful aroma, for though they are as food to the senses, yet they may hide within them poison to the body. And note also that, when you see other creatures eating things as food to them, be cautious lest you follow suit, for it may be food to them, but poison to you. Such is my advice; follow it, and you will know Life."
The Spirit of the Forest then gave him a woven Sack to hold herbs and grasses in, and though it looked only to be an ordinary sack, no, it actually could hold the equivalent of several storehouses of anything one wished to put in it, and its contents could be retrieved with as much ease as one digs a coin out of one's pocket. That same Spirit then gave him an enchanted Marble that turns blue when in the presence of food, but turns red when in the presence of poison. Tengir thanked the Spirit of the Forest.
When morning came and he woke up, he was still beneath the same tree. He climbed to his feet and, remembering everything the Spirit of the forest had told him in his dream, found that the Sack and the Marble were both in his hands. Thereafter he wandered through the forest in a manner much less forlorn and slovenly than the other day, for now, with these divine treasures in hand, he could be certain of his own survival. It was evident to him that unknowable Powers were on his side, and that these Powers wished to see him safely delivered on his journey.
So it was that he came to know every corner of the forest, every stream, every boulder, every crevice and cave, every clearing and thicket. As he grew acquainted with them, he would pick everything he passed that was growing and looked edible, but not before testing it against the Marble. Those things which the Marble assured him were food to him, he would take and store in the safety of the woven Sack, but those things which turned out to be poison to him, he would not touch, and he would remember their color and shape so as to avoid them next time. He took herbs, leaves, seeds, nuts and fruits, and even pulled up roots and tubers out of the dirt. Thus it came to be that after the whole day, he had more than enough to satiate his hunger, replenish his waning strength and prolong his fragile life, for that day at least.
But the Spirit of the Forest continued to appear to him in his dreams, each time with a new thing to teach him. Thus Tengir gained a nearly perfect knowledge (for his teacher was himself perfect) of scavenging, hunting, fishing, trapping, of climbing trees, diving into caves, carving wood and stone, the various uses of herbs, of weaving hemp into rope, and flax into cloth. He learned also how to carve stones into arrowheads, then to fasten these to the ends of sticks along with, at the other end, bird feathers to make arrows, then to make bows from curved wood and taught string, which he would use to shoot at deer, boars, rabbits and wild foal. By similar techniques, he also created spears, axes, daggers and chisels. The spears he would either hurl at game from afar or use to pierce fish in the shallow stream. But the axes and daggers he would use to cut things, to fix the length of ropes and cloth, or to fall trees or remove their branches. The chisels, those he would use to whittle wood or grind stone into this shape or that. He even learned how to rub stones together to generate sparks and fire, which he would then use to cook the meat of beasts and boil water.