My favorites are six and one.

[rymenhild]

On the twelfth day of Christmas, rymenhild sent to me...

Twelve exegeses drumming

Eleven anonymous piping

Ten libraries a-leaping

Nine yeats dancing

Eight politics a-milking

Seven books a-swimming

Six muppets a-dissertating

Five bu-u-u-uying books

Four rs thomas

Three falsifying statistics

Two magnetic fields

...and a beowulf in a firefly.

Get your own Twelve Days:

Comments

Re: Absolutely Unrelated to This Meme

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I have no objection to off-topic comments in my journal, as long as they're interesting. :D By my definition, comments linking medieval literature to modern fantasy are always on the interesting list.

Old Norse is not, alas, one of my languages, so I did not know that about Har's name, but I can see it. OE heah isn't too far away from har. Hm. I wonder if some of what McKillip is doing is splitting off characteristics and epithets from Odin (and, I wouldn't be surprised, several other figures from several different mythological systems) and assigning them to individual characters. Thus, the High One is not precisely a god in himself, and his land-rulers take on pieces of his function, becoming themselves almost godlike. Also it occurs to me that the role of a land-ruler in itself has to be linked, on some level, to Frazer's dying god-kings.

That was rambly and undirected. I suppose the point is, thank you for sharing your knowledge and thoughts about the texts underlaying the Riddlemaster sequence, and come back again to chat sometime!

Re: Absolutely Unrelated to This Meme

[lwood.livejournal.com]

I am amused at the icon--"The only good language is a dead language", right? My Latin is non-existent, although having studied French helps...

Old Norse is not, alas, one of my languages, so I did not know that about Har's name, but I can see it.

That, and his second-favorite form was a wolf.

Oh, and the King of An favored crows.

All Three Parts of An--the land full of fractious undead--are named after various underworlds. Had you noticed?

I wonder if some of what McKillip is doing is splitting off characteristics and epithets from Odin (and, I wouldn't be surprised, several other figures from several different mythological systems) and assigning them to individual characters.

I would definitely concur with this: Odin, while definitely a Person in his own right, can also be seen as indicative of several archetypes: a shaman-king, a lord of the death and the dead, a wandering wise man, and so on, and the several kings (including the High One) can be seen as employing those specific archetypes more directly.

Also it occurs to me that the role of a land-ruler in itself has to be linked, on some level, to Frazer's dying god-kings.

Absolutely, although in this respect, coming at it from a northerly perspective, I would be more likely to associate the land-law as being fairly well Freyrish, rather than Odinnic.

It is, however, damned cool. 8-)

That was rambly and undirected.

Thus ever passes LiveJournal...

I suppose the point is, thank you for sharing your knowledge and thoughts about the texts underlaying the Riddlemaster sequence, and come back again to chat sometime!

You're welcome!

-- Lorrie