A glossary of people, places & objects in Earthsea

Now showing other glossary items, mainly relating to abstract concepts

Acastan Spells

Spells of unknown purpose, one of which is said to be made powerless by the Emanations of Fundaur (see Black Well of Fundaur). The spell was rewoven by Heleth and Ogion

Sources: The Bones of the Earth, TfE

Accounting & mathematics

Also known as: Mathematics

In the Archipelago, business accounts are kept by book-keepers in ledgers in a counting room. Wooden tablets are used for reckoning by marketers. The peoples of the Kargad Lands are said to be 'expert mathematicians, using base twelve'^a; they keep accounts 'in weavings of different colors and weights of yarn'^a

Sources: Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE (a)

'…she found her son in the counting room going through ledgers. She looked at the pages. Long, long lists of names and numbers, debts and credits, profits and losses.'

[Darkrose and Diamond, TfE]

Acre

Unit of area used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: Lorbanery, FS

Acting

While plays and the theatre are not directly mentioned, Tenar likens herself to 'an actor enjoying her role'^a, suggesting that acting is recognised in the Archipelago and/or the Kargad Lands. Acting may form part of a chanter's performing songs or a teller's telling tales, or may be a separate discipline. Street shows of an unspecified nature are mentioned in Havnor City

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW (a)

Agnen

Also known as: Rune of Ending

The rune of Ending, which closes roads and is drawn on coffin lids; probably one of the True Runes. Also the constellation of Ending of the South Reach, which includes the yellow star Gobardon

Sources: The Dry Land, FS; Winter, T

'…with his staff he drew in lines of fire across the gate of rocks a figure: the rune Agnen, the Rune of Ending, which closes roads and is drawn on coffin lids.'

[The Dry Land, FS]

Related entries: Runes

Alchemy

Magical transmutation of materials, usually into gold; apparently practised at the School of Wizardry on Roke, but no details are given

Sources: Orm Embar, FS

Apprenticeship

See Education

Archery

Archery is used for military purposes in the Archipelago; archers defend the New Palace in Havnor City and the Armed Cliffs of Gont Port, and a band of archers on the king's warships are suggested for combating dragons. However, the arrows used by villagers from Ten Alders on Gont to fight off a Kargish raiding party in around 1012 are said to come from hunting bows. Lebannen mentions archery among his courtly accomplishments as a youth in Enlad, whether for military or hunting purposes is not stated. Ogion is mentioned making a longbow on Gont, presumably for shooting game. Warriors of the Kargad Lands are not described as carrying bows

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Masters of Roke, FS; The Dolphin, T; The Dragon Council, OW

Related entries: Weapons

Art

See Decorative arts

Art magic

The greatest arts of magic: changing, naming, summoning and patterning. A subset of the high arts, art magic was practised only by (male) wizards after Archmage Halkel's decree of 730

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Balance, the

See Equilibrium

Base crafts

Also known as: Witchcraft, Base spells

The lesser arts of magic, as defined by Archmage Halkel in 730, including finding, mending, dowsing and animal healing; as opposed to the high arts. Under Halkel's rules, all magic practised by women or witches was considered to be a base craft

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Curer

Beggary

Beggary is said to be uncommon in the Archipelago during the main period of the Earthsea cycle, though the existence of itinerant beggars is mentioned, eg on Gont and Semel. Wandering wizards own few possessions and often beg for food and shelter, though this seems to be closer to an informal trade of services for hospitality; other itinerant professions may operate in a similar fashion. Beggars, sometimes violent, become common on Gont during the few years of unrest immediately preceding the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy; they were also common on Havnor, and probably elsewhere, during the Dark Years

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; The Western Mountains, ToA; Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; The Finder, TfE; On the High Marsh, TfE

Boat-building

See Ship-building

Bond Rune

Also known as: Lost Rune, King's Rune, (Lost) Rune of the Kings, Rune of Peace, Sign of Peace

When the Ring of Erreth-Akbe was broken in two, one of the nine True Runes was on the fracture line, and that rune was destroyed. The Lost Rune is the Bond Rune, the rune that binds the lands, the sign of dominion and of peace, described by Lebannen as 'a mighty enchantment of blessing'^a; no king could rule well without it. It is restored when Ged makes whole the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

Sources: The Ring of Erreth Akbe, ToA; Palaces, OW (a)

Calendar

Several dating systems exist, the most widely used being the Archipelagan one in which the year Morred ascended the throne was termed year 1. In this dating system, the date when Lebannen is crowned is approximately 1050. A lunar-based calendar appears to be followed. Months are named in English, presumably silent translations of the Hardic names; in Kargish, they're often given numbers (eg the fifth month). No names for days are given

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE; The Dragon Council, OW

Related entries: Time

Carding

Carding using carding combs is mentioned on Gont, as part of the preparation of goats' wool for spinning

Sources: Finding Words, T

Cat's cradles

A variety of cat's cradles are played on Gont; simple rhymes accompany the string manipulations

'Churn churn cherry all!
Burn burn bury all!
Come, dragon, come!'

[Kalessin, T]

Celibacy

Wizards and mages in modern times normally practise strict celibacy; this is perceived as a means of conserving their power. It is achieved with spells of chastity, which bind both the wizard and observers not to think of sexual matters. This was not always the case: as powerful a mage as Morred was married, with a child. The sorcerer Ivory uses seduction spells on women, and disparagingly refers to the practice of celibacy as turning wizards into eunuchs, castrating themselves with spells to be holy. Most witches and many sorcerers do not practise celibacy, and sometimes have families (though witches rarely marry). The priestesses at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan promise their virginity to the gods they serve

Sources: Hawks, T; Dragonfly, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…"that's the power of 'em, dearie. You don't think! You can't! And nor do they, once they've set their spell. How could they? Given their power? It wouldn't do, would it, it wouldn't do. You don't get without you give as much. … it's an uneasy thing for a man not to be a man, no matter if he can call the sun down from the sky. And so they put it right out of mind, with their spells of binding. And truly so. Even in these bad times we've been having, with the spells going wrong and all, I haven't yet heard of a wizard breaking those spells, seeking to use his power for his body's lust. Even the worst would fear to."'

[Hawks, T]

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]

Changing

Transforming the true nature of matter or bodies, usually reversibly, by changing their name; uses Spells of Shaping and Great Spells of Change from the Book of Shaping. Some changes are irrevocable, for example, Heleth's transformation of himself into the earth. One of the high arts of magic, also considered a part of the art magic. Taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Changer, it is among the most perilous arts, especially when the change is applied to the wizard himself (shape-changing) who can become trapped in the assumed form

Sources: The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE; The Bones of the Earth, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…the true Spells of Shaping. He explained how, if a thing is really to be changed into another thing, it must be re-named for as long as the spell lasts, and he told how this affects the names and natures of things surrounding the transformed thing.'

[The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE]

Chanting

Knowledge of the oral lays, deeds and songs, as well as sung spells. Considered one of the high arts of magic, though witches traditionally teach the songs to children. Taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Chanter

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Songs

Chants

See Songs

Childhood name

Also known as: Child-name

Name given by the mother to a baby, sometimes retained as a use-name in adulthood. Examples are Duny, Arrendek

Related entries: Names

Child-name

See Childhood name

Children's tales

Also known as: Tales, children's, Stories, children's

Stories told to children on Gont include variants of Earth fairy tales, featuring wicked witches, enchanted sleep and kisses from mage princes, or, as told in the story of Andaur and Avad, woodcutters and trees with human voices. A more distinctive Gontish fable tells of an ant taking a hair of the mage Brost, making the ants' nest glow in the dark to the eye of the wise. Another story on Gont tells of cat ghosts. Tales often begin with the phrase 'as long ago as forever, as far away as Selidor'^a, the Archipelagan equivalent of 'once upon a time'. Stories are timed to the seasons; the cat ghost story is said to be a summer story, while the great stories, such as the Creation of Éa, Winter Carol & Deed of the Young King, are learned in winter

Sources: Kalessin, T; Bettering, T; Finding Words, T (a); Home, T

'"Come into the forest with me, dearie!" said the old witches in the tales told to the children of Gont. "Come with me and I'll show you such a pretty sight!" And then the witch shut the child in her oven and baked it brown and ate it, or dropped it into her well, where it hopped and croaked dismally for ever, or put it to sleep for a hundred years inside a great stone, till the King's Son should come, the Mage Prince, to shatter the stone with a word, wake the maiden with a kiss, and slay the wicked witch…'

[Kalessin, T]

Common tongue

See Hardic

Communication

Oral messages or written notes, carried by travellers or on ships, are used for communication over distances. Mention is made of a message bird, presumably carrying a written message. Wizards can communicate by sending, though sendings cannot cross water

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; The Rowan Tree, FS; Selidor, FS; The Dragon Council, OW

Related entries: Writing

Court

After the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, Lebannen's court is established at the New Palace (also known as the Palace of Maharion) at Havnor City on Havnor. The court consists of various princes, princesses & nobles from all over the Archipelago, including Prince Sege (who functions as Lebannen's deputy), ladies-in-waiting/ladies of honour (eg Lady Opal), councillors of the King's Council and the wizard Onyx. It's serviced by a retinue including the king's guards, captains, lieutenants (eg Yenay) & other officers (including one whose duty is to precede the king crying "Way for the king!"), majordomos (eg Thoroughgood), officials, ushers, footmen, footboys, maids, servants (eg Oak, Berry of Havnor), gardeners, as well as musicians, singers and song writers.

In the Kargad Lands, the imperial court of, successively, the Priest-Kings, Godking & High King is at Awabath on Karego-At; before the rise of the Priest-Kings, it was at Hupun

'She did not mind the formalities of court life or the knowledge that under the civility simmered a stew of ambitions, rivalries, passions, complicities, collusions.'

[Palaces, OW]

Craft with iron

Also known as: Iron, craft with

Magic which makes a compass needle point at will rather than to the north; a secret of the Seamasters

Sources: The Shadow, WoE

Creation

See Making

Creation of Éa

Also known as: Song of the Creation, Making

Oldest and most sacred poem or song, which recounts the creation of Earthsea by Segoy (the Making) in thirty-one stanzas and is sung every year at the Long Dance. At least two thousand years old in Hardic, and of unknown age in Old Speech, its language of composition. The foundation of education, it would be known by all adults in the Archipelago

'The making from the unmaking,
the ending from the beginning,
who shall know surely?
What we know is the doorway between them
that we enter departing.
Among all beings ever returning,
the eldest, the Doorkeeper, Segoy…

Then from the foam bright Éa broke.

Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky.'

[A Description of Earthsea, TfE]

Related entries: Songs

Credit

Also known as: Money-lending

No general system of money-lending is mentioned. Taverns are said to offer credit to their customers. Farmwoman Emer offers Irioth lodging on the strength of a gold crown's surety. The Roke-trained sorcerer Ivory receives an advance payment on his wages from his employer. Credit counters are mentioned on Gont

Sources: The Master, T; On the High Marsh, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE

Crime

Crime appears relatively uncommon in the central Archipelago during the main period of the Earthsea cycle. Hort Town on Wathort and the Hosk interior are described as lawless. During the few years of unrest immediately preceding the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, theft, poaching and violent crime, largely perpetrated by gangs of men, become substantially more common on Gont, though the murder, assault and rape committed by the group of tramps to which Handy belongs is still considered exceptional

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; Hunted, WoE; Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; Winter, T

Currency

Also known as: Money

Ivory pieces/counters are the main currency in much of the Archipelago, including Roke, Way, Havnor, Gont & Andrad; one design from Way is described as having the Otter of Shelieth on one face and the Rune of Peace on the other. In rural Gont, however, ivory pieces are used only for buying land or livestock, or dealing with city traders. Gold pieces appear to be the standard in the north, for example on Osskil & Enlad; a gold Enladian crownpiece is mentioned, of which it is said '"The whole village together couldn't change that!"'^a Silver trade-counters are also mentioned. In rural areas, low-value copper pennies appear to be the usual currency; barter is also common. No form of banking is mentioned; Flint keeps his savings in a money-box on Gont.

Ged is paid ten ivory counters for his work on Low Torning and the same amount is advanced to Ivory for his work at Westpool; Lebannen pays four ivory pieces for a silver brooch in Thwil; Flint's lifetime savings from a prosperous farm on Gont amount to seven ivory pieces; Ged pays two trade-counters of silver for several days' lodging in Lorbanery; Irioth is (under)-paid six copper pennies for ten days' healing animals on Semel; Ged offers two coppers for accommodation on Semel

Sources: Mice, T; The Master, T; On the High Marsh, TfE (a); Dragonfly, TfE

Related entries: Trade; Credit

Dance

Dancing, often accompanied by music of drums, pipes, flutes and other instruments, appears to be important throughout Earthsea, with both religious and secular examples. The Long Dance in midsummer is one of the major religious festivals, celebrated widely throughout Earthsea (including by the Children of the Open Sea, though not in the Kargad Lands) with dancing all night long. Dancing on the village green to music provided by bands of itinerant musicians is a common entertainment at parties, such as Nameday celebrations. Courtly and country dancing are both practised in the court at Berila on Enlad. Several ceremonies associated with the worship of the Nameless Ones at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan involve dancing, such as the Ceremonies of the darkness. The existence of dancing girls in Awabath on Karego-At reveals that dancing also has secular applications in Kargad; King Thol is said to have been welcomed to Awabath with dancing in the streets

Sources: The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE; Dreams and Tales, ToA; The Masters of Roke, FS; Orm Embar, FS; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE

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

Dark Time

See Dark Years

Dark Years

Also known as: Dark Time

Chaotic time after the death of Maharion, when warlords ruled in the absence of an acknowledged King of All the Isles and unregulated wizardry caused plagues, famines and other ills. The best historical account of this time is found in the Book of the Dark

'"No commonwealth was left and no justice, only the will of the wealthy. Men of noble houses, merchants, and pirates, any who could hire soldiers and wizards called himself a lord, claiming lands and cities as his property. The warlords made those they conquered slaves, and those they hired were in truth slaves, having only their masters to safeguard them from rival warlords seizing the lands, and sea-pirates raiding the ports, and bands and hordes of lawless, miserable men dispossessed of their living, driven by hunger to raid and rob."'

[The Finder, TfE]

Death-related customs

Burial is used both in the Archipelago/Reaches and the Kargad Lands. In the Archipelago, a vigil is held over the body, with words recited, candles and burning of oils. Village witches usually prepare bodies for burial, termed homing; the corpse is laid on the left side, with the knees bent, and a charm bundle is placed in the left hand. The Agnen rune of Ending is inscribed on coffin lids. Family graveyards are mentioned on Gont, both for the farmer Flint and for the Lord of Re Albi; Ogion is buried alone by the Old Mage's House. Rites of Mourning are enacted in Atuan for the deaths of priestesses; the ceremonies of burial and purification for the One Priestess last one lunar month

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; Light under the Hill, ToA; The Dry Land, FS; A Bad Thing, T; Ogion, T

'…with Tenar and the others [Moss] had watched the night by Ogion's body. She had set a wax candle in a glass shade, there in the forest, and had burned sweet oils in a dish of clay; she had said the words that should be said, and done what should be done. …When she had laid out the corpse as it should lie to be buried, on the left side with the knees bent, she had put in the upturned left hand a tiny charm-bundle, something wrapped in soft goatskin and tied with coloured cord.'

[Ogion, T]

Decorative arts

Also known as: Art, Sculpture

Paintings are rarely mentioned in the Archipelago, but many other forms of decoration are described, including carving, engraving, mosaic and inlay work, tapestry and embroidery. A painted silk fan on Gont depicts figures in Havnor City on one side and dragons on the other, and may be related to legends of the Vedurnan. The inner face of the horn door of the School of Wizardry on Roke bears a carving of the Thousand-leaved Tree, and the same motif is carved in the walls and ceiling of the gallery of that school. Morred's High Seat is carved with a flying heron bearing a twig of rowan, and carved window screens are found in the New Palace of Havnor City. Carved bone figures, depicting people and animals, are described as Gontish toys; a carved dolphin in ivory or bone, perhaps from Havnor, is also mentioned. The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, a woman's arm ring said to be old at the time of Morred and Elfarran, is engraved with a wave-like pattern on the outside and nine True Runes on the inside. Coins bear designs, eg ivory counters from Way with the Otter of Shelieth on one face and the Rune of Peace on the reverse. In cities, doorways are often carved with statues, eg the landgate of Gont Port is carved with dragons, and in Hort Town a palace doorway is carved with giant figures described as 'statues whose necks were bowed under the weight of a pediment and whose knot-muscled bodies emerged only partly from the wall, as if they had tried to struggle out of stone into life and had failed partway.'^a The prince's throne room in Berila on Enlad has a great decorative map in mosaic work on the north and west walls, possibly constructed in the days of the kings (800 years ago). The New Palace has a small table 'inlaid with curling patterns of ivory and silver, leaves and blossoms of the rowan tree twined about slender swords'^b which illustrates Lebannen's true & use names. Tapestry hangings and embroidered seat coverings at the New Palace are mentioned, but no details of designs are stated; embroidery also decorates fine clothing for both sexes.

Ships' timbers are often carved in the shape of dragons or serpents, for example, the Shadow has a carving of the Old Serpent of Andrad. Eyes are painted on the prow of Lookfar. An Osskilian ship is described: 'her high bent prow carven and inlaid with disks of loto-shell, her oarport-covers painted red, with the rune Sifl sketched on each in black.'^c

In the Kargad Lands, the murals in the Painted Room of the Labyrinth on Atuan depict 'bird-winged, flightless figures with eyes painted dull red and white'^d, which may represent non-reincarnated spirits of Archipelagan people trapped in the sterile afterlife of the dry land; the date at which they were painted is unknown. Small painted ivory tables are mentioned as part of the treasure of the Hall of the Throne, depicting dancers in the Hall of the Throne; a carved chest of cedar wood there, said to be many hundreds of years old, depicts the One Priestess advising a King. Eight of the stones of the Tombs of Atuan bear 'vague carvings … -- shapes, signs'^e. The silver key of the Treasury of the Tombs has a haft carved as a dragon. Anthil's dress is decorated with seed pearls in a design including the double arrow symbol of the Twin Gods and a crown.

The Children of the Open Sea (raft people) carve wood for idols and decorations to their temple; these include both abstract (eg complex square design above a doorway) and representational (eg doorjambs carved as grey whales sounding) designs. The descriptions of the idols 'dolphin bodies, gulls' wings folded, human faces with staring eyes of shell'^f seem to resemble the pictures in the Painted Room of Atuan. Some adorn their bodies with tatoos

Sources: The Shadow; Hunted, WoE (c); The Wall around the Place (e); The Great Treasure, ToA (d); Hort Town (a); The Children of the Open Sea (f); Selidor, FS; Mice; Hawks; Finding Words; The Dolphin, T; Dragonfly, TfE; Palaces (b); The Dragon Council, OW

Deed of Enlad

Epic telling of the earliest kings and queens of Enlad, before Morred and of his first year on the throne. Partly historical, partly mythical

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…the song tells how the mage Morred the White left Havnor in his oarless longship, and coming to the island of Soléa saw Elfarran in the orchards in the spring. … to the sorry end of their love, Morred's death, the ruin of Enlad, the sea-waves vast and bitter, whelming the orchards of Soléa.'

[The Open Sea, WoE]

Related entries: Songs; King of All the Isles

Deed of Erreth-Akbe

Lay recounting the deeds of the mage Erreth-Akbe, sung every year at the Long Dance. It tells of the building of the towers of Havnor City, and of Erreth-Akbe's travels from Ea throughout the Archipelago & the Reaches until he met the dragon Orm on Selidor, and of how the sword of Erreth-Akbe is set atop the highest tower of Havnor

Sources: The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'O may I see the earth's bright hearth once more, the white towers of Havnor…'

[The Open Sea, WoE]

Related entries: Songs

Deed of Ged

Song telling of Ged's deeds, probably particularly his defeat of the necromancer Cob. According to this account, Ged attended the crowning of Lebannen and then sailed away in Lookfar never to be heard from again

Sources: The Stone of Pain, FS

Deed of Hode

Song, presumably recounting the deeds of Hode

'Daybreak makes all earth and sea, from shadow brings forth form, driving dream to the dark kingdom.'

[Hunted, WoE]

Related entries: Songs

Deed of Morred

See Deed of the Young King

Deed of the Dragonlords

Also known as: Deed of the Dragonlord

Epic recounting deeds of wizards in the time late during the reigns of the Havnorian kings when raids from dragons were a common danger

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Deed of the Young King

Also known as: Deed of Morred, Song of the Young King

Epic telling the story of the reign of Morred, sung annually at the Festival of Sunreturn; the same song is also known as the Deed of Morred. Recounts the love story of Morred & Elfarran, and tells of how Morred battled the Enemy of Morred and drove back the Black Ships

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

'If Elfarran be not my own, I will unsay Segoy's word,
I will unmake the islands, the white waves will whelm all.'

'Praised are the Fountains of Shelieth, the silver harp of the waters,
But blest in my name forever this stream that stanched my thirst!'

[A Description of Earthsea, TfE/Hort Town, FS]

Related entries: Songs

Dice and sticks

A game with dice and sticks is played by the novices at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan. Possibly the same as a Kargish gambling game using five-sided ivory dice-sticks mentioned; as the dice-sticks are said to be owned by Tosla, a variant may also be played in the Archipelago

Sources: The Wall Around the Place, ToA; Dolphin, OW

Related entries: Games

Disease

Diseases, disorders and injuries mentioned in humans include rickets, hunchback, smallpox (called Witch-Fingers), consumption, wasting fever/wasting cough (possibly tuberculosis), redfever, marsh fever, fever, plague, stroke, scrofula, rheumatism, arthritis, gangrene, cataracts, blindness, detached retina, nearsightedness, hazia-induced nervous disorder, quicksilver (mercury) poisoning, sea sickness, warts, sprains, broken bones, lameness and deformed births; in animals, infected udders (goats), maggot-infected wounds (sheep), spavins (horses), mange (cats, dogs), murrain (the staggers), caked udders and foot/hoof rot (all in cattle), rabies and deformed births; in plants, black rot of vines and tent caterpillar infestation of fruit.

Magic overused or wrongly used can also produce fits or a trance-like condition, as described for Ged in 'Warriors in the Mist', 'The Loosing of the Shadow', 'The Dragon of Pendor' [WoE], Thorion in 'Orm Embar' [FS], and Irioth in 'On the High Marsh' [TfE]. It can also let loose plagues, as occurred two centuries ago on Paln and Semel after a duel of magic, and frequently during the Dark Years

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; The Dragon of Pendor, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA; Light under the Hill, ToA; Finding Words, T; The Master, T; The Finder, TfE; On the High Marsh, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE; Palaces, OW; Dolphin, OW

Division, the

See Vedurnan

Dragon Council

Meeting of the King's Council of Havnor City in around the year 1066, at which Orm Irian speaks of the Vedurnan and the disagreement between dragons and the Archipelagans over the domain called the other wind

'"Councillors! This is a day that will long be told and sung. Your sons' daughters and your daughters' sons will say, 'I am the grandchild of one who was of the Dragon Council!' So honor her whose presence honors us. Hear Orm Irian."'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

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

Dyeing

Bright blue or crimson (dragon's fire) dyes are mined on Lorbanery as ores (eg emmel-stone); dye-making on that island is a profession carried out by sorcerers (the Dyers of Lorbanery). Plant-derived dyes of red madder or unspecified yellow are mentioned for domestic dyeing on Gont

Sources: Lorbanery, FS; Hawks, T

Earthquake

Gont Port lies on a fault line; two different earthquakes are mentioned on Gont. When Ogion was seven or eight, half a mile of the coast at Essary fell into the sea and a tidal wave swamped the Gont Port wharves; there were many casualties, including Ogion's father. When Ogion was the wizard of Gont Port, ten years before 'The Shadow' [WoE], Heleth and he stilled a second earthquake which threatened Gont Port; Heleth gave his life to do so. Ged and Tenar's actions in the Labyrinth on Atuan precipitate an earthquake which destroys the Tombs of Atuan

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; The Anger of the Dark, ToA; The Bones of the Earth, TfE

Education

Also known as: Schooling, Apprenticeship

In the Archipelago & Reaches, learning the songs and rites, usually from village witches, is the predominant non-vocational education received by most children. A school is mentioned on Sattins island; meeting out of doors or in a hayloft, it has a single schoolmistress and takes 30 children under twelve years. The curriculum includes the Rules of Names; reading & writing do not appear to be taught. The base crafts & high arts of magic are taught at the School of Wizardry on Roke to boys sent from all over the Archipelago/Reaches who have a strong gift; presumably a similar school exists on Paln. The isle of Taon has schools of music. A school is mentioned for children at court in the New Palace on Havnor, and Lebannen mentions a schoolmaster & fencing-master at the court on Enlad. Colleges are mentioned on Ea and the Enlades. Vocational education appears to be largely via apprenticeship (eg Ged with Ogion, a young girl with Weaver Fan); trade guilds such as the Seamasters also teach certain trade-specific skills.

At the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, female novices of four to fourteen years learn sacred songs & dances, histories of the Kargad Lands and the rites & mysteries of the god of their dedication from priestesses; they are also taught more prosaic tasks including spinning, weaving, farming and cooking. Forms of education elsewhere in the Kargad Lands are not detailed

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; The Shadow, WoE; The School of Wizardry, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA; Sea Dreams, FS; Orm Embar, FS; The Finder, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Palaces, OW; The Dragon Council, OW

Eduevana

See Other breath

Entertainment

Dance, music, songs, the telling of tales, feasting and drinking are sources of entertainment common to both the Archipelago and the Kargad Lands; hunting (for sport), falconry, illusion, juggling, sleight of hand, puppetry, fireworks and visiting whores may be restricted to the Archipelago. Inns, taverns and pothouses are found throughout the Archipelago, but are not mentioned in the Kargad Lands. Acting is alluded to, and street shows of an unspecified nature are mentioned in Havnor City. Games mentioned include dice and sticks, sticks and counters, net-ball and cat's cradles

Related entries: Jugglers; Teller; Puppeteers; Prostitution

Equilibrium

Also known as: Balance, the, Balance of the Whole

The world is considered to exist in equilibrium, not static but ever-changing: '"The Balance is not a stillness. It is a movement -- an eternal becoming."'^a True wizards or mages strive always to maintain this state of equilibrium by using magic only at need and with due regard for all the various consequences, both direct and indirect. This principle applies especially to spells of Summoning and Changing, which 'can shake the balance of the world'^b, but also (as the quotation from 'Magelight' given below makes clear) to everyday, non-magical actions of humans.

The Equilibrium also encompasses the concept of the balance of light & dark, life & death, with each being necessary for the existence of the other; as Ged puts it, '"There are two, Arren, two that make one: the world and the shadow, the light and the dark. The two poles of the Balance. Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn. And with them all is reborn, the flower of the apple tree, the light of the stars. In life is death. In death is rebirth."'^a

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE (b); Magelight, FS; Orm Embar, FS (a)

'…"an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted the earth is lighter, the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The wind and seas, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and a gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, in so far as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.'

[Magelight, FS]

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]

Fallows

The days of the waning moon after Sunreturn; an unlucky time

'It is an unlucky time for travellers and for the sick; children are not given their true name during the Fallows, and no Deeds are sung, nor swords nor edge-tools sharpened, nor oaths sworn. It is the dark axis of the year, when things done are ill done.'

[The Open Sea, WoE]

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

Finding

Art of finding, binding and returning; ranges from finding a lost household object to prospecting for underground water or minerals. Originally considered one of the high arts of magic, Halkel relegated finding to the base crafts, practised by witches, sorcerers and specialised finders. Medra is a finder

Sources: The Finder, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'The first sign of Otter's gift, when he was two or three years old, was his ability to go straight to anything lost, a dropped nail, a mislaid tool, as soon as he understood the word for it. And as a boy one of his dearest pleasures had been to go alone out into the countryside and wander along the lanes or over the hills, feeling through the soles of his bare feet and throughout his body the veins of water underground, the lodes and knots of ore, the lay and interfolding of the kinds of rock and earth. It was as if he walked in a great building, seeing its passages and rooms, the descents into airy caverns, the glimmer of branched silver in the walls; and as he want on, it was as if his body became the body of the earth, and he knew its arteries and organs and muscles as his own.'

[The Finder, TfE]

Fogweaving

A spell to gather mist or fog together in a single location temporarily; the mist can also be shaped into transitory images. A discipline of weatherworking

'The fog had closed and thickened all over the village, greying the light, blurring the world till a man could hardly see his own hands before him. … The Kargs began to run, all of them, downhill, stumbling, silent, until all at once they ran out from the grey blind mist and saw the river and the ravines below the village all bare and bright in morning sunlight. Then they stopped, gathering together, and looked back. A wall of wavering, writhing grey lay blank across the path, hiding all that lay behind it.'

[Warriors in the Mist, WoE]

Foot

Unit of distance used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Eaten One, ToA

Further Runes

See True Runes

Games

Also known as: Toys

Games mentioned include dice and sticks and sticks and counters, both played on Atuan, net-ball, played on Enlad, cat's cradles, played on Gont, and a magical version of bowls, played on Roke with 'balls of green flame and bowling-pins that leaped and hopped away as the ball came near'^a. A game of houses is played on Gont using bone figures depicting people and animals. Children in Ismay make snowmen and snow castles; those of Havnor City play games of chase. Card games are not mentioned. Gambling is mentioned as a Kargish practice, but details are not given

Sources: The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE (a); Iffish, WoE; The Wall Around the Place, ToA; Dreams and Tales, ToA; The Masters of Roke, FS; Finding Words, T; Dolphin, OW

Related entries: Entertainment

Gender roles

Many industries/professions are traditionally gender specific in the Archipelago: mining, building, midwifery, spinning and domestic weaving being performed by women, ship-building, wizardry, sailing and the military by men. On Gont & Semel it appears unusual for men to perform household tasks, such as washing dishes or clothes. Other occupations, including farming, appear to be engaged in equally by both sexes. Though women were instrumental in founding the Roke School of Wizardry, the high arts of magic were restricted to men in 730. In Tehanu, a woman's roles are described as wife, mother and housekeeper, with men being said to hold the power. However, women form part of the island government on several islands in the East Reach, and Lebannen's King's Council contains multiple female councillors; historical rulers of Earthsea include many queens, though Ged dismisses them: '"A queen's only a she-king."'^a On Gont, property appears to pass exclusively in the male line.

Division of labour by gender is said to be stricter in the Kargad Lands than in the Archipelago, but few details are available. Though the highest religious functionaries are female, by the time of The Tombs of Atuan, their power appears to be entirely token

Sources: Kalessin, T; Bettering, T; Winter, T (a); The Finder, TfE; On the High Marsh, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; The Dragon Council, OW

'…what a woman should do: bed, breed, bake, cook, clean, spin, sew, serve.'

'"Both manhood and magery are built on one rock: power belongs to men. If women had power, what would men be but women who can't bear children? And what would women be but men who can?"'

[Kalessin, T/Winter, T]

Ges

Rune which gives endurance; one of the nine True Runes engraved on the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

Sources: The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA

Related entries: Runes

Gesture

Bowing the head or holding both palms open before the heart are traditional greetings across much of the Archipelago, while touching right hands palm against palm is a traditional greeting in Ea and the Enlades. In both the Archipelago and the Kargad Lands, bowing and curtseying are used in greeting royalty, and a stately embrace is used by royalty and nobility for bidding farewell in public. A Havnor courtier's gesture of respect involves kneeling on one knee and briefly touching the forehead to the recipient's right wrist, and a deep bow, with one knee touching the ground, is used in approaching the One Priestess on Atuan. Pointing the thumb, first and last finger of the left hand at someone means 'may you never come back!' in the Archipelago. During the Dark Years, women of the Hand identified each other by a hand gesture involving raising the first finger and then the other fingers, clenching the hand into a fist and finally opening it palm outwards.

Hand or arm gestures are common components of magic spells. A hand gesture meaning 'avert' is in common use across the Archipelago, and an unspecified gesture to avert defilement is also used on Atuan. Pointing the right arm out and down is used to turn curses on Atuan, while lifting the arm with the hand stiffly outstretched accompanies a curse there

Sources: The Prisoners, ToA; The Man Trap, ToA; Names, ToA; Finding Words, T; The Finder, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Palaces, OW; Rejoining, OW

Government

Some parts of the Archipelago form principalities governed by Ruling Princes; these include Enlad, Ilien (including Ark) and Way. The extent of the powers of the princes is unclear, but they levy taxes and keep soldiers. Other lands are ruled by Lords of smaller areas, for example the Lord of O, Lord of Gont, and the Lords of the Domain of Eolg on Havnor, and of the Court of the Terrenon on Osskil. The Archmage has dominion on Roke, and, before the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, wields considerable political power in the Inner Lands. The islands of the Reaches and the Ninety Isles are ruled by Isle-Men/Women (Islandmen/women), or chiefs. Some towns and districts appear to exert a degree of self-government; for example, the town of Sosara on Lorbanery has a mayor; the district around Valmouth in southern Gont has a council & a mayor (the latter has funds, suggesting an ability to raise taxes); after the restoration of the monarchy, the villages of Middle Valley on Gont also form a council employing bailiffs and levying taxes. Villages on Gont are governed by village elders. Various trade guilds, such as the Seamasters, also govern those who follow that trade.

During the kingless years, there appears to be no universal set of laws even across the Archipelago and Reaches, for example slavery is practised in some areas and outlawed in others. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1051, Lebannen rules over the Archipelago from Havnor under the title King of All the Isles, nominally via a hundred-strong appointed King's Council.

The Kargad Lands are governed from Awabath on Karego-At by Priest-Kings, the Godking and (after around 1061) the High King. The Children of the Open Sea (raft people) are ruled by a chief

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS; Home, T; The Dragon Council, OW

Related entries: Taxation; Legal and punitive systems

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

Guilds

See Trade guilds

Hardic

Also known as: Common tongue

General language of the Archipelago, derived from the Old Speech. Whilst Hardic is widely spoken in the Archipelago and the Reaches, some islands, such as Enlad and Osskil, have their own languages or dialects. The Children of the Open Sea (raft people) speak a heavily accented but understandable version of Hardic. Hardic is not spoken in the Kargad Lands

'The Hardic tongue of the Archipelago, though it has no more magic power in it than any other tongue of men, has its roots in the Old Speech…'

[The Shadow, WoE]

Related entries: Language

Hardic runes

Also known as: Runic writing

Non-magical runes used for general writing purposes in the Archipelago, for example Ogion's letter to Nemmerle. Not the same as the Six Hundred Runes of Hardic, which are True Runes, used for magic. Possible examples include the rune of the Closed Door, the rune of the Closed Mouth, rune of the Talon and the sword-rune

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Havnorian Lay

Lay that recounts the history of the fourteen kings and queens of Havnor

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE; The Dragon Council, OW

'A hundred warriors, a hundred women / sat in the great hall of Gemal Sea-Born / at the king's table, courtly in talk, / handsome and generous gentry of Havnor, / no warriors braver, no women more beautiful.'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

Related entries: Songs

Healing

Also known as: Medicine

Healing is a skill of wizards, physician-sorcerers, healalls, herbalists, bonesetters and many witches, and is based on herbal remedies, magical spells, charms or talismans, chants, runes and symptomatic treatment, which are sometimes used separately, but often in conjunction.

Herbal remedies include corly-root, white hallows, witch hazel and cobweb-wrapped perriot leaves. Herbs may be ingested as tea, applied to the skin in ointments, salves or poultices, or burned for their scented smoke. Spells range from calling the spirit back from the spirit world to simple spells of feverstay, blood-staunching, wart-curing and against seasickness, as well as non-specific curing charms. Charms or talismans include emmel-stone charms against rheums, sprains and stiff necks, and a sailors' talisman of petrel breastbone and seaweed, used to avert seasickness. Spells and charms are also used to ward off illness, eg: 'he laid charms of heal and ward on children who were lame or sickly.'^a Chants are said to 'aid the sick body or the troubled mind'^b and include the Nagian Chant. The rune Pirr is used for burns. A highly gifted mender, such as Lily, can heal broken limbs, though this appears to be a rare skill.

Symptomatic treatment mentioned includes bed rest, poultices, cooling fever with cold water, bandaging wounds, setting broken bones, salving cuts, disinfection of wounds/sores with salt water and massage with warm oils.

There is no mention of anything akin to hospitals, though Roke School of Wizardry has healing-chambers presided over by the Master Herbal. Healing lore is taught on Roke

Sources: Iffish, WoE (a); Orm Embar, FS (b)

'…Master Herbal had taught him much of the healer's lore, and the first lesson and the last of all that lore was this: Heal the wound and cure the illness, but let the dying spirit go.'

[The Dragon of Pendor, WoE]

Related entries: Curer; Disease; Midwifery

High arts

The greater arts of magic, as defined by Archmage Halkel in 730, including human healing, chanting, weatherworking (all practised by both sorcerers and wizards), as well as the art magic, including changing, naming, summoning and patterning. The art magic was practised only by (male) wizards. As opposed to the base crafts (witchcraft)

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Hunting

Hunting is one of the major livelihoods mentioned in the islands. Various animals are hunted for sport and/or food, including stags in the forests of Enlad, wild boars, and dragons in the Dark Years on Pendor. Hawks are used in hunting, at least by noblemen such as the princes of Enlad. Archery is practised on Enlad, and hunting bows are mentioned at Ten Alders. The Children of the Open Sea hunt whales, using whale-ivory harpoons taller than they are

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Hort Town, FS; Orm Embar, FS

Illusion

Also known as: Illusion-Change

Apparent change which, though convincing to all the senses, does not alter the true nature of the object; giving the object's true name in Old Speech will negate the illusion. Taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Hand, it is considered among the easiest, and the least, of the high arts of magic

'"By the Illusion-Change, you can make it look like a diamond -- or a flower or a fly or an eye or a flame --" The rock flickered from shape to shape as he named them, and returned to rock. "But that is mere seeming. Illusion fools the beholder's senses; it makes him see and hear and feel that the thing is changed. But it does not change the thing."'

[The School for Wizards, WoE]

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

Imperial measures

Imperial measures, including the mile, yard, foot, inch, acre, pint & pound, are quoted in the Earthsea novels; presumably these are silently translated from the Hardic or Kargish unit

Inch

Unit of distance used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: Voyage, ToA

Industry

Also known as: Technology

Earthsea is a pre-industrial society; the most advanced crafts practised are smithying, weaving, tanning, dyeing, pottery, glass-blowing, metal refining, mining, quarrying, masonry and ship-building. Milling of grain appears to be performed by hand on some islands, though a water mill is mentioned on Gont. Mining involves some use of machinery: 'rusty wheels and machines by a pit'^a are mentioned. Many crafts are traditionally gender specific, mining and domestic building & weaving being performed by women, ship-building by men. Although some items are traded, the great majority are produced in situ. Some crafts, such as dyeing and possibly metal refining, require magic.

The level of technology varies greatly throughout the islands and between cities and villages. In Havnor City, even in the Dark Years, relatively advanced tools such as a bubble level are used by shipbuilders; mining and mercury refining in the Samory mines on Havnor use machinery. Rural areas, islands in the Reaches, at least parts of the Kargad Lands and the Children of the Open Sea, however, appear to be entirely pre-industrial, using bronze, copper, wood, stone, shell or bone implements

Sources: The Finder, TfE (a)

Related entries: Materials

Iron, craft with

See Craft with iron

Kargish

The language of the Kargad Lands. It is dissimilar to those spoken in the Archipelago, being closest to Osskili, though its eventual derivation (like all Earthsea languages) is from Old Speech. The Kargish dialects spoken on Atuan, Karego-At and Hur-at-Hur appear to be mutually comprehensible. Few even among highly educated Archipelagans speak any Kargish, and vice versa; Seserakh of Hur-at-Hur did not know there was any language besides Kargish

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Language

King of All the Isles

Also known as: King of Earthsea, King of the Western Lands

The Archipelago was formerly ruled by the King of All the Isles or King of Earthsea, first at Berila on Enlad, then at Havnor City. The kings and queens of Enlad included Lar Ashal, Dohun, Enashen, Timan, Tagtar, Morred (whose ascension was counted as year 1 in the Hardic calendar), Serriadh and Akambar, who moved the court to Havnor City in around the year 150. The fourteen kings and queens of Havnor included Gemal Sea-born, Denggemal, Heru and Maharion. The line of kings died out on the death of Maharion in the year 452 (800 years previously according to some sources). The new king was prophesied by Maharion to have 'crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day'^a; such a king was thought to bring peace and unite the lands. Lebannen, son of the Prince of Enlad and heir of Morred, fulfilled this prophecy and was crowned in Havnor City in around 1051.

Ceremonial items associated with the Archipelagan monarchy include Morred's High Seat, the crown of Morred and a gold-weighted state robe. During Lebannen's reign, however, the king dresses plainly when not performing state duties, and bears no mark of authority, such as a ring or chain

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS (a); The Dolphin, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Palaces, OW

'"But so runs the prophecy of the Last King, and therefore someday one will be born to fulfil it. And Roke will recognize him, and the fleets and armies and nations will come together to him. Then there will be majesty again in the centre of the world, in the Tower of the Kings in Havnor." '

' "Let there be a king upon the throne, and we will have peace, and even in the farthest Reaches the sorcerers will practise their arts with an untroubled mind, and there will be order, and a due season to all things."'

[The Masters of Roke, FS]

Related entries: Government

King of Earthsea

See King of All the Isles

King of the Western Lands

See King of All the Isles

King's Council

Hundred-member council voting on laws and taxation in the Archipelago, which meets in the throne room of the New Palace in Havnor City. Instituted by Lebannen and presided over by Sege. Councillors are selected by the king to serve for terms of 2-3 years (possibly repeated), and include noblemen and women, princes, merchants, guild masters, wizards, islandwomen, army and sea captains, poets and scholars. Speeches are limited to two minutes using a sandglass

'All laws and taxations, all judgments brought before the throne, [Lebannen] discussed with them, taking their counsel. They would then vote on his proposal, and only with the consent of the majority was it enacted. There were those who said the council was nothing but the king's pets and puppets, and so indeed it might have been. He mostly got his way if he argued for it. Often he expressed no opinion and let the council make the decision. Many councillors had found that if they had enough facts to support their opposition and made a good argument, they might sway the others and even persuade the king.'

[The Dragon Council, OW]

Related entries: Government

King's Courts of Law

After the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy in 1051, the king's law courts recommence meeting to judge serious cases, including murder. Such cases are tried at Gont Port on Gont, so presumably the king's law courts are distributed across the islands ruled the King of All the Isles, rather than located on Havnor

Sources: Winter, T; The Master. T

King's Rune

See Bond Rune

King's Tale

Tale of Ged's travels in the Kargad Lands and the finding of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, presumably composed by Lebannen

Sources: Dragonfly, TfE

Lament for Erreth-Akbe

Lament composed by Maharion on his return from Selidor after the death of Erreth-Akbe. It's played by the trumpeters telling the hours in Havnor City

Sources: Palaces, OW

Related entries: Songs

Lament for the White Enchanter

Lament for the death of Morred, supposed to have been composed by Elfarran

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Songs

Land ownership

Also known as: Tenancy

In the central Archipelago, land and, to a lesser extent, property appear to be predominantly owned by landowners, large and small, who let to tenants. For example, on Gont, the Lord of Re Albi employs farmworkers described as tenants, Oak Farm's holdings in Middle Valley include two tenants' cottages, and Tenar rents a cottage from Weaver Fan in Re Albi; on Way, four families contest ownership of the rich farming land of the domain of Iria; in western Havnor, the merchant Golden owns chestnut groves. Tenants on Gont commonly hold a life interest in the profit from the land they work on. Property passes in the male line on Gont, with the widow of a property owner only being entitled to hold the property for an absent (or possibly underage) male heir. The situation regarding land ownership in the Reaches and the Kargad Lands isn't clear

Sources: A Bad Thing, T; Mice, T; Finding Words, T; Winter, T; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE

Language

Two main languages are spoken in Earthsea: Hardic (the common tongue), spoken across much of the Archipelago & the Reaches, and Kargish, which is restricted to the Kargad Lands. Some islands in the Archipelago have their own languages or dialects, eg the language spoken on Enlad, of which little is known, and Osskili spoken on Osskil & neighbouring islands, which is closer to Kargish than Hardic. Educated speakers of the Enlad language or Osskili probably speak Hardic in addition, as Lebannen and Serret do.

All these languages are derived from Old Speech (true speech), the language spoken by dragons and learned by mages, Hardic being the closest. Old Speech is not usually used as a spoken language by humans

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Further information on Language

Language of the Making

See Old Speech

Lass of Belilo, The

See The Lass of Belilo

Law

See Legal and punitive systems

Lay of the Lost Queen

Song sung on Havnor, presumably recounting the tale of Elfarran

Sources: Darkrose and Diamond, TfE

League

Coalition which emerges to govern the central islands of the Archipelago around a hundred years after the dragon Yevaud despoils Pendor (ie, approx 950). The League's only known action is to raise a fleet with seven mages which temporarily drives the dragon from Pendor. Only mentioned in 'The Rule of Names', the League may have dissolved before the events of A Wizard of Earthsea, perhaps facilitating Yevaud's return to Pendor

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q

Legal and punitive systems

Also known as: Law, Punitive system

Little is stated regarding the legal systems of the Archipelago. After the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, the King's Courts of Law judge serious cases. A dispute about inheritance is pursued in the law courts of Shelieth, the capital of Way, but few details are given. On Gont, law enforcement is carried out by bailiffs, sea-sheriffs and officers of the peace, reporting to the district mayors and village councils. After the restoration of the monarchy, slave-labour and execution by hanging are used for serious crimes such as murder. Prisons or similar methods of punishment such as stocks are not mentioned. During the Dark Years, torture and public execution by burning alive were practised on Havnor under the rule of the warlord Losen.

Whipping with a bundle of reed canes is a common punishment for mild offences in the Place of the Tombs on Atuan. Execution is practised in the Kargad Lands: those of noble birth convicted of treason or sacrilege towards the Godking have their tongues cut out before being sacrificed to the Nameless Ones of the Tombs of Atuan; decapitation is the punishment for trespassing within the Place of the Tombs; High Priestesses caught in falsehood can be executed.

Whipping with nilgu thongs is a punishment among the Children of the Open Sea

Sources: The Wall around the Place, ToA; The Prisoners, ToA; The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA; Orm Embar, FS; Home, T; Winter, T; The Finder, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE

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]

Looms

See Weaving

Lore of Paln

Also known as: Pelnish lore

Pelnish lore is an ancient tradition of magic distinct from that taught at the Roke School of Wizardry (though likewise based in the Old Speech). It's much concerned with immortality; the Pelnish wizard Seppel was taught that 'the goal of wizardry was to triumph over time and live forever'^a. Pelnish lore calls upon the Old Powers, and includes great spells related to crossing between life and death, which can be used to summon the spirits of the dead. The most powerful were created by the Grey Mage of Paln a thousand years ago, and rarely used since, being considered dangerous; such lore was practised by the (Havnorian) necromancer Cob

Sources: Sea Dreams, FS; Dolphin, OW; Rejoining, OW (a)

'"Most of our art of Summoning comes from the Pelnish Lore. Thorion was a master of it… The Summoner of Roke now, Brand of Venway, won't use any part of his craft that draws from that lore. Misused, it has brought only harm. But it may be only our ignorance that's led us to use it wrongly. It goes back to very ancient times; there may be knowledge in it we've lost."'

[Dolphin, OW]

Lost Rune

See Bond Rune

Magelight

A bright magical light conjured by wizards and often associated with powerful magic. Unlike the weaker werelight, the light appears to emanate from the wizard himself, as well as his staff. Examples include Ogion banishing the shadow and Ged rescuing Lebannen from slavers

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; Magelight, FS

'The fog grew bright, as if a light were blooming in it. … Alone on the port side stood a man, and it was from him that the light came, from the face, and hands, and staff that burned like molten silver.'

[Magelight, FS]

Magery

See Magic

Magewind

Also known as: Witchwind

Magical wind raised by wizards and weatherworkers to allow boats to travel against the natural wind or when becalmed. Such winds could also be used as weapons, for example, to sink rival ships, as was common during the Dark Years

Sources: The Finder, TfE

Magic

Also known as: Wizardry, Magery

Magic encompasses a wide range of disciplines from chanting and the use of herbs, to illusions and true magic involving the changing of matter or the summoning of energies, such as light or heat. The various disciplines are finding, mending, weatherworking, changing, healing, summoning, patterning, naming, illusion and chanting, the knowledge of the songs; these were divided by Halkel into high arts (including the art magic) and base crafts (witchcraft). The earliest mages are said to be the Rune Makers, a thousand years before the first kings of Enlad (around 2250 years before the Earthsea cycle). Most lore originates in Roke, Paln, the Enlades, Ea and Soléa, the ancient regions where magic was practised.

Magic is linked with the Old Speech, in which all spells are made, and with True Runes. Many spells also require hand gestures or body movements, such as stretching out the arms in invocation which opens all the greater spells; these are annotated in lore-books: 'the markings of how the spell must be woven with the sound of the voice and the motion of body and hand.'^a

True wizards and mages use magic only at need, with consideration for the effects on the Equilibrium or Balance. Magic is also limited in extent by the need to name precisely all the objects affected: 'The sea's name is inien, well and good. But what we call the Inmost Sea has its own name also in the Old Speech. Since no thing can have two true names, inien can mean only "all the sea except the Inmost Sea." And of course it does not mean even that, for there are seas and bays and straits beyond counting that bear names of their own. So if some Mage-Seamaster were mad enough to try to lay a spell of storm or calm over all the ocean, his spell must say not only that word inien, but the name of every stretch and bit and part of the sea through all the Archipelago and all the Outer Reaches and beyond to where names cease. Thus, that which gives us the power to work magic, sets the limits of that power. A mage can control only what is near him, what he can name exactly and wholly.'^b A wizard's power seems to be channelled to some extent by the wooden wizard's staff, which is the badge of all true wizards.

Magic is almost universally practised in the Archipelago and the Reaches, with all villages having their witches, and all towns and islands their wizards, sorcerers and weatherworkers. It's said to be the oldest of the arts of man. The everyday uses of magic here are too many to list: healing humans and animals, warding off evil and ensuring safety, purifying water in wells, controlling the weather for crops, making flocks, herds and crops increase, conjuring fair winds for safe and swift travel amongst the islands, as well as for sheer entertainment

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE (b); The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE (a); The Finder, TfE; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Rejoining, OW

'…the uses of magic are as needful to their people as bread and as delightful as music…'

[The Masters of Roke, FS]

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]

Marriage

Marriage appears to be a universal custom in Earthsea. Polygamy is practised by the Godking of Kargad and by the Children of the Open Sea (raft people), but not in the main Archipelago. Marriages appear to be exclusively male--female, although informal witch marriage between two witches is relatively common. With some exceptions, at the time described in the Earthsea series, wizards and mages usually keep celibate and do not marry; sorcerers and witches do sometimes form marriages. The raft people are judged to marry very young at fifteen to seventeen, suggesting that elsewhere marriage is normal rather later (despite the fact that adulthood is attained at thirteen in the Archipelago and fourteen on Atuan). Customs and rituals associated with marriage are little explained. Lebannen & Seserakh are betrothed an unspecified period prior to their wedding in a ceremony in the throne room of the New Palace, in which the future bride is given the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. Arranged marriages among the middle-classes are mentioned on Taon, and are the norm for noblewomen on Hur-at-Hur. In the Archipelago, a harpist is mentioned as playing for a wedding, and noble weddings involve dancing. In the Kargad Lands, a returned bride is considered dishonoured and may even be killed

Sources: The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA; The Children of the Open Sea, FS; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Palaces, OW; Rejoining, OW

Mathematics

See Accounting & mathematics

Medicine

See Healing

Mending

Mending encompasses restoring shattered pottery or glass, broken tools, stockings with holes, frayed ropes and dried-up wine barrels. A really gifted mender, such as Lily, might knit together broken bones. One of the base crafts of magic, practised by witches, sorcerers and specialised menders, such as Alder

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW

'…he watched Alder's hands. Slender, strong, deft, unhurried, they cradled the shape of the pitcher, stroking and fitting and settling the pieces of pottery, urging and caressing, the thumbs coaxing and guiding the smaller fragments into place, reuniting them, reassuring them. While he worked he murmured a two-word, tuneless chant. They were words of the Old Speech. … His hands separated from the pitcher, opening out from it like the sheath of a flower opening. It stood on the oak table, whole.'

[Mending the Green Pitcher, OW]

Metal refining

Like mining, metal refining uses a higher level of technology than many other crafts in pre-industrial Earthsea. In the Samory mines on Havnor in the Dark Years, quicksilver (mercury) refining is performed in a roaster tower by heating ore over a wood fire and in ovens, with multiple rounds of condensation; the work is done by slaves whose life expectancy is said to be only a year or two. Magic may also be used in metal refining; furnaces are found in the magicians' workroom of the Roke School of Wizardry, and metal refining is listed among the arts practised there

Sources: Orm Embar, FS; The Finder, TfE

'The roasting pit took up the center of a huge domed chamber. Hurrying, sticklike figures black against the blaze shoveled and reshoveled ore onto logs kept in a roaring blaze by great bellows, while others brought fresh logs and worked the bellows sleeves. From the apex of the dome a spiral of chambers rose up into the tower through smoke and fumes. In these chambers, Licky had told him, the vapor of the quicksilver was trapped and condensed, reheated and recondensed, till in the topmost vault the pure metal ran down into a stone trough or bowl…'

[The Finder, TfE]

Related entries: Mining; Industry

Midwifery

Care of pregnant women and animals, and supervision of birth, are the province of witches; some specialise in the art and are called midwives. Midwifery involves the use of spells and herbs

Sources: The Finder, TfE; The Mending of the Green Pitcher, OW

Related entries: Healing

Mile

Unit of distance used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA

Mining

Mining of ores and metals is traditionally done by women. Unusually for pre-industrial Earthsea, mining sometimes involves some use of machinery: 'rusty wheels and machines by a pit'^a are mentioned at the mines at Samory on Havnor, though shovelling into buckets appears to be the main method by which ore is extracted

Sources: The Finder, TfE (a)

'Because they were smaller than men and could move more easily in narrow places, or because they were at home with the earth, or most likely because it was the custom, women had always worked the mines of Earthsea. These miners were free women, not slaves like the workers in the roaster tower. … Licky… did no work in the mine; the miners forbade it, earnestly believing it was the worst of bad luck for a man to pick up a shovel or shore a timber.'

[The Finder, TfE]

Related entries: Metal refining; Industry

Money

See Currency

Money-lending

See Credit

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]

Music

Instrumental music seems to be predominantly used to accompany songs and/or dance, in particular, the Long Dance; drums, pipes and flutes are the main instruments mentioned in this context. Other instruments mentioned are the fife, harp, viol, lute, bagpipe, concertina, horn, double-reed woodhorn, trumpet, tabor, gong, bell, kettledrum, cymbals, tambour and tambourine. Lebannen plays the harp and lute as part of his courtly accomplishments (Enlad), but these instruments are not restricted to the princely courts: Vetch's house contains a great Taonian harp (Iffish), and the inn of Lorbanery boasts a three-stringed lute. Bands of itinerant musicians roam Havnor and other islands, singing ballads and playing various instruments including harp, fife, viol, tabor and drums. A harpist is mentioned playing at a wedding on Taon. Musicians are employed at the imperial court in Havnor City, including horns for signalling, trumpets for telling the hours, and a band consisting of trumpet, tambour and tambourine to accompany a royal procession. In the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, drums sometimes accompany dancing in the temples, and drums, horns and trumpets accompany processions. Of all peoples mentioned, only the Children of the Open Sea (raft people) use no music to accompany their dancing. Drum beats are also used to coordinate rowing on oared galleys. A gong announces meals at the School of Wizardry on Roke. The school at Roke has a bell tower (the Chanter's Tower) with iron bells that toll when the Archmage Nemmerle dies, and bells are used in the Court of the Terrenon, presumably for signalling servants and/or announcing meals; bells are also put on the necks of sheep on Atuan

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; Iffish, WoE; The Masters of Roke, FS; Lorbanery, FS; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; Palaces, OW; Dolphin, OW

Nagian Chant

Chant used in healing; healing chants are said to 'aid the sick body or the troubled mind'^a, but the precise purpose this chant serves is unstated

Sources: The Dragon of Pendor, WoE; Orm Embar, FS (a)

Nameday

Anniversary of the date of passage into manhood, celebrated in the Archipelago with a party, feasting, music and dancing, and in the west of Havnor island, also with gifts of clothes to neighbouring children. Also sometimes used for the day of passage into adulthood itself

Sources: Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; Dolphin, 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]

Names

Adults in the Archipelago bear three names. The first is the childhood name given to them by their mother as a baby. The second is their secret true name, a word in the Old Speech, given to them when they reach thirteen at a ceremony called the Passage into manhood; knowledge of a person's true name confers power over them. The third name is a use-name or nickname that they are called by during their adult life; while true names are particular to the person, use-names are often very common. Common use-names derive from plants, flowers, trees, animals, birds and jewels. For example, Ged is a true name, Sparrowhawk is a use-name and Duny is a childhood name.

The Kargs bear only a single name, which is not in the Old Speech, contains no power and is not kept secret; usually it has meaning in Kargish. As with the Archipelagan names, flowers and trees are common, but also qualities, such as Hope or Honour, and traditional names handed down within families. Both masculine and feminine Kargish names commonly end -ar (eg Tenar, Ensar); feminine endings include -a (Arha, Nathabba) , -e (Penthe, Poppe), -ath/ith (Munith, Tiarath) and -il (Anthil, Kossil); masculine endings include -i/y (Duby, Punti), -o (Uahto) and -an/in (Intathin, Manan)

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Dragonfly, TfE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; The Dragon Council, OW

Naming

Knowledge of names in the Old Speech for things, places and beings; also the art of giving people their true name. One of the high arts of magic, also considered a part of the art magic. The art of naming is said to have been invented by the Rune Makers a thousand years before the first kings of Enlad; they used it 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. Naming is taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Namer

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; Rejoining, OW (a)

'… in this dusty and fathomless matter of learning the true name of each place, thing, and being, the power he wanted lay a jewel at the bottom of a dry well.'

[The School for Wizards, WoE]

Naming ceremony

See Passage into manhood

Net-ball

A game played in Enlad, and possibly elsewhere

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS

Related entries: Games

Nickname

See Use-name

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

O my Joy!

Ballad or lullaby from Enlad

'O my joy!
Before bright Éa was, before Segoy
Bade the islands be,
The morning wind blew on the sea.
O my joy, be free!'

[Dolphin, OW]

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]

Old Serpent of Andrad

Decorative motif associated with the Andrades; carved on the stem of the Andradean ship, the Shadow

'…the ship's master … stood on a plank let in at the jointure of the keel with the stem, which was carved as the Old Serpent of Andrad.'

[The Shadow, WoE]

Old Speech

Also known as: True Speech, Language of the Making, Speech/Words of the Making, True Language of the Making, True Words, Eldest tongue, Dragon tongue, spellwords

The language of magic, spoken by dragons and learned by wizards. All languages of Earthsea are ultimately derived from it, but Hardic has the closest roots. Words of the Old Speech are termed spellwords by some, denoting their inherent power: 'Spellwords act'^a. Humans are bound to the truth speaking it; not so dragons

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Dolphin, OW (a)

'"That is the language dragons speak, and the language Segoy spoke who made the islands of the world, and the language of our lays and songs, spells, enchantments, and invocations. Its words lie hidden among our Hardic words. … Any witch knows a few of these words in the Old Speech, and a mage knows many. But there are many more, and some have been lost over the ages, and some have been hidden, and some are known only to dragons and to the Old Powers of Earth, and some are known to no living creature; and no man could learn them all. For there is no end to that language."'

[The School for Wizards, WoE]

Related entries: Language

Osskili

Language spoken on Osskil and two islands northwest of it (probably Borth and Rogmy). Originally derived from Old Speech, as are all languages of Earthsea, but closer to Kargish than to Hardic

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Language

Other breath

Also known as: Eduevana

Words spoken in prophesy; eduevana is Kargish

'"There came on me what my people call the eduevana, the other breath. Words came to me and I spoke them."'

[Dragonfly, TfE]

Otter of Shelieth

Motif depicted on one side of an ivory counter from Way

Sources: 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

Patterning

Art of meaning and intent. One of the high arts of magic, also considered a part of the art magic. Ged uses what he calls a Patterning to make the two halves of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe 'whole … as if it had never been broken'^a. Taught in the Immanent Grove at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Patterner

Sources: The Anger of the Dark, ToA (a); A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Pelnish lore

See Lore of Paln

Pint

Unit of volume used in Earthsea; presumably silently translated from the actual unit. Beer is sold in pints

Sources: On the High Marsh, TfE

Related entries: Imperial measures

Piracy

Appears to be a relatively common practice in the Archipelago, increasing in the years immediately preceding restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy. The islands of Gont and Wathort are famous for their pirates, and the Lords of Gont, as well as the former Lords of Pendor, are said to engage in piracy. Egre and the wizard Hare are mentioned as a famous pirates

Sources: Magelight, FS; Mice, T

Pirr

Rune drawn on houses which protects from madness and from wind and fire; also used in treatment of burns. One of the True Runes and one of the nine Runes of Power engraved on the Ring of Erreth-Akbe

Sources: Iffish, WoE; The Ring of Erreth-Akbe, ToA; A Bad Thing, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…the rune Pirr he wrote on the roof-trees of the huts, which protects the house and its folk from fire, wind, and madness'

[Iffish, WoE]

Related entries: Runes

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

Poetry

Poets are mentioned as among the members of the King's Council. Most poetic expression appears to take the form of songs, so poets may (also) be song writers

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Pound

Unit of weight used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; The Western Mountains, 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

Principalities

Regions of the Inner Lands that constitute the Archipelagan kingship; includes Enlad (the Principality of Morred), Ilien (including Ark), and Way, and formerly, Ea (including Taon) and Havnor. Each was governed by a Ruling Prince descended from the ancient kings; the royal lines on Ea and Havnor have died out

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS

Prostitution

Whores are mentioned in the town of Oraby on Semel

Sources: On the High Marsh, TfE

Proverbs

Also known as: Sayings

Numerous proverbs and sayings are quoted, many of which pertain to magic. They include: 'Infinite are the arguments of mages' (commonly cited); 'Weak as woman's magic, wicked as woman's magic', 'Better shark than herring' & 'Hot snow, dry water' from Gont; 'Two staffs in one town must come to blows' & 'Rules change in the Reaches' in the East Reach; 'As fat as a cow of Iria', 'As lucky as an Irian', 'If a word can heal, a word can wound. … If a hand can kill, a hand can cure. It's a poor cart that goes only one direction' & 'a wizard without his porridge' (meaning an unprecedented event) from Way; and 'the man drowning doesn't ask what the rope cost.' from Taon

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Iffish, WoE; Mice, T; Winter, T; Dragonfly, TfE; Dolphin, OW

Punitive system

See Legal and punitive systems

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)

Restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy

The line of kings of the Archipelago died out on the death of Maharion in the year 452 (800 years previously according to some sources). The new king was prophesied by Maharion to have 'crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day'^a; such a king was thought to bring peace and unite the lands. Lebannen, son of the Prince of Enlad and heir of Morred, fulfilled this prophecy and is crowned King of All the Isles in Havnor City in around 1051.

The restoration of the monarchy is followed by various measures, including the establishment of the royal court at the New Palace in Havnor City, reopening of the King's Courts of Law, restructuring of local government, increase in taxation, crackdown on piracy, abolition of slavery (after the siege of Sorra), rebuilding of the royal palaces in Havnor City, and establishment of the King's Council

Sources: The Masters of Roke, FS (a); Home, T; Winter, T; The Master, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Palaces, OW; Dragon Council, OW; Dolphin, OW

Revelation Spell

Spell to affect the spellcaster's vision to reveal the true nature of surroundings

Sources: The Open Sea, WoE

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

Roke wind

Also known as: Roke-wind

Magewind that defends the island of Roke from evil powers

Roke, Rule of

See Rule of Roke

Rule of Roke

Also known as: Way of Roke, Roke, Rule of

Rule governing the use of magic by which all those of the Roke School of Wizardry are bound. Later came to mean teaching of high arts only to men, the exclusion of women from the Roke School, and the practice of celibacy

'They saw the Rule of Roke established, though never so firmly as they might wish, and always against opposition; for mages came from other islands and rose up from among the students of the school, women and men of power, knowledge, and pride, sworn by the Rule to work together and for the good of all, but each seeing a different way to do it.'

[The Finder, TfE]

Rules of Names

Two rules relating to names are taught on Sattins island: never ask anyone their true name and never tell your own. Though not formally codified elsewhere, these rules are followed across the Archipelago & Reaches

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q

Rune of Ending

See Agnen

Rune of the Closed Door

A rune preventing access

'When Alder left the ship at the docks at Thwil Town, one of the sailors had drawn the rune of the Closed Door on the top of the gangplank to prevent his ever coming back aboard.'

[Mending the Green Pitcher, OW]

Related entries: Runes

Rune of the Closed Mouth

Rune used as signature by Ogion

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE

Related entries: Runes

Rune of the Talon

Rune used as signature by Ged; possibly one of the Hardic runes

Sources: Palaces, OW

Related entries: Runes

Runes

True Runes or Runes of Power, such as the Six Hundred Runes of Hardic, Further Runes and Runes of Éa, are used for magic. Non-magical Hardic runes are also used for general writing purposes in the Archipelago

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Related entries: Books

Runes of Power

See True Runes

Runic writing

See Hardic runes

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

Sayings

See Proverbs

Schooling

See Education

Sculpture

See Decorative arts

Self-transformation

See Shape-changing

Sending

A form of magic in which the sender transmits an image of himself to a distant point; sendings do not cross water. The image can speak and hear, but has no power and casts no shadow. It need not be an accurate representation of the person. A related power is that of sending thoughts to a distant recipient, which may likewise be limited to a single island

Sources: The Rowan Tree, FS; Selidor, FS; Dragonfly, TfE

'[Ged] shut his eyes as if resting, and sent a sending of his spirit over the hills and fields of Roke, northward, to the sea-assaulted cape where the Isolate Tower stands. / "Kurrenkarmerruk," he said in spirit, and the Master Namer looked up from the thick book … which he was reading to his pupils, and said, "I am here, my lord." … under his tree, the Archmage Ged … withdrew his sending …'

[The Rowan Tree, FS]

Shape-changing

Also known as: Self-transformation, Shape-change

Art of assuming the shape of another thing; a true change, not an illusion. Shape-changing is commonly into the form of animals; for example, Ged changes into a hawk and Medra an otter. Changes into inanimate objects are also possible; Heleth transforms himself irreversibly into the earth, and changes into trees, fire, a hillock and a waterfall are mentioned. A highly perilous art, as the wizard can lose his sense of self in the thoughts of the animal, and so become trapped in the assumed form, as did the wizard Bordger of Way who became a bear and killed his son. Not the same as the change of form possible for dragon-humans, who, according to Ogion, are simultaneously two beings in a single form

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; The Shadow, WoA; The Hawk's Flight, WoE, Going to the Falcon's Nest, T; The Finder, TfE; The Bones of the Earth, TfE

'In all the sunlight and the dark of that great flight he had worn the falcon's wings, and looked through the falcon's eyes, and forgetting his own thoughts he had known at last only what the falcon knows; hunger, the wind, the way he flies.'

[The Hawk's Flight, WoE]

Related entries: Changing

She-troth

See Witch marriage

Ship-building

Also known as: Boat-building

Traditionally performed only by men, it was supposed to be unlucky for women to watch a keel being laid (though the boat-builder of Thwil at the time of the founding of Roke School of Wizardry was a woman). Ships on Havnor are built of oak timber, with masts of pine; carpentry tools used there for ship-building include a plane and a bubble level

Sources: The Finder, TfE; Darkrose and Diamond, TfE

Siege of Sorra

Also known as: Sorra, siege of

Battle against slave traders of Wathort (including Egre and Gore), in which Lebannen fought with Tosla and a fleet of 30 ships, some years before the events of The Other Wind; Lebannen later appears to have abolished slavery across the Archipelago

Sources: Palaces, OW; Dolphin, OW

Related entries: Slavery

Sifl

A rune meaning 'speed well' painted on, for example, ships; one of the True Runes

Sources: Hunted, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…her high bent prow carven and inlaid with disks of loto-shell, her oarport-covers painted red, with the rune Sifl sketched on each in black.'

[Hunted, WoE]

Related entries: Runes

Simn

A rune meaning 'work well' drawn on tools; one of the True Runes

Sources: Iffish, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

'…he set the rune Simn on the spindles and looms, the boat's oars and tools of bronze and stone they brought him, that these might do their work well;'

[Iffish, WoE]

Related entries: Runes

Six Hundred Runes of Hardic

The most commonly used True Runes; they have been given non-magical names in Hardic. Despite the name, not the same as the Hardic runes used for general writing purposes in the Archipelago

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE

Slavery

Slavery is practised across the South Reach, Osskil in the north, and the Kargad Lands at the time of The Farthest Shore. It appears to be outlawed in other parts of the Archipelago, such as Enlad. Slaves are transported in oared galleys in the South Reach, and sold at Amrun, Showl and Sowl. Ged comments that Lebannen would ' "fetch the price of a farm in Amrun market." '^a Named Archipelagan slavers include Egre and Gore. After coming to the throne, Lebannen fights the Siege of Sorra against slave traders of Wathort, and subsequently abolishes slavery across the Archipelago. Slave-labour, however, appears to remain a punishment for serious crimes.

The Kargs employ slaves on Atuan and Hur-at-Hur, and also make slaves of the lands they conquer, such as the people of Spevy

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; Hunted, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA; Magelight, FS (a); Winter, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Dolphin, OW

Song of the Creation

See Creation of Éa

Song of the Sparrowhawk

Song composed on Low Torning in the Ninety Isles, celebrating Ged's defeat of Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor

'They pressed around their young wizard and asked for the tale again. More islanders came, and asked for it again. By nightfall he no longer had to tell it. They could do it for him, better. Already the village chanters had fitted it to an old tune, and were singing the Song of the Sparrowhawk.'

[Hunted, WoE]

Song of the Woman of Kemay

Song sung in northwest Gont, composed by the Woman of Kemay, which tells of the Vedurnan

'Farther west than west
beyond the land
my people are dancing
on the other wind.'

[Going to the Falcon's Nest, T]

Related entries: Songs

Song of the Young King

See Deed of the Young King

Songs

Also known as: Chants

Songs such as the Deed of Enlad, Deed of the Young King, Deed of the Dragonlords, Deed of Ged, Deed of Hode, Lament for the White Enchanter, Lay of the Lost Queen, Deed of Erreth-Akbe, Lament for Erreth-Akbe, Winter Carol and the Havnorian Lay record the history of the Archipelago and its heroes, and are sung at festivals and other times. (Some history-recounting songs are local only, such as the song of the Woman of Kemay, sung in northwest Gont.) They may be sung unaccompanied or accompanied by music of eg drums, pipes, flute, harp and lute. Wizards sometimes use illusions to change their appearance when miming the songs. The oldest song is the Creation of Éa. New songs are made to celebrate acts of bravery, such as the Song of the Sparrowhawk, commemorating Ged's defeat of Yevaud, the Dragon of Pendor. Teaching the songs to children is traditionally the province of witches.

More frivolous songs also exist, including sailors' songs eg 'The Lass of Belilo', love songs eg 'Where my Love is Going', riddle songs eg 'Three things were that will not be', cat's cradles' rhymes, cradle songs, lullabies, ballads eg 'O my Joy!', drinking songs and shepherd's songs.

Chanting, unaccompanied or accompanied by horn and drum, also forms part of religious observances in the Kargad Lands; many of the words chanted are so old as to have lost all meaning, 'a signpost still standing when the road is gone'^a. Named chants include the Nine Chants

Sources: The Eaten One, ToA (a)

Sorra, siege of

See Siege of Sorra

Spinning

Spinning using a drop spindle and sometimes a distaff is an oft-mentioned occupation of women, performed both indoors and outside, often while doing other activities such as talking or minding children. A spinning wheel is used in the well-to-do Oak Farm on Gont. Much peasant clothing appears to be homespun

Sources: Finding Words, T; Home, T; The Finder, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE

'The witch emerged with a soapstone drop spindle and a ball of greasy wool. She sat down on the bench beside her door and set the spindle turning. She had spun a yard of grey-brown yarn before she answered.'

[Dragonfly, 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]

Sticks and counters

Game played by the eunuch Wardens of the Place of the Tombs on Atuan, and sometimes by Arha (Tenar), involving throwing a bundle of sticks and catching them on the back of the hand

Sources: Dreams and Tales, ToA

Related entries: Games

Stories, children's

See Children's tales

Story of Andaur and Avad

One of the children's tales told on Gont; it tells of a woodcutter, Andaur, who cut down a great oak which cried out in a human voice

Sources: Finding Words, T

Summoning

Summoning of spirits of the living and the dead (mainly derived from the Lore of Paln), and of energies such as light, heat, magnetism, weight, form, colour and sound. Summoning living people is forbidden by the Rule of Roke: '"Only the dead may we summon. Only the shadows. You can see why this must be. To summon a living man is to have entire power over him, body and mind. No one, no matter how strong or wise or great, can rightly own and use another."'^a It was, however, practised during the Dark Years eg by the mage Early, and was abused by Irioth, and possibly also Thorion, 'to use men, to control them wholly.'^b One of the high arts of magic, also considered a part of the art magic. Taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Summoner, summoning is considered one of the greatest and most perilous arts

Sources: The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE; On the High Marsh, TfE (a); Dragonfly, TfE (b)

'He dealt with no illusion, only true magic, the summoning of such energies as light, and heat, and the force that draws the magnet, and those forces men perceive as weight, form, colour, sound: real powers, drawn from the immense fathomless energies of the universe, which no man's spells or uses could exhaust or unbalance. … As for calling of real things and living people, and the raising up of spirits of the dead, and the invocations of the Unseen, those spells which are the height of the Summoner's art and the mage's power, those he scarcely spoke of to them.'

'The Summoner, though, dealt not with bodily things but with the spirit, with the minds and wills of men, with ghosts, with meanings. His art was arcane, dangerous, full of risk and threat.'

[The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE/Mending the Green Pitcher, 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

Tales, children's

See Children's tales

Taxation

Shipping (and possibly other) taxes are raised from merchants of the Inner Lands by the King of All the Isles, subject to the vote of the King's Council. The lords and Ruling Princes levy local taxes and, after the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy, village councils on Gont also levy local taxes to employ bailiffs

Sources: Home, T; The Dragon Council, OW

Technology

See Industry

Telling the hours

In Havnor City on Havnor, four trumpeters mark the passage of time (according to sand clocks and the Pendulum of Ath) by blowing fanfares at set points during the day from the Tower of the Kings. The fanfares are derived from the Lament for Erreth-Akbe; the full tune is played only at noon, with different fragments at each of the other hours

'…four trumpeters went out on the high balcony from which rose the highest tower of the palace, the one that was topped with the slender steel blade of the hero's sword, and at the fourth and fifth hours before noon, and at noon, and at the first, second, and third hours after noon they blew their trumpets one to the west, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south. … And if you wanted to be somewhere at a certain hour, you should keep an eye on the balconies, because the trumpeters always came out a few minutes early, and if the sun was shining they held up their silver trumpets to flash and shine.'

[Palaces, OW]

Tenancy

See Land ownership

The Lass of Belilo

Also known as: Lass of Belilo, The

Sailors' song; tells of a sailor who left a pretty girl weeping in every port, until one turned into a dragon and flew after him, snatching him from the boat and eating him. Possibly an Archipelagan folk memory of the Vedurnan

Sources: Palaces, OW

Related entries: Dragons; Songs

Thousand-leaved Tree

This motif is depicted in several places in the School of Wizardry on Roke, including the horn door and the gallery. Its significance is unknown

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; The Masters of Roke, FS

Three things were that will not be

A riddle song sung in the villages around the foot of Mount Onn on Havnor, the last line of which may relate to Medra

'Three things were that will not be:
Soléa's bright isle above the wave,
A dragon swimming in the sea,
A seabird flying in the grave.'

[The Finder, TfE]

Related entries: Songs

Time

Time measurements are given in years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds; as with other units of measurement, presumably these are silently translated from the Hardic or Kargish units for time. There are six hours from midnight to noon and six hours from noon to midnight, so either one Earthsea hour equals two earth hours, or the day is half the length. In Havnor City, time is measured using sand clocks and the Pendulum of Ath housed in the Tower of the Kings, from which trumpeters tell the hours by blowing their trumpets at fixed times (see telling the hours); a sandglass is also used to regulate debate in the King's Council. A sundial is referred to, which may be a major method of formal timekeeping outside Havnor City. The School of Wizardry at Roke has a bell tower which might be used for denoting passage of time. The Children of the Open Sea (raft people) have a relaxed sense of time, only keeping account of whole days and nights, with no hour measurement

Sources: Palaces, OW

Related entries: Calendar

Titles

Master and mistress are common courtesy titles used across the Archipelago and Reaches, as well as on Atuan. Titles based on occupation (eg farmer, sea-captain) are used in the Archipelago and Reaches. According to 'The Rule of Names', Mr, Mrs and Goody (of widows) are used on Sattins island in the East Reach, but not mentioned elsewhere. Aristocratic titles used in the Archipelago include lord, lady, prince and princess; only the King of All the Isles or King of Earthsea is addressed as a king. In the Kargad Lands, the Godking is styled Emperor; Thol is addressed as High King

Sources: The Rule of Names, W12Q; Light under the Hill, ToA; Hort Town, FS; A Bad Thing, T; Palaces, OW

Toys

See Games

Trade

Items traded in the Archipelago and Reaches include ivory and fur from the northern isles, fleecefell from Gont and the Andrades, wine from the Andrades, turbie oil from the Ninety Isles, silk from Lorbanery, gauzes from Sowl, pearls from the Isles of Sand, slaves in the South Reach, timber on Havnor and from Gont, glass beads from Venway, and tin, ox hides and sapphires from the West Reach. In the Kargad Lands, opals, turquoises and cedar are traded from Hur-at-Hur. Trade in foodstuffs other than wine, oil and grain is not mentioned, possibly due to the long travel times between islands. Great markets are found in Hort Town (Wathort) and Amrun (South Reach), and presumably also on Havnor and at Awabath. Trade routes are threatened by piracy at the edges of the Archipelago (eg the northeastern seas around Gont) during the years immediately preceding the restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy

Trade guilds

Also known as: Guilds, Workers' guilds

Organisations of people working the same trade; examples include the Seamasters and the miners' guild

Sources: The Dragon Council, OW

Travel & transport

Ships are a major method of transport in Earthsea, and the only way of travelling any distance, as bridges between islands are rare. Despite this, it is said that many islanders have never been on a boat; presumably they never travel more than a few miles from their home village. For the villagers of Woodedge on Havnor, for example, 'Mount Onn was the world, and the shores of Havnor were the edge of the universe.'^a Ged is famous as an explorer and sailor, as well as a mage. Havnor City has a network of inland canals.

Paved or cobbled streets are found in cities and wealthier towns, including Havnor City, Havnor South Port, Gont Port, Hort Town & Thwil. Though many rural roads are probably little more than a muddy cart track, some constructed roads link towns and villages, such as the zigzagging wagon road with long cuttings covering the 15 miles between Gont Port & Re Albi on Gont. Horses are rare except on Havnor, Semel and Way; even on those islands horseriding seems largely confined to the relatively wealthy and cowboys. Donkeys and mules are commonly ridden on various islands. Some people, such as peddlers and itinerant wizards & entertainers, walk long distances. Carts or wagons drawn by mules, donkeys, oxen or occasionally cart horses are a major method of transporting both people and goods inland, especially on large islands such as Havnor. A 'closed, gilt-bedizened carriage'^b drawn by four grey horses carries Seserakh in state in Havnor City

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; The Great Treasure, ToA; Finding Words, T; The Finder, TfE (a); Darkrose and Diamond, TfE; On the High Marsh, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE; Palaces, OW; Dolphin, OW (b)

'Farmer, goatherd, cattleherd, hunter or artisan, the landsman looks at the ocean as at a salt unsteady realm that has nothing to do with him at all. The village two days' walk from his village is a foreign land, and the island a day's sail from his island is a mere rumour, misty hills seen across the water, not solid ground like that he walks on.'

[The Shadow, WoE]

True name

Name given to Archipelagans by a witch/wizard when they reach thirteen at a ceremony called the Passage into manhood; a word in the Old Speech. The true name is particular to the person: no two people will bear the same name. Knowledge of this name confers power over the person, living or dead, and accordingly it is kept secret, only being revealed to very close family and perhaps to true friends. Speaking aloud the true name prevents the person from using magic, and breaks illusions, causing the person's true shape to be shown: 'As she said his name she saw him perfectly clearly, the dark scarred face she knew, the dark eyes; yet there stood the milk-faced stranger.'^a Usually it is kept for life, though a wizard can rename an adult, as, for example, Ged does Akaren. It's unclear whether it's retained after death; summoning of the dead appears to use true names, but in Alder's dreams of the dry land, Lily states that her true name is no longer her name. The conferral of true names is said to have been started by the Rune Makers a thousand years before the first kings of Enlad; they used 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 people of the Kargad Lands do not bear true names; Azver, the Kargish Master Patterner, learned his true name from the trees of the Immanent Grove

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Loosing of the Shadow, WoE; The Western Mountains, ToA (a); Lorbanery, FS; Dragonfly, TfE; Mending the Green Pitcher, OW; The Dragon Council, OW; Rejoining, OW (b)

'"They taught us to give each soul its true name: which is its truth, its self. And with their power they granted to those who bear their true name life beyond the body's death."'

[Rejoining, OW]

Related entries: Names; Naming; Religion and the afterlife

True Runes

Also known as: Runes of Power, Further Runes, Six Hundred Runes of Hardic, Runes of Éa

True Runes or Runes of Power, such as the Six Hundred Runes of Hardic, Further Runes, Runes of Éa and others unnamed, are used for magic. According to some sources, True Runes were invented by the Rune Makers; other accounts say that they date back to the creation of Earthsea, Segoy having written them in fire on the wind. The Ring of Erreth-Akbe bears nine Runes of Power including Pirr (protects from madness and from wind and fire), Ges (gives endurance) and the Bond Rune, the sign of peace. Other True Runes mentioned include Simn ('work well'), Sifl ('speed well') and Agnen, rune of Ending (closes roads and is drawn on coffin lids)

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Rejoining, OW

True Speech

See Old Speech

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

Use-name

Also known as: Nickname

Nickname that Archipelagans are called by during their adult life, usually a word in their language/dialect. May be their mother's childhood name or a nickname conferred by their peers. Unlike the true name, use-names are often very common, and a person may bear several during their lifetime (Medra, for example, is called successively Otter and Tern). Common use-names derive from plants or trees (eg Vetch, Alder, Berry), animals or birds (eg Dragonfly, Hawk, Hound), jewels (eg Jasper, Beryl, Diamond) or precious materials (eg Ivory, Onyx). Use-names for women are often flowers, such as Rose, Daisy or Lily

Sources: Warriors in the Mist, WoE; The Finder, TfE; Dragonfly, TfE

'People who have a secret name that holds their power the way a diamond holds light may well like their public name to be ordinary, common, like other people's names.'

[Dragonfly, TfE]

Related entries: Names

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]

War

Various devastating wars are mentioned during the early history of Earthsea. Around two thousand years ago, Morred fought the Enemy of Morred, leading to the ruin of Enlad and the engulfment of Soléa. Kargish raids were common in the time of Heru and Maharion, with several north-eastern islands falling; Maharion and Erreth-Akbe defeated the Kargs with the loss of the entire Kargish fleet in 430-440. Erreth-Akbe defeated the Firelord in around 440, at cost of the burning of Ilien. Raids from dragons, including Orm, were also common during the period from around 350 to 450, with the burning of several islands including Paln and parts of Havnor. The Dark Years following Maharion's death without heir in 452 were full of minor battles between warlords. In 620, Roke was sacked by the Lords of Wathort, while in 665, the fledgeling School of Wizardry of Roke defeated the fleet of the mage Early.

Outright war between the different peoples is, however, uncommon during Ged's lifetime (from around the year 1000) and the immediate history. Enlad is said to have been at peace for at least three generations in The Farthest Shore, though swordsmanship and archery are taught in the Court at Berila. The rural people of Gont are said not to be warlike and do not store weapons, though Gont Port, the capital, is guarded by soldiers. The Kargad Lands appear more organised in military matters; soldiers guard the Place of the Tombs on Atuan and even a relatively small town on Atuan has watchtowers and guards on the gate (see Kargish architecture).

During A Wizard of Earthsea, the Kargish Empire is in expansion, with raids on the islands of the Torikles, Torheven, Spevy and Gont, raiding in fleets of red-sailed longships. Relative peace is restored for a time after Ged remakes the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, and restores the Bond Rune, or Rune of Peace; however by the start of The Farthest Shore, between eighteen and twenty-five years later, matters are said to be worse than ever. The restoration of the Archipelagan monarchy in around 1051, and particularly the rise of Thol a decade later, leads to a cessation in raids, with Thol sending peaceful ambassadors to Havnor in around 1066.

Some years before the events of The Other Wind, Lebannen fights at the Siege of Sorra

Sources: A Description of Earthsea, TfE; Palaces, OW

Way of Power

Principle relating to the wise use of magic, taught to wizards. Possibly relates to maintaining the Equilibrium by using magic only at need, and with due regard for all the various direct and indirect consequences

Sources: Kalessin, T

Way of Roke

See Rule of Roke

Weatherworking

Also known as: Windbringing

Calling upon wind, water and weather; used both for safe and speedy passage on ships and to guarantee favourable weather for crop-growing and harvests. One of the high arts of magic, practised by wizards, sorcerers and specialised weatherworkers. Taught at the Roke School of Wizardry by the Master Windkey

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; Lorbanery, FS

'…practising steering by word, and stilling waves, and speaking to the world's wind, and raising up a magewind. These are very intricate skills …'

[The School for Wizards, WoE]

Weaving

Also known as: Looms

Handlooms are common household items throughout Earthsea, and much peasant clothing appears to be homespun. In all cultures of Earthsea, it appears to be predominantly women and girls who weave and spin cloth for domestic use. However, professional weavers on Gont include both women and men (eg Weaver Fan); men are also involved in making silk for export on Lorbanery, where professional silk-weavers operate in worksheds. Household weaving is not restricted to the lower classes; even ladies such as Lady Serret participate in the activity, and well-to-do Yarrow in Ismay has a tapestry-loom, 'its tall frame inlaid with ivory'^a. All the woollen cloth at the Place of the Tombs on Atuan is woven locally by the novices/priestesses in the weaving room on 'great looms always warped with dull black wool'^b. 'Weavings of different colors and weights of yarn'^c are used in the Kargad Lands for keeping accounts. The Children of the Open sea (raft people) have looms on their rafts on which the women weave their cloth from nilgu fibre derived from a brown seaweed

Sources: The Hawk's Flight, WoE; Iffish, WoE (a); The Wall Around the Place, ToA (b); Lorbanery, FS; The Children of the Open Sea, FS; Hawks, T; A Description of Earthsea, TfE [c]

'…through windows lit with a dim ruddy gold from within as the short day darkened he saw women at their looms, turning a moment to speak or smile to child or husband there in the warmth within the house.'

'It would be a decent living. The bulk of the work was dull, always the same over, but weaving was an honourable trade and in some hands a noble art. And people expected weavers to be a bit shy, often to be unmarried, shut away at their work as they were; yet they were respected.'

[Iffish, WoE/Hawks, T]

Related entries: Spinning

Werelight

Also known as: were light

Bluish or greenish faint magical light conjured by wizards, sometimes focused in the tip of their wizard's staff, sometimes as a free-floating ball. One of the first arts of true magic taught at the School of Wizardry on Roke it seems to be used relatively freely, without worrying about the Equilibrium. The practice isn't confined to wizards: witches are also occasionally mentioned as conjuring werelight. Unclear how it is related to magelight, which appears to be a stronger form of magical light

Sources: The School for Wizards, WoE; Light Under the Hill, ToA; Dragonfly, TfE

'…Vetch came to the door, a little bluish ball of werelight nodding over his head to light the way…'

'Not bright, but dazzling to the dark-accustomed eye, was the light that worked this wonder. It was a soft gleam, like marshlight… The light burned at the end of a staff of wood, smokeless, unconsuming.'

[The School for Wizards, WoE / Light Under the Hill, ToA]

Where my Love is Going

Love or boat song from the western coast of Havnor island

'Where my love is going
There will I go.
Where his boat is rowing
I will row.
We will laugh together,
Together we will cry:
If he lives I will live,
If he dies I die.'

[Darkrose and Diamond, TfE]

Related entries: Songs

Windbringing

See Weatherworking

Winter Carol

Song traditionally sung at the Festival of Sunreturn

Sources: Hunting, WoE

Witch marriage

Also known as: She-troth

Two witches living together in an informal marriage. As witches rarely married men, such arrangements were common

Sources: Mending the Green Pitcher, OW

Witchcraft

See Base crafts

Witch-Fingers

Name in rural Atuan for the disease smallpox

Sources: The Wall Around the Place, ToA

Witchwind

See Magewind

Wizardry

See Magic

Workers' guilds

See Trade guilds

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]

Writing

Hardic runes appear to be used for general writing purposes in the Archipelago and Reaches, for example Ogion's letter to Nemmerle. Writing implements mentioned include an inkstone, ink bottle, brush and goose quills with a substrate of vellum, parchment or paper. In the Archipelago/Reaches, reading and writing appear to be largely the province of wizards, lords/princes and the moderately wealthy (for example, the mender Alder reads very little); history is largely passed from generation to generation orally in songs and chants. In the original Earthsea trilogy, reading and writing are said to be outlawed in the Kargad Lands, being among the black arts. However, in later novels, writing using Hardic runes is mentioned for some secular purposes; Thol's emissaries bring Lebannen a gilded scroll written in big Hardic runes (though the ambassador speaks Hardic but doesn't read it)

Sources: The Shadow, WoE; The School for Wizards, WoE; The Masters of Roke, FS; Mice, T; Palaces, OW

Related entries: Books

Yard

Unit of distance used in Earthsea; as with other imperial measures, presumably silently translated from the actual unit

Sources: Hunting, WoE; The Wall around the Place, ToA

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