Update: Some additional pebbles have been seen

First, some comments by others on "All the pebbles I have seen," pasted here for searchability and ease of reference.

William Wright (WW) said...

When I read the line about "precious stones for Colleen", the image that actually came to my mind was Ungoliant. Specifically, the scene in which, after she and Melkor kill the Two Trees, Melkor is forced to give Ungoliant all of the Elvish gems and precious stones he stole from Formenos. It was based on an agreement Melkor was forced to make in order to recruit Ungoliant's help. She made him give her all of his stones, except the Silmarils, which he refused and almost was destroyed by her over it.

Anyway, so I associated this Colleen with Ungoliant, and I then tried to see if there was a name connection that could help explain the instant association. Colleen simply means "woman, young girl", so not super specific or helpful. However, I then remembered a word game I had done with Ungoliant some time ago, and it seemed to make sense.

As you know, both roots of Ungoliant's name - Ungol and Liante means "Spider", which seems strange to have Spider-Spider as the name. Ungol, however, can refer to something else. I actually tied it to Uncle Jay (my Ungol - Unkle game), and thus also Ahab at the time (which means Uncle).

Ungol, in one Elvish language, can mean "Darkness", primarily from Ung- but we can get after it from a different angle looking at the root "Gol". We see this root in Thingol, and it means a "Cloak", which is an apt part of Ungoliant's name meaning in that she is specifically mentioned as being able to cloak herself and others in a cloud of darkness that allowed them to evade detection. So, Ungol (Ung-gol) literally means "dark cloak", and thus Ungoliant "Dark Cloak Spider". At least that is what one version of her name I've arrived at.

In any case, it is interesting because a form of Gol is Coll/ Kol, meaning the same thing (which also gets back to the Unkle-Unkol word game). And Coll- is obviously right there as a root in Colleen

Seemed to fit, at least backing into it.

February 12, 2026 at 9:02 AM

William Wright (WW) said...

The Dark Cloak Spider also fits well with the Octopus symbolism. The Octopus evades detection by use of its dark cloud of "ink".

The ink, to me, is also highly symbolic since Ungoliant has and will use "ink" - as in the things that are written - to take away light and truth, as in with the Book of the Lamb.

February 12, 2026 at 9:06 AM

William Wright (WW) said...

The singer/songwriter of the song you feature here "The Summer Day Reflections", also seems to tie into this theme.

Donovan Leitch.

Donovan means "Dark/ Black".

Leitch is an interesting pairing. At first, it looked like it simply meant "Doctor", but even that is more complicated as it can refer to sorcery, per Etymonline, with words like "Enchanter, Conjurer" or "one who speaks magic words". So, something like a Wizard, perhaps. The Dark Wizard.

But, it turns out the name has a folk etymology that connects this name with Leeches, which seems natural. Some argue it came about because doctors use to be the ones who would apply leeches to suck people's blood, and thus the bloodsuckers got the name Leech/ Leitch from the doctors themselves. Who knows.

But it is interesting to have this reference to a Leech, or "Bloodsucking aquatic worm". Ungoliant has been directly compared to a Vampire in other interesting symbols and songs (e.g., Vampire Weekend), the most famous kind of bloodsuckers.

So, an aquatic Dark Bloodsucker is what Donovan Leitch can give us.

Which then makes the title of the song also interesting in looking up various meanings of "reflections".

February 12, 2026 at 11:49 AM

William Wright (WW) said...

And I have a good solve for the full name Colleen now looking at the back half of the name, so this is looking pretty solid.

As mentioned, Coll- in Elvish is "Cloak".

"Line" (the "Lin" would be said just like the Leen in Colleen, then add the "a" sound at the end thanks to the e), can mean "Cobweb", it turns out. In the discussion on Eldamo for this word, it was said to derive from the earlier, primitive "sligne", which meant "spider, spider’s web, cobweb".

So, Colleen understood in the form of the Elvish Coll-Line can mean "Cloak Spider". I should have seen it earlier, actually, because if you take off the "Ung" part of Ung-Gol, which gives you the "Dark/ Black" definition, you are left with Goliante for her name, or Koliante. You can hear Colleen in that name, particularly as you leave off the -te, which gets you back to something similar to that original "Line" form.

"Precious stones for Coll-line"

February 12, 2026 at 12:03 PM

WanderingGondola said...

As this post makes connections to a passage involving Joseph of Dreams, and those song lines came about through the Three of Pentacles -- its meanings including learning, growth and collaboration -- I'm inclined to think there's a much more positive connotation to "Colleen" than Ungoliant, of all entities.

February 12, 2026 at 12:30 PM

William Wright (WW) said...

I've been thinking more on the Three of Pentacles/ Coins here and its role in that phrase the came to William's mind and the tie in to my hypothesis regarding Ungoliant.

The card features a Stonemason, which is interesting given some of the recent LDS temple endowment symbolism (the endowment is said to be based on Freemasonry rites, which trace back to the stonemasons guilds).

This could be a tipoff to what the Book of Mormon calls Secret Combinations. When the Book of Mormon was first published, that term was so tied to Freemasonry in the US, many assumed the book itself was anti-Masonic and thus a product of its day, particularly given how the book's Combinations had secret signs and oaths they gave.

William, you recently brought up Cain again, interestingly, citing Moses 5, which has some interesting things to say about Secret Combinations, and that Cain first instituted them among men. In that chapter, the author speaks of those combinations working in the dark:

"For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark, and they knew every man his brother."

The Three of Pentacles shows these men working literally in the dark - the men are juxtaposed against a completely black background and environment while they discuss their plans. As WG notes, the card can refer to collaboration, which is a synonym for or same meaning as combination, in that you have a group of people united and working toward some end. In the case of the Secret Combination, this collaboration was held together via oaths and signs, and with the ultimate objective to "get gain".

The LDS endowment prior to 1990 had penalties associated with breaking the oaths, which involved hand motions where recipients would slit their own throats and disembowel themselves, in that they would die in those ways if they broke the oath. This gets right at how Satan first sets up the Secret Combinations with Cain, who is forced to promise "by his throat" and die if he revealed Satan's secret:

"And Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die"

Again, these types of penalties are found both in Freemasonry and in earlier versions of the LDS endowment, so the presence of a Stone Mason in the Three of Pentacles, and them all working in the dark, at least teases at the possibility that this 'collaboration' is not necessarily ultimately good.

And Secret Combinations bring us right back to The Great and Abominable Church, and its Mother Ungoliant, who is also called the "Mother of Abominations". In that story in Moses 5, Cain's works were specifically called abominations. And on the Three of Pentacles, the men are working on/ in a Cathedral or Church.

February 13, 2026 at 12:32 AM

I think Bill's dot-connecting is quite solid here, and I'm inclined to think he's on the right track. WG says that the synching passage I read in The Words of the Faithful seems to suggest a more positive meaning (and she has a point; more on that below), but as I kept reading in that book, just a few pages later I found this:

While [Miriam and Doral were] thus contemplating the ends of each choice, and the fruits of wise decisions thus far received, a hawk or phantom of one, flown over high up, descended in a swoon, and landed, wrestling a many tentacled sea-creature. When come upon by the women, curious to discover such an odd thing (as one) from the sky fallen, to vapor they turned, being blown away west upon a breeze, as if running to the falling sun thither. Of the eight tentacles, but seven were seen to remain, and the wing of the bird was broken, clipped and tangled in a mesh.

As always, the writing is confusing (the creature turned to vapor and blew away but left behind seven of its tentacles?), but eight tentacles makes the thing definitionally an octopus, a symbol that has been closely associated with Ungoliant. The hawk is closely related to the kite, a bird which was mentioned in my post and will come up again in what follows.

After this strange augury of a hawk wrestling an octopus, "much was said of the sign, or omen . . . It was decided that all things were now entangled, good and evil . . . ." Colleen seems like a positive symbol but also seems to represent Ungoliant. The kite (Garuda) is connected to Flight of the Gargoyle, the movie that gave "abomination "new meaning, but Bill has also proposed a positive take on the gargoyle symbol.

When I opened my browser to compose the present post, I saw that I had the latest Duckstack, "Irrigation Regardless," open in a tab and still unread. Should I read it first or do the post first? In order to help me decide, I scrolled down to the bottom of the Duckstack to get a feel for how long it was. At the bottom of the page, I found this juxtaposition:

The last link on the page is to a post called "Spite Kite." The reference appears to be the toy ("We're flying our emotions today. The sky is blue"), while the kite I am interested in is a bird, specifically Garuda. Take a look at the accompanying illustration, though. It shows birds, one of which is attacking a snake -- a snake which unexpectedly has a hand instead of a head.

The fingers give impression of a many-headed snake, or hydra. See also my 2022 Tarot post "Lightning from the Sun?", which concludes with, "That's an extremely specific coincidence! The same thing can resemble either a hand or an eight-tentacled 'octopus' depending on how you look at it." See also the hand-octopus-Sun link in "The power of the Sun in the palm of my hand."

More to the point, though, the bird-snake-hand combination is a direct link to the Garuda image I included in "Flight of the Gargoyle," though in that image it is the bird rather than the snake that unexpectedly has hands.

Just above the "Spite Kite" link is one to "Intermission - Grit Grave," with this illustration:

Prior to reading Bill's "secret combination" comment, I had just been listening to the early chapters of Helaman, where the Gadianton robbers are introduced. Since Bill had been talking about ungol as an element in Ungoliant, I wondered whether there could be any connection between Ungol-iant and Gad-iant-on. The name Ungoliant is etymologically complicated. Apparently, Tolkien first analyzed it as Ungo-liant, with the second element meaning "spider," but later decided that ungol meant "spider," implying that the name was actually Ungol-iant. The second element in this latter analysis was never defined but would presumably mean something related to gloom and darkness. That works well for Gadianton, since gad- can mean "to join, connect, unite," and -on is just a masculine suffix. So interpreted as Elvish, Gadianton could literally mean "the secret combination guy."

Coming back to WG's point that the connection to Joseph should give "Colleen" a more positive meaning, in the passage I quoted, Joseph sees a vision of Taurin, who we are told is "called by the records, Katumin," that being the name of a princess mentioned in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, where she is also called Kah-tou-mun. The name Colleen just means "girl, maiden" in Gaelic. What would be the equivalent in GAEL-ic? Maybe Zi-oop-hah, which means "young virgin, unmarried woman" or "virgin princess." Closely related to this is Ho-oop-hah, which can mean either generically "princess, queen" or specifically "Queen Kah-tou-mun." A bit roundabout, maybe, but I think there's a link between Colleen and Katumin.

Another name which means "girl" and, while not Gaelic, is thought of as distinctively Scottish, is Lassie. See, among other posts, "Lassie Come Home" and "Lassie and Uncle Balty."