A glossary of people, places & objects in Earthsea

Now showing glossary items relating to religion, beliefs, the afterlife & festivals

Atwah

Titles: Twin God, God-Brother

One of the Twin Gods, Warrior Gods of the Kargad Lands; said to be sons of the Old Powers of the Earth. Brother of Wuluah

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; Rejoining, OW

Ceremonies of the darkness

Also known as: Dances of the dark of the moon

Ceremony of the dark of the moon at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan; the One Priestess dances and sings in a drugged haze before the Empty Throne in the Hall of the Throne. One of the sacred dances involves throwing and catching a miniature sacrificial knife

Sources: The Prisoners, ToA; Dreams and Tales, ToA; Voyage, ToA

'Arha breathed in the drugging fumes of herbs burning in broad trays of bronze before the Throne, and danced, solitary in black. She danced for the unseen spirits of the dead and the unborn and as she danced the spirits crowded the air around her, following the turn and spin of her feet and the slow, sure gestures of her arms.'

'She had liked that dance; it was a wild one, with no music but the drumming of her own feet. She had used to cut her fingers, practising it, till she got the trick of catching the knife handle every time.'

[Dreams and Tales, ToA/Voyage, ToA]

Creation

See Making

Dances of the dark of the moon

See Ceremonies of the darkness

Dark land, the

See Dry land

Dark Ones

See Nameless Ones

Dark Powers

See Old Powers

Division, the

See Vedurnan

Dry land

Also known as: Dark land, the

Waterless spirit region where the spirits of the (human) dead go after death according to the Archipelagan belief system. Described as steep dry hillsides, bounded on one side by a wall of stones and on the other by the high black Mountains of Pain. Nothing grows there, there are no animals, and the heart of the land is a dry river. There are several cities and towns inhabited by spirits of the dead. Overhead the stars are small and unchanging, in constellations called the Door, the One Who Turns, the Sheaf and the Tree, which are not seen in the living lands; there is no moon. Wizards can visit the dry land in spirit, and return over the wall of stones, though they do so only rarely and at great peril; Ged and Lebannen crossed the dry land via the Mountains of Pain.

In The Other Wind, the dry land and the dragon realm of the other wind are equated, with the dragons claiming that the dry land was stolen in ancient times by mages, the Rune Makers, making walls of spells to exclude dragons. At the end of this novel, these spell walls are destroyed, along with their manifestation, the wall of stones; light and life return to the dry land, which is restored to the dragons

Sources: The Dry Land, FS; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; The Dragon Council, OW; Rejoining, OW

'…there was no passage of time there, where no wind blew and the stars did not move.…/The market places were all empty. There was no buying and selling there, no gaining and spending. Nothing was used, nothing was made. … All those whom they saw -- not many, for the dead are many, but that land is large -- stood still, or moved slowly and with no purpose. None of them bore wounds … No marks of illness were on them. They were whole, and healed. They were healed of pain, and of life. … Quiet were their faces, freed from anger and desire, and there was in their shadowed eyes no hope./ … the mother and the child who had died together, and they were in the dark land together; but the child did not run, nor did it cry, and the mother did not hold it, nor even look at it. And those who had died for love passed each other in the streets.'

'"And envying that freedom, they followed the dragons' way into the west beyond the west. There they claimed part of that realm as their own. A timeless realm, where the self might be forever. But not in the body, as the dragons were. Only in spirit could men be there… So they made a wall which no living body could cross, neither man nor dragon. For they feared the anger of the dragons. And their arts of naming laid a great net of spells upon all the western lands, so that when the people of the islands die, they would come to the west beyond the west and live there in the spirit forever./But as the wall was built and the spell laid, the wind ceased to blow, within the wall. The sea withdrew. The springs ceased to run. The mountains of sunrise became the mountains of the night. Those that died came to a dark land, a dry land."'

[The Dry Land, FS/Rejoining, OW]

Related entries: Religion and the afterlife; Immortality

Equinox sacrifice

Biennial sacrifice of a goat at the Tombs of Atuan, at the full moon nearest the equinox of spring and autumn; the blood is poured by the One Priestess onto the standing stones of the Tombs

'Twice a year, at the full moon nearest the equinox of spring and of autumn, there was a sacrifice before the Throne and she came out from the low back door of the Hall carrying a great brass basin full of smoking goat's blood; this she must pour out, half at the foot of the standing black stone, half over one of the fallen stones which lay embedded in the rocky dirt, stained by the blood-offering of centuries.'

[The Wall around the Place, ToA]

Festival of Sunreturn

Also known as: Sunreturn, Feast of Sun-return

Winter solstice festival, widely celebrated in the Archipelago, with feasting and the singing of the Deed of the Young King (or Deed of Morred) & the Winter Carol

Sources: Home, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…when the sun turns north to bring the spring…'

[Home, T]

Festival of the Lambs

Festival held in the New Year on Enlad and possibly elsewhere, of blessing and increase on the flocks

Sources: The Rowan Tree, FS

God-Brothers

See Twin Gods

Great Ones

Gods of the Children of the Open Sea (raft people); they are believed to take the form of whales. Their temple, the House of the Great Ones, contains carved idols of god figures, depicting a mixture of dolphin, fish, man and seabird

Sources: The Children of the Open Sea, FS

Immortality

An ancient goal of the art magic, especially the Lore of Paln. The earliest mages, the Rune Makers, sought for immortal life after bodily death, using the arts of naming to lay 'a great net of spells upon all the western lands, so that when the people of the islands die, they would come to the west beyond the west and live there in spirit forever'^a and so created the Archipelagan afterlife, the dry land. Cob and Thorion sought to bring the dead in the dry land back to life in the bodily realm.

The people of the Kargad Lands believe that they achieve immortality through reincarnation: 'We die to rejoin the undying world'^a

Sources: Rejoining, OW (a)

'"Men fear death as dragons do not. Men want to own life, possess it, as if it were a jewel in a box. Those ancient mages craved everlasting life. They learned to use true names to keep men from dying. But those who cannot die can never be reborn."' …/ "Life immortal … In a great land of rivers and mountains and beautiful cities, where there is no suffering or pain, and where the self endures, unchanged, unchanging, forever… That is the dream of the ancient Lore of Paln."'

[Rejoining, OW]

Related entries: Religion and the afterlife

Long Dance

Festival of midsummer eve, celebrated widely throughout the Archipelago with dance and song lasting all night long. The Creation of Éa and Deed of Erreth-Akbe are traditionally recited at this time. This festival is celebrated even by the Children of the Open Sea (raft people), who share few other customs with the Archipelago

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'As the sun rose the next morning the Chanters of Roke began to sing the long Deed of Erreth-Akbe… When the chant was finished the Long Dance began. Townsfolk and Masters and students and farmers all together, men and women, danced in the warm dust and dusk down all the roads of Roke to the sea-beaches, to the beat of drums and drone of pipes and flutes. Straight out into the sea they danced, under the moon one night past full, and the mustic was lost in the breakers' sound. As the east grew light they came back up the beaches and the roads, the drums silent and only the flutes playing soft and shrill. So it was done on every island of the Archipelago that night: one dance, one music binding together the sea-divided lands.'

[The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE]

Making

Also known as: Creation

Creation of Earthsea by Segoy, whose First Word balanced dark and light, raised the islands from the depths of Time, and established the lands amidst the seas; recounted in the Creation of Éa. A similar creation myth appears to be remembered by all peoples of Earthsea, including those of the Kargad Lands & the Children of the Open Sea. In a wider sense, the Master Doorkeeper of Roke identifies the Making both with dragons and with the Archipelagan magical arts; Language of the Making is a name for the Old Speech

Sources: Orm Embar, FS; Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; Home, T; Rejoining, OW

'Then from the foam bright Éa broke.'

[A Description of Earthsea, TfE]

Moon's Night

A summer festival, held on the shortest night with the full moon of the year, celebrated with flutes, drums and song. Coincides with the Long Dance once every 52 years

'All the first night, the shortest night of full moon of the year, flutes played out in the fields, and the narrow streets of Thwil were full of drums and torches, and the sound of singing went out over the moonlit waters of Roke Bay.'

[The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE]

Mother knowledge

Knowledge of the Old Powers of the Earth; retained by the peoples of the Kargad Lands and on Paln, but rejected by the Archipelagans and in particular by the Roke tradition of wizardry

'We would trust to Segoy, to the powers of the Earth our mother, mother of the Warrior Gods.'

[Rejoining, OW]

Nameless Ones

Also known as: Dark Ones, Unnamed Ones, Dark Powers, Kings whose Throne was empty, the Immortal Dead

Old Powers of Earth, worshipped at the Tombs of Atuan. Believed by some to have been rulers of the earth in some pre-creation era, ancient and nameless, they are considered evil by the Archipelagans

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA

'"They have no power of making. All their power is to darken and destroy. They cannot leave this place; they are this place; and it should be left to them. They should not be denied or forgotten, but neither should they be worshipped. … And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness…"'

[The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA]

Naming ceremony

See Passage into manhood

Nine Chants

One of the nightly rituals at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA

Related entries: Songs

Old Powers

Also known as: Powers of the Earth, Dark Powers, Old Powers of (the) Earth, Old Ones, Dark Ones, the Ones Underfoot

Ancient powers, worshipped in the Kargad Lands but considered to be evil by the Archipelagans. The spirit trapped in the Stone of Terrenon and the Nameless Ones of the Tombs of Atuan are examples. Roke Knoll, the Immanent Grove, Faliern Forest and the Lips of Paor are also said to be centres of the Old Powers. Bound to one place, they cannot cross the sea; Ged states: 'Out of the sea rise storms and monsters, but no evil powers: evil is of earth.'^a Often served by women, they are associated with the feminine, in opposition to the masculine magic.

A more neutral explanation of the Old Powers is given in Tales from Earthsea & The Other Wind, where they are considered to be ancient powers associated with the earth, including caves, streams, hills and trees, neutral but exacting a price; as Alder says, 'the Powers of the Earth keep their own account'^b

Sources: The Hawk's Flight, WoE; Hunting, WoE (a); The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA; Dragonfly, TfE; Dolphin, OW (b)

'"They have no power of making. All their power is to darken and destroy. They cannot leave this place; they are this place; and it should be left to them. They should not be denied or forgotten, but neither should they be worshipped. … And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness…"'

'"But before the gods and after, always, are the streams. Caves, stones, hills. Trees. The earth. The darkness of the earth."'

[The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA/Dragonfly, TfE]

Passage into manhood

Also known as: Naming ceremony, Naming day, Passage, Passage into womanhood, Crossing into manhood/womanhood

Ceremony held in the Archipelago after a child passes thirteen in which the child is given their true name and so passes into adulthood. The ceremony involves the child walking naked through water at daybreak after their childhood name has been taken away, before the namer gives them their new name; afterwards there is much feasting and celebration. The day and its anniversary are referred to as the nameday; nameday presents are traditional on Gont. The namer is always a person with some skill in magic; according to the witch Rose of Old Iria in 'Dragonfly' [TfE] the name comes to the namer's open mind rather than being chosen. The details of the ceremonies in the Kargad Lands are not stated (though they do not appear to involve renaming); crossing into adulthood occurs at around fourteen there

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Dragonfly, TfE; Dolphin, OW

'On the day the boy was thirteen years old … the ceremony of Passage was held. The witch took from the boy his name Duny, the name his mother had given to him as a baby. Nameless and naked he walked into the cold springs of the Ar where it rises among rocks under the high cliffs. … He crossed to the far bank, shuddering with cold but walking slow and erect as he should through that icy, living water. As he came to the bank Ogion, waiting, reached out his hand and clasping the boy's arm, whispered to him his true name: Ged.'

' "You're there in the water, together, you and the child. You take away the child-name. People may go on using that name for a use-name, but it's not her name, nor ever was. So now she's not a child, and she has no name. So then you wait. In the water there. You open your mind up, like. Like opening the doors of a house to the wind. So it comes. Your tongue speaks it, the name. Your breath makes it. You give it to that child, the breath, the name. You can't think of it. You let it come to you. It must come through you and the water to her it belongs to…''

[Warriors in the Mist, WoE/Dragonfly, TfE]

Related entries: Names

Placing of the sacred words upon the doors

One of the nightly rituals at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan; probably the same as the blessing of the doorways

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA

Powers of the Earth

See Old Powers

Precepts

Keeping the Precepts forms part of the religious observances on Hur-at-Hur, and possibly the other Kargad Lands

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Reincarnation

The people of the Kargad Lands believe in reincarnation after death, usually as a different person or animal/plant. Reincarnation is considered a form of immortality: 'We die to rejoin the undying world'^a. The One Priestess, Arha, is believed always to be reincarnated as herself. Those of the Inner Lands are not believed to be reincarnated; Kossil says '"…when they die, they are not reborn. They become dust and bone, and their ghosts whine on the wind a little while till the wind blows them away. They do not have immortal souls."'^b A belief in reincarnation does not appear to be held in the rest of Earthsea, though it seems a possible interpretation of the line 'only in dying life' from the Creation of Éa

Sources: Dreams and Tales, ToA (b); Winter, T; Palaces, OW; Rejoining, OW (a)

'But she knew what all the people of the Kargad Lands knew, that when they died they would return in a new body, the lamp that guttered out flickering up again that same instant elsewhere, in a woman's womb or the tiny egg of a minnow or a windborne seed of grass, coming back to be, forgetful of the old life, fresh for the new, life after life eternally.'

'"I think … that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed."'

[Palaces, OW/Rejoining, OW]

Related entries: Religion and the afterlife

Religion and the afterlife

All peoples of Earthsea honour Segoy as the creator, and share a creation myth, the Making.

The people of the Archipelago and the Reaches otherwise worship no gods, make no sacrifices and build no temples. They seem to rely on magic to govern chance events in their lives, such as the weather and illness. After death, a shadow is believed to pass to the dry land where it remains, but the afterlife is limited to a barren shadowland where the souls do not appear to interact, and 'those who had died for love passed each other in the streets.'^a

The peoples of the Kargad Lands worship the Twin Gods, the Godking and the Old Powers of the Earth, particularly the Nameless Ones, with temples and animal (and occasionally human) sacrifice. Magic is outlawed in the Kargad Lands. On Hur-at-Hur, and possibly elsewhere, keeping the Precepts forms part of religious observances. The Kargish peoples believe in reincarnation: an immortal soul which is reincarnated after death, considering that those from outside the Empire lack this immortal soul and are not reborn. Though the belief systems appear contradictory, both peoples observe rituals timed to the seasons which involve singing and dancing.

In The Other Wind, this difference between belief systems is resolved: the dry land is revealed to have been created by ancient mages, the Rune Makers, who, seeking immortality, appropriated part of the dragons' timeless realm, the other wind, using the arts of naming to lay 'a great net of spells upon all the western lands, so that when the people of the islands die, they would come to the west beyond the west and live there in spirit forever.'^b

The Children of the Open Sea (raft people) worship god-figures they call the Great Ones represented by wooden idols of mixed dolphin, fish, man and seabird, and believed to be embodied in the grey whales. They share the custom of the Long Dance with the Archipelagan peoples

Sources: Dreams and Tales, ToA; The Children of the Open Sea, FS; Orm Embar, FS; The Dry Land, FS (a); Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW; Rejoining, OW (b)

Ritual of the Unspoken

A brief ritual; one of those performed nightly at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA

Sacrifice

Animal sacrifice, usually of goats, is common in the Kargad Lands; named examples include the spring sacrifice on Hur-at-Hur and the equinox sacrifice on Atuan; twin goats born out of season are sacrificed to the Twin Gods on Atuan. Before Thol came to the throne, the spring sacrifice was of a young girl; people of noble birth convicted of treason or sacrilege are sacrificed to the Nameless Ones on Atuan. The dedication of the One Priestess at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan involves her mock sacrifice. Sacrifice isn't practised in the Archipelago

Sources: The Eaten One, ToA; The Wall around the Place, ToA; Dreams and Tales, ToA; The Dragon Council, OW

Segoy

Titles: Eldest Lord, Doorkeeper, Maker

The creator of Earthsea, whose First Word balanced dark and light, and established the lands amidst the seas: the Making, as recounted in the Creation of Éa. All peoples of Earthsea appear to share this belief, including those of the Kargad Lands & the Children of the Open Sea. Tehanu calls the dragon Kalessin Segoy

Sources: Orm Embar, FS; Tehanu, T; Rejoining, OW

'Among all beings ever returning, the eldest, the Doorkeeper, Segoy'

[A Description of Earthsea, TfE]

Spring sacrifice

Sacrifice to small, flightless dragons occurring on the fourth day of the fifth month at the Place of the Sacrifice on Hur-at-Hur. Formerly a human sacrifice, since Thol became king of Hur-at-Hur, a she-goat and a ewe have been sacrificed

'"Since then, they've only sacrificed a she-goat and a ewe. And they catch the blood in bowls, and throw the fat into the sacred fire, and call to the dragons. And the dragons all come crawling up. They drink the blood and eat the fire."'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

Sunreturn

See Festival of Sunreturn

Superstitions

Women are considered to bring good luck to a ship, though it's supposed to be unlucky for women to watch a keel being laid. On the other hand, it's considered unlucky for men to so much as pick up a shovel in a mine. The Fallows are considered an unlucky time, especially for travellers and the sick. In Karego-At, shooting stars are said to be the souls of dragons dying

Sources: The Finder, TfE; Dolphin, OW; Rejoining, OW

Twin Gods

Also known as: God-Brothers, Warrior Gods, White God-Brothers

Warrior Gods of the Kargad Lands, Wuluah and Atwah; said to be sons of the Old Powers of the Earth. Their worship is centuries older than the worship of the Godking. Their original centre of worship was Awabath; there is a Temple of the God-Brothers at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan. Symbol is the double arrow

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Hunting, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Rejoining, OW

Unmaking

The end of Earthsea. Thorion sees a vision of the Unmaking in the Stone of Shelieth

'"I saw the fountains. I saw them sink down, and the streams run dry, and the lips of the springs of water draw back. And underneath all was black, and dry. You saw the sea before the Making, but I saw the … what comes after … I saw the Unmaking."'

[Orm Embar, FS]

Unnamed Ones

See Nameless Ones

Vedurnan

Also known as: Division, the, Verw nadan

Ancient division of humans and dragons referred to in the oldest lore-books of the Roke School of Wizardry. Largely forgotten in the Archipelago and in Karego-At except in folk tales such as 'The Lass of Belilo' and the song of the Woman of Kemay, but remembered on Hur-at-Hur, and by the older dragons, who describe it as a bargain, choice or covenant whereby humans gave up knowledge of the Old Speech in exchange for skills and earthly possessions, while the dragons retained only Old Speech and their freedom of flight between this world and the timeless other wind. The pact is deemed to have been broken when the earliest Archipelagan mages (the Rune Makers) relearned Old Speech and partitioned the dragons' realm to create the dry land. Other accounts are various: in Karego-At, the involvement of the dragons is forgotten and it refers only to the division of human peoples over the practice of magic; on Paln, it's considered the earliest triumph of the art magic. A painting on an old fan on Gont, depicting dragons on one side merging with humans on the other, may relate to these legends

Sources: Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; Hawks, T; Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW; Rejoining, OW

'…in the beginning of time, mankind and the dragonkind had been one, but the dragons chose wildness and freedom, and mankind chose wealth and power. A choice, a separation.'

'"Kalessin said: 'Long ago we chose. We chose freedom. Men chose the yoke. We chose fire and the wind. They chose water and the earth. We chose the west, and they the east.'"'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

Related entries: Dragon-humans

Verw nadan

See Vedurnan

Wall of stones

Low stone wall which forms the border of the dry land over which the dead pass. Only wizards can cross the wall and return living, and only at great peril. The wall is ruined at the end of The Other Wind, allowing the dead to leave

Sources: The Dry Land, FS; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Rejoining, OW

'"Along the top of the hill and running down the slope was a wall, low, like a boundary wall between sheep pastures. … And she reached out across the wall. It was no higher than my heart."'

[Mending the Green Pitcher, OW]

Warrior Gods

See Twin Gods

World view

The islands which make up Earthsea are surrounded by the Open Sea; there appears to be debate as to whether the sea goes on for ever empty beyond the known lands of the Outer Reaches or contains undiscovered lands on the other face of the world -- or even, as Vetch suggests, apparently facetiously, '"has but one face, and he who sails too far will fall off the edge of it"'^a

Sources: The Open Sea, WoE (a); Sea Dreams, FS

'"For the world is very large, the Open Sea going on past all knowledge; and there are worlds beyond the world."'

[Sea Dreams, FS]

Wuluah

Titles: Twin God, God-Brother

One of the Twin Gods, Warrior Gods of the Kargad Lands; said to be sons of the Old Powers of the Earth. Brother of Atwah. Thol claims descent from Wuluah

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; Rejoining, OW

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