Reading Runes: A Tale of Two Cosmologies

[matrixman]

I think we may have a surprise revelation on the way.

...and in light of Nerdanel's total spoilage of this surprise, someone please tell SRD to revamp the Last Chrons!

And belated compliments to Wayfriend for this topic and his terrific opening hypothesis!

[Warmark]

Diassomer Mininderain myth

Maby I'ver missed something, but what is this?

[dlbpharmd]

In the song Sunder sang to Linden in TWL, Diassomer Mininderain was the name of the lady who left the love of the Creator and ran off with a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.

[finn]

I wonder what the product of such a union would be?

[Warmark]

In the song Sunder sang to Linden in TWL, Diassomer Mininderain was the name of the lady who left the love of the Creator and ran off with a-Jeroth of the Seven Hells.

Thanks DLB.
Its strange i have no recollection of that at all.
Usually i have a vague rememberance of the event.

[The Somberlain]

On my first reads of the books I tended to skim, if not skip entirely, the songs Which was quite silly, on reflection. But I'm re-reading them more slowly, since I'm not in quite such a fervent rush to see what happens next, which gives me time to notice and note all these names. I'm also keeping a thumb in the map page most of the time, so I can see where they actually are.

(This is relevant because I never remembered a Diassomer Mininderain either. In fact... I don't think the Clave's false history never got much more mention after that. Which is a bit of a pity; I'd like to have seen more misguided villagers)

[wayfriend]

Step back, boys and girls. She's a gusher.

That's how Donaldson once described the fruitful intersection of two imaginitive ideas. And it's exactly how I feel right now. So, of course, I want to tell you about it. And, because I think it is a useful addition to this [*cough* award-not-winning] thread, I'm telling you about it here.

A Tale of Two Cosmologies, Part II

Daniel Bauer: Mr. Donaldson:

Thanks for creating and sharing a wonderful world with the Thomas Covenant novels. It is great to immerse myself in fantasys like this.

I confess that as a reader I tend to only get the first layer of many things. I've tried repeatedly (back in my college days) to interpret depth, but my creative writing teachers always seemed to indicate that my interpretations were beyond what the author intended. How they knew, I still don't know - but I learned to stop "reading into things."

To that end, I'd like to know if I'm missing one thing in particular, regarding the "Wierd," "Wurd," and "Worm of the world's end". I get that these are different interpretations of the fundamental make-up of the land, similar to concepts of "God," "Jehovah," and "Allah" (which I believe are different interpretations based on the same supernatural being). Different people see the same things differently, hence the different terms. However, you must delicately choose when to use each word (and sometimes you use all three).

Am I (again) trying to read more into your text than is there? Or am I missing something more by skimming the surface?

Thanks again for the Land, and for the opportunity to connect with you in this forum.
______________________

I have no idea what your “creative writing teachers” (?) thought they were talking about. Any truly creative act, almost by definition, has more depth than the reader/viewer/hearer/recipient is able to absorb “by skimming the surface.” Very broadly speaking, bookstores seem to be full of books written by people who don’t think enough (or at all). It seems strange that “creative writing teachers” would encourage you to think less.

But I assure you that my use of “Weird”, “Wurd,” “Worm,” and “Wyrd” is not an accident. And I chose them all because they sound sort of like Word: “In the beginning was the Word,” which is certainly a fundamental truth about *my* creative process. I can’t speak for concepts like “God,” “Jehovah,” and “Allah” (or “Vishnu”); but I *can* say that I’m nowhere near done exploring Weird/Wurd/Worm/Wyrd/Word--and that I intend these near-homophones to convey a meaning which is difficult to communicate by other means.

(01/22/2006)

(Dan? Are you on the Watch?)

The question begins with a similar premise as my original post - that different myths arise from different interprtations of the same fundamental concepts. However, the author of the question has followed a slightly different path to get there.

Instead of linking Worm and Würd to the Arch and the Rainbow, as I did, Dan's linked it to some other things, based on the clue of sound - "near homophones". He brings 'Weird', as in "The Weird of the Waynhim", into the family of 'Worm' and the 'Würd'.

However, you cannot imagine how intrigued and surprised and pleased I was to read that Donaldson replied with "I’m nowhere near done exploring Weird/Wurd/Worm/Wyrd/Word". Because he without suggestion added into the list 'word'!

In order to express my delight, I have to relate something from my past, which is the second part of the gusher.

Once, before I had ever read The Second Chronicles, I had given much thought to the relationship between the words 'wyrd' and 'word'.

Briefly, 'wyrd' means "fate", or even "fate personified". In larger terms:

The word comes from Anglo-Saxon verb weorþan, to become, and itself derives from an Indo-European root verb meaning to turn. In its literal sense, it refers to the past, or That which has become. In its wider sense, it refers to how past actions continually affect and condition the future. It also stresses the interconnected nature of all actions, and how they influence each other. The concept has some relation to the ideal of predestination. Unlike predestination, however, the concept of Wyrd implies that while we are affected and constrained by our past actions, we are constantly creating our own Wyrd through how we respond to present situations.

Shortly after I had learned about this word 'wyrd', I also heard about a possible relationship with the word 'word'. Specifically, I stumbled onto a proposition (see www.odinic-rite.org/wyrd2.html) that the text of John 1:1

• In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God

might not really had been, or should have been, or would've been better, as

• In the beginning was the wyrd and the wyrd was with God and the wyrd was God

What a fascinating concept! At first I interpreted this to mean, “In the beginning, all that was fated to ever be, was known to God and layed out by God, and may in a sense even be what ‘God’ ultimately is.” And that made enough sense that I though that I was On To Something, and took it to heart.

Of course, these days I can see that my interpretation of this text was somewhat off. 'Wyrd' isn't precisely 'fate'. It is, more correctly, the means by which the past shapes the future. You might even consider it to be the framework and rules by which things that happen happen. In other words, the laws of causality. "In the beginning were the Laws of Physics and Quantum Mechanics, and that's all 'God' is", if you will. I know that quite a few people would agree with the sentiment, if not the means of arriving at it.

Another intesting aspect of ‘wyrd’ is that, in one word, it captures a philosophy that predestination and free will are not mutually exclusive, but are instead two interlinked forces which together shape the world.

The Web of Wyrd is a popular analogy, which shows how all actions are interconnected, as well as the fact that everything we do has far-reaching consequences. Essentially, this Web of Wyrd is described as a cloth being woven upon a loom by the Norns. The woof is woven along the warp. The former represents past actions, while the latter represents a particular instance in time. The entire cloth is the overall design. While the previous design is the foundation upon which the future course is based, it is possible to change the cloth within the context of the past. In the same manner, it is possible to change the future by carefully determining our present actions, which are conditioned by the past from which it springs.

As I said, I had internalized these concepts before reading The Second Chronicles. Consequently, when I read The Weird of the Waynhim in The Wounded Land, I immediately recognized the allusion to "weird" which Donaldson was making. And when I read Elemesnedene in The One Tree, Daphin’s description of the Würd of the Earth was not unfamiliar to me. In fact, I dare say it's familiarity made it unremarkable and therefore unremarked in my earlier posts.

By now, you can probably guess the rest of my post. But I'm going to lay it all out, for completeness. It's a good way for me to express my pleasure, anyway.

We're not introduced to the Weird of the Waynhim until The Second Chronicles. Hamako speaks the words.

"In the Waynhim tongue, Weird has several meanings. It is fate or destiny - but it is also choice, and is used to signify council or decision-making. It is a contradiction - fate and choice. A man may be fated to die, but no fate can determine whether he will die in courage or cowardice. The Waynhim choose the manner in which they meet their doom.

Here, Donaldson’s use of ‘weird’ is obviously drawn from ‘wyrd’, from which ‘weird’ is entymologically derived. And it expresses the same unification of fate and free will which is the essence of wyrd. (What’s another contradiction to Donaldson?)

To the Waynhim, wyrd is their life-view of fate. In addition, wyrd also represents to them “council and decision-making”.

"Durhisitar will consult the Weird of the Waynhim," the man said, "but I doubt not that aid will be granted.

The Waynhim take action by measuring the consequences of different choices, by extrapolating the wyrd into the future. And we know that the Waynhim have espoused wyrd because of the way that they were created.

"A vast gulf lies between creatures that are born and those that are made. Born creatures, such as we are, do not suffer torment at the simple fact of physical form. ... It is far otherwise with the Waynhim. They were made-as the ur-viles were made-by deliberate act in the breeding dens of the Demondim. … That is the Weird of all Demondim-spawn. Each Waynhim and ur-vile beholds itself and sees that it need not have been what it is. It is the fruit of choices it did not make. From this fact both Waynhim and ur-viles draw their divergent spirits.”

According to wyrd, the future becomes from the choices of the past, and the Waynhim are profoundly aware that the choices of the Demondim are what have caused their existance.

Finally, notice how the author prompts us to think about the meaning of the word ‘weird’.

Covenant wanted to ask the meaning of the term Weird; but he already regretted having halted Hamako's tale.

Weird is significant to Donaldson.

And we’re introduced to the Würd of the Earth by Daphin, when she converses with Linden.

"What are you?" she inquired in a constrained voice. "The heart of the Earth. The center. The truth. What does all that mean?"

"Sun-Sage," replied Daphin, "we are the Würd of the Earth."

She spoke clearly, but her tone was confusing. Her Würd sounded like Wyrd or Word.

Wyrd? Linden thought. Destiny-doom? Or Word?

Or both.

Into the silence, Daphin placed her story. It was an account of the creation of the Earth; and Linden soon realized that it was the same tale Pitchwife had told her during the calling of the Nicor. Yet it contained one baffling difference. Daphin did not speak of a Worm. Rather, she used that blurred sound, Würd, which seemed to signify both Wyrd and Word.

Wyrd and Word. Ah!

First we have the proposition that the Würd and the Worm are the same; it’s practically stapled to the reader’s forehead. The Elohim are a part of the Earth’s creation. If the Worm is another aspect of the Arch of Time, then so is the Würd … and so are the Elohim? We can be comfortable with that thought (See “Reading Runes: The Sons of Elohim”). But from this alone – Würd is Worm – we don’t really gain any additional insight as to how, exactly, this all happens to be.

But the author also encourages us, by prompting us to think about the meanings of words, to see that the Würd, and therefore the Worm and the Arch, is also the Wyrd. And Wyrd is Weird, which links us to the Weird of the Waynhim. The Elohim have their own Weird!

Which leads to the intriguing question – do the Elohim arise from their Würd in the same way that the Waynhim arise from their Weird? Is wyrd what “the heart of the Earth” is?

One things is for sure. The Elohim consult their Würd, as a source of council and decision-making, precisely as the Waynhim do their Weird. “All truths are within us, and for these truths we seek into ourselves." We are the Würd of the Earth; all truths are within our Würd, and for these truths we seek into our Würd.

And now we touch upon the intriguing use of the word ‘word’. Worm is Würd is Wyrd … is Word.

Why did Donaldson throw in ‘word’? I am biased. I cannot help but believe that Donaldson is thinking about “In the beginning was the word … the wyrd … the word …” According to John, the creation of the Earth and the heavens sprang up from The Word, making The Word some sort of cosmic ultimate wellspring, a mystical phenomenon from which both substance and future sprang.

Believing that The Word is The Wyrd is not a hard step to take. More importantly, the concept, while not widely known, was nevertheless known; Donaldson would have encountered it. And, as I like to encourage people to believe (see “Reading Runes: The Sons of Elohim”), I think Donaldson uses such contraversial theological thinking as the basis for many of his ideas.

If wyrd is the means by which the past shapes the future, the framework and rules by which things that happen happen, then not only can you conclude that The Wyrd was The Word, but you can also conclude that The Wyrd/The Word is also the Arch of Time! The Arch, as I have always espoused, is a framework of laws which allows the Earth to be; the Laws of Donaldson’s fantasy physics.

Donaldson points out the relationship quite directly, albeit without seeming consequence, when he writes “Her Würd sounded like Wyrd or Word. Wyrd? Linden thought. Destiny-doom? Or Word? Or both.” What other word can he be thinking of, if not The Word?

And if the Arch is brought into it, so is the Worm. The Worm is the Arch is the Wyrd is the Word is the Würd. Worm and Würd are united in a cosmological sense. Now there is no mystery as to why the story of the Würd of the World’s End is identical to the Worm of the World’s End. Daphin’s tale reinforces the connection directly, through the use of creation myths.

It is inescapable that The Word/The Wyrd is the underpinning of Donaldson’s cosmology. Everything revealed to us in The Second Chronicles, the Weird and the Worm and the Würd, all lead us to The Word and the Wyrd. Words which “blur together”.

Daphin says, “Sun-Sage, we are the Würd - the direct offspring of the creation of the Earth. From it we arose, and in it we have our being. Thus we are the heart, and the center, and the truth, and therefore we are what we are. We are all answers, just as we are every question.” I believe that understanding The Word/The Wyrd brings us closer to realizing exactly what she means. The Elohim arise from The Word/The Wyrd as the Earth itself does, from a framework of actions and consequences, ultimately originating with The Creator himself – the only candidate. The Elohim are joined to the Earth through common creation.

Is this the complete answer? No. Donaldson himself says that this is unresolved in the story yet, and that he intends to resolve it in the remaining Chronicles. I could not be happier.

And, just to dot the I’s and cross the T’s, let us remember one other near-homophone of Worm, Word, Wyrd, Weird, and Würd.

World.

[Nerdanel]

I've been thinking much along the same lines. One difference is that I thought the English noun "weird" meant simply fate (I knew even that much only because I had read "Weird of the White Wolf" and used a dictionary to find out what the title meant.) It can be educational to hang around these boards.

I think Word can be seen as the human Würd, as in "Word of God" or just "Word".

Würd is also notable in the way that it's an absolute nightmare (read: impossible) to translate properly to something not very closely related to English and then SRD goes and hangs a plot point on it.

A thing to remember is that Linden is going to wake the Worm at World's End. Lord Foul has foreseen it and Linden shared in the vision. I wonder what this means along the lines of the Weird of the Demondim-spawn and the other meanings of the word. Intriguingly, Linden is currently accompanied by the both kinds of Demondim-spawn and the Staff of Law has an ur-vile-made component. (I've been writing in another window about matters relating to this.)

If we agree that Viles are likely Elohim, then on some level the Waynhim Weird would be a direct descendant of the Elohim Würd, since making another being's destiny sounds like a thing subject to one's own destiny, but probably with Lord Foul's meddling confusing things.

[Nerdanel]

Oh, and I just remembered Melenkurion Skyweir, Wild Magic, and the Viles.

Würd, Word, Worm, Weird, Wyrd, Weir, World, Wild, Vile, Wield. (Nine words. That's two more than the Seven Words of Power.) Wyrm sounds also likely. I have seen Wyld used too. Vild is from a Zindell book I haven't read.

It sounds this could be more evidence for the Elohim origin of the Viles.

[KAY1]

Could it not just be that the Worm was created by the Creator as the destruction part and placed within the Arch and the myriads of consumed stars were those which were trapped within the Arch already? I have probably completely skipped over loads of reasons why this cannot be true lol.

[KAY1]

One of them being that the world was in existence before the Worm devoured the stars!

[Creator]

One of them being that the world was in existence before the Worm devoured the stars!

But according to the mythos, the World "grew" from the curled sleeping Worm!

[KAY1]

Yes you are right there! I confused myself (as usual) lol.But there is another conflict then. In the Arch/Rainbow myth wasn't the world created before the Stars got through the hole to explore it and were then sealed in? so in the Worm myth the world came after the stars' misfortune and in the rainbow myth the world was created first.

[Nerdanel]

I think the Arch of Time was created first, then the stars went inside to an universe that was all chaos, and then the Law was created (a.k.a. the Worm was made to sleep) and with it the world as we know it. I think the creation of the Law corresponds to the imprisoning of Lord Foul. The Law would be what keeps him imprisoned, but also protects him from pure chaos. That's why Lord Foul doesn't want to awaken the Worm a.k.a. break enough Law to cause only moderate destruction. He could probably survive if the chaos wasn't centered on him and break the weak remaining Laws quickly enough in order to quit the whole Arch before the Worm has awakened fully. To escape he either needs absolute destruction or very, very big destruction wielded by someone else.

I think we could use an analogy here. Foul is a criminal mastermind shut in a prison. He wants to break out to freedom, but if he just starts simply killing guards or knocking down visible walls the guards won't take it so well. So for years Foul entertains himself on a reign of terror over his fellow inmates, many of which never did anything much or were jailed mistakenly, and dreams of a hyper-modern death ray... If he gets the death ray AND gets the owner change the retinal scan security setting for him then he's as good as free, but he can also try to mislead (perhaps by injecting him with drugs to make him irresponsible) the death ray wielder to level the prison or at least cause enough trouble that the lulled-into-complacency prison defenses will be centered on the death ray wielder while Foul knocks down the last bricks hiding his pre-made escape tunnel and dashes out.

It appears that Lord Foul is a fundamentally different entity than the Elohim. The Elohim have the capability of travelling in time, while Foul does not. (It wouldn't be much of a punishment if Foul could just travel a trillion years to the future and be freed almost immediately (to him).) The Elohim aren't effective against Foul but the Elohim as the stars would be able to survive the chaos of the Worm's awakening as they had survived it before.

[Avatar]

But according to the mythos, the World "grew" from the curled sleeping Worm!

According to one mythos.

See you found it Kay. Good thread, isn't it?

--A

[Nerdanel]

But according to the mythos, the World "grew" from the curled sleeping Worm!

I think that means that the world was able to grow and develop when there were things like stable natural laws. Previously, when something appeared it probably couldn't count on long-term survival as everything was in flux. Perhaps the universe at the time resembled the Clark Ashton Smith story The Dimension of Chance.

[KAY1]

I suppose the Arch of time has to be the more accurate story as it has been mentioned by the Creator, Foul and Covenant himself. As for the Elohim, perhaps their story isn't quite true, or just because according to Pitchwife they are hard to argue with, does not mean they are right. The Elohim have their own agenda always and will for the most part, carry out actions which fulfill their own personal dreams or visions, regardless of the effect this can have on anyone/thing else. They see themselves as the guardians of Earth and the people of the Earth as children who need to be looked after and monitored.

As has been said, there was obviously something on the island but perhaps the Worm was just a metaphor for a form of power and the story invented as a means of explaining something complicated to people they considered unable to grasp the full details.


Yes Avatar you are introducing me to all sorts of interesting topics

[Nerdanel]

Linden has a vision in "I am content" in which she sees herself awakening the Worm. I think the vision is due to her unwittingly possessing Lord Foul in some fashion and seeing into his mind, and that Lord Foul is a seer and a prophet. So there is some confirmation for the Worm outside the Elohim's word.

[KAY1]

Stop picking holes in my arguments

hee hee

I wonder if Linden may have seen the vision because it was a concept she recognised or if she did go into Foul's subconscious he may have misdirected her.

Or the Worm may be 'real' and the theories of creation are all correct in some way and form part of a bigger picture.

[wayfriend]

I think the Arch of Time was created first, then the stars went inside to an universe that was all chaos, and then the Law was created (a.k.a. the Worm was made to sleep) and with it the world as we know it.

I like the analogy here - the sleeping of the Worm corresponding to imposing order on the chaos. Both result in the circumstances necessary for the Earth to exist.

I think the creation of the Law corresponds to the imprisoning of Lord Foul.

This brings up what I think is a fundamental question.

Let's suppose that there is an ur-myth, if you will - an ultimate creation story. And all the creation myths we know are merely shadows or distortions or retellings of this ur-myth, as has been discussed.

The fundamental question is: is Foul an element of the ur-myth? Or is he 'outside' of it somehow, not part of it's scope.

If Foul is considered a demi-urge element in the Arch of Time myth, then he must be considered a shadow, distortion, or retelling of some element in the ur-myth. And he would have counterparts in the other creation myths. He would be the Enemy in the Wounded Rainbow myth. He would be the waking of the Worm in the Worm of the World's End myth. In other words, he may represent a capability for destruction inherent in the world itself.

Which brings us to an interesting conclusion. It would mean that Foul's presence in the Earth is not 'unnatural' or 'unintended', but necessary. If the Creator wrestled with Despite and threw him down into his creation, this is only a myth-allegory which explains why the world contains the seeds of it's own destruction. Despite is as necessary as a Creator for the Earth to exist.

And if that's true, then one can conclude that the Creator cannot remove the Despiser from the Earth, because he is necessary. This has a ring of truth to it. Covenant has demonstrated twice that although he can beat back Despite, he cannot eliminate it.

Which brings up all kinds of interesting possibilities for the Final Chronicles.