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Beginning-II

Beginning II


The text continues from the previous scroll.


The Guild-còunſil of Judges

The preſession continues, with the Lõrds and Ladies of Åsamandó trailing clösely behind the Great Chief

6:1 - Following Ûmvélinqängi Paramount in the sombre train of the Elders, came the four and seven Judges of Åsamandó, and these walked ahead of the custödian of their Guild. The Three carried each a finely cärved two-headed wooden gavel in their right hand. The Seven bõre a stäff of pôwer in their left, the heads of which were cärved in the shape of a screeching ôwl, and their staves were wrõught from end to end in symböls of ärcane meaning.

6:2 - The Leader of the Judges is he who prönòunces The Last Judgement, the Lords' Elder Chieftain: the Öne who presides över Indabas, who is named Kalünga, and also Eita or Áïdi, The Lõrd of the Wealth of the Umóyar: he who divides the põrtions. His queen is Ánänsí, the Spider-woman, who is named grandmother to the Umóyar. Of thöse beneath the Chief, Kalünga perceives her mind möst clearly.

6:3 - Kalünga of Åsamandó: The Doomspeaker of Ûmvélinqängi, öpeneth the mòuth of the wõrd of the Páramòunt Chief. Sö too, he öpeneth the door to the Savannah of the Dead

6:4 - And his raiment was dark grey, and a black veil covered his face, fõr he is never seen by thöse who live.

6:5 - Now all the Great Öld Önes here named are deep in the còunſil of Grandmother Ánänsí, and through them, all tales are brõught from their beginnings to their ends.

The Dreamers and Diviners

7:1 - Trailing the The High Judges of the Chief are the Höst of Diviners. These are the Dreamers of the Chief, who, wõrking together, are the Fortune-tellers of the Ûmländó of Ûmvélinqängi. These great of the tribe are accompanied by Imäna, Chief of Wõrd and Breathe, without whose presence there is önly Silence.

7:2 - But for Imäna, the höst of Diviners are all asleep, and are bõrne aloft by the silent acölytes of their Guild upon small rafts, held above them. Richly adõrned are the Dreamers themselves, their beadwork shining like lanterns upon the currents and the eddies of the ſelestial River.

7:3 - Now Mother Ánänsí is the first wife of Kalünga, and she is the Öwner of All Stõries, and Head-mistress of the Spinners and Weavers. And She follöwed behind the train of the Diviners, gently flöating upon waving locks of her boundless black and silver hair. Ánänsí, the Great Grandmother, carries with her The Stöne of Heaven, from which she reads the ever-changing Shape of the Stõry. But the Stöne is veiled, for it is dangerous and forbidden for any other but Ánänsí to perceive it's true form. Some say hòwever, that her youngest daughter, against the ban of her mother, had looked upon it once by chance, and that this was the reason for her fey demeanor, and her wild and unending spinning dance.

7:4 - The three daughters of Ánänsí are the high-priestesses of the conclave of Ayanmó, beneath the banner of the Needle-point, and they wõrk accõrding to the directions of their Madam.

7:5 - Now only this once would these Great Önes travel the twisting circle of the celestial regions - Dreamers, Diviners, and the Weavers alike - and they observed all, and heard all that was said, and locked away the memõries of these things...

7:6 - ...for beyond the grand proſession - and the happenings that were to take place thereafter - never again would they leave their appointed place of tóil beneath the Great Root of the Tree of Life - the planting of which they knew the heavenly preſession foreböded - and from which the echöes of the pröſession would bud like flowers eternal.


The Spinners and Weavers

The Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone; The craftswomen of the Great Web

8:1 - ...Those gloomy ones that aid Ánänsí with her weaving were there behind, her offspring: thöse to whom all chief tasks of spinning and threading and bead-wõrk are given: be they the földing of tales of wild fancy, or grave accòunts of glõrious deeds; of matters of binding öath; ...of necessities, and thöse unto the very Dooms of Fate.

8:2 - These three, gossamer-veiled, by the direction of the Spider Woman, are given unto the manufacture of the raiment of the gods and the decõrations of their dwellings - and indeed the chief tasks for which they had been appointed: the spinning of the bead-work and còuntless embróideries of the manse of the Chief. Upon these illustrious fields are wöven the secret names of each of the Umóyar of the Heavenly Kraal, and of thöse without.

8:3 - And sö too the Gloomy Önes weave the webs of the dwelling of Kalünga in the Halls of Åsamandó, the place assigned for the recòunting, as they are fulfilled, of the histõries of the Kingdoms of Aarde not yet founded, of the sòuls that fõrge them, and fall under them, and of those that will bring them to ruin. Great wisdöm is given to them, and their wõrks speak önly of things that have been, things that are, õr of things that will be.

8:4 - Each of three spinners has a pärt in the making of the Great Web: the youngest wildly spins out her shadöwy silks; her mother doth measure òut the spans and loops the beads; while the eldest, a haggard and ancient cröne, severs the silken cõrds with her chattering teeth. Ceaseless they wõrk, and this wõrk all the Umóyar revere, and even fear, for through the weave of these great Pôwers, the fates of gods and men are wròught and clösed.

8:5 - Höwever, throughòut all the ages mortal men have essayed to bend and wàrp the weft of their wõrk, and some tales speak indeed of rare success.

8:6 - And sö it is that the ancient sècrets of the reckless Thakathi - the wizards and enchanters of men, they that traffick in the lõre and pôwer of the heavens and the hells - would come within the grasp of every commoner in the latest days... and once-veiled symböls of binding and cõrruption came to be tightly wöven and garishly visible within every dwelling place - these nôw are the needlework of every deed of man.

8:7- But Kalünga öpens the wõrds of Ûmvélinqängi, and each ones' place in the web is revealed in the end.

[...]

The scrolls continue here.


Translated from the remnant writings of Örpherischt, themselves apparently copies of the recovered nötes of an ancient sage, whose name is fõrgotten, evidently an amateur scholar of the syncretic mythologies of the 6th Age.


Notes:

7:1, Silence: for if a dream cannot be spoken, it cannot then be told.


This text archived here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/GeometersOfHistory/wiki/tales/beginningii

... and originally presented here:

https://old.reddit.com/r/southafrica/comments/els4r6/beginning_ii/