Metafiction, Myth and Language: A World in Words (and Pictures)

 A few thoughts (and collected fragments of research) regarding oral, written, and recorded texts and stories… Whilst the printed text of the Gyldlandsaga can best be described as an ‘epic saga’, I decided to deconstruct the meanings of both those descriptive terms (both of which can also be used as nouns). Namely: epic ( derived from) Epos < L. < Gk. epos = “word, song”; stem of eipein = “say” → early unwritten narrative poetry celebrating incidents of heroic tradition. saga < O. Norse (Icelandic) 2. Partly after G. “sage” – mythical story, handed down by oral tradition; historical or heroic legend. (Source: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3 rd . ed., BCA, 1988). The interesting connection here is the oral nature, or unwritten aspect of [what has become] the text. The origins of the epic are in song – that which is spoken or sung – and numerous references to songcraft are made throughout the text. Several times, Sigfri recites (or sings) to an audience; a

 Managed to find some time today to visit my exhibition space and begin to arrange things. The solid display case has been delivered and I'm thinking now of putting the two largest stones under glass. Will we have a public show of any kind in August? Only time (and the government) will tell, but it's a nice goal to be working towards anyway. In the meantime, the writing of the epic saga continues...

 Family business having delayed development work somewhat, today I got busy again with one of the 'museum exhibit' explanatory printouts - namely, a full list of the Gyldish rune set: This looks like the final version of the runic character set. Having spent several hours yesterday getting the engraved stones up onto the 6th floor of the art school for final display, arranging some pieces of paper for the exhibition ought to be comparatively simple.

 Following on from the abortive attempt at carving the spear-maid/Gerthild design in wood earlier this week, I decided to try it on one of the smaller slabs of sandstone instead. About an hour or so later, I had a rough, usable outline to follow and chisel out deeper: The main problem was getting the image transferred onto the stone. For the first effort , black carbon paper did the trick - but not here. I had to redraw from scratch the loose design, in a 4H pencil, then carefully gouge the line with a small sharpened bradawl. No actual chiselling involved as the lines are too fine and fragile. This will be a problem for the more complex designs, such as the double portrait of Hretha and Maegtha , so I'll need to plan well in advance. The relentless gouging work, whilst saving my joints from impact, will cause a different range of pains and issues to my working hand so I need to limit my time spent on this over the coming weekend. As well as, I assume, consider how much of this kin

 Getting back into serious work has been hard the past few days, but last night and this afternoon saw progress on the Gyldland Runic alphabet. First, the usable alphabet had to be defined - no Q, V, X, J or Z; no P (many words starting with 'P' in OE are Latin loan-words, and I wanted each Rune's name to have the initial letter which it represented), with additional characters for the 'specials', namely 'ash', and 'eth/thorn'. I set the six prime deities as the first six characters in the 'alphabet', with the others more or less randomly ordered as follows: So some slight modifications there from the first rough draft, with a couple of alternatives as well for good measure. This Rune system is clearly showing its pictographic origins, with one of my favourites being the 'B' - boda , = 'messenger', i.e raven. The Germanic reference there for readers ought to be clear enough (cf. Hugin and Munin). Also began a basic numbering s

 Yesterday's first tentative step into defining the Gyldland Runic alphabet - now literally carved in stone - got me motivated to scribble down the foundations for a full set. (Of course the set need not be complete and accurate, given that researchers and archaeologists - of fictional civilizations as well as real ones - can only analyze what they have found to date, and so different inscriptions from different times will no doubt have variations on the 'basic' set). Because so much quasi-mystical nonsense has been written about Runes in recent times, I actually have very few texts pertaining to them specifically, but drew inspiration from the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem (in 'Anglo-Saxon Mythology, Migration and Magic' by Tony Linsell), Rudolf Koch's 'The Book of Signs' and Maria Carmela Betro's 'Hieroglyphics: the Writings of Ancient Egypt' in creating a rough selection of individual symbols - some of which clearly still resemble their earlier, p

With a new 6" x 1/2" stone chisel on its way to me, today I earmarked a few good, flat stones for practice. The plan is simply to trace and then inscribe a few basic example designs representative of the 'later period' of civilisation in my world:   namely, a couple of the simpler, less cursive designs, such as the raven forms of Hrefni: I should also start to think about the form of writing which might be in use as well - despite some vague ideas of how the Gyldland runes might differ from real-world Norse and Saxon types, I've yet to come up witjh something resembling a developed alphabet or set of characters. I wonder if they should differ much at all? After all, the various futharks exist in several forms, and I do use a plethora of words derived not only from OE sources but Norse as well. However, the opportunity is there to come up with something distinctive and suggestive of the people and their character, rather than just straight copying what is in effe

  While reading through N.K. Sandars' Prehistoric Art in Europe has so far been hugely stimulating, as previously posted, the above page in particular drew a number of things to my attention: considerations of different forms of representation, in this case, the geometric, even abstract, depiction of universality of form; but also the idea of finger-art, which may be the oldest form of sentient art imaginable, if we consider an appendage tracing hesitantly in sand, clay or snow - an action which is, in the poem, defined as the origin of the written form of the Rockcats' language, Sli'ith, and its cursive nature (which, visually, is suggestive of Arabic script): "Few men could write, but Rockcats long recorded words in their tongue, Sli'ith; and unlike rigid runes, their writing flowed in curling twists and tails, for once they wrote their words in sand, when on the coast of Kren they stood; a new-born people, elder tribe; those ancient days when all were one."