Deverry - A Time Of War Part 45

APPENDICES.

Historical Notes

Many readers and reviewers have a.s.sumed that the Deverry books take place in some sort of alternate Britain or that the people of Deverry came originally from Britain. In fact, they emigrated from northern Gaul, as a couple of obscure clues in the text tell the compulsively careful reader who also knows an awful lot about Celtic history. Since only a few people fall into that rather strange category, myself being one of them, allow me to explain further. For one thing, the great heroes mentioned throughout the series, Vercingetorix and Vindex, are real, historical Gauls. For another, the various G.o.ds, such as Bel (Belinus) and particularly Epona, are primarily Gaulish G.o.ds, though their wors.h.i.+p was known throughout the Celtic realms. More to the point, those 'vergobretes' who became in Deverry 'gwerbrets' are mentioned in Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars as magistrates among the Gauls, though, he says, the Britons have no such kind of leader, relying instead upon 'kings'. The Gaulish king, it seems, was more what we'd term a 'warleader', the 'cadvridoc' of Deverry, than the ruler of an organized state. Even in Britain, however, the Celts elected their kings more often than they accepted them by inheritance, a pan-Celtic political tradition that lies behind the instability of the Deverry kings.h.i.+p.

The language of Deverry also derives from that of Gaul, but Gaulish was not, as far as scholars can tell, very much different from the Old British that evolved into the language we know today as Cymraeg or Welsh. Thus the Deverrian language, which we might well call Neo-Gaulish, looks and sounds much like Welsh, but anyone who knows this modern language will see immediately that it differs in a great many respects, as it does from Cornish and Breton, the other members of the sub-family of languages known as P-Celtic.

Glossary

Aber (Deverrian) A river mouth, an estuary.

Alar (Elvish) A group of elves, who may or may not be blood kin, who choose to travel together for some indefinite period of time.

Alardan (Klv.) The meeting of several alarli, usually the occasion for a drunken party.

Angwidd {Dev.) Unexplored, unknown.

Astral The plane of existence directly 'above' or 'within' the etheric (q.v.). In other systems of magic, often referred to as the Akas.h.i.+c Record or the Treasure House of Images.

Aura The field of electromagnetic energy that permeates and emanates from every living being.

Aver (Dev.) A river.

Bara (EIv.) An enc.l.i.tic that indicates that the preceding adjective in an Elvish agglutinated word is the name of the element following the enc.l.i.tic, as caii+bara + melim = Rough River, (rough + name marker + river.) Bel (Dev.) The chief G.o.d of the Deverry pantheon.

Bel (F,lv.) An enc.l.i.tic, similar in function to bara, except that it indicates that a preceding verb is the name of the following element in the agglutinated term, as in Darabeldal, Flowing Lake.

Blue Light Another name for the etheric plane (q.v.).

Body of Light An artificial thought-form (q.v.) constructed by a dweomer-master to allow him or her to travel through the inner planes of existence.

Brigga (Dev.) Loose wool trousers worn by men and boys.

Bright Court, Dark Court I've chosen these terms for the traditional divide between the groups of Fair Eolk, rather than using Seelie and Unseelie Court, names which are localized in our own world to Scotland.

Broch (Dcv.) A squat tower in which people live. Originally, in the homeland, these towers had one big fireplace in the centre of the ground floor and a number of booths or tiny roomlets up the sides, hut by the time of our narrative this ancient style has given way to a regular floor with hearths and chimneys on either side the structure.

Cadvridoc (Dev.) A war leader. Not a general in the modern sense, the cadvridoc is supposed to take the advice and counsel of the n.o.ble-born lords under him, but his is the right of final decision.

Captain (trans, of the Dev. pendaely) The second in command, after the lord himself, of a n.o.ble's warband. An interesting point is that the word taely (the root or unmutated form of -daely) can mean either a warband or a family, depending on context.

Cwtn (Dev,) A valley.

Dal(Klv.) A lake.

Dun (Dev.) A fort.

Dweomer (trans, of Dev. Dwunddaevad) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery, Elves I have chosen this common name for the people the Dever-rians call F.lcyion Lacar (literally, the 'bright spirits' or 'Bright Fey')- They are also known as the Westfolk among men and dwarves, though the Dwarvish name for the race is Carx Taen. To the Gel da'Thae they arc the Children of the G.o.ds, Graekaebi 'Z.o Uhmveo, while they call themselves, quite simply, Impar, the People.

Ensorcel To produce an effect similar to hypnosis by direct manipulation of a person's aura. (True hypnosis manipulates the victim's consciousness only and thus is more easily resisted.) Etheric 'I'hc plane of existence directly 'above' the physical. With its magnetic substance and currents, it holds physical matter in an invisible matrix and is the true source of what we call 'life'.

Etheric Double The true being of a person, the electromagnetic structure that holds the body together and that is the actual seat of consciousness.

Geis, Geas A taboo, usually a prohibition against doing something. Breaking geis results in ritual pollution and the disfavour if not active emnity of the G.o.ds. In societies that truly believe in gcis, a person who breaks it usually dies fairly quickly, either of morbid depression or some unconsciously self-inflicted 'accident', unless he or she makes ritual amends.

Gel da'Thae, also known as the Horsekin, are a humanoid, naturally psychic race that lives to the north and west of Deverry proper. Their psychic talents manifest mostly as an enormous empathy with animals.

To the elves they are the Meradan (lit. demons) or Hordes, because they destroyed the elven civilization of the far western mountains in ages past.

Geomancy A system of divination, codified during the late Middle Ages, involving the element of earth.

The names of the figures used in this book have the following meanings; Rubeus, the Red One; Puer, the Boy; Amissio, Loss; Puella, the Girl; Via, the Road; Career, the Prison; Caput Draconis, the Dragon's Head.

Great Ones Spirits, once human but now disincarnate, who exist on an unknowably high plane of existence and who have dedicated themselves to the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings.

They are also known to the Buddhists, as Boddhisattvas.

Gwerbret (Dev. The name derives from the Gaulish vergobretes.) The highest rank of n.o.bility below the royal family itself.

Gwerbrets (Dev. gwerbretion) function as the chief magistrates of their regions, and even kings hesitate to override their decisions because of their many ancient prerogatives.

Hob A male ferret. The females are called 'Jills', though for obvious reasons I've chosen not to use the term, Lwdd (Dev.) A blood-price; differs from wergild in that the amount of Iwdd is negotiable in some circ.u.mstances, rather than being irrevocably set by law.

Mazrak (Gel.) A shapechanger. A magician who can turn him or herself into animal form and back again at will.

Malover (Dev.) A full, formal court of law with both a priest of Bel and either a gwerbret or a tieryn in attendance.

Melim (Elv.) A river.

Mor (Dev.) A sea, ocean.

Peel (Dev.) Far, distant.

Rhan (Dev.) A political unit of land; thus, gwerbretrhyn, tierynrhyn, the area under the control of a given gwerbret or tieryn. The size of the various rhans (Dev. rhannau) varies widely, depending on the vagaries of inheritance and the fortunes of war rather than some legal definition.

Scrying The art of seeing distant people and places by magic.

Sigil An abstract magical figure, usually representing either a particular spirit or a particular kind of energy or power. These figures, which look a lot like geometrical scribbles, are derived by various rules from secret magical diagrams.

Taer (Dev.) Land, country.

Thought Vorm An image or three-dimensional form that has been fas.h.i.+oned out of either etheric or astral substance, usually by the action of a trained mind. If enough trained minds work together to build the same thought form, it will exist independently for a period of time based on the amount of energy put into it. (Putting energy into such a form is known as ensouling the thought form.) Manifestations of G.o.ds or saints are usually thought forms picked up by the highly intuitive, such as children, or those with a touch of second sight. It is also possible for many untrained minds acting together to make fuzzy, ill-defined thought forms that can be picked up the same way, such as UFOs and sightings of the Devil.

Tieryn (Dev.) An intermediate rank of the n.o.ble-born, below a gwer-bret but above an ordinary lord (Dev. arcloedd).

Wyrd (trans, of Dev. tingedd.) Kate, destiny; the inescapable problems carried over from a sentient being's last incarnation.

Ynis (Dcv.) An island.