There was seething shadow, blacker than blackness had any right to be. It throbbed like an evil black heart, and somehow the pulsations were like drumbeats thumping out a message. Dreadful transformation ... waiting for you ... but we call it justice! (p. 12, ellipsis in original)
See "there are men whose hearts are as black as coal" in "Lassie Come Home." For dreadful transformations, see the comments on "Can you metamorphosize?" For "we call it justice," cf. "The frozen man wants mercy, but what has he got? Just ice" in the comments on "Hello. Good-bye. Shoot this man."
The water was impossibly blue and coated with a metallic sheen like the wings of Guatemala's blue butterflies from which jewelry is made (p. 42).
That's a reference to blue Morpho butterflies, which are found in Guatemala and were formerly used to make jewelry.
The light dyed him with its yellow, transforming him as though with King Midas' touch into a man of gold. El Dorado, the gilded man, Hibbert thought (p. 50).
Pharazon as the golden or gilded man has been a major theme around here. Daymon's description even has him gilded by light: "In gold finery he covered his nakedness, gilded in sunlight so none could withstand him at mid-day."
[D]azzling opalescences engaged in countless conflicting duels -- the shivering lances of the aurora crossing each other in prismatic tilt! (p. 57)
Here an "aurora" is described with what are clearly jousting metaphors. The alchemical manuscript Aurora Consurgens has come up here, in "The sources behind the Reality Temple meme" and "Buckets, bathtubs, and seas of stories (plus hoopoes and caballeros)." Both posts include the same image from that manuscript: a jousting scene. In the latter post, I even connect it with the old video game Joust. In "From blue flamingo to blue crab," I describe how the second page of my epub copy of Beyond the Golden Stair led me to the book B is for Blue Crab: A Maryland Alphabet. Predictably, that book has J stand for Jousting, the state sport of Maryland.
(In reference to "caballeros," earlier I was trying to track down a copy, original or translated, of the Vladislav Krapivin novel Children of the Blue Flamingo. Failing that, I found a Russian summary of the plot and used a Fake Intelligence to translate it. For some reason, its English translation included the word caballero in quotation marks when referring to a knight. I asked the FI if the Russian text used the Spanish word caballero, but it said no, it just used the usual Russian word for "knight." A rather random translation choice.)
And herein might be the explanation of the blue flamingo! The parent birds might have found entrance and egress . . . (p. 79).
Not exactly a sync, but I was amused by the use of egress in connection with a mated pair of wading birds. In one of Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, I can't remember which, there's a plot point around the word egress being misunderstood as referring to a female egret. Xanth, incidentally, is a magical land shaped exactly like the state of Florida, and its name comes from a Greek word meaning "yellow" or "golden." The titular stair in Beyond the Golden Stair is in the Florida Everglades and leads to a magical land.
Note added: Here's the passage I was thinking of, from Golem in the Gears:
"You know," he said conversationally, "they have some worse monsters in Mundania than in Xanth. Some of the birds, especially. We have ogres and ogresses, and dragons and dragonesses, and the like. But I remember one there called the egret, that had a long yellow beak. . . . And you never can tell what those birds will do. The female of the species is twice as bad as the male; if we ever encountered a female egret we'd be lost."
3 comments:
Don't know if relevant, but the mention of a blue butterflies with metallic-like wings that are made into jewelry brought the mind the Brin-sil-Beriand from Words of the Faithful. That was literally a blue crystal in the form of a butterfly, and had metallic wings (silver and white stone). It was worn as a necklace by Miriam.
The Brin-sil-Beriand also may support a complicated or dual view of the symbolism of the Blue Butterfly. Previous to being worn by Miriam, it was owned and used by Thuringwethil's daughters. Thuringwethil is, in Tolkien's tales, an evil Being who served as Sauron's messenger and was a vampire and shapeshifter who liked to take the form of a bat. She was probably the most evil female character behind Ungoliant herself.
Anyway, Izilba and Miriam defeated those daughters, and the Brin-sil-Beriand fell into their possession. The crystal was described in anthropomorphic terms and was said to repent of its prior service to Thuringwethil and became a source of good:
"... it carried to Miriam's heart and mind assurance; and if warranted, warnings, and wise-counsel, having repented of its service to the coven-whelps of Thuringwethil."
So, we have a Blue Butterfly that was at one time a servant to Team Devil (Sauron and Thuringwethil specifically) repenting and now on the good guys' team.
In fact, re-reading that encounter between Thuringwethil and Izilba and Miriam ties to your first sync on the shadow, throbbing, drumbeats, etc. Thuringwethil's name means "Woman of the Secret Shadow". The encounter begins with Izilba and Miriam hearing that name repeated and specifically compared to drumbeats:
"Of true-witches, Izilba had heard, but believed not, being a spell of youth, and yet no other word for the assault came to her mind. The one word, drumming, and driving out all other thoughts, Thuringwethil. Thuringwethil. Thuringwethil. Each syllable a footstep until the witches would come..."
Transformation itself also ties directly to Thuringwethil, given she was a shape-shifter.
It's an interesting train of thought to reflect on her just now in this context, particularly given recent thinking and commentary around a "Delilah" and a female "Deceiver" I've hinted at in my other thinking and comments.
It is suggested in both Tolkien's and Daymon's writings that Thuringwethil met her end. But, it is also guessed that she was a Maia, like Sauron, and so like him, Saruman, and others, could not be completely killed - just weakened for awhile and forced to change form.
Anyway, Thuringwethil was of such importance, rank, and use for Morgoth and Sauron that Luthien disguised herself as Thuringwethil in order for her and Beren to gain access to Morgoth's realm. This was after she defeated Thuringwethil at Sauron's fortress on the Isle of Werewolves, Tol-in-Gaurhoth.
I've guessed that Gross Gaur represents Sauron. So, it shouldn't be a surprise to somehow identify Thuringwethil lurking around in some manner. I'm actually surprised I didn't think more directly about this until right now. The "Fangs of Discipline" may just as well refer to her as well as Ungoliant, given she is our one and only vampire named in Tolkien's stories.
Something to think about, at least.
I know a tangent, but the connections to these passages you pulled out had my mind still going down this Thuringwethil line.
I had related on my blog that I had the intrusion in 2021 of what turned out to be a female Being. I had identified her as a Maia of some kind, potentially related in some fashion with this "Son of Baal Ox" who Asenath encountered in Idaho. I even ended up referring to her as Mrs. Baal Ox., not having anything else to call her.
That Son of Baal Ox appears to have been referred to as Thu in follow-up conversations, which is another name for Sauron (This Thu had reported that a Maiden had made him take an Oath of some kind).
But the mystery of who this "Mrs. Baal Ox" was a mystery beyond some connection. My hypothesis now is that this Being was none other than Thuringwethil.
After I refused to write anymore when I suspected something was off, the female Being actually introduced herself to me early one morning before then departing. I don't remember what name she used, however.
A couple days later, I wrote down a few phrases that I did feel comfortable writing and felt like came from a good source. As part of that was the phrase:
"She is gone. The other. No more tricks."
I felt like that was describing this other Being having left.
I mentioned that Lozenge can have its root in "Deceit", and you had associated this Lozenge with a female. If you look up Trick on Etymonline, you get things like "a deceit, treachery, cheating", and I had connected Lozenge with the female symbol in such tales as Samson/ Delilah, Turnus/ Iris, etc.
That is all to say that perhaps you have had in the past, or present, or will have at some point in the future, Thuringwethil's involvement. Anyway, be on the lookout for any shape-shifting demon vampire bats, I guess, and remember that it took Michael to let Joseph Smith know that a Being who appeared to be an angel of light was, in fact, Satan.
Remember that image/ painting you shared with the enchantress and the lions? I just thought of that.
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