The voice was faint, but as far as I could tell the numbers it was saying matched what I had written on the spreadsheet.
When we came to the last number, my wife asked, “Is that one correct, too?” I didn’t know what to say, because the voice hadn’t said anything that sounded like a number. It had said, “Gris Notch.”
I was still considering what to do and how to answer my wife when I woke up.
When I searched the Internet for “Gris Notch,” all the results were Mexican sites selling shoes. Apparently DC makes a shoe called the Notch. Gris is Spanish for “gray,” but for some reason many of the top results showed a red shoe.
It says “ Tenis Dc Hombre Gris Notch Sn Mx Adys100500grw.” I assume Mx means Mexico, but what does Sn mean? No idea what the shoe site means by it, but it’s the chemical symbol for tin, a metal that has been much in the sync stream.
Shoes made of different metals are a familiar theme, too. “Concerning shoon” described the footwear on various heavenly bodies, following the traditional planet-metal correspondences. Since it was also following Daniel’s vision, it only included four of the seven planetary metals. The shoon worn on Jupiter, had they been included, would have been made of tin.
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Huh, only now do I realise the DC logo contains a star and a vesica piscis.
"Notch" is the online handle of Minecraft's creator.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Persson
Following on from my newest comment on "Chubby Checker, god of quads", I logged into Steam because gris rang a bell. It's the title of an artsy-looking game that'd been on my wishlist for years, and finally bought on July 6 during a major sale.
store.steampowered.com/app/683320/GRIS/
I looked up DC, and it originally stood for Droors Clothing. When I searched for droors etymology, Google thought I probably wanted results about the etymology of dross. So that’s another link to tin.
Thinking about the remaining planetary metals, lead and mercury, I thought it would be impossible to make shoes out of a liquid like mercury, so they’d have to settle for Quiksilver sneakers.
Minutes later, I read on the DC Shoes Wikipedia page that DC was acquired by Quiksilver on March 8, 2004.
https://www.tammerbrands.fi/en/did-you-remember-tin-shoes/
Fortune-telling, huh?
Hee, Finland -- or as my friend J sometimes calls it, Effinland. For some reason that company has an office in a place with a name that translates to "Flamingo Entertainment Centre".
Both Gris and Notch are also French, so can be read as a simple and complete French phrase, and something like "Grey Passage or Gap", with the more common English use of Notch giving this notion of a narrow pass through mountains (the original French was apparently more just about a v-shaped cut or indentation, and we use that sense as well, also).
Another way to read that phrase, then, would be a Black Hole, since Grey, specifically in the form of Gris, has been used to convey something that is dark, black, and without light (I'll get to that in just a sec in the form of a name). We have also, conveniently, used funnel diagrams to visualize Black Holes in earlier blog posts and comments. A funnel is, from the side, a v-shaped cut in space.
We have seen Gris before, as well, in the form of Zelda. The full name Zelda comes from is Griselda or Grizelda - the Gray Battlemaid, but also rendered Dark Battlemaid. That character symbol has been synonymous with Izilba-Eowyn, as well as the kinds of passages we may be talking about here and what is required to cross them.
Shoes have been used as a symbol of what is needed to cross, so that might also fit in with your random online search result of a red shoe, which brings to mind the Rose Stone, and Dorothy's red shoes needed to get home.
The first search result for “gray passage” is one of WG’s video games.
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Gray_Passage_(Quest)
Ah, the famous flamingos of Finland! I bet they’re blue up there in the frozen north.
Actually, a Gray Passage hits a little closer to the topic at hand than a video game, I think. And this has to do with John-Thingol yet again, in the form of Aragorn.
To reach Minas Tirith, Aragorn took the Grey Company through the mountain pass known as the Paths of the Dead. They were called the Grey Company because the Rangers wore mantles or cloaks of grey. This is an interesting tie between Aragorn and Thingol, by the way, given Thingol's name literally means "Grey Mantle".
In any case, the travel of Aragon and his group through the Paths of the Dead was titled "The Passing of the Grey Company"... the Grey Passing, or Grey Pass. And, just as a Notch is defined, this Pass or Path was a route through mountains - the White Mountains in this case.
So, Gris Notch is potentially link or reference at one level to the Passing of the Grey Company, or the Grey Pass that Aragorn-John took (and who is potentially your Terry).
That story itself is also potentially relevant for this one, in that the reason Aragon took this road was to offer redemption to these Dead, known as Oathbreakers, and recruit them to his aid. In other words, they were given an opportunity to repent, defeat evil, and be at peace.
Part of the event involved gathering at the Stone of Erech. The Stone of Erech was mentioned in some of my very early words in November 2019, and along with them was also mention of "Elu", which is another name for Thingol, as well as his "Elf-Friends". The exact phrase initial phrase was "Elu-maggu elf-friends", which likely means something like "Thingol helping elf-friends". This was either intended to mean Thingol will help some elf-friends, or the elf-friends will help/ serve Thingol (or both).
Wonder if the Elf-friends are Keebler Elves?
Galahad Eridanus has just published a post that caught my eye because of its Tolkienian title:
https://galahaderidanus.substack.com/p/saturn-the-lord-of-the-rings
I haven't read it yet, but it begins by instructing the reader to draw a seven-pointed star and label the points with the seven classical "planets." The DC Shoes logo features a seven-pointed star, and the whole "shoon" concept is based on the seven planets and their associated metals.
Ooh, nice find, William! I did that quest a while back but had no idea it could be repeated.
I guess Bill doesn't see what I see in it. Starting from a standing stone (the "Grey Menhir"), the player must go spelunking to retread a hero's pilgrimage, visiting stone tablets that describe virtues. The quest is on a timer so one must move fast and keep on track. For gameplay purposes the reward is experience points and randomised high-value loot, but lore-wise one gains "the favor of the Stars". (The storyline of the quest's region is about breaking corruption placed on the Celestials, constellations that fell from the sky and took mortal forms.)
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Celestial
Where the Fandom wiki fails is in properly reproducing the text of each stone tablet. UESP has them all. The book telling of the hero, apparently a spear-maiden, is also worth a look.
en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Gray_Passage_(compilation)
en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Raneviad,_Volume_II
en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Ranev
"Spelunking" -- interesting.
"Faithful" is essentially a synonym for "elf-friend". Tolkien Gateway says the words the Edain and Dúnedain used for "elf-friend" really meant "devoted to the stars". Funny; the Ranev links I shared indicate that the pilgrimage earnt her the title "the Favored of the Stars."
tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Elf-friends
Here's a reminder that ambergris came up not that long ago.
narrowdesert.blogspot.com/search?q=ambergris
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