Heels of the Staff of Law

[High Lord Tolkien]

Runes pg 416 + 417

"But it's ends were bound with iron bands"

"Vain and Findail had given their lives to it, rigid structure and fluid vitality. And their union had been shaped, guided, by the deep knowledge with which Berek had forged his iron."

"by the deep knowledge with which Berek had forged his iron"

This phrase keeps sticking out at me.
I think it's nothing but it's also odd.

What "deep knowledge" are we talking about?
Is there something more significant about the Heels than just iron bands?
I thought Vain taking them was symbolic or foreshadowing for we the readers.
Could the new Staff have been formed without the old Heels?

WGW Chapter 20: The Sun-Sage:
Findail’s fluid Earthpower. Vain’s hard, perfect structure. And between them, the old definition forged into the heels of the Staff of Law.

"definition forged"
So it wasn't just metal bands.
It was something significant.

**************************

Why do I get the feeling that this is about something SRD would say in the GI: "I never really gave it any thought."

[Fist and Faith]

I wouldn't have thought a branch of the One Tree would need any help, so I'm surprised. But there it is, SRD says the heels had something special about them. I'm not going to guess, though, nor do I expect any satisfactory answer from SRD.

[drew]

The Runes carved on the origional were also important, more than just pretty decorations...In the GI SRD did mention once that the Runelessness of the new staff Is Signifigant.

[wayfriend]

Your question immediately brought to mind this passage:

"In sorrow and humility, the Creator saw what he had done. So that the plight of the Earth would not be utterly without hope, he sought to help his creation in indirect ways. He guided the Lord-Fatherer to the fashioning of the Staff of Law - a weapon against Despite. But the very Law of the Earth's creation permits nothing more."

This always has stuck out in my mind, because in some ways it made no sense. For if the SOL was merely cut from the OT, in what sense did Berek 'fashion' it? In what sense did the Creator guide the fashioning?

The answer, I can now slap myself on the head and say, is the heels. Berek made the heels.

So let us say this: the Creator gave to Berek (somehow) the knowledge or the inclination necessary for him to construct the heels of the Staff of Law. The heels contain that which is necessary for the branch of the One Tree to become a weapon against Despite. Perhaps the ability to affirm and uphold the Law is a weapon against Despite. Perhaps these are two seperate abilities.

If this is true, then it follows that this essence which Berek put into the heels is necessary for the new SOL if it is to accomplish the same tasks. Which is why it was critical to it's creation. The Creator probably only had one shot at getting that stuff into the Land - it needed to be recycled because there was no more of it.

I am not [yet] sure what the runelessness of the SOL signifies. But I strongly suspect that the addition of runes to the staff is Lord's lore (as Donaldson hints in that GI bit). Later, SRD says "As the creator of the new Staff of Law, Linden definitely has an inherent relationship with it" -- it follows that Berek and his line must have had a deep relationship with the old SOL. Therefore, the significance of the runes might be that the new SOL is not meant for a Lord's use, or to be weilded as an instrument of lore.

[aliantha]

You're right, it's not meant for a Lord's use. SRD is pretty clear in Runes in saying that the new SoL, created by Linden, is Linden's "weapon of choice," as it were. She couldn't put any runes on it because she doesn't know any. Maybe she'll learn more, and add some, later in the series.

I like the idea of the iron bands being the common link from the Creator to Berek to the old SoL to the new one. Maybe the iron bands are sort of like terminals on a battery -- the material in between (whether hunk o' One Tree or hunk o' blended Findail and Vain) determines the quality or quantity of power that flows through the staff, like copper wire is better at conducting electricity.

I dunno, I'm making this up as I go along.

[Variol Farseer]

I pretty much agree with all that has been said so far, but I'd like to add a bit of amateur literary sleuthing to the mix:

The whole 'deep knowledge' bit reminds me of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — which is perhaps not surprising, for SRD cites the Narnia books as a formative influence.

'Have you forgotten the Deep Magic?' asked the Witch.

'Let us say I have forgotten it,' answered Aslan gravely. 'Tell us of this Deep Magic.'

'Tell you?' said the Witch, her voice growing suddenly shriller. 'Tell you what is written on that very Table of Stone which stands beside us? Tell you what is written in letters as deep as a spear is long on the fire-stones of the Secret Hill? Tell you what is engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-Over-Sea? You at least know the Magic which the Emperor put into Narnia at the very beginning.'

The 'Emperor' being Aslan's Father, corresponding to SRD's Creator. I think it likely that 'deep knowledge' was a conscious echo of the phrase 'deep magic', and with a similar meaning.

If this parallel is true, then the Creator probably also taught Berek at least some (perhaps all) of the runes that Berek carved on the first Staff. These would correspond, in a sense, to the writing on the Stone Table — which is also, significantly, on the Emperor's sceptre.

Could the Emperor's sceptre be a distant source for the idea of the Staff of Law?

[High Lord Tolkien]

I don't see how the Creator could do anything with Berek.
Seems to be quite a contradiction.
The Creator can't do anything directly with his creation.
His finger would pop the Arch of Time bubble. (how's that one? )

But those quotes are from LFB.
SRD didn't have any sequels in mind at that time so maybe we shouldn't use that as a reference.
I don't know.

I do have more questions about this now after reading these responses.

Why would the WM blast the SoL into oblivion but not touch the heels?
If the heels were just metal they should have been the first to go, I would assume.
Perhaps the WM was just reacting to the Earthpower in the Staff.
That would mean that the heels are independant from Earthpower?
hmmm......

[Variol Farseer]

Why would the WM blast the SoL into oblivion but not touch the heels?
If the heels were just metal they should have been the first to go, I would assume.

No reason why they should. Wild magic is not microwaves, you know.

But his hands were clenched on the Staff. His ring pressed the wood. When her force touched his white gold, the wild magic erupted like an uncapped volcano. . . .

It did not hurl her off him; it was not that kind of power. But it tore through the rune-carved wood of the Staff like white sun-fire, rent the Staff fiber from fiber as if its Law were nothing but a shod bundle of splinters. A sharp riving shook the atmosphere, so that even the Colossus seemed to recoil from this unleashing of power.

The Staff of Law turned to ash in dead Elena's hands.

The way that is described, the wild magic was acting to destroy wood, not metal. The heels of the Staff were not made of fibres, and could not be burned to ash. Likely the metal got pretty deuced hot, but the wood perished first — and that broke the circuit, so to speak, before the metal could be consumed.

[Variol Farseer]

Excuse the double post, please, but I wanted to discuss this separately:

I don't see how the Creator could do anything with Berek.
Seems to be quite a contradiction.
The Creator can't do anything directly with his creation.
His finger would pop the Arch of Time bubble. (how's that one? )

But those quotes are from LFB.
SRD didn't have any sequels in mind at that time so maybe we shouldn't use that as a reference.
I don't know.

SRD had the first three books in mind from the very beginning, and they were published simultaneously in 1977. In any case, the bit about the Creator not being able to intervene directly is in LFB itself. See again the lines that Wayfriend quoted:

He guided the Lord-Fatherer to the fashioning of the Staff of Law - a weapon against Despite. But the very Law of the Earth's creation permits nothing more.

Apparently, a whispered suggestion on how to build the Staff of Law was within the rules, so to speak. I suppose if the Creator had just spoken to Berek out of the blue, that would have made Berek nothing more than a tool, and the Arch would probably have been broken. But if Berek was actively searching for that kind of help — praying for it, in effect — then I can see how the Creator could have answered that prayer in words without upsetting anything. The actual work, the heavy lifting, was still left for Berek to do himself. And the decision to make a Staff of Law must have been Berek's as well. You don't make a tool of someone just by helping him do what he has decided to do already.

[High Lord Tolkien]

I just don't see it.
I don't see how the Creator can interact, even indirectly, with anyone in the Land.
There's nothing else like it in any of the books.

Everything else we see are actions taken by the Elohim (Earthpower).

*BUT* there it is in black and white.
So the Creator helped out Berek.

Sounds like a good GI question!
I'll do it today.
Hopefully I'll get an answer by 2006!
(It really is great that he even does the GI)

[wayfriend]

I just don't see it. I don't see how the Creator can interact, even indirectly, with anyone in the Land. There's nothing else like it in any of the books.

Well, the words were not 'interacted'. They were 'guided'. There is a whole range of possibilities presented by that word. One the one hand, it might mean that the Creator entered the Land and held a three week crash course in Staff making, with Berek as the one pupil. But probably not. It might also mean something very subtle happened: perhaps the Creator was able to arrange a few 'signs' to appear that caused Berek to think of the idea himself. Whatever it was, there seems to have been just the one opportunity.

[Vector]

I just don't see it.
I don't see how the Creator can interact, even indirectly, with anyone in the Land.
There's nothing else like it in any of the books.

I always felt sending Covenant to the land (or helping him be chosen for Lord Drool's summoning) was an indirect interaction with the Land, the important point was that TC had free will.

Beyond, that it always seemed clear to me that Vain's taking of the heels of the old SOL was part of his mission to create the new one, therefore they must contain some essence necessary to its fashioning. Perhaps they simply contain lore to "contain" such vast power as the SOL represented, much as heels are used in the real world to keep a staff from fraying or splitting.

In fact, in the GI, SRD states that vain only went into Revelstone the first time because he needed the heels, while later he stayed outside since no purpose of his mission required him to enter Revelstone again.

Some relevant quotes:

This is does *not* imply that Linden's creation of a new Staff *automatically* restores the structure of Law to its original form. A tool has to be used to be effective; and the person using the tool has to know what he/she is doing. Linden, and then Sunder and Hollian, clearly have the spirit and the heart to use the Staff effectively; but they don't necessarily have the lore, the knowledge, to accomplish everything that the Staff is capable of doing. (The absence of runes on the new Staff is not an accident.) Also the new Staff is profoundly different than Berek's original creation. It was formed, not from the wood of the One Tree, but from one sentient (Findail) and one quasi-sentient (Vain) being, each of whose nature affects the inherent qualities of both the new Staff and what the new Staff can do.

Are you certain that the Staff's runes were an original and necessary part of its creation? If so, perhaps you would care to tell me where you find that information. I can't find any reason to believe that the runes could not have been added later, as Berek acquired more and more lore. Even the iron heels of the Staff could have been added later. I grant that the wood from the One Tree would have to be fashioned in some way. But Berek (over-simplifying here) has been granted a relationship with/knowledge of Earthpower. That and a little health-sense may have been all he needed.

To some degree, I feel that the absense of Runes is simply significant of the fact that the "Law" still needs fine tuning. That the runes are etched on the staff by the lords to symbolize concepts of the Law that need reinforcing.

Also, perhaps the tool that the Creator used to "guide" berek was simply causing the Earthpower to reveal itself to Berek on Mount Thunder when he had almost been defeated and had fled there to escape those who pursued him.

[wayfriend]

Linden, and then Sunder and Hollian, clearly have the spirit and the heart to use the Staff effectively; but they don't necessarily have the lore, the knowledge, to accomplish everything that the Staff is capable of doing. (The absence of runes on the new Staff is not an accident.)

To some degree, I feel that the absense of Runes is simply significant of the fact that the "Law" still needs fine tuning. That the runes are etched on the staff by the lords to symbolize concepts of the Law that need reinforcing.

Yes. Apparently, over time, the Lords put their lore "into" the staff, which was signified by the runes carved into it.

[Usivius]

... and let us not forget all that "lost knowledge" that were hidden in the form of the seven 'wards of power' (or whatever they were called). This is the summation of all Berek's knowledge which allowed him to create all that power and Earth-lore, etc....