The five narratives of "The Youth of a People" transition from a mythical twilight through legendary intermediate stages that allow poetic imagination ample scope, gradually moving into the realms of historically documentable tradition: stories become history. The cycle begins with the legend of Swit and Swen and the arrival of the Alemanni in the valley basin of Schwyz. Familiar elements appear in a completely new, surprising light. The richer the sources flow, the denser the connections to global political contexts become, and the more compelling the motivation for the founding of a state. In 'Honorable Downfall,' the sixty-year-old Inglin once again traverses the same spaces he populated twenty years earlier with figures from prehistory; this time, however, his focus is on the disintegration of the orders that have developed over time.