Is this an error in Runes?

[Tom]

At the beginning of White Gold Wielder, TC's house is vandalized and blood is splattered everywhere "as if a cow had been killed."

At the end of the book, the sheriff or Megan the attorney says "they killed a horse."

At the beginning of Runes, Linden is recalling "how a cow had been slain," which is actually incorrect because a horse was slain.

Am I wrong? This seems to be an error in Runes.

Tom

[Variol Farseer]

You're quite right: it does seem to be an error.

Early in The Wounded Land, Julius Berenford describes the incident, saying, 'They must have bled an entire cow.' I suspect that after all those years, SRD remembered that line and overlooked the other.

One could explain it away as a slip of Linden's memory ten years along, or ignore it as an error too trivial to make any difference to the story; but neither of those alternatives has much appeal for me. If I were SRD, I would want this to be corrected in the paperback.

[Tom]

Well I'm glad I'm not going crazy

It's not a big deal at all, but I agree, if I was SRD, I would want it corrected in the paperback or subsequent printings also.

Have any other errors been found in Runes?

Tom

[drew]

You mean other than the fact that the next three books seem to be missing?

[JD]

Hold on now, Berenford stated that it looked as if they bled an entire cow. He did not say it was actually a cow. He earlier statement was basically saying that there was a lot of blood in there.

[Variol Farseer]

Hold on now, Berenford stated that it looked as if they bled an entire cow. He did not say it was actually a cow. He earlier statement was basically saying that there was a lot of blood in there.

I think you may be missing the point. In WGW, it is explicitly stated that they bled a horse. In Runes, SRD discards this story and says it was a cow. That's the contradiction. I'm only suggesting that Berenford's remark may have been the red herring that caused SRD to misremember.

[Alynna Lis Eachann]

Well, he's already done the edits for the Runes paperback, so i guess it's a moot point for now. Can't blame him, though.. I always thought it was a cow, too. Where in WGW is the line about the horse?

[finn]

I'm sure we all know people and are probably guilty ourselves in exagerating, guilding the lily, talking up details of events for the better telling of anecdotes, stories and the like. Details get changed, enlarged or disappear over the tellings and over time.

"A large farmyard animal was slain, someone said a cow, someone then said a horse....I was too sick at the time with loss and grief and trauma at all that had happened". I find it wholey believable that the character has made an error.... (hope SRD appreciates the get out of jail free card!!)

[Variol Farseer]

I'm sure we all know people and are probably guilty ourselves in exagerating, guilding the lily, talking up details of events for the better telling of anecdotes, stories and the like. Details get changed, enlarged or disappear over the tellings and over time.

"A large farmyard animal was slain, someone said a cow, someone then said a horse....I was too sick at the time with loss and grief and trauma at all that had happened". I find it wholey believable that the character has made an error.... (hope SRD appreciates the get out of jail free card!!)

Yes, but it wasn't Linden who made the mistake in Runes, it was the narrator -- which means SRD himself. A character could misremember an event or forget a detail, but in this style of fiction, the narrative voice is supposed to be reliable.

[MrKABC]

Give SRD a pass! That's a pretty trivial detail...

[Variol Farseer]

Well, he's already done the edits for the Runes paperback, so i guess it's a moot point for now. Can't blame him, though.. I always thought it was a cow, too. Where in WGW is the line about the horse?

I also remembered the line about the cow, but not the line about the horse. Here they are:

". . . There was blood everywhere. Whoever they were, they must have bled an entire cow."

(Dr. Berenford in TWL, chapter 3, p. 39 of the original Del Rey edition)

". . . They whipped themselves into a tizzy killing a horse to get the blood they used to mark his house. They weren't sane anymore."

(Dr. Berenford again, WGW, chapter 21, p. 474)

Berenford himself reported that it was a horse, having checked his facts after he first guessed it was a cow.

[Tom]

Thanks for providing the exact quotes Variol. My memory was not wrong in this one case.

I'm not harping on SRD anyone. If he can't fix it for the paperback, he can always fix it in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. printings. It really doesn't matter if he EVER fixes it, although I would want the error fixed if I was the author.

Tom