The Crow (68 page)
Authors: Alison Croggon
N refers to the wind.
SUMMER
is indicated by a circle, representing the sun.
C shows a vertical fish form, representing a leaping salmon.
AUTUMN
shows an inverted semicircle, indicating falling.
Q shows a "leafless branch," or perhaps flowing blood.
M represents a valley.
G is obscure but may indicate the horns of the "desperate roe" (cf. the development of the ancient Semitic letter
aleph).
WINTER
P shows a leaf form that appears also to represent a hive, with a vertical line marking a center, possibly representing honey.
NG is two vertical waving lines representing both the reeds and their reflection and also the "sad waves, breaking endlessly."
R repeats the horizontal line for emphasis and implies Midwinter Day. The two vertical ellipses represent the two seeds of woe and gladness.
N
OTES
F
OR
T
HE
A
PPENDICES
1. I have referred elsewhere to the myriad difficulties of dating the Annaren Scrolls. The negligible presence of C14 in any of the documents suggests that they must be more than 50,000 years old, although their remarkable state of preservation makes them appear to be no older than three or four hundred years. Some progress is being made using isotopic dating methods on the ingredients of the inks, but the methods the Bards used to preserve their documents, which still remain a mystery to scientists, appear to have affected the molecular makeup of these materials – mainly parchment and reed paper – in certain fundamental and profoundly puzzling ways. See "Dating the Annaren Scrolls" by Jean-Paul Carrier,
Libridha: A Journal of Annaren Studies,
Issue III, Vol 1,2003.
2.
See The Riddle.
3. See
The Languages of the Suderain,
Jack Collins, (Chicago: Sorensen Academic Publishers, 2004).
4.
Genealogies of Light: Power in Edil-Amarandh
edited by Alannah Casagrande (Chicago: Sorensen Academic Publishers, 2000) and also Jacqueline Allison's
The Annaren Scripts: History Rewritten
(Mexico: University of Queretaro Press, 1998).
5. For examples of this kind of claim,
see Keepers of the Balance,
Markabul of Turbansk, A2578;
Sharers of the Light,
Inior of JerrNiken, A3145;
The Gifts of the Gift,
Vacarsa of Turbansk, N56.
6.
Genealogies of Light: Power in Edil-Amarandh,
edited by Alannah Casagrande (Chicago: Sorensen Academic Publishers, 2000).
7. "Idols of Light: Aspects of Religious Worship in the Suderain of Edil-Amarandh," Camilla Johnson,
Libridha: A Journal of Annaren Studies,
Issue V, Vol 2,2004.
8.
The Loom of Light
by Malikil of Jerr-Niken (N755).
9.
The Breathing Waves of Gis
by Intathen of Gent (N560).
10. For the above information, I am deeply indebted to Dr. Randolph Healy, Margaret Louise Mathematics Fellow at Bray College, Ireland, for his valuable conversation and insights.
11.
Sharma, King of Nothing,
the Bard Nindar, Library of Busk (A2153).
12.
A Chronicle of the Black Kingdom
by Callachan of Gent, translated by Jessica Callaghan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. For more on these two Elidhu, see "The Elidhu" in the appendices of
The Riddle.
16.
The Riddle,
Part IV.
17.
The Elidhu of Edil-Amarandh: Traces of the Absolute
by John Carroll (Mexico: University of Queretaro Press, 2005).
18.
The Crow,
III.
19. Ibid.
20. "Toward A Definition of Myth," Mircea Eliade,
Greek and Egyptian Mythologies
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
21.
Dialectic of Enlightenment
by Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).
22. "Ruins/Runes" by David Lloyd, University of Southern California. Unpublished monograph, 2004.
23. "Elements of the Sublime" by David Lloyd, University of Southern California. Unpublished monograph, 2005.
24. "The Symbolism of the Treesong Runes," by Professor Patrick Insole, Department of Ancient Languages, University of Leeds. Unpublished monograph, 2003.
A
BOUT
T
HE
A
UTHOR
Alison Croggon
is an award-winning Australian poet, playwright, editor, and critic. She started to write the books of Pellinor when her oldest son, Joshua, began to read fantasy. "I had forgotten how much I loved this stuff when I was a kid," she says. "My first real ambition as a child was to write a fantasy novel, and Josh's reading reminded me. So one day I sat down and started to write. I had no idea what would happen, but one character appeared, and then another, and before long I had to finish the story to see how it turned out."
That story turned out to be the first book in this series:
The Naming.
She says she has been surprised by how the books have seemed to unfold, already formed, before her. "Perhaps they've been waiting to be written for thirty years."
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