Reading Runes: A Tale of Two Cosmologies

[Blackhawk]

I watched Fantastic four .Rise of the silver surfer ...and the being in that which destroyed worlds at the beginning and end reminded me of the Worm.

I think the Worm and the creator stories conflict because they come from different races...one from the lords told to them by Giants i think and then the Giants story, and the Elohim who told it to them. just as the lords mis interpreted the tale of bagoon the unbearable and thelma twofist who tamed him, or more likely another story told, i dont think it was the bahgoon story,,anyway the giants laughed and said you mis understood..it was the giants who drank the diamond draught. and they all laughed. Humans have a way of skewing stories as they travel through time. the giants may have altered the stories less, and the Elohim could have it right. but the Worm to them is Würm which could mean a keystone or something like the Colosus of the fall, an interdict on the arch of time created by their Würd rather than on the upper land alone requiring one of the appointed. its too bad we never got the Brathairs views or beliefs.


I dont know how the Giants could misinterpret Worm for creator so there seems to be a big leap in the misinterpretation (not a surprise if you look at our own world)

My personal opinion if there has to be a Worm and creator that the Worm is Lord foul and the creator put the worm in stasis to prevent the Reaving of his other creations. the worm being constrained took form the intelligence aka people of the land and Giants would recognize. nothing to do but play games until a valid method of escape comes his way. (I would prefer sleep but maybe the constraint drove it completely mad.)

[wayfriend]

Donaldson has said (and I quoted it upstream somewhere) that the nature of the myth reflects the nature of the people who created it. So I think your idea about different races is a good one.

Consider the people of the Land. To them, the Earth is a beautiful gift to be cherished. Therefore, their myth involves someone who gives the Earth to them, and so there is a Creator.

The Giants are tellers of tales. Tellers of tales are keenly aware that a tale can be told in many different ways. So they accomodate all the different myths equally.

The Elohim believe that the are essential to Creation itself. Therefore, their myth links them to Creation inextricably.

[wayfriend]

I thought I'd add to the pile of Word/Würd/Worm lore with something that came in the GI today.

Vader: Hello and Merry Christmas from Germany.

My question might have been asked before (couldn't find anything in search though), it might be answered in the "Last Chronicles" (just re-reading the 2nd Chronicles after 20 years before starting TLC) or it might be completely irrelevant, but anyway ...

The Elohim's "Würd" can also be read as "Worm" and this "Würd/Worm" can be seen as part of their nature. When the Nicor of the Deep are said to be "offspring of the Worm of World's End" what is the connection between Elohim and Nicor? Or did I misunderstand the explanation of "Würd/Worm/Word" as presented in the 2n Chronicles? If not, wouldn't this also let the Nicor be "Offspring of the Word" and would this be a similar conception of "Word" as presented in the Bible Genesis?

A happy, successful and prolific 2009.

• It always sounds like a cop-out to say so, but I never intended any of this to be taken literally. My stubbornness about equating “Worm” and “Word” and “Weird” and “Wuerd” (I don’t know how to make this software do umlauts) was never meant to imply that those things are all identical. They are all thematically/morally/symbolically/archetypally relevant to each other; conceptually interwoven. But that doesn’t mean the physical or practical manifestations of those ideas are interchangeable. So: any relationship of relevance or meaning that exists between the Elohim and the Worm does NOT entail a relationship between the tangible Elohim and any mundane offspring which the Worm may (or may not) have produced in its slumbers.
  
  If “Word” has Biblical resonances, however, that’s no accident.
  
  (03/03/2009)

So the Nicor don't really seem to be an integral part of the cosmos.

But, as we have discussed, the Biblical connotations of Word ("In the beginning was the Word...") are surely in the forefront of Donaldson's design.

I particularly like his admission about "practical manifestations". Basically: don't carry analogies too far. Perhaps the Worm and the Arch and the Rainbow are the same thing, but don't go looking for a mouth on the Arch, or go looking for a pot of gold at the end of the Worm.

Note: You can make a ü in Windows with ALT-0252. Every Donaldson fan worth their salt should know this!

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Nice thread wayfriend...

[Vader]

Hey, that was my question posted Dec 08 BEFORE I joined this place.

And I wasn't going to look for a mouth on the Arc.

[wayfriend]

It was a good question, Vader! (And I did recognize your name.)

[Vader]

Note: You can make a ü in Windows with ALT-0252. Every Donaldson fan worth their salt should know this!

[OFFTOPIC]I just have to press the key right to "p". [/OFFTOPIC]

I find it highly interesting that WORD/WORM/WÜRD form a trinity of things that are actually the same - they form a unity, yet they are separated in their sameness and not interchangable - however one possible cannot exist without the other. I am still trying to figure out wether this is to be understood like the Catholic concept of Trinity or rather in a dialectic way, where each two parts together form the "identity of identity and non-identity" in the third part. But maybe I'm reading things into it.

[babybottomfeeder]

Earth, which surrounds Covenant is the stars, caught in the making of absolutely brilliant prevarications. I think Findail is a hint that Foul doesn't have the same self contained foundations of the Earth. What I noticed has only ended in the Creators universe where someone misinterpreted the Biblical connotations of both the Wounded Rainbow Myth and the Arch of Time Myth.

[Solar]

I think I've found another parallel between the Arch and the Worm.

In the 'Arch' myth, the stars/children of the Creator innocently wandered into the Arch, and were trapped inside it.

In the 'Worm' myth, the stars/children of the Creator were actively devoured by the Worm, and were trapped inside it.

The two stories convey essentially the same meaning, but the latter one has a more... sinister twist to it.

(The 'wound' of the Wounded Rainbow also seems to be analogous to the 'mouth' of the Worm, by the way.)

[wayfriend]

I think I've found another parallel between the Arch and the Worm.

In the 'Arch' myth, the stars/children of the Creator innocently wandered into the Arch, and were trapped inside it.

In the 'Worm' myth, the stars/children of the Creator were actively devoured by the Worm, and were trapped inside it.

The two stories convey essentially the same meaning, but the latter one has a more... sinister twist to it.

In the Wounded Rainbow myth, the would was made by the Despiser. He "had cast spite into the mortar" of the Rainbow. Perhaps he even intended the children to wander in. So there's certainly a sinister aspect there, I feel, as well.

(The 'wound' of the Wounded Rainbow also seems to be analogous to the 'mouth' of the Worm, by the way.)

What the Wound/Mouth might be analagous to in the more central Arch of Time cosmology is a little perplexing. Just how did the Creator put the Elohim (or whomever the stars/children might be) into the Earth?

There might be something analagous if somehow casting Foul into the Earth to imprison him was related to the presence of the Elohim/stars/children. But I'm just doing free association here - no real ideas.

[Solar]

But while he labored, his children, his myriad bright children, found the rainbow and were filled with rejoicing at its beauty. Together, they climbed into the heavens and scampered happily up the bow, dancing gay dances across its colours. High on the span, they discovered the wound. But they did not understand it. Chorusing joy, they danced through the wound, and found themselves in our sky. This new unlighted world only gladdened them the more, and they spun through the sky until it sparkled with the glee of play.

It seems like the mouth of the Worm and the wound of the Rainbow are metaphors for the banes planted within the Arch by the Despiser.

The children 'did not understand' the wound of the Rainbow, and in their curiosity, they entered it.
The children 'did not understand' the mouth of the Worm, and in their curiosity, they entered it.
The children 'did not understand' the banes planted within the Arch by the Despiser, and in their curiosity, they entered it...?

I'm not sure if I'm conveying my ideas effectively. I think I'll go make a chart...

Edit: Hmm. Charts are tricky.