classes ::: Being, noun,
children :::
branches ::: magician

bookmarks: Instances - Definitions - Quotes - Chapters - Wordnet - Webgen


object:magician
class:Being
word class:noun

see also :::

questions, comments, suggestions/feedback, take-down requests, contribute, etc
contact me @ integralyogin@gmail.com or
join the integral discord server (chatrooms)
if the page you visited was empty, it may be noted and I will try to fill it out. cheers



now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
Al-Fihrist
A_Treatise_on_Cosmic_Fire
Blazing_the_Trail_from_Infancy_to_Enlightenment
Full_Circle
Initiation_Into_Hermetics
My_Burning_Heart
Savitri
the_Book
The_Golden_Bough
The_Red_Book_-_Liber_Novus
The_Republic
The_Yoga_Sutras
Three_Books_on_Occult_Philosophy
Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.06_-_Magicians_as_Kings
4.05_-_THE_MAGICIAN

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.00_-_The_Book_of_Lies_Text
01.03_-_The_Yoga_of_the_King_-_The_Yoga_of_the_Souls_Release
01.05_-_The_Yoga_of_the_King_-_The_Yoga_of_the_Spirits_Freedom_and_Greatness
01.13_-_T._S._Eliot:_Four_Quartets
0_1961-03-21
0_1961-04-22
0_1963-07-06
02.03_-_The_Glory_and_the_Fall_of_Life
02.06_-_The_Kingdoms_and_Godheads_of_the_Greater_Life
02.09_-_The_Paradise_of_the_Life-Gods
02.10_-_The_Kingdoms_and_Godheads_of_the_Little_Mind
02.14_-_Appendix
04.09_-_Values_Higher_and_Lower
05.01_-_The_Destined_Meeting-Place
06.02_-_The_Way_of_Fate_and_the_Problem_of_Pain
10.01_-_A_Dream
1.00b_-_Introduction
1.00d_-_Introduction
1.00_-_Introduction_to_Alchemy_of_Happiness
1.01_-_About_the_Elements
1.01_-_Archetypes_of_the_Collective_Unconscious
1.01_-_Fundamental_Considerations
1.01_-_Historical_Survey
1.01_-_What_is_Magick?
1.02_-_Priestly_Kings
1.02_-_The_Magic_Circle
1.03_-_Preparing_for_the_Miraculous
1.03_-_Sympathetic_Magic
1.03_-_The_Tale_of_the_Alchemist_Who_Sold_His_Soul
1.04_-_Magic_and_Religion
1.04_-_Reality_Omnipresent
1.04_-_The_Divine_Mother_-_This_Is_She
1.04_-_The_Paths
1.05_-_On_the_Love_of_God.
1.05_-_THE_HOSTILE_BROTHERS_-_ARCHETYPES_OF_RESPONSE_TO_THE_UNKNOWN
1.05_-_The_Magical_Control_of_the_Weather
1.06_-_Dhyana
1.06_-_Magicians_as_Kings
1.06_-_The_Literal_Qabalah
1.06_-_The_Three_Schools_of_Magick_1
1.07_-_Incarnate_Human_Gods
1.07_-_The_Magic_Wand
1.07_-_THE_MASTER_AND_VIJAY_GOSWAMI
1.083_-_Choosing_an_Object_for_Concentration
1.08a_-_The_Ladder
1.08_-_Departmental_Kings_of_Nature
1.08_-_The_Magic_Sword,_Dagger_and_Trident
1.09_-_The_Crown,_Cap,_Magus-Band
1.09_-_The_Guardian_of_the_Threshold
1.09_-_The_Secret_Chiefs
11.01_-_The_Eternal_Day__The_Souls_Choice_and_the_Supreme_Consummation
1.10_-_Harmony
1.10_-_The_Magical_Garment
1.11_-_The_Kalki_Avatar
1.11_-_The_Magical_Belt
1.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.12_-_Further_Magical_Aids
1.12_-_The_Astral_Plane
1.12_-_The_Left-Hand_Path_-_The_Black_Brothers
1.12_-_The_Superconscient
1.13_-_System_of_the_O.T.O.
1.13_-_The_Divine_Maya
1.13_-_The_Pentacle,_Lamen_or_Seal
1.14_-_INSTRUCTION_TO_VAISHNAVS_AND_BRHMOS
1.14_-_The_Book_of_Magic_Formulae
1.15_-_In_the_Domain_of_the_Spirit_Beings
1.15_-_Sex_Morality
1.16_-_Advantages_and_Disadvantages_of_Evocational_Magic
1.16_-_Dianus_and_Diana
1.16_-_Religion
1.16_-_The_Process_of_Avatarhood
1.16_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.17_-_God
1.17_-_The_Spiritus_Familiaris_or_Serving_Spirits
1.17_-_The_Transformation
1.18_-_Asceticism
1.18_-_Evocation
1.18_-_The_Perils_of_the_Soul
1.19_-_The_Practice_of_Magical_Evocation
12.09_-_The_Story_of_Dr._Faustus_Retold
1.20_-_RULES_FOR_HOUSEHOLDERS_AND_MONKS
1.20_-_Talismans_-_The_Lamen_-_The_Pantacle
1.21_-_Tabooed_Things
1.22_-_Tabooed_Words
1.23_-_FESTIVAL_AT_SURENDRAS_HOUSE
1.23_-_Improvising_a_Temple
1.25_-_ADVICE_TO_PUNDIT_SHASHADHAR
1.25_-_SPIRITUAL_EXERCISES
1.26_-_Sacrifice_of_the_Kings_Son
1.28_-_Supermind,_Mind_and_the_Overmind_Maya
1.29_-_What_is_Certainty?
1.31_-_Is_Thelema_a_New_Religion?
1.38_-_Woman_-_Her_Magical_Formula
1.39_-_Prophecy
1.40_-_The_Nature_of_Osiris
1.50_-_Eating_the_God
1.56_-_The_Public_Expulsion_of_Evils
1.60_-_Between_Heaven_and_Earth
1.66_-_The_External_Soul_in_Folk-Tales
1.67_-_The_External_Soul_in_Folk-Custom
1.68_-_The_Golden_Bough
1.76_-_The_Gods_-_How_and_Why_they_Overlap
1.79_-_Progress
1.83_-_Epistola_Ultima
1914_03_19p
1955-08-03_-_Nothing_is_impossible_in_principle_-_Psychic_contact_and_psychic_influence_-_Occult_powers,_adverse_influences;_magic_-_Magic,_occultism_and_Yogic_powers_-Hypnotism_and_its_effects
1957-06-26_-_Birth_through_direct_transmutation_-_Man_and_woman_-_Judging_others_-_divine_Presence_in_all_-_New_birth
1969_12_09
1.ami_-_To_the_Saqi_(from_Baal-i-Jibreel)
1f.lovecraft_-_He
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Case_of_Charles_Dexter_Ward
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Shadow_out_of_Time
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Thing_on_the_Doorstep
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Trap
1f.lovecraft_-_Two_Black_Bottles
1f.lovecraft_-_Under_the_Pyramids
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_III
1.jk_-_The_Cap_And_Bells;_Or,_The_Jealousies_-_A_Faery_Tale_.._Unfinished
1.jwvg_-_The_Pupil_In_Magic
1.kbr_-_He's_That_Rascally_Kind_Of_Yogi
1.kbr_-_Hes_that_rascally_kind_of_yogi
1.pbs_-_Alastor_-_or,_the_Spirit_of_Solitude
1.rwe_-_Monadnoc
2.01_-_Indeterminates,_Cosmic_Determinations_and_the_Indeterminable
2.01_-_The_Road_of_Trials
2.01_-_The_Temple
2.02_-_Brahman,_Purusha,_Ishwara_-_Maya,_Prakriti,_Shakti
2.02_-_The_Circle
2.02_-_The_Ishavasyopanishad_with_a_commentary_in_English
2.03_-_The_Altar
2.03_-_THE_ENIGMA_OF_BOLOGNA
2.03_-_THE_MASTER_IN_VARIOUS_MOODS
2.04_-_The_Scourge,_the_Dagger_and_the_Chain
2.05_-_Apotheosis
2.05_-_The_Holy_Oil
2.06_-_The_Wand
2.06_-_Two_Tales_of_Seeking_and_Losing
2.07_-_The_Cup
2.07_-_The_Knowledge_and_the_Ignorance
2.08_-_Memory,_Self-Consciousness_and_the_Ignorance
2.08_-_The_Sword
2.09_-_The_Pantacle
2.10_-_The_Lamp
2.11_-_The_Crown
2.12_-_The_Robe
2.13_-_On_Psychology
2.13_-_The_Book
2.13_-_THE_MASTER_AT_THE_HOUSES_OF_BALARM_AND_GIRISH
2.14_-_AT_RAMS_HOUSE
2.14_-_The_Bell
2.15_-_The_Lamen
2.16_-_The_Magick_Fire
2.18_-_SRI_RAMAKRISHNA_AT_SYAMPUKUR
2.19_-_THE_MASTER_AND_DR._SARKAR
2.24_-_The_Message_of_the_Gita
2.25_-_List_of_Topics_in_Each_Talk
2_-_Other_Hymns_to_Agni
3.00_-_Introduction
3.00_-_The_Magical_Theory_of_the_Universe
30.16_-_Tagore_the_Unique
3.01_-_The_Principles_of_Ritual
3.02_-_The_Formulae_of_the_Elemental_Weapons
3.04_-_The_Formula_of_ALHIM
3.05_-_The_Formula_of_I.A.O.
3.06_-_The_Formula_of_The_Neophyte
3.07_-_The_Formula_of_the_Holy_Grail
3.08_-_Of_Equilibrium
3.09_-_Of_Silence_and_Secrecy
3.09_-_The_Return_of_the_Soul
3.10_-_Of_the_Gestures
3.11_-_Of_Our_Lady_Babalon
3.12_-_Of_the_Bloody_Sacrifice
3.13_-_Of_the_Banishings
3.14_-_Of_the_Consecrations
3.15_-_Of_the_Invocation
3.16.1_-_Of_the_Oath
3.16.2_-_Of_the_Charge_of_the_Spirit
3.16_-_THE_SEVEN_SEALS_OR_THE_YES_AND_AMEN_SONG
3.17_-_Of_the_License_to_Depart
3.18_-_Of_Clairvoyance_and_the_Body_of_Light
3.19_-_Of_Dramatic_Rituals
3.20_-_Of_the_Eucharist
3.21_-_Of_Black_Magic
33.13_-_My_Professors
3.4.02_-_The_Inconscient
3.7.1.02_-_The_Reincarnating_Soul
3.7.1.03_-_Rebirth,_Evolution,_Heredity
4.03_-_THE_TRANSFORMATION_OF_THE_KING
4.04_-_Conclusion
4.05_-_THE_MAGICIAN
4.06_-_RETIRED
4.1.01_-_The_Intellect_and_Yoga
4.11_-_THE_WELCOME
4.14_-_THE_SONG_OF_MELANCHOLY
4.15_-_ON_SCIENCE
4.16_-_AMONG_DAUGHTERS_OF_THE_WILDERNESS
4.17_-_THE_AWAKENING
4.18_-_THE_ASS_FESTIVAL
4.2.5_-_Dealing_with_Depression_and_Despondency
4.2_-_Karma
4.42_-_Chapter_Two
5.1.01.1_-_The_Book_of_the_Herald
5.4.02_-_Occult_Powers_or_Siddhis
5_-_The_Phenomenology_of_the_Spirit_in_Fairytales
6.07_-_THE_MONOCOLUS
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
Aeneid
APPENDIX_I_-_Curriculum_of_A._A.
Avatars_of_the_Tortoise
Blazing_P2_-_Map_the_Stages_of_Conventional_Consciousness
Blazing_P3_-_Explore_the_Stages_of_Postconventional_Consciousness
BOOK_II._--_PART_I._ANTHROPOGENESIS.
BOOK_II._--_PART_III._ADDENDA._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
BOOK_II._--_PART_II._THE_ARCHAIC_SYMBOLISM_OF_THE_WORLD-RELIGIONS
BOOK_I._--_PART_I._COSMIC_EVOLUTION
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
BOOK_I._--_PART_II._THE_EVOLUTION_OF_SYMBOLISM_IN_ITS_APPROXIMATE_ORDER
Book_of_Exodus
Book_of_Genesis
Book_of_Imaginary_Beings_(text)
BOOK_VIII._-_Some_account_of_the_Socratic_and_Platonic_philosophy,_and_a_refutation_of_the_doctrine_of_Apuleius_that_the_demons_should_be_worshipped_as_mediators_between_gods_and_men
BOOK_X._-_Porphyrys_doctrine_of_redemption
BOOK_XVIII._-_A_parallel_history_of_the_earthly_and_heavenly_cities_from_the_time_of_Abraham_to_the_end_of_the_world
BOOK_XXI._-_Of_the_eternal_punishment_of_the_wicked_in_hell,_and_of_the_various_objections_urged_against_it
Chapter_III_-_WHEREIN_IS_RELATED_THE_DROLL_WAY_IN_WHICH_DON_QUIXOTE_HAD_HIMSELF_DUBBED_A_KNIGHT
Chapter_II_-_WHICH_TREATS_OF_THE_FIRST_SALLY_THE_INGENIOUS_DON_QUIXOTE_MADE_FROM_HOME
ENNEAD_04.04_-_Questions_About_the_Soul.
ENNEAD_06.05_-_The_One_and_Identical_Being_is_Everywhere_Present_In_Its_Entirety.345
Gods_Script
Liber
Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI
Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries
Liber_71_-_The_Voice_of_the_Silence_-_The_Two_Paths_-_The_Seven_Portals
Liber_MMM
LUX.01_-_GNOSIS
LUX.02_-_EVOCATION
LUX.03_-_INVOCATION
LUX.04_-_LIBERATION
LUX.05_-_AUGOEIDES
LUX.06_-_DIVINATION
LUX.07_-_ENCHANTMENT
Meno
MMM.01_-_MIND_CONTROL
MMM.02_-_MAGIC
MMM.03_-_DREAMING
P.11_-_MAGICAL_WEAPONS
Sophist
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
The_Book_of_Certitude_-_P2
The_Divine_Names_Text_(Dionysis)
The_Dwellings_of_the_Philosophers
The_Logomachy_of_Zos
The_Riddle_of_this_World
The_Shadow_Out_Of_Time

PRIMARY CLASS

Being
SIMILAR TITLES
1 - the Magician
magician

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

magician ::: 1. A person who is skilled in magic; sorcerer. 2. A person who has extraordinary skill, influence, or qualities. magician"s, Magician, Magician"s, World-Magician"s.

magician ::: Magician Someone who is skilled in the mysterious and hidden art of magick, with the ability to attain objectives, acquire knowledge, and perform 'works of wonder' using supernatural or non-rational means. Some of the more modern magicians, such as Aleister Crowley and those who follow the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the Ordo Templi Orientis, describe magick in rational terms, using definitions (meanings of words, terms or phrases), postulates (starting assumptions from which other statements are logically derived) and theorems (statements which can be proved on the basis of explicitly stated or previously agreed assumptions).

magician ::: n. --> One skilled in magic; one who practices the black art; an enchanter; a necromancer; a sorcerer or sorceress; a conjurer.

Magician ::: A practitioner of magic.

Magician: A practitioner of the magic arts.

Magician's universe(represented by Saturn, 3) by the Hermetic Light (8).


TERMS ANYWHERE

ABC of the Devil: Handwritten books for the use of magicians and sorcerers.

abracadabra ::: Abracadabra The word 'abracadabra' is generally known as 'the magic word' used by stage conjurers to ensure their 'magic trick' or illusion worked. However, it is a word of true ancient origin, used by real magicians from around the 3rd century AD. It appears frequently in Kabbalistic and Gnostic texts, and derives from an Aramaic phrase (Avarah K'Davarah), which means 'I will create as I speak'. Aramaic is a northwest Semitic language, closely related to Hebrew, dating from the 9th century BC. Its 'square' script replaced the archaic Hebrew script, which by the time of Jesus had become the normal script for writing in Hebrew. It was widely used in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Persians extending its use to India, central Asia, and Asia Minor.

abyss ::: Abyss In Ritual Magick and Kabbalah, the Abyss is the divide between individual ego-consciousness and Cosmic consciousness (enlightenment). In Kabbalah, it is the divide between the Supernal and the lower Sephiroth, i.e. the divide between the higher and lower states of existence. The serpent Choronzon is the 'dweller' in the abyss, the final great obstacle between the magician and true enlightenment. See Oath of the Abyss for further details.

Amal: “‘The eternal Thaumaturge’ is the supreme magician.”

Amal: “The reference is to the Mind in its own realm where it dominates both Life and Matter and does all sorts of wonderful things, drawing its strength from the Divine Power who is called ‘the World-Magician’.

amulet ::: Amulet From the Latin 'amuletum', meaning an object that protects a person from trouble, an amulet is generally an object worn around the neck, which has been charged with the magician's personal energies through ritual or meditation, often used to ward off a particular evil force. See also Talisman.

Ananda Metteyya. (1872-1923). Ordination name of the British Buddhist monk, born Charles Henry Allen Bennett. He was the son of an electrical engineer and studied science in his youth. In 1894, he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a society devoted to esotericism, whence he gained a reputation as a magician and miracle worker, becoming the friend and teacher of Aleister Crowley. He became interested in Buddhism from reading EDWIN ARNOLD's The Light of Asia. In 1900, he traveled to Asia, both because of his interest in Buddhism and his hope of relieving his asthma. Bennett was ordained as a Buddhist novice (sRAMAnERA) in Akyab, Burma, in 1901 and received the higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) as a monk (BHIKsU) in 1902. He was among the first Englishmen to be ordained as a bhikkhu, after Gordon Douglas (Bhikkhu Asoka), who was ordained in 1899 and the Irish monk U Dhammaloka, who was ordained some time prior to 1899. In 1903, he founded the International Buddhist Society (Buddhasasana Samagama) in Rangoon. Ananda Metteya led the first Buddhist mission to Britain with his patroness Hla Oung in 1908. In the previous year, in preparation for their visit, the Buddhist Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established, with THOMAS W. RHYS DAVIDS as president. He returned to Rangoon after six months. Plagued throughout his life with asthma, he disrobed in 1914 due to ill health and returned to England, where he continued his work to propagate Buddhism. Partly due to increasing drug dependency prompted by continuing medical treatments, he passed his final years in poverty. His published works include An Outline of Buddhism and The Wisdom of the Aryas.

and magician.

archimagus ::: n. --> The high priest of the Persian Magi, or worshipers of fire.
A great magician, wizard, or enchanter.


As opposed to black, it mystically signifies pure and good: for example, white magician or white magic.

Augur: A magician-priest of ancient Rome who predicted the future by the flight of birds.

Babel (Hebrew) Bābāh The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine. The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven. The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc’s egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.

baphomet ::: Baphomet Supposedly the legendary God of the Knights Templar, the Baphomet was first drawn by the Ritual magician Eliphas Lvi. Some are of the opinion that the name derives from the Arabic 'Mahomet', while others believe it is a Kabbalistic cipher for Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom.

bell ::: Bell A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See magical Weapons.

Bewitchment: An evil spell cast, or an illness caused, by a witch, sorcerer or black magician.

Birraark: A mediumistic magician of certain tribes of Australian aborigines, specializing in communicating with the “ghosts” of the dead.

Black Magicians. See MAGIC

blackmagick ::: Black Magick Magick performed with the intent to harm someone or property, or to force someone to act against his or her will. It is supposedly avoided and even spurned by Wiccans, as well as most Satanists and Ritual Magicians.

magician ::: 1. A person who is skilled in magic; sorcerer. 2. A person who has extraordinary skill, influence, or qualities. magician"s, Magician, Magician"s, World-Magician"s.

magician ::: Magician Someone who is skilled in the mysterious and hidden art of magick, with the ability to attain objectives, acquire knowledge, and perform 'works of wonder' using supernatural or non-rational means. Some of the more modern magicians, such as Aleister Crowley and those who follow the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or the Ordo Templi Orientis, describe magick in rational terms, using definitions (meanings of words, terms or phrases), postulates (starting assumptions from which other statements are logically derived) and theorems (statements which can be proved on the basis of explicitly stated or previously agreed assumptions).

magician ::: n. --> One skilled in magic; one who practices the black art; an enchanter; a necromancer; a sorcerer or sorceress; a conjurer.

Brother(s) of the Shadow ::: A term given in occultism and especially in modern esotericism to individuals, whether men or women,who follow the path of the shadows, the left-hand path. The term "shadow" is a technical expression andsignifies more than appears on the surface: i.e., the expression is not to be understood of individuals wholive in actual physical obscurity or actual physical shadows, which literalism would be simply absurd;but applies to those who follow the path of matter, which from time immemorial in the esoteric schoolsin both Orient and Occident has frequently been called shadow or shadows. The term originally arose,without doubt, in the philosophical conception of the word maya, for in early Oriental esotericism maya,and more especially maha-maya, was a term applied in one of its many philosophical meanings to thatwhich was contrary to and, indeed, in one sense a reflection of, light. Just as spirit may be considered tobe pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadowworld or vehicular world in which the energy or spirit or pure light works, just so is maya, as the garmentor expression or sakti of the divine energy, the vehicle or shadow of the divine side of nature, in otherwords its negative or nether pole, as light is the upper or positive pole.The Brothers of the Shadow are therefore those who, being essentially of the nature of matter,instinctively choose and follow the path along which they are most strongly drawn, that is, the path ofmatter or of the shadows. When it is recollected that matter is but a generalizing term, and that what thisterm comprises actually includes an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from thegrossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, weimmediately see the subtle logic of this technical term -- shadows or, more fully, the Path of theShadows, hence the Brothers of the Shadow.They are the so-called black magicians of the Occident, and stand in sharp and notable contrast with thewhite magicians or the Sons of Light who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice,self-conquest, perfect self-control, and an expansion of the heart and mind and consciousness in love andservice for all that lives. (See also Right-hand Path)The existence and aims of the Brothers of the Shadow are essentially selfish. It is commonly, buterroneously, supposed that the Brothers of the Shadow are men and women always of unpleasant ordispleasing personal appearance, and no greater error than this could possibly be made. Multitudes ofhuman beings are unconsciously treading the path of the shadows and, in comparison with thesemultitudes, it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and nefastintelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highlyintellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to theordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to "quotescripture" as are the Angels of Light!

Calendar A formal table of time measures based on the motions of the heavenly bodies. Where esoteric knowledge is intact, these cyclic motions and the periods they mark are inseparably connected with all other parts of the esoteric system. Nowadays, the original calendars having been lost and reconstructed for purely civil or ecclesiastical purposes, they have no other significance. But formerly they likewise indicated the courses of cosmic evolution and the succession of human races. The Surya-Siddhanta gives the number of revolutions of the planets in 4,320,000 years, among other such data; and the work itself claims to be the result of observation over an immensely long period, based on a knowledge of the mathematics underlying the cosmic and terrestrial cycles. This calendar or astronomical-astrological work claims to be the original production of the Atlantean astronomer and magician Asuramaya.

Chaldeans, Chaldees To the seventh subrace of the third root-race belong the far-distant predecessors of the Mystery school; and to now forgotten geologic history the predecessors of those later called Chaldees, along with Hindu, Egyptian, Persian, and Phoenician sages. In their records are mentioned divine dynasties preceding the human kings, and the cycle of 432,000 years. From them came the origins of all such thoughts as are contained in the occult Nabathean Agriculture, and in their ancient records is found the source of the original Biblical cosmogonic allegories. The mathematical and astronomical lore of the Chaldeans was celebrated in all the ancient Mediterranean world: the word Chaldee often meant simply an adept, magician, or astrologer. In the Bible they are usually spoken of as Babylonians.

chalice ::: Chalice A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See magical Weapons. The ritual chalice originated in the Catholic Mass, where wine is ritually transformed into the blood of Christ. It is a tool used in Ceremonial/Ritual Magick and Wiccan ceremonies. It relates to 'cups' in the Tarot deck, and the watery signs of the Zodiac.

charmer ::: n. --> One who charms, or has power to charm; one who uses the power of enchantment; a magician.
One who delights and attracts the affections.


choronzon ::: Choronzon The serpent Choronzon is the 'dweller' in the Abyss, the final great obstacle between the magician and true enlightenment. Choronzon is known as the 'Demon of Dispersion', and described by Crowley as "a temporary personification of the raving and inconsistent forces that occupy the Abyss." The name Choronzon has been popularised by Aleister Crowley, but it first occurred in the Enochian records of John Dee, where he is synonymous with the serpent of the garden. See also Oath of the Abyss for further details.

circle ::: Circle Used in Ritual Magick and Wicca, the circle is the sacred space defined prior to performing a Magical Ritual. In Ritual Magick the circle is used to create a protected space for the magician, normally during evocation of a spirit; a Wiccan/Neopagan circle is used to define a ritual space to protect those within from negative influences. Casting the circle refers to the ritual creation of the magical circle, usually with a consecrated knife or sword.

Conjuror: A sorcerer or black magician.

Crystal Wavers: "New Age" magicians who have no understanding of real magic.

Dactyli, Dactyls (Greek) [from daktylos finger] Fingers; in Greek mythology, the smith said to have first discovered and worked copper and iron, and to have introduced music and rhythm into Greece. Also a name for the Phrygian Hierophants of Rhea Cybele, said to be magicians, exorcists, and healers. Five or ten in number, as the number of the fingers, they have been identified with the Corybantes — priests of Atys, the youth beloved by Cybele — with the Curetes, Telchines, and others, all of which have also been connected with the kabiri. But the kabiri were the manus, rishis, and dhyani-chohans who incarnated in the elect of the third root-race and earliest part of the fourth root-race. Since the structure of the higher planes is reflected in the lower, all these names can also stand for terrestrial powers and their hierophants, according to the rites peculiar to various countries. They have been connected with the Pelasgian masonry (SD 2:345); but, like the cyclopes they were masons in more senses than one.

Dactyls: Legendary magicians, soothsayers and occult healers, who spread from ancient Phrygia to Italy, Crete and Greece.

dagger">Dagger A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See Magical Weapons.

  “Daksha typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, still devoid of an individual Ego, and having merely the passive capacities. Brahma, therefore, commands him to create (in the exoteric texts; when, obeying the command, he made ‘inferior and superior’ (avara and vara) progeny (putra), Bipeds and quadrupeds; and by his will gave birth to females. . . . to the gods, the Daityas (giants of the Fourth Race), the snake-gods, animals, cattle and the Danavas (Titans and demon Magicians) and other beings.

Danava(s) (Sanskrit) Dānava-s Children of Danu (or Danayu) and Kasyapa, often identified with the daityas and asuras, and held to be enemies of the gods or devas. The titans and demon-magicians of the fourth root-race, almost identical with the daityas or giants and irreconcilable opponents of those groups of the fourth root-race who were the upholders of ritualism and idol-worship.

demogorgon ::: n. --> A mysterious, terrible, and evil divinity, regarded by some as the author of creation, by others as a great magician who was supposed to command the spirits of the lower world. See Gorgon.

Dragon of Wisdom Commonly an adept, one of the wise; also popularly a skilled magician — whether of the right or left path. Referring to the earliest stages of cosmogony, dragon is a term often used for the sun in its various cosmologic functions, also for the One or Logos. An important significance of the phrase is that the real initiator of humanity, or of the individual neophyte, is the person’s own higher ego.

Drought, Drouth A cyclic condition of the earth’s astral light reacting upon the atmosphere and cooperating with other meteorological causes bringing about periods of dryness over larger or smaller portions of the earth; in extreme form, it brings about a state of periodic ekpyrosis or burning, resulting in the reduction of fertile areas into deserts. The opposite of this condition, resulting in extraordinary rains and floods of longer duration, and sometimes extending over wide surfaces of the earth, is called cataclysm. The dragon is said by the Chinese to be able to affect climate, producing droughts, rain, etc., a direct reference to the astral light in its cyclic workings upon earth; in history, the human application of the dragon is made to magicians of the fourth or early fifth root-race. Samael, Satan, or the Red Dragon, the Simoom, and the Vedic Vritra are drought producers, as is the Babylonian Tiamat, the dragon slain by Bel or by Merodach.

Druids: Priest-magicians of the early Celts.

enchanter ::: n. --> One who enchants; a sorcerer or magician; also, one who delights as by an enchantment.

evocation ::: Evocation Unlike what happens with invocation, involving a calling in, evocation involves a calling forth, most commonly into what is called the Triangle of Art. Aleister Crowley explains the distinct difference between invocation and evocation as such: "To 'invoke' is to call in, just as to evoke is to call forth. This is the essential difference between the two branches of magick. In invocation, the macrocosm floods the consciousness. In evocation, the magician, having become the macrocosm, creates a microcosm. You invoke a God into the Circle. You evoke a Spirit into the Triangle of Art."

Exuvial magic: A form of contagious magic (q.v.) in which severed parts of the body of an intended victim (nail parings, strands of hair, etc.) are used by a black magician.

Familiar: A spirit who accompanies, and often helps, a magician, sorcerer or witch.

Fang shih: Chinese for man with formulae. A primitive Chinese priest-magician.

Fang shih: "Scholars with formulae," or priests and magicians who flourished in the Ch'in and Han dynasties (249 B.C-220 A.D.) and who offered divination, magic, herbs, charms, alchemy, breath technique, and other crafts (fang shu) and superstitions in terms of Yin Yang and Taoist philosophies, as means to immortality, inward power, restored youth, and superhuman ability. -- W.T.C.

Fotudeng. [alt. Fotucheng] (J. Butsutocho/Buttocho; K. Pultojing 佛圖澄) (232-348). A monk and thaumaturge, perhaps from the Central Asian kingdom of KUCHA, who was a pioneer in the transmission of Buddhism to China. According to his hagiography in the GAOSENG ZHUAN, Fotudeng was a foreign monk, whose surname was BO, the ethnikon used for Kuchean monks; in some sources, his name is transcribed as BuddhasiMha. He was talented at memorizing and expounding scriptures, as well as in debate. Fotudeng is said to have received training in Kashmir (see KASHMIR-GANDHĀRA) and to have arrived in China in 310 intending to spread the DHARMA. Fotudeng is described as a skilled magician who could command spirits and predict the future. Despite his initial failure to establish a monastery in the Chinese capital of Luoyang, Fotudeng was able to convert the tyrannical ruler of the state of Later Zhao, Shi Le (r. 319-333), with a demonstration of his thaumaturgic skills. Fotudeng's continued assistance of Shi Le won him the title Daheshang (Great Monk). After Shi Le's general Shi Hu (r. 334-339) usurped the throne, Fotudeng was elevated to the highest status at the palace, and he continued to play the important role of political and spiritual advisor to the ruler. During his illustrious career as royal advisor, Fotudeng also taught many Buddhist disciples and is said to have established hundreds of monasteries. Among his disciples Zhu Faya (d.u.), DAO'AN, and Chu Fatai (320-387) are most famous.

Furthermore, because it is an expression of energy, all vibration is force and energy itself, and hence capable of arousing energies or forces of exactly the same quality or rate of intensity in other beings which they affect — this being the reason behind sympathetic vibration. When vibrations thus interlock and synchronize in rate, intensity, and quality, we have what is called sympathy, love, or attraction, and such sympathetic vibration is operative on all the planes of universal nature. Not only is this the case in all relations of humans with each other, but likewise sympathetic vibration plays an enormous part in such matters as mob psychology, quick electrical sympathies affecting audiences, hates and rebellions — even what is known as health and disease are communicated by means of vibrations, the one first affected being able to communicate his “affection” of whatever kind to others who are at the time negative to the vibrational impact and in time vibrating synchronously with the impacting energy. There is, of course, such a thing as resistance, which expresses itself in manifold ways, such as being able to throw off the vibration affecting it, and even to return it upon the sender, consciously or unconsciously; and herein lies the secret of the old medieval saying that curses come home to roost, or that if the magician is not stronger than the elementals or nature spirits he attempts to control, he is almost invariably destined to become their victim.

Goetia ::: Refers to the practices of evoking and binding sub-lunar (generally) entities to the will of the magician. This term is often used in reference to the 72 demons of the Goetia. The word itself evokes images of a gnashing of teeth, howls, grunts, and all sorts of primal sounds and gesticulations.

grimoire ::: Grimoire A book containing a magician's spells or incantations, or a system of magick. Many such books were produced during the Middle Ages and Renaissance period. The Lemegeten, or Lesser Key of Solomon, is a grimoire, translated by Samuel Liddell Macgregor Mathers and edited by Aleister Crowley. See also Book of Shadows.

Gupta-maya (Sanskrit) Gupta-māyā [from gupta secret + māyā illusion] Secret illusion; the art used by Hindu street “magicians” to make mango trees appear to grow rapidly, to allow a boy to climb a rope fastened in the clouds, etc. Blavatsky holds that such phenomena arise from the psychological power of the “magician” to project a fascination or glamour on the spectators. (BCW 12:321, 326)

Hachamim (Hebrew) Hakhāmīm Hakkim (Aramaic) Hakkīm. Wise men; philosophers, statesmen, magicians — also at times the historical Magians.

handwave ::: [possibly from gestures characteristic of stage magicians] To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty logic.If someone starts a sentence with Clearly... or Obviously... or It is self-evident that..., it is a good bet he is about to handwave (alternatively, that, if a listener does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand.The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting at the elbows and/or in this way, as an accusation, far more eloquent than words could express, that his logic is faulty.[Jargon File]

handwave [possibly from gestures characteristic of stage magicians] To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty logic. If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or "Obviously..." or "It is self-evident that...", it is a good bet he is about to handwave (alternatively, use of these constructions in a sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone else's argument suggests that it is a handwave). The theory behind this term is that if you wave your hands at the right moment, the listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you have said is wrong. Failing that, if a listener does object, you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand. The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the handwave); alternatively, holding the forearms in one position while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter. In context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark; if a speaker makes an outrageously unsupported assumption, you might simply wave your hands in this way, as an accusation, far more eloquent than words could express, that his logic is faulty. [{Jargon File}]

Hecate: In ancient Greek mythology, a goddess of magicians and sorcerers, commander of all magic powers of nature.

hedge magician, hedge wizard: Dismissive term for people who use a limited form of magic, as opposed to Sphere-based Arts; sometimes also known as a sorcerer. (See Sleepwalker, static magic, True Magick.)

  “He never laid claim to spiritual powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV. and XVI., and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Many were the still-living witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it, could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance. He read sealed letters without touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who taught him the artificial crystallisation (‘quickening’) of pure carbon. As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie has it: — ‘In 1780, when on a visit to the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or.’ He was the friend and confidant of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St. Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia. As a matter of course, he had numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy ‘with the Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad temper’ — the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he had really claimed to be only five hundred years old. If he said that ‘he had been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sage,’ he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There are Initiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of their past lives. But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never have claimed ‘personal intimacy’ with the Saviour. However that may be, Count St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him at the next Terreur, which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country alone” (TG 308-9).

Hermeticism ::: An esoteric and philosophical tradition rooted in the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Many modern magicians ascribe to a Hermetic worldview and work in paradigms that resonate with Hermetic philosophy. Much of the trappings and tradition around planetary magic, as practiced and taught on this site, are based upon Hermetic principles and philosophy.

HGA ::: Holy Guardian Angel. In Thelema knowledge and conversation with one's HGA is one of the main goals of the RHP and is a principal aim of the magician. This is a being often viewed as connected to one's Higher Self that liasons between one and the entities one conjures, that provides advice at the speed of thought, and that helps guide one's spiritual path and helps align one's path with Will.

holyoil ::: Holy Oil A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See magical Weapons and Oil of Abremelin.

Homunculi (Latin) Mannikins; in medieval alchemical thought, artificially created little men, little not necessarily in stature but in being incomplete. Paracelsus claims to have made them, and detailed sometimes gruesome accounts of their manufacture, and the result can be found in old books on magic. The principles of earth and water are required to give a body and vitality, the will of the magician is the directive force, and some kind of nature spirit must be imbodied therein, as the ’Ishonim mentioned in the Zohar. But this makes only an animal with human (or other) shape; and to make a complete human being it would be necessary to imitate the act of the manasaputras. Blavatsky anticipates that science may and undoubtedly one day will be able to make homunculi, as the medieval alchemists dreamed of doing.

Hotar: Sanskrit for caller. Priest-magicians who invoke the gods by reciting ritual formulas and improvised chants.

Huai-nan Tzu: (Liu An, Prince of Huai-nan, d. 122 B.C) Grandson of the founder of the Han dynasty, was a man of Confucian traditions with Taoist inclinations. Thousands of scholars, experts and Taoist magician-priests gathered around him. When his rebellion failed, he committed suicide, leaving Huai-nan Hung-lieh (partial Eng. tr. by E. Morgan: Tao the Great Luminant) and other works now extinct. -- W.T.C.

Imhetep: An ancient Egyptian god, frequently invoked by magicians to aid in exorcisms.

In the first case, the hierophant could either offer his pure life “as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin,” or an animal victim. This last is a blind, for no initiate of the right-hand path ever sacrificed the life of an animal or any life. The sacrifice performed is the complete conquest of the lower, animal nature, either in this or a lower degree; hence the alternative. The sacrifice of their lives “depended entirely on their own will. At the last moment of the solemn ‘new birth,’ the initiator passed ‘the word’ to the initiated, and immediately after that the latter had a weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered to strike. This is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement” (IU 2:42). Blavatsky mentions a widespread superstition among the Slavs and Russians that a magician or wizard cannot die before he has passed the word to a successor, which she traces to the ancient Mysteries.

In theosophical writings, advanced students of occultism who have acquired some knowledge and use of spiritual powers but misuse them for selfish purposes are called black magicians, Brothers of the Shadow, followers of the left-hand path, or sometimes dugpas. In their highest class they are adepts in spiritual evil. Whenever the forces of nature are used for selfish purposes, such misuse by anyone marks such person as a black magician, whether conscious or unconscious. Those who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives are called white magicians or Sons of Light.

In The Secret Doctrine chemistry is mentioned as being, together with biology, one of the magicians of the future, especially in its form of chemical physics, when it is no longer the mechanistic science into which it has degenerated. “In Esoteric Philosophy, every physical particle corresponds to and depends on its higher noumenon — the Being to whose essence it belongs; and above as below, the Spiritual evolves from the Divine, the psycho-mental from the Spiritual — tainted from its lower plane by the astral — the whole animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving on parallel lines, and drawing its attributes from above as well as from below” (SD 1:218).

’Ishin, ’Ishim (Hebrew, Chaldean) ’Īshīn, ’Īshīm In the Qabbalah, a lower order of angels, ranking ninth in the hierarchy of angels, corresponding to the Sephirah Yesod. The Zohar depicts the ’ishin as chained on a mountain in the desert, alluding to them as chained to the earth during the cycle of incarnation. The ’ishim are otherwise the Benei ’Elohim, who in human evolution were the prototypes of the fallen angels who by their fall made of the mindless races of protoplastic humanity the thinking and self-conscious human beings that men now are. Thus they correspond to the manasaputras . . . The ’ishin are also said to help magicians produce homunculi (SD 2:376). See also AZAZEL

is the prince of demons and a magician. Samael

It is customary to regard the later Atlanteans as a race of sorcerers because, according to the narratives told concerning the doom of Atlantis and its inhabitants (cf SD 2:427), many deliberately followed the left-hand path — yet not all were black magicians, for there were millions in all ages of Atlantis who earnestly essayed to preserve the wisdom of their semi-spiritual forebears of the third root-race. There were wonderful civilizations during the millions of years of Atlantean development surpassing in material things anything that is known today.

Jnana Bhaskara (Sanskrit) Jñāna-bhāskara The sum of knowledge; a Sanskrit medical work; also “a work on Asuramaya, the Atlantean astronomer and magician, and other prehistoric legends” (TG 165).

Kherbet: Magician-priest of ancient Egypt.

Koldoun, Koldun (Russian) A magician or sorcerer; one having more power and knowledge than a znachar (wizard).

lamp ::: Lamp A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See magical Weapons.

Left-hand Path or path of shadows, those taking it called in theosophy brothers of the shadow. One of the two fundamental paths or courses in nature, the left-hand path or path of matter in contrast to the right-hand path or path of spirit. Shadow signifies matter, for spirit may be considered to be pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadow world or vehicular world in which the energy, spirit, or pure light works. Matter is but a generalizing term, comprised of an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from the grossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, providing the logic of calling this the path of shadows. Those on this path are often called black magicians in contrast to white magicians or sons of light who follow the path of self-renunciation, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives.

Lemegeton ::: The Lesser Key of Solomon. Clavicula Salomonis Regis. A Renaissance Era grimoire on summoning and binding demons to the will of the magician. A very famous work often utilized in modern magic. It is popularized by the practical usages of evoking the 72 sub-lunar entities of the Goetia.

Lilith: In Talmudic lore, Lilith is the first wife of Adam. She represents, in the Mystery Schools, the sexual shadow, or si£ccuba, formed of uncontrolled desire. Lilith is a vampire force, which, if projected beyond the aura of the magician, can obsess the object of its attentions.

Link ::: Materia that connects the magician to a target.

mage ::: a magician or sorcerer.

mage ::: n. --> A magician.

mage ::: Sri Aurobindo: " . . . the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, . . .” [the Lord] The Life Divine

Mage ::: “… the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, …” [the Lord] The Life Divine

magicalrecord ::: Magical Record A magical record is a journal or similar source of documentation containing magical events, experiences, ideas, and any other information that the magician may see fit to add. Aleister Crowley wrote, "It is absolutely necessary that all experiments should be recorded in detail during, or immediately after their performance. The more scientific the record is, the better. Yet the emotions should be noted, as being some of the conditions. Let then the record be written with sincerity and care; thus with practice it will be found more and more to approximate to the ideal."

magicalweapons ::: Magical Weapons As with magick, a magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. With that said, in practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within Ceremonial/Ritual Magick. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, disk/coin, holy oil, lamp and bell. See also Thelema - magical Weapons.

Magic circle: A circle drawn on the ground, or marked by pebbles, thorns, fire or water, around a person or object as protection from danger. When calling up spirits for consultation, the black magician usually stands inside a magic circle for safety.

Magic drum: A wooden drum covered with reindeer skin, used by shamanistic magicians of the Eskimos and Laplanders for establishing rapport with the spirit world, for divinations, etc.

Magician ::: A practitioner of magic.

Magician: A practitioner of the magic arts.

Magician's universe(represented by Saturn, 3) by the Hermetic Light (8).

magic: Impressive but limited acts of illusion or alteration that fit into static reality even though they’re apparently supernatural. (See hedge magician, static magic, Stasis.)

magick ::: Magick Magick is usually defined as ritual acts performed with the intent to cause change or to transform the magician or the environment. The loosest definition of magick is an act of intent or will designed to result in a specific outcome.

Magic, Magician [from Persian magus a wise man, great; cf magi] The great art; a knowledge of the mysteries of nature and the power to apply them. In its true sense it is gupta-vidya (divine knowledge), the aim of those who tread the path of wisdom; but in ages of decline its chief secrets are withdrawn from public access, and what remains passes through transformations and gradually degenerates.

Magic ring: An amulet in the form of a ring worn by magicians, either to draw supernatural powers through them or as a sign of a bondage.

magi ::: n. pl. --> A caste of priests, philosophers, and magicians, among the ancient Persians; hence, any holy men or sages of the East.

Magi: The “Wise Ones,” philosophers, astrologers and priests of ancient Persia, expounders of Zoroastrian wisdom. Their name is the root of the words magic, magician, etc.

magus ::: Magus Used to denote an accomplished ritual magician, the plural form being Magi. The root word of magick and magician, magus is taken from Simon Magus, the name of a first century magician/healer who was reviled by the early Christians. See also Magician above.

Magus: The technical designation of a Grade in the A.'.A.'. which is so exalted as to be achieved by a few individuals only during the course of an Aeon. Crowley attained the Grade in 191S, and took the motto TheMaster Therion (The Beast 666). The qabalistic notation of this Grade of Magus is 9º=2

Mamaloi: A West Indian voodoo priestess-magician.

Marchocias: In demonography, a high-ranking demon of the infernal empire, honest and loyal to the magician who invokes him.

Marduk: In Babylonian mythology, the king of all the gods, determiner of destiny, god of magicians and magic arts.

maya ::: (in the Veda) "originally a formative power of knowledge, maya the true magic of the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, but . . . also used for the adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa"; measuring and limiting consciousness, "a selective faculty of knowledge commissioned to shape finite appearance out of the infinite Reality" (brahman); the power of phenomenal creation by which "out of the supreme being in which all is all without barrier of separative consciousness emerges the phenomenal being in which all is in each and each is in all for the play of existence with existence, consciousness with consciousness, force with force, delight with delight"; illusion, "a bewildering partial consciousness which loses hold of the complete reality, lives in the phenomenon of mobile Nature [prakr.ti] and has no sight of the Spirit [purus.a] of which she is the active Power".

māyākāra. (T. sgyu ma mkhan; C. huanshi; J. genshi; K. hwansa 幻師). In Sanskrit and Pāli, lit., "illusion-maker"; a term often translated as "magician," in the sense of someone who is able to conjure things that appear to be real but are in fact illusions. Given the consistent Buddhist claim of the fictive nature of ordinary sense experience, the magician figures prominently in illustrations of the false appearances of the world. In one example, a magician casts a spell on his audience, causing them to see what is in fact a small pebble as a beautiful woman. The magician also sees the woman but knows that she is not real. A person arriving late for the performance is unaffected by the spell and sees only the pebble. In this metaphor, the audience is likened to ordinary sentient beings, who both perceive false appearances and believe them to be true. The magician is likened to an ARHAT who perceives false appearances but is unaffected by them, knowing them to be false. The latecomer is like the Buddha who sees things as they truly are.

Mayavi: Master-magician; great juggler; Brahman.

Mediator An agent who stands or goes between, specifically one who acts as the conscious agent or intermediary of special spiritual power and knowledge. Most often applied to highly-evolved characters who mediate, not only between superhuman spiritual entities and ordinary men, but who also themselves consciously unite their own spiritual nature with their merely human souls. Such people attain to this lofty state by the great sanctity and wisdom of their lives, aided by frequent interior ecstatic contemplation. They radiate a pure and beneficent atmosphere which invites, and is congenial to, exalted spiritual beings of the solar system. Evil entities of the astral realms cannot endure their clean and highly magnetic aura, nor are they able to continue obsessing other unfortunate persons if the mediator be present and will their departure, or even approaches the sufferer. This powerful spiritual self-consciousness of the individual who is a mediator reaching upwards to superior spiritual realms, is in sharpest possible contrast with the passive, unconscious, weak-willed medium who, through ignorance or folly, becomes the agent for the use of any astral entity that may be attracted to the entranced body. Apollonius, Iamblichus, Plotinus, and Porphyry are examples of mediators: “but if the temple is defiled by the admission of an evil passion, thought or desire, the mediator falls into the sphere of sorcery. The door is opened; the pure spirits retire and the evil ones rush in. This is still mediatorship, evil as it is; the sorcerer, like the pure magician, forms his own aura and subjects to his will congenial inferior spirits” (IU 1:487).

Medicine-man: The priest-magician of the American Indian tribes. Medicine-men were specialists in the techniques of healing, sorcery and divination, custodians of sacred objects, masters of ceremonial lore and magic. The word is often used for tribal priest-magicians of other races, where the proper designation would be witch-doctor or shaman.

Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural “magic” which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became — albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions — a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars — the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.

Mojo Bag ::: A type of talisman. A small bag stuffed with materia and consecrated within a particular current or through a particular deity. The materia in the bag can be arranged in hierarchies and chosen according to the Doctrine of Signatures and in a manner that best accomplishes the intent of the magician.

Mystically, although based on geological history, Sveta-dvipa is often called part of the Eternal Land or north pole and the lands immediately surrounding it. The unvarying traditions of a large part of the Orient state that it is the only locality which escapes the fate of most other dvipas: total submersion under the waters of the oceans. All the avataras of Vishnu were said to have come originally from the White Island. It is sometimes called preeminently the home or source of white magicians, and is contrasted with Atala, often called the abode of black magicians.

Nabi’ (Hebrew) Nābī’ [from nābā’ to deliver an oracle] A prophet, one inspired to foretell future events; the name given to prophecy in the Bible. One of the “spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nobia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim [nebi’im] ‘the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.’ The kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah [nabi’] is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel [nebi’-po‘el], he who possesses magic powers” (IU 1:xxxvii).

Nabi: In Hebrew mysticism, an interpreter of oracles, a messenger of the deity or spirit. The Nabis were not magicians, but seers.

Nehashim (Hebrew) Nĕḥāshīm [from nāḥash to whisper, secrecy, silence, to practice magic, divine the future] Serpents, serpent’s works; the study and practice of occult wisdom and magic. According to the Zohar (iii 302): “ ‘It is called nehhaschim, because the magicians (practical Kabalists) work surrounded by the light of the primordial serpent, which they perceive in heaven as a luminous zone composed of myriads of small stars’ . . . which means simply the astral light, so called by the Martinists, by Elephas Levi, and now by all the modern Occultists” (SD 2:409) — but it likewise shows the luminous zone as the Milky Way. The astral light is often referred to as the great deceiving serpent.

Of Druidism in Ireland we know even less: the Irish Sagas do not indicate that the Druids there were either priests or jurists, or indeed very important people; they appear rather as necromancers at the royal courts, astrologers, magicians, etc. Had Druidism been an organized system, as in Gaul and presumably in Britain, Patrick, the Christian missionary, could hardly have converted the whole island with the little trouble he had. In Britain, however, as soon as the Romans with their proscription of Druidism had departed in 410, there is every reason to think that Druidism flamed up again: Welsh literature, from the 6th to the end of the 15th century, is full of interesting references.

Of the many types of astral elementals, connection with even those friendly to man are injurious, for they all use part of the living for their automatic actions. Moreover, black magicians who live in their kama-rupas — in the astral world — relatively few though they are, survive by using many of these nature spirits to vampirize vitality from the living. The elementaries who, unfortunately, are galvanized into a fictitious life by devitalizing the medium and the sitters — as clairvoyants have often seen — are making new evil karma, and even inviting final spiritual disaster.

Oracle: A legendary mage who has moved beyond the understanding of other magicians, perhaps even to Ascension.

Orobas: In demonography, a prince of the infernal empire, helpful and loyal to the magician who invokes him.

Padmasambhava. (T. Padma 'byung gnas) (fl. eighth century). Indian Buddhist master and tantric adept widely revered in Tibet under the appellation Guru rin po che, "Precious Guru"; considered to be the "second buddha" by members of the RNYING MA sect of Tibetan Buddhism, who view him as a founder of their tradition. In Tibetan, he is also known as Padma 'byung gnas (Pemajungne), "the Lotus Born," which translates his Sanskrit name. It is difficult to assess the many legends surrounding his life and deeds, although the scholarly consensus is that he was a historical figure and did visit Tibet. The earliest reference to him is in the SBA BZHED (a work that purports to be from the eighth century, but is likely later), where he is mentioned as a water diviner and magician, suggesting that he may have been an expert in irrigation, which would have required the ability to subdue local spirits. Two texts in the Tibetan canon are attributed to him. The first is the Man ngag lta ba'i phreng ba, which is a commentary on the thirteenth chapter of the GUHYAGARBHATANTRA. The second is a commentary on the Upāyapāsapadmamālā, a MAHĀYOGA TANTRA. Regardless of his historical status and the duration of his stay in Tibet, the figure of Padmasambhava has played a key role in the narrative of Buddhism's arrival in Tibet, its establishment in Tibet, and its subsequent transmission to later generations. He is also venerated throughout the Himalayan regions of India, Bhutan, and Nepal and by the Newar Buddhists of the Kathmandu Valley. According to many of his traditional biographies, Padmasambhava was miraculously born in the center of a lotus blossom (PADMA) on Lake Danakosa in the land of OddIYĀNA, a region some scholars associate with the Swat Valley of modern Pakistan. Discovered and raised by King Indrabodhi, he abandoned his royal life to pursue various forms of Buddhist study and practice, culminating in his training as a tantric adept. He journeyed throughout the Himalayan regions of India and Nepal, meeting his first consort MANDĀRAVĀ at Mtsho padma in Himachal Pradesh, and later remaining in prolonged retreat in various locations around the Kathmandu Valley including MĀRATIKA, YANG LE SHOD and the ASURA CAVE. His reputation as an exorcist led to his invitation, at the behest of the Indian scholar sĀNTARAKsITA, to travel to Tibet in order to assist with the construction of BSAM YAS monastery. According to traditional accounts, Padmasambhava subdued and converted the indigenous deities inimical to the spread of Buddhism and, together with sāntaraksita and the Tibetan king KHRI SRONG LDE BTSAN, established the first Buddhist lineage and monastic center of Tibet. He remained in Tibet as a court priest, and, together with his Tibetan consort YE SHES MTSHO RGYAL, recorded and then concealed numerous teachings as hidden treasure texts (GTER MA), to be revealed by a later succession of masters spiritually linked to Padmasambhava. The Rnying ma sect preserves the corpus of instructions stemming from the master in two classes of materials: those revealed after his passing as treasure texts and those belonging to an unbroken oral tradition (BKA' MA). It is believed that Padmasambhava departed Tibet for his paradise known as the Glorious Copper-Colored Mountain (ZANGS MDOG DPAL RI), where he continues to reside. From the time of the later dissemination of the doctrine (PHYI DAR) in the eleventh century onwards, numerous biographies of the Indian master have been revealed as treasure texts, including the PADMA BKA' THANG YIG, BKA' THANG GSER 'PHRENG, and the BKA' THANG ZANGS GLING MA. Padmasambhava is the focus of many kinds of ritual activities, including the widely recited "Seven Line Prayer to Padmasambhava" (Tshig 'dun gsol 'debs). The tenth day of each lunar month is dedicated to Padmasambhava, a time when many monasteries, especially those in Bhutan, perform religious dances reverencing the Indian master in his eight manifestations. In iconography, Padmasambhava is depicted in eight forms, known as the guru mtshan brgyad, who represent his eight great deeds. They are Padma rgyal po, Nyi ma 'od zer, Blo ldan mchog sred, Padmasambhava, Shākya seng ge, Padmakara (also known as Sororuhavajra, T. Mtsho skyes rdo rje), Seng ge sgra sgrogs, and RDO RJE GRO LOD.

Papaloi: A West Indian voodoo priest-magician.

pentacle ::: Pentacle A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See Magical Weapons. A Pentacle is a pentagram within a circle, the ritual altar tool used by Wiccans, Neopagans, and a variety of ritual magicians to represent the element of earth. The term 'pentacle' has also been used as a generic term for any magical seal enclosed within a circle. Pentacles is also a suit in the

pentagram ::: Pentagram A five pointed star commonly associated with Wicca, Ritual Magick, Satanism, and Freemasonry. However, it was not until the twentieth century that the pentagram became associated with Satanism, probably due to misinterpretation of symbols used by ceremonial magicians. The pentagram has a long and complex history as a religious symbol. See also Symbols used in Occultism.

Pharaoh’s magicians. He was drowned (with

Philotic ::: An adjective derived from Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" that indicates a linkage to a web of information connecting all forms. In the occult sciences when we discuss utilizing a philotic link we are thinking in terms of a magician's relationship to somebody or something (and usually the subtle and aphysical relationships of information) and how to connect with the target's signature through that relationship.

Qliphoth (Heb.): The plural form of Qlipha, sometimes written Klippah. The Quphoth is the name given to a world or plane of soulless entities that, as such, are not truly living, but merely lingering shells of once conscious persons. They are automata suchas those that haunt graveyards and se'ance rooms, and the magician is warned against trafficking with them in any way. Also of the QIphoth are the more dangerous remnants of once highly organized elementals thatdrag out a twilight existence by vampirizing the living.

Ra-Hoor-Khuit: The Egyptian God of Force and Fire. He is the child of Nuit and Hadit and therefore the manifested universe, as Hoor-paar-kraat (his twin) is the hidden universe. Ra-Hoor Khuit represents The Crowned and Conquering Child, and as such the fulfilment of the Will of the Magician which he brings to birth or manifests. Ra-HoorKhuit is a form of Horns; he is depicted on the Ste'le' of Revealing throned and crowned; his mother, Nuit, arched above him, with Hadit (his father) in the form of a winged globe of Light beneath her.

Right-hand Path ::: From time immemorial, in all countries of the earth, among all races of men, there have been existenttwo opposing and antagonistic schools of occult or esoteric training, the one often technically called thePath of Light, and the other the Path of Darkness or of the Shadows. These two paths likewise are muchmore commonly called the right-hand path and the left-hand path, and although these are technical namesin the rather shaky occultism of the Occident, the very same expressions have prevailed all over theworld, and are especially known in the mystical and esoteric literature of Hindustan. The right-hand pathis known in Sanskrit writings by the name dakshina-marga, and those who practice the rules of conductand follow the manner of life enjoined upon those who follow the right-hand path are technically knownas dakshinacharins, and their course of life is known as dakshinachara. Conversely, those who followthe left-hand path, often called Brothers of the Shadow, or by some similar epithet, are calledvamacharins, and their school or course of life is known as vamachara. An alternative expression forvamachara is savyachara. The white magicians or Brothers of Light are therefore dakshinacharins, andthe black magicians or Brothers of the Shadow, or workers of spiritual and intellectual and psychical evil,are therefore vamacharins.To speak in the mystical language of ancient Greece, the dakshinacharins or Brothers of Light pursue thewinding ascent to Olympus, whereas the vamacharins or Brothers of the Left-hand follow the easy butfearfully perilous path leading downwards into ever more confusing, horrifying stages of matter andspiritual obscuration. The latter is the faciles descensus averno (Aeneid, 6.126) of the Latin poet Virgil.Woe be to him who, refusing to raise his soul to the sublime and cleansing rays of the spiritual sun withinhim, places his feet upon the path which leads downwards. The warnings given to students of occultismabout this matter have always been solemn and urgent, and no esotericist should at any moment considerhimself safe or beyond the possibilities of taking the downward way until he has become at one with thedivine monitor within his own breast, his own inner god.

ritual ::: Ritual Any act or series of acts/movements performed on a regular basis is a ritual. Ceremonial magicians use rituals which may include preparing an area (normally a circle), donning robes, chanting, lighting candles, arranging amulets or talismans in a certain order on an altar and/or themselves, and saying prayers prior to performing the ceremony.

Self or Higher Ego. The Attainment of the Knowledge of the Holy Guardian Angel is the foundation of the Training of a Magician, and beside the Crossing of the Abyss constitutes the most critical stage in his development.

Shaman [from Tungusian saman; Russian shaman an idolator] Originally magician or sorcerer of the wandering tribes of Tartary, Mongolia, or Siberia (either man or woman); follower of the primeval religions, such as the Bhon religion of Tibet. Today applied to sorcerers, medicine men, etc., among traditional peoples, or what is based on their practices, anywhere in the world.

Shaman: Originally, the word means a medicine-man or priest-magician of certain primitive Siberian tribes. The term is generally used now to designate any tribal magician practicing magic rites aimed at influencing superhuman or disembodied entities.

Sight Among the elements, correlated with fire or light. Like the other senses it has its spiritual originant which expresses itself through its several forms, corresponding to the different planes. The organ of spiritual vision in the human body is the third eye. Some of the Atlantean magicians and initiates had this inner sight, which was even in their material race highly developed, so that their vision could pass any distance and penetrate opaque bodies.

Sigil ::: A symbol, typically derived through gnosis, vision, or bespoke system, that has intent attached to it. This site qualifies sigils to be either representative of entities potentially to be worked with or symbols created by the magician in order to work magic. Note though that some might use the definition in broader terms than that.

Sigurd was persuaded by his teacher, the magician Regin, to slay the dragon Fáfnir who lay guarding his treasure on the heath. Sigurd did so with the magical sword to which he had fallen heir and, having tasted the dragon’s blood, became able to understand the language of the birds.

Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally, for each individual being, his seeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will depend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has assumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in sections cut by the reason and sense and put together in a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned to accommodate one or another generalised formulation of Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or dependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the mental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives an impersonal Existence in which person and personality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions; or, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary reality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or means of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together their different modes of action, creating both in their independence and in their union different states of consciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and consciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal consciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine, Nirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of expression; but, equally, Person can be the reality with impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of manifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real-Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual world-formula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its self-expression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe. …

Sleepwalker: Someone who possesses awareness but has not yet fully Awakened; a visionary Sleeper who might possess unusual talents but not Sphere-based magick. (See bodhisattva, consor, hedge magician.)

  “Some of the Targums are very mystical, the Aramaic (or Targumatic) language being used all through the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works. To distinguish this language from the Hebrew, called the ‘face’ of the sacred tongue, it is referred to as ahorayim, the ‘back part,’ the real meaning of which must be read between the lines, according to certain methods given to students. . . . The Book of Daniel begins in Hebrew, and is fully comprehensible till chap. ii, v. 4, when the Chaldees (the Magician-Initiates) begin speaking to the king in Aramaic — not in Syriac, as mistranslated in the Protestant Bible. Daniel speaks in Hebrew before interpreting the king’s dream to him; but explains the dream itself (chap. vii.) in Aramaic. ‘So in Ezra iv., v., and vi., the words of the kings being there literally quoted, all matters connected therewith are in Aramaic,’ says Isaac Myer in his Qabbalah [p. 53]. The Targumim are of different ages, the latest already showing signs of the Massoretic or vowel-system, which made them still more full of intentional blinds. The precept of the Pirke Aboth (c. i., §I), ‘Make a fence to the Thorah’ (law), has indeed been faithfully followed in the Bible as in the Targumim; and wise is he who would interpret either correctly, unless he is an old Occultist-Kabbalist” (TG 321).

sorcerer ::: n. --> A conjurer; an enchanter; a magician.

Sorcerers [from Latin sors lot] Those using occult powers and arcane knowledge for evil purposes. It covers various degrees of black magic, from ignorant practitioners — such as the followers of Voodoo — to others who, with greater knowledge and a larger intellectual development, are often called black magicians instead of sorcerers, though these terms are virtually synonymous.

Spirit Bottle ::: A container in which a spirit is asked or forced to inhabit in order to be permanently a fixture of the magician's life when called upon.

Such symbols as the cross, the svastika, and the serpent may serve as talismans, for a true symbol is more than a mere arbitrary sign and actually plays its part in the evocation of certain influences — but only when intense faith is conjoined in the production of magical effects. Talismans are utterly useless and foolish unless intense faith operates because all such talismanic emblems depend for their efficacy upon the faith of the possessor of them. When a person believes beyond any shadow of doubt and is thoroughly worked up in such conviction, his will power through such faith when concentrated upon a talisman or similar object can actually bring about the functioning of a potent creative power. This is the root of all genuinely magical operations; but the true magician has no need for such exoteric paraphernalia or adventitious aids. He produces his effects through the sole power of his will combined with his wide knowledge of nature and natural laws.

Supernatural Assistant ::: A being, similar or a part of the HGA or Higher Self, that guides the magician in their workings of magic and with various entities.

sword ::: Sword A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the sword/dagger, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See Magical Weapons.

Symbolic Resonance ::: The idea that since reality can be reduced to archetypes then awareness simply needs to shift its locus of focus to those specific archetypes in order to bring them into the reality of the magician and to be able to work with them.

thaumaturge ::: n. --> A magician; a wonder worker.

"The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption, — as did Christ, — secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature, — as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, ‘If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross," or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease, — as a dog dieth, — knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be assumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle.” Essays on the Gita

“The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption,—as did Christ,—secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature,—as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, ‘If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross,’ or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease,—as a dog dieth,—knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be assumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle.” Essays on the Gita

“The chronology and computations of the Brahmin Initiates are based upon the Zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above-mentioned astronomer and magician — Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other things, to mankind” (SD 2:49).

The hidden voice or active manifestation of the latent occult potency of the mantras is called vach. The would-be magician attempting to evoke the “spirits of the vasty deep” by uninstructed chanting or singing of any ancient mantras will never succeed in using the mantras effectively in a magical way, until he himself has become so cleansed of all human impurities as to be able at will and with inner vision to enter into communion if not direct confabulation with the inner realms.

  “The popular prevailing idea is that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and other thaumaturgic works, by supernatural powers. But this never was the fact. They did it simply by the liberation of their own astral body, which, taking the form of a god or hero, served as a medium or vehicle through which the special current preserving the ideas and knowledge of that hero or god could be reached and manifested” (TG 330).

There appears to have been no question in antiquity as to the actual historical existence of a godlike man who founded the Orphic religion or Mysteries, and whose work was continued by others in direct line, some of whom took his name, for no less than six different teachers by the name of Orpheus were known. When we add to the historic account the story of Orpheus as the Magician-Bard, and the legends of his divinity, his marriage with Eurydice (esoteric wisdom), his teaching, his agony and passion, and finally his martyr’s death — legends almost identical with some of those attached to world-saviors such as Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, and Mithra — it is clear that he was not only a great teacher in himself, but an important link in the Hermetic Chain of esoteric succession.

There are two classes of Shamans, however; “The Shamans of Siberia are all ignorant and illiterate. Those of Tartary and Thibet — few in number — are mostly learned men in their own way, and will not allow themselves to fall under the control of spirits of any kind. The former are mediums in the full sense of the word; the latter, ‘magicians. . . .’

The Sanskrit word for medicine in general is aushadha (consisting of herbs), and the ancient Hindu materia medica was the source from which subsequent systems of practice in many other countries drew their remedies, when a broad conception of the sacred art of healing marked their highest periods of national attainment. Originally the medical practitioners were as familiar with the mystical and occult properties of plants and minerals as magicians themselves were. Both understood the analogy and interrelations between the principles of the composite human being and all the various elements throughout the realm of nature. That some plants are attracted by the sun and others by the moon, etc., was explained by a profound knowledge of astronomy and of the occult influences of solar, lunar, and planetary time periods and sidereal forces. This gave the key for the best time, place, and conditions for gathering the herbs, and for the special pharmacy required for bringing out the vital remedial action which, by working with nature, left no unfavorable aftereffects. There is no record of medical laboratory work producing artificial synthetic products which, even when duplicating nature’s substances chemically, are not different vitally. Nor was organotherapy resorted to when and where the healing art held a worthy place in high civilizations.

The term has always had, even in Anglo-Saxon times, a distinctly mystic significance; e.g., scin-sckaeft meant magic or sorcery; scin-laeca a magician, wizard, warlock, sorcerer; scinn, a spirit, apparition, phantom, specter, ghost — all popular words in Anglo-Saxon England.

Thevetat, Thevetata An ancient king of one of the divisions of Atlantis, the submerged continental system of the fourth root-race (SD 2:222). He is instanced as one of the natural born adept-magicians who neither learned nor acquired knowledge, but who knew all without being initiated. “Under the evil insinuations of their demon, Thevetat, the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians” (IU 1:593).

thoth ::: Thoth In Egyptian mythology, Thoth was the ancient Egyptian God of writing, magick, and learning. He is credited with the creation of language, numbers, and the measurement of time, and is often depicted as the scribe of the Gods. Thoth is considered the patron of magicians and sages, and has been credited as the originator of the Tarot.

tion helped the magicians of Egypt in Pharaoh’s

Trisvabhāvanirdesa. (T. Rang bzhin gsum nges par bstan pa). In Sanskrit, "Exposition of the Three Natures"; a work by the YOGĀCĀRA philosopher VASUBANDHU (fourth or fifth century CE). Possibly a late work of the author, it is less famous than several of his other works, in part because it lacks either an autocommentary or commentaries by subsequent figures in Indian Yogācāra. The work, extant in the original Sanskrit, consists of thirty-eight verses, dealing (as the title suggests) with the central Yogācāra doctrine of the three natures (TRISVABHĀVA): the PARIKALPITA or imaginary nature, the PARATANTRA or dependent nature, and the PARINIsPANNA or consummate nature. According to this doctrine, briefly stated, objects do not exist apart from the perceiving consciousness. External objects are thus illusory and constitute the imaginary nature, the appearance of objects that arises in dependence on consciousness is the dependent nature, and the absence of duality between subject and object is the consummate nature. Among the most famous passages in the text is the metaphor of the magician's illusion, in which a magician recites a MANTRA over a piece of wood that causes the members of the audience to see an elephant in place of the wood. In explaining the metaphor, Vasubandhu says that the elephant seen by the audience is the imaginary nature, the appearance of the elephant through the conjuring trick is the dependent nature, and the actual nonexistence of the elephant is the consummate nature. He also likens the mantra to the foundational consciousness (MuLAVIJNĀNA, viz., ĀLAYAVIJNĀNA) from which all appearances arise, and the wood to reality, or suchness (TATHATĀ).

Unless modern science is prepared to make of the physical atom a primordial existence, it must seek the origin elsewhere. Physical matter is a concretion of universal light or radiation; but it needs the eye of a seer to perceive what starry virtue lies sleeping in the gem or the talisman; the skill of the magician to known what can be done by placing stones in a particular grouping, perhaps with certain ceremonies, etc.

wand ::: a slender stick or rod, esp. one used by a magician, conjurer, or diviner.

wand ::: n. --> A small stick; a rod; a verge.
A staff of authority.
A rod used by conjurers, diviners, magicians, etc.


Wand The wand of Hermes or caduceus, the magician’s wand, the rods of Moses and Aaron, the scepter of kings which shows the force of temporal power, and the crosier of a bishop, are prototypes and antitypes of a universal principle — the straight line, representing the masculine, active, positive power in nature. The magician may be said to possess a magic wand — a name for the power he can wield — and there may be various material copies of this, ranging from an actual magic wand supposedly prepared according to secret formulas, down to the humble stick or cudgel with which the ruffian enforces his will. The words rod and staff are often used figuratively as well as literally in the Bible.

wand ::: Wand A magical weapon is any instrument used to bring about intentional change. In practice, magical weapons are usually specific, consecrated items used within ceremonial ritual. There is no hard and fast rule for what constitutes or does not constitute a magical weapon. If a magician considers it to be a weapon, then a weapon it is. However, there does exist a set of magical weapons with particular uses and symbolic meanings. Some such common weapons/tools include the dagger/sword, wand/baton, cup/chalice, pentacle/disk, holy oil, lamp and bell. See Magical Weapons. Symbolically, the Wand represents the element of fire, and sometimes, air (the suit of wands in a Tarot deck reflects this meaning, as wands (clubs) symbolise spiritual force).

warlock-wisecraft ::: a sorcerer"s or magician"s occult powers or magic art.

White Magic, White Magicians. See MAGIC

Witch-doctor: The magician or medicine-man of a primitive tribe, usually credited with the ability to detect witches and to exorcise evil demons.

wizard ::: n. --> A wise man; a sage.
One devoted to the black art; a magician; a conjurer; a sorcerer; an enchanter. ::: a. --> Enchanting; charming.
Haunted by wizards.


Wizard: While the word is used commonly to mean a male witch, its proper meaning is: magician or sorcerer.

World-Magician (’s)

Zaotar: Ancient Persian for caller. Priest-magician who invokes the gods by reciting ritual formulas and improvised chants.



QUOTES [56 / 56 - 795 / 795]


KEYS (10k)

   15 Peter J Carroll
   15 Aleister Crowley
   7 Sri Aurobindo
   5 Manly P Hall
   1 Terry Pratchett
   1 Swami Akhandananda
   1 Susanna Clarke
   1 Ray Sherwin
   1 Ramakrishna
   1 Phil Hine
   1 One stanza of love poem
   1 Lucian of Samosata
   1 King Solomon
   1 Eliphas Levi
   1 C S Lewis
   1 Arthur Koestler
   1 Aleister Crowley?
   1 Sri Ramakrishna

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   56 Susanna Clarke
   26 Rick Riordan
   21 Lev Grossman
   19 C S Lewis
   16 Peter S Beagle
   15 Manly P Hall
   14 Peter J Carroll
   14 Aleister Crowley
   12 David Copperfield
   12 Charlie N Holmberg
   10 Anonymous
   9 Sarah Rees Brennan
   8 V E Schwab
   8 Jonathan Stroud
   8 Franz Bardon
   7 Terry Pratchett
   7 Sri Aurobindo
   7 Maggie Stiefvater
   6 Ray Bradbury
   6 Norton Juster

1:Maya is like magic and we have to see the magician. But then the path beyond Maya is through Maya. ~ Swami Akhandananda,
2:To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door. ~ Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,
3:' . . . the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, . . .' [the Lord]
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
4:In this lamen the Magician must place the secret keys of his power.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick,
5:The poet is a magician who hardly knows the secret of his own spell. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Word and the Spirit,
6:All here can change if the Magician choose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,
7:People enjoy the beauty of the world; they do not seek its owner. God alone is real, all else is illusory, magician alone is real, magic is illusory. ~ Ramakrishna,
8:That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable. ~ Aleister Crowley, [T5],
9:The Magician looks on the wicked as invalids whom one must pity and cure; the world, with its errors and vices, is to him God's hospital, and he wishes to serve in it.
   ~ Eliphas Levi,
10:Make your choice, adventurous Stranger, Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.
   ~ C S Lewis, The Magician's Nephew,
11:As the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the Magician, so is the Magick Cup his Understanding.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick,
12:Unless therefore the Magician be first anointed with this Oil, all his work will be wasted and evil.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part II, The Holy Oil,
13:The Altar represents the solid basis of the Work, the fixed Will* of the Magician; and the law under which he works.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part II, The Altar,
14:[A] competent magician should have the ability to stand still at a bus stop with closed eyes and have the entire universe disappear apart from a single blazing visualised sigil or muttered spell.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, The Octavo,
15:A 'tulpa' is a consciously-projected thought-form or servitor, which may perform a particular task for a magician or act as a general 'helper'. They are of a similar nature to Spirit Desire-Forms.
   ~ Phil Hine, Aspects of Evocation,
16:Lion, give me your caresses— My husband and guardian, my spirit magician, My Shu-Sin who gladdens the Wind-God's heart Give me your caresses because you love me." ~ One stanza of love poem, (c. 1980 BC).For poem see, (diff. trans.): http://bit.ly/2qZHBef,
17:From a magicial point of view, it is axiomatic that we have create the world in which we exist. Looking about himself, the magician can say 'thus have I will,' or 'thus do I perceive,' or more accurately, 'thus does my Kia manifest.'
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Enchantment [55],
18:The Book of Spells or of Conjurations is the Record of every thought, word and deed of the Magician; for everything that he has willed is willed to a purpose. It is the same as if he had taken an oath or perform some achievement.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, The Book,
19:The magician acknowledges a desire, he lists the appropriate symbols and arranges them into an easily visualised glyph. Using any of the gnostic techniques he reifies the sigil and then, by force of will, hurls it into his subconscious from where the sigil can begin to work unencumbered by desire. ~ Ray Sherwin,
20:Impeccable artists of unerring forms,
Magician builders of sound and rhythmic words,
Wind-haired Gandharvas chanted to the ear
The odes that shape the universal thought, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul's Choice and the Supreme Consummation,
21:The magician therefore seeks unity of desire before he attempts to act. Desires are re-arranged before an act, not during it. In all things he must live like this. As reorganization of belief is the key to liberation, so is reorganization of desire the key to will.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Enchantment [56],
22:Traveller on plateau and on musing ridge,
As one who sees in the World-Magician's glass
A miracled imagery of soul-scapes flee
He traversed scenes of an immortal joy
And gazed into abysms of beauty and bliss. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Paradise of the Life-Gods,
23:To "invoke" is to "call in", just as to "evoke" is to "call forth". This is the essential difference between the two branches of Magick. In invocation, the macrocosm floods the consciousness. In evocation, the magician, having become the macrocosm, creates a microcosm. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
24:A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally
   ~ Peter J Carroll,
25:All here can change if the Magician choose.
   If human will could be made one with God's,
   If human thought could echo the thoughts of God,
   Man might be all-knowing and omnipotent;
   But now he walks in Nature's doubtful ray.
   Yet can the mind of man receive God's light,
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,
26:The white magician consecrates his life to study, meditation, and service, that he may know the law and may direct force to its appointed ends. He mods himself into the plan, becoming part of the divine rhythm by sacrificing himself and his wishes to the will of the Infinite, asking only to know wherein his duty lies and how he may be of the greatest service to the greatest number. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
27:The danger of ceremonial magick-the subtlest and deepest danger-is this: that the Magician will naturally tend to invoke that partial being which most strongly appeals to him, so that his natural excess in that direction will be still further exaggerated. Let him, before beginning his Work, endeavour to map out his own being, and arrange his invocations in such a way as to redress the balance.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
28:To practise black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
   .
   I have been accused of being a 'black magician'. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practise it. ~ Aleister Crowley?,
29:The formula of the Cup is not so well suited for Evocations, and the magical Hierarchy is not involved in the same way; for the Cup being passive rather than active, it is not fitting for the magician to use it in respect of anything but the Highest. In practical working it consequently means little but prayer, and that prayer the 'prayer of silence.'
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [148],
30:It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step-crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,
31:But the true black magician does not work through the ethers which are the home of the etheric elementals. He works through the entities who dwell in the astral light or the animal magnetism of the lower astral plane. The true black magician can become (and usually is) clairvoyant, but he can never go any higher than the astral world. To this plane he is tied to his passions, hates, incantations, and the animal nature which is the basis of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
32:SLEIGHT OF MIND IN INVOCATION
Invocation is a three stage process. Firstly the magician consciously identifies with what is traditionally called a god-form, secondly he enters gnosis and thirdly the magicians subconsciousness manifests the powers of the god-form. A successful invocation means nothing less than full "possession" by the god-form. With practice the first stage of conscious identification can be abbreviated greatly to the point where it may only be necessary to concentrate momentarily on a well used god-form. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos,
33:Let the Magician therefore adventure himself upon the Astral Plane with the declared design to penetrate to a sanctuary of discarnate Beings such as are able to instruct and fortify him, also to prove their identity by testimony beyond rebuttal. All explanations other than these are of value only as extending and equilibrating Knowledge, or possibly as supplying Energy to such Magicians as may have found their way to the Sources of Strength. In all cases, naught is worth an obol save as it serve to help the One Great Work" ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, App 3,
34:The Temple represents the external Universe. The Magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, \Liber VII,\ V:I:2 \We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universem even ashou didst wear openly and I concealed.\ This shape is the vesica piscis; but it is only the greeatest Magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the Magician to reincarnate in a suitable body.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 04: Magick, Part II, Chapter 1, The Temple [49],
35:The black magician is one who learns to manipulate these forces for selfish and destructive purposes, his own aggrandizement of the fulfillment of desire, while the white magician prays that he may learn to manipulate them as God would have them manipulated - for the salvation of the divine creation. The powers are in the hands of those capable of invoking them; it makes no difference whether for good or ill. For this reason, the schools of white magic conceal these powers from man until, through growth, purification, and unfoldment, he gains the proper incentive for using them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
36:The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying 'evil.' The essence of such a practice will consist in training the mind and the body to confront things which cause fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them, if they are really harmful in relation to health and comfort.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, APPENDIX VI: A FEW PRINCIPAL RITUALS, [311-312],
37:To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness. Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
38:If the magician wishes to put himself into or out of any emotional state, then he should be provided with the techniques to accomplish this. The process requires no justification
   - that he wills it is sufficient. One cannot escape emotional experience in a human incarnation, and it is preferable to adopt a master rather than a slave relationship to it. The occult priest should be capable of instructing anyone in the procedures of emotional engineering. The main methods are the gnostic ones of casting oneself into a frenzied ecstacy, stilling the mind to a point of absolute quiescence, and evoking the laughter of the gods by combining laughter with the contemplation of paradox. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
39:The physical form of a magical weapon is no more than a convenient handle or anchor for its aetheric form.
The Sword and Pentacle are weapons of analysis and synthesis respectively. Upon the pentacle aetheric forms, images, and powers are assembled when the magical will and perception vitalize the imagination. The magician may create hundreds of pentacles in the course of his sorceries, yet there is a virtue in having a general purpose weapon of this class, for its power increases with use, and it can be employed as an altar for the consecration of lesser pentacles. For many operations of an evocatory type, the pentacle is placed on the cup and the conjuration performed with the wand. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
40:THE TRUE STUDENT OF OCCULT SCIENCE
   The White Magician uses none of the powers of the animal world in his work, but rather seeks to transmute the poles of the beast within himself into higher and finer qualities. The White Magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder--not a destroyer--and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. The White Magician has dedicated his soul to the immortal light, while the Black Magician has sold his for mortal glory. The Grimores of the Middle Ages are filled with chants and charms for the invoking of spirits. History is filled with stories of Black Magicians but the true student of occult science must have nothing to do with these things other than to protect himself against them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Natural Occultism, 28,
41:The Magician works in a Temple; the Universe, which is (be it remembered!) conterminous with himself. In this temple a Circle is drawn upon the floor for the limitation of his working. This circle is protected by divine names, the influences on which he relies to keep out hostile thoughts. Within the circle stands an Altar, the solid basis on which he works, the foundation of all. Upon the Altar are his Wand, Cup, Sword, and Pantacle, to represent his Will, his Understanding, his Reason, and the lower parts of his being, respectively. On the Altar, too, is a phial of Oil, surrounded by a Scourge, a Dagger, and a Chain, while above the Altar hangs a Lamp. The Magician wears a Crown, a single Robe, and a Lamen, and he bears a Book of Conjurations and a Bell.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick [54?],
42:A MARWARI DEVOTEE: "Sir, what is the way?"

Two ways of God-realization

MASTER: "There are two ways. One is the path of discrimination, the other is that of love. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal.

God alone is the real and permanent Substance; all else is illusory and impermanent.

The magician alone is real; his magic is illusory. This is discrimination.

"Discrimination and renunciation. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal. Renunciation means to have dispassion for the things of the world. One cannot acquire them all of a sudden. They must be practised every day.

One should renounce 'woman and gold' mentally at first. Then, by the will of God, one can renounce it both mentally and outwardly. It is impossible to ask the people of Calcutta to renounce all for the sake of God. One has to tell them to renounce mentally. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
43:She sets the hard inventions of her brain
In a pattern of eternal fixity:
Indifferent to the cosmic dumb demand,
Unconscious of too close realities,
Of the unspoken thought, the voiceless heart,
She leans to forge her credos and iron codes
And metal structures to imprison life
And mechanic models of all things that are.
For the world seen she weaves a world conceived:
She spins in stiff but unsubstantial lines
Her gossamer word-webs of abstract thought,
Her segment systems of the Infinite,
Her theodicies and cosmogonic charts
And myths by which she explains the inexplicable.
At will she spaces in thin air of mind
Like maps in the school-house of intellect hung,
Forcing wide Truth into a narrow scheme,
Her numberless warring strict philosophies;
Out of Nature's body of phenomenon
She carves with Thought's keen edge in rigid lines,
Like rails for the World-Magician's power to run, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri,
44:A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows 'to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally'
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Augoeides [49-50],
45:This last figure, the White Magician, symbolizes the self-transcending element in the scientist's motivational drive and emotional make-up; his humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, his quest for the harmony of the spheres, the origin of life, the equations of a unified field theory. The conquistadorial urge is derived from a sense of power, the participatory urge from a sense of oceanic wonder. 'Men were first led to the study of natural philosophy', wrote Aristotle, 'as indeed they are today, by wonder.' Maxwell's earliest memory was 'lying on the grass, looking at the sun, and wondering'. Einstein struck the same chord when he wrote that whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, 'whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life'.

This oceanic feeling of wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art for art's sake; it is their common denominator and emotional bond. ~ Arthur Koestler,
46:[invocation] Let us describe the magical method of identification. The symbolic form of the god is first studied with as much care as an artist would bestow upon his model, so that a perfectly clear and unshakeable mental picture of the god is presented to the mind. Similarly, the attributes of the god are enshrined in speech, and such speeches are committed perfectly to memory. The invocation will then begin with a prayer to the god, commemorating his physical attributes, always with profound understanding of their real meaning. In the second part of the invocation, the voice of the god is heard, and His characteristic utterance is recited. In the third portion of the invocation the Magician asserts the identity of himself with the god. In the fourth portion the god is again invoked, but as if by Himself, as if it were the utterance of the will of the god that He should manifest in the Magician. At the conclusion of this, the original object of the invocation is stated.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [149] [T4],
47:Non-attachment/Non-disinterest best describes the magical condition of acting without lust of result. It is very difficult for humans to decide on something and then to do it purely for its own sake. Yet it is precisely this ability which is required to execute magical acts. Only single-pointed awareness will do. Attachment is to be understood both in the positive and negative sense, for aversion is its other face. Attachment to any attribute of oneself, ones personality, ones ambitions, ones relationships or sensory experiences - or equally, aversion to any of these - will prove limiting. On the other hand, it is fatal to lose interest in these things for they are ones symbolic system or magical reality. Rather, one is attempting to touch the sensitive parts of ones reality more lightly in order to deny the spoiling hand of grasping desire and boredom. Thereby one may gain enough freedom to act magically. In addition to these two meditations there is a third, more active, form of metamorphosis, and this involves ones everyday habits. However innocuous they might seem, habits in thought, word, and deed are the anchor of the personality. The magician aims to pull up that anchor and cast himself free on the seas of chaos.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
48:Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
49:The third operation in any magical ceremony is the oath or proclamation. The Magician, armed and ready, stands in the centre of the Circle, and strikes once upon the bell as if to call the attention of the Universe. He then declares who he is, reciting his magical history by the proclamation of the grades which he has attained, giving the signs and words of those grades. He then states the purpose of the ceremony, and proves that it is necessary to perform it and to succeed in its performance. He then takes an oath before the Lord of the Universe (not before the particular Lord whom he is invoking) as if to call Him to witness the act. He swears solemnly that he will perform it-that nothing shall prevent him from performing it-that he will not leave the operation until it is successfully performed-and once again he strikes upon the bell. Yet, having demonstrated himself in that position at once infinitely lofty and infinitely unimportant, the instrument of destiny, he balances this by the Confession, in which there is again an infinite exaltation harmonised with an infinite humility. He admits himself to be a weak human being humbly aspiring to something higher; a creature of circumstance utterly dependent-even for the breath of life-upon a series of fortunate accidents.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
50:To prepare for Astral Magic a temple or series of temples needs to be erected on the plane of visualized imagination. Such temples can take any convenient form although some magicians prefer to work with an exact simulacrum of their physical temple. The astral temple is visualized in fine detail and should contain all the equipment required for ritual or at least cupboards where any required instruments can be found.
   Any objects visualized into the temple should always remain there for subsequent inspection unless specifically dissolved or removed. The most important object in the temple is the magician's image of himself working in it. At first it may seem that he is merely manipulating a puppet of himself in the temple but with persistence this should give way to a feeling of actually being there. Before beginning Astral Magic proper, the required temple and instruments together with an image of the magician moving about in it should be built up by a repeated series of visualizations until all the details are perfect. Only when this is complete should the magician begin to use the temple. Each conjuration that is performed should be planned in advance with the same attention to detail as in Ritual Magic. The various acts of astral evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation and illumination take on a similar general form to the acts of Ritual Magic which the magician adapts for astral work. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos [T2],
51:INVOCATION
   The ultimate invocation, that of Kia, cannot be performed. The paradox is that as Kia has no dualized qualities, there are no attributes by which to invoke it. To give it one quality is merely to deny it another. As an observant dualistic being once said:
   I am that I am not.
   Nevertheless, the magician may need to make some rearrangements or additions to what he is. Metamorphosis may be pursued by seeking that which one is not, and transcending both in mutual annihilation. Alternatively, the process of invocation may be seen as adding to the magician's psyche any elements which are missing. It is true that the mind must be finally surrendered as one enters fully into Chaos, but a complete and balanced psychocosm is more easily surrendered.
   The magical process of shuffling beliefs and desires attendant upon the process of invocation also demonstrates that one's dominant obsessions or personality are quite arbitrary, and hence more easily banished.
   There are many maps of the mind (psychocosms), most of which are inconsistent, contradictory, and based on highly fanciful theories. Many use the symbology of god forms, for all mythology embodies a psychology. A complete mythic pantheon resumes all of man's mental characteristics. Magicians will often use a pagan pantheon of gods as the basis for invoking some particular insight or ability, as these myths provide the most explicit and developed formulation of the particular idea's extant. However it is possible to use almost anything from the archetypes of the collective unconscious to the elemental qualities of alchemy.
   If the magician taps a deep enough level of power, these forms may manifest with sufficient force to convince the mind of the objective existence of the god. Yet the aim of invocation is temporary possession by the god, communication from the god, and manifestation of the god's magical powers, rather than the formation of religious cults.
   The actual method of invocation may be described as a total immersion in the qualities pertaining to the desired form. One invokes in every conceivable way. The magician first programs himself into identity with the god by arranging all his experiences to coincide with its nature. In the most elaborate form of ritual he may surround himself with the sounds, smells, colors, instruments, memories, numbers, symbols, music, and poetry suggestive of the god or quality. Secondly he unites his life force to the god image with which he has united his mind. This is accomplished with techniques from the gnosis. Figure 5 shows some examples of maps of the mind. Following are some suggestions for practical ritual invocation.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
52:Eternal, unconfined, unextended, without cause and without effect, the Holy Lamp mysteriously burns. Without quantity or quality, unconditioned and sempiternal, is this Light.
It is not possible for anyone to advise or approve; for this Lamp is not made with hands; it exists alone for ever; it has no parts, no person; it is before "I am." Few can behold it, yet it is always there. For it there is no "here" nor "there," no "then" nor "now;" all parts of speech are abolished, save the noun; and this noun is not found either in {106} human speech or in Divine. It is the Lost Word, the dying music of whose sevenfold echo is I A O and A U M.
Without this Light the Magician could not work at all; yet few indeed are the Magicians that have know of it, and far fewer They that have beheld its brilliance!

The Temple and all that is in it must be destroyed again and again before it is worthy to receive that Light. Hence it so often seems that the only advice that any master can give to any pupil is to destroy the Temple.

"Whatever you have" and "whatever you are" are veils before that Light. Yet in so great a matter all advice is vain. There is no master so great that he can see clearly the whole character of any pupil. What helped him in the past may hinder another in the future.

Yet since the Master is pledged to serve, he may take up that service on these simple lines. Since all thoughts are veils of this Light, he may advise the destruction of all thoughts, and to that end teach those practices which are clearly conductive to such destruction.

These practices have now fortunately been set down in clear language by order of the A.'.A.'..

In these instructions the relativity and limitation of each practice is clearly taught, and all dogmatic interpretations are carefully avoided. Each practice is in itself a demon which must be destroyed; but to be destroyed it must first be evoked.

Shame upon that Master who shirks any one of these practices, however distasteful or useless it may be to him! For in the detailed knowledge of it, which experience alone can give him, may lie his opportunity for crucial assistance to a pupil. However dull the drudgery, it should be undergone. If it were possible to regret anything in life, which is fortunately not the case, it would be the hours wasted in fruitful practices which might have been more profitably employed on sterile ones: for NEMO<> in tending his garden seeketh not to single out the flower that shall be NEMO after him. And we are not told that NEMO might have used other things than those which he actually does use; it seems possible that if he had not the acid or the knife, or the fire, or the oil, he might miss tending just that one flower which was to be NEMO after him! ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, The Lamp,
53:SLEIGHT OF MIND IN ILLUMINATION
Only those forms of illumination which lead to useful behaviour changes deserve to be known as such. When I hear the word "spirituality", I tend to reach for a loaded wand. Most professionally spiritual people are vile and untrustworthy when off duty, simply because their beliefs conflict with basic drives and only manage to distort their natural behaviour temporarily. The demons then come screaming up out of the cellar at unexpected moments.

When selecting objectives for illumination, the magician should choose forms of self improvement which can be precisely specified and measured and which effect changes of behaviour in his entire existence. Invocation is the main tool in illumination, although enchantment where spells are cast upon oneselves and divination to seek objectives for illumination may also find some application.

Evocation can sometimes be used with care, but there is no point in simply creating an entity that is the repository of what one wishes were true for oneself in general. This is a frequent mistake in religion. Forms of worship which create only entities in the subconscious are inferior to more wholehearted worship, which, at its best, is pure invocation. The Jesuits "Imitation of Christ" is more effective than merely praying to Jesus for example.

Illumination proceeds in the same general manner as invocation, except that the magician is striving to effect specific changes to his everyday behaviour, rather than to create enhanced facilities that can be drawn upon for particular purposes. The basic technique remains the same, the required beliefs are identified and then implanted in the subconscious by ritual or other acts. Such acts force the subconscious acquisition of the beliefs they imply.

Modest and realistic objectives are preferable to grandiose schemes in illumination.

One modifies the behaviour and beliefs of others by beginning with only the most trivial demands. The same applies to oneselves. The magician should beware of implanting beliefs whose expression cannot be sustained by the human body or the environment. For example it is possible to implant the belief that flight can be achieved without an aircraft. However it has rarely proved possible to implant this belief deeply enough to ensure that such flights were not of exceedingly short duration. Nevertheless such feats as fire-walking and obliviousness to extreme pain are sometimes achieved by this mechanism.

The sleight of mind which implants belief through ritual action is more powerful than any other weapon that humanity possesses, yet its influence is so pervasive that we seldom notice it. It makes religions, wars, cults and cultures possible. It has killed countless millions and created our personal and social realities. Those who understand how to use it on others can be messiahs or dictators, depending on their degree of personal myopia. Those who understand how to apply it to themselves have a jewel beyond price if they use it wisely; otherwise they tend to rapidly invoke their own Nemesis with it. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos,
54:EVOCATION
   Evocation is the art of dealing with magical beings or entities by various acts which create or contact them and allow one to conjure and command them with pacts and exorcism. These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, automata, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on. Entities may be bound to talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or be mobile in the aether. It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind. Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may be budded off and attached to objects and places in the form of ghosts, spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes, familiars, or poltergeists. These beings consist of a portion of Kia or the life force attached to some aetheric matter, the whole of which may or may not be attached to ordinary matter.

   Evocation may be further defined as the summoning or creation of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose. They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe. The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by will are several: the entity will continue to fulfill its function independently of the magician until its life force dissipates. Being semi-sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in that a non-conscious simple spell cannot. During moments of the possession by certain entities the magician may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.

   Entities may be drawn from three sources - those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in grimoires of spirits and demons, and those which the magician may wish to create himself.

   In all cases establishing a relationship with the spirit follows a similar process of evocation. Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind. Automatic drawing or writing, where a stylus is allowed to move under inspiration across a surface, may help to uncover the nature of a clairvoyantly discovered being. In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the magician assembles the ingredients of a composite sigil of the being's desired attributes. For example, to create an elemental to assist him with divination, the appropriate symbols might be chosen and made into a sigil such as the one shown in figure 4.

   A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental.

   Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's sigils or characteristics so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force and begin autonomous existence. In the case of preexisting beings, this operation serves to bind the entity to the magician's will.

   This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the magician's consciousness to normal before he goes forth.

   An entity of a low order with little more than a singular task to perform can be left to fulfill its destiny with no further interference from its master. If at any time it is necessary to terminate it, its sigil or material basis should be destroyed and its mental image destroyed or reabsorbed by visualization. For more powerful and independent beings, the conjuration and exorcism must be in proportion to the power of the ritual which originally evoked them. To control such beings, the magicians may have to re-enter the gnostic state to the same depth as before in order to draw their power. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
55:AUGOEIDES:
   The magicians most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
   The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison detre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of ones true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
   The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed. A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally.
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
   The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
56:CHAPTER XIII
OF THE BANISHINGS: AND OF THE PURIFICATIONS.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The wand is not a wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it.

That is a mere logical commonplace: in magick one must go much farther than this. One finds one's analogy in electricity. If insulation is imperfect, the whole current goes back to earth. It is useless to plead that in all those miles of wire there is only one-hundredth of an inch unprotected. It is no good building a ship if the water can enter, through however small a hole.

That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.
If one littlest thought intrude upon the mind of the Mystic, his concentration is absolutely destroyed; and his consciousness remains on exactly the same level as the Stockbroker's. Even the smallest baby is incompatible with the virginity of its mother. If you leave even a single spirit within the circle, the effect of the conjuration will be entirely absorbed by it.> {101}

The Magician must therefore take the utmost care in the matter of purification, "firstly", of himself, "secondly", of his instruments, "thirdly", of the place of working. Ancient Magicians recommended a preliminary purification of from three days to many months. During this period of training they took the utmost pains with diet. They avoided animal food, lest the elemental spirit of the animal should get into their atmosphere. They practised sexual abstinence, lest they should be influenced in any way by the spirit of the wife. Even in regard to the excrements of the body they were equally careful; in trimming the hair and nails, they ceremonially destroyed> the severed portion. They fasted, so that the body itself might destroy anything extraneous to the bare necessity of its existence. They purified the mind by special prayers and conservations. They avoided the contamination of social intercourse, especially the conjugal kind; and their servitors were disciples specially chosen and consecrated for the work.

In modern times our superior understanding of the essentials of this process enables us to dispense to some extent with its external rigours; but the internal purification must be even more carefully performed. We may eat meat, provided that in doing so we affirm that we eat it in order to strengthen us for the special purpose of our proposed invocation.> {102}

By thus avoiding those actions which might excite the comment of our neighbours we avoid the graver dangers of falling into spiritual pride.

We have understood the saying: "To the pure all things are pure", and we have learnt how to act up to it. We can analyse the mind far more acutely than could the ancients, and we can therefore distinguish the real and right feeling from its imitations. A man may eat meat from self-indulgence, or in order to avoid the dangers of asceticism. We must constantly examine ourselves, and assure ourselves that every action is really subservient to the One Purpose.

It is ceremonially desirable to seal and affirm this mental purity by Ritual, and accordingly the first operation in any actual ceremony is bathing and robing, with appropriate words. The bath signifies the removal of all things extraneous to antagonistic to the one thought. The putting on of the robe is the positive side of the same operation. It is the assumption of the fame of mind suitable to that one thought.

A similar operation takes place in the preparation of every instrument, as has been seen in the Chapter devoted to that subject. In the preparation of theplace of working, the same considerations apply. We first remove from that place all objects; and we then put into it those objects, and only those {103} objects, which are necessary. During many days we occupy ourselves in this process of cleansing and consecration; and this again is confirmed in the actual ceremony.

The cleansed and consecrated Magician takes his cleansed and consecrated instruments into that cleansed and consecrated place, and there proceeds to repeat that double ceremony in the ceremony itself, which has these same two main parts. The first part of every ceremony is the banishing; the second, the invoking. The same formula is repeated even in the ceremony of banishing itself, for in the banishing ritual of the pentagram we not only command the demons to depart, but invoke the Archangels and their hosts to act as guardians of the Circle during our pre-occupation with the ceremony proper.

In more elaborate ceremonies it is usual to banish everything by name. Each element, each planet, and each sign, perhaps even the Sephiroth themselves; all are removed, including the very one which we wished to invoke, for that force ... ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Home is a word stronger than a magician ever spoke. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
2:I object to that remark very strongly! - The Magician's Nephew ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
3:The Magician. Interview with Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. December 17, 2005. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove
4:The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove
5:Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. &
6:A spoiled saint, a Pharisee, an inquisitor, or a magician, makes better sport to Hell than a mere common tyrant or debauchee. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
7:Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
8:And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
9:Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!" ~ mitch-hedberg, @wisdomtrove
10:Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon on all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. ~ washington-irving, @wisdomtrove
11:Not our Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward. ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove
12:For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove
13:I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy. ~ steve-martin, @wisdomtrove
14:I'm no wizard, and I don't like being thought of in that light at all. I think of a wizard as being some sort of magician or something, doing something on the sly or something, and I don't want to be thought of in that way. ~ john-wooden, @wisdomtrove
15:On my fortieth birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis I decided it might be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be a magician. ~ alan-moore, @wisdomtrove
16:It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
17:There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove
18:It is human nature to want to believe in the wizardry of the magician&
19:Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove
20:In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. ~ henry-wadsworth-longfellow, @wisdomtrove
21:When the faithful are asked whether God really exists, they often begin by talking about the enigmatic mysteries of the universe and the limits of human understanding. ‘Science cannot explain the Big Bang,’ they exclaim, ‘so that must be God’s doing.’ Yet like a magician fooling an audience by imperceptibly replacing one card with another, the faithful quickly replace the cosmic mystery with the worldly lawgiver. After giving the name of ‘God’ to the unknown secrets of the cosmos, they then use this to somehow condemn bikinis and divorces. ‘We do not understand the Big Bang – therefore you must cover your hair in public and vote against gay marriage.’ Not only is there no logical connection between the two, but they are in fact contradictory. The deeper the mysteries of the universe, the less likely it is that whatever is responsible for them gives a damn about female dress codes or human sexual behaviour. ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Magician of Lublin, ~ David Lagercrantz,
2:Do not be a magician - be magic! ~ Leonard Cohen,
3:I'm a magician, not a singer. ~ David Copperfield,
4:Cameron Rogers writes like a magician. ~ K J Bishop,
5:What is the moon if not a magician ~ Sabrina Benaim,
6:Even a magician must have relations, ~ Susanna Clarke,
7:God is a scientist, not a magician. ~ Albert Einstein,
8:A magician is a rule-of-thumb engineer. ~ Robert A Heinlein,
9:He was going to be a motherfucking Magician. ~ Lev Grossman,
10:perhaps the only magician we have is the artist. ~ Anais Nin,
11:All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician. ~ Penn Jillette,
12:Hearing is believing...a magician with the piano. ~ Anthony Davis,
13:Hey, I fool the camera. I'm a liar, a magician. ~ Janice Dickinson,
14:The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it. ~ Tanith Lee,
15:I’m a magician with no magic, and that’s no one at all. ~ Anonymous,
16:Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat. ~ Ben Hecht,
17:People have expectations of me but I'm not a magician. ~ Ruud Gullit,
18:Home is a word stronger than a magician ever spoke. ~ Charles Dickens,
19:A magician is one who is capable of juggling the four elements of bodies,
20:If I don't fool you, I'm not doing my job as a magician. ~ Jerry Andrus,
21:I’m a magician with no magic, and that’s no one at all. ~ Peter S Beagle,
22:That's how you roll when you're a secret teenage magician ~ Lev Grossman,
23:My dad was a magician too. Got in his car and disappeared. ~ Cath Crowley,
24:A good magician wasn't much different from a proper thief. ~ Leigh Bardugo,
25:I object to that remark very strongly! - The Magician's Nephew ~ C S Lewis,
26:together, but Billy Lee was the magician. I barely qualified ~ Carolyn Brown,
27:I object to that remark very strongly!
- The Magician's Nephew ~ C S Lewis,
28:Nobody sees anything except in the dark," said the magician. ~ G K Chesterton,
29:Opium resembles religion insofar as a magician resembles Jesus. ~ Jean Cocteau,
30:A magician is strong because he feels the pain between what the ~ Lev Grossman,
31:Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness. ~ Ouida,
32:It’s a magic trick, and the queen is a skilled magician. Her ~ Victoria Aveyard,
33:The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye. ~ Sol Stein,
34:He's a ghost, not a carnival magician.


-Benny Imura ~ Jonathan Maberry,
35:I hear if you want magic done,' he said, 'you ask a magician. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
36:A magician is an actor playing the part of a magician. ~ Jean Eugene Robert Houdin,
37:Any man who loves a woman as she deserves to be loved is a magician. ~ Nina George,
38:Every true artist must, in his own way, be a magician, a charlatan. ~ Orson Welles,
39:A magician is only an actor - an actor pretending to be a magician. ~ Harry Houdini,
40:I'm a project manager, not a magician. Magicians have way cooler hats. ~ Merlin Mann,
41:I've never thought of myself as a great beauty -- just a great magician. ~ Sharon Stone,
42:His room was like an explorer's den, a lair of furs, the cave of a magician. ~ Ana s Nin,
43:I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could. ~ Susanna Clarke,
44:Adam Parrish – magician and puzzle, student and logician, man and boy. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
45:[...] a white magician is just a black magician with a good housekeeper. ~ Terry Pratchett,
46:Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,” I suggested. ~ Rick Riordan,
47:To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door. ~ Susanna Clarke,
48:The only nickname I've ever had is Merlin, like the magician. I don't know why. ~ Tim Duncan,
49:And that the hand of fate has sleight and craft to match that of any magician. ~ Jane Johnson,
50:Anyone without a sense of humor is too pretentious to be a good magician. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey,
51:For jokes as well as justice come in with speech.
- Aslan, The Magician's Nephew ~ C S Lewis,
52:He was going to sign the papers and he was going to be a motherfucking magician. ~ Lev Grossman,
53:Lisette Matson’s gnarled hands shuffled the deck of playing cards like a magician. ~ Lisa Regan,
54:Love is the magician of the universe. It creates everything out of nothing. ~ Barbara De Angelis,
55:A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. ~ Lev Grossman,
56:There is no one way to be a magician any more than there is only one way to be human. ~ Laura Lam,
57:I intended only lilies. That was my intention: a bouquet of lilies. - The Magician ~ Kate DiCamillo,
58:Ever helped a Magician before? No? Well, you're not helping one now, either! ~ The Amazing Johnathan,
59:More lies. But what could you do? That's how you roll when you're a teenage magician! ~ Lev Grossman,
60:Never trust what your eyes see at a magician's home, Miss Twill. You know that. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
61:' . . . the supreme Mage, the divine Magician, . . .' [the Lord]
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine,
62:And the Eldest Magician said, 'How wise are little children who see and are silent! ~ Rudyard Kipling,
63:The Magician's Land is a triumphant climax to the best fantasy trilogy of the decade. ~ Charles Stross,
64:Anthony moved about, magician-like, turning the mushroom lamp into an orange glory ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,
65:any mystery writer is both magician and moralist ... two species of artist in short supply. ~ Sue Grafton,
66:A true magician must not undertake anything regarding which he is not thoroughly informed. ~ Franz Bardon,
67:Make no mistake about it, magick is an art form, and every true magician is an artist. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette,
68:Kelly, there is magic, but you have to be the magician. You have to make the magic happen. ~ Sidney Sheldon,
69:One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror. ~ Jonathan Stroud,
70:...yes, I am your priest, your magician, your lover - I make charms to incant your presence... ~ John Geddes,
71:History is the dark magician inside us, tearing at our liver. (Deborah Levy, Hot Milk, p. 185) ~ Deborah Levy,
72:All here can change if the Magician choose. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,
73:An artist is the magician put among men to gratify - capriciously - their urge for immortality. ~ Tom Stoppard,
74:God is not a demiurge [demigod] or a magician, but the Creator who gives being to all entities. ~ Pope Francis,
75:I never wanted to be a magician. I never wanted to be a comedian. I never wanted to be onstage. ~ Penn Jillette,
76:Labor is the fabled magician's wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune. ~ James Weldon Johnson,
77:We don’t have much time. Mel will be out of the restroom soon.” “You’ve got a magician named Mel? ~ Rick Riordan,
78:At least, I’m not as terrible a magician as whoever enchanted that poor cat!
- Mildred Jaeger ~ Brad Strickland,
79:The world easily finds an honourable place for the magician who produces new and dazzling things. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
80:We don’t have much time. Mel will be out of the restroom soon.”
“You’ve got a magician named Mel? ~ Rick Riordan,
81:Who has more pockets than a magician? A boy. Whose pockets contain *more* than a magicians? A boy's. ~ Ray Bradbury,
82:A person who takes a concrete place and convert it into a garden of flowers is a real magician! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
83:I'm a magician. I've learned to do some really cool tricks like levitating myself and melting forks. ~ Blake Michael,
84:In this lamen the Magician must place the secret keys of his power.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick,
85:Yesterday's fairy tale is today's fact. The magician is only one step ahead of his audience. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
86:There is not a physicist in the world who can perceive when a parlor magician palms off playing-cards. ~ Charles Fort,
87:The Magician sees what is out there and finds connections. The Magician can make anything magical. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
88:Where is the magic? In nature! Where is the magician? In nature? Who is the magician? The nature! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
89:As a magician, you must think about chaos and order. Those are the two forces that control the universe. ~ Rick Riordan,
90:Railroad iron is a magician's rod, in its power to evoke the sleeping energies of land and water. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,
91:The intuitive magician will find a certain relationship between the earth zone and the muladhara center. ~ Franz Bardon,
92:The white magician's motto is: "right is might" (survival of all). ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
93:A beautiful dress hold a little bit of magic in it. A dressmaker like myself is lucky to be the magician, ~ Jane L Rosen,
94:Be careful of the magician that tricks you into believing that what you do with food has no consequences. ~ Karen R Koenig,
95:To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door. ~ Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,
96:I was introduced to Dr. Steven Hoefflin, Michael’s plastic surgeon, who was there moonlighting as a magician ~ Corey Feldman,
97:Who has more pockets than a magician?
A boy.
Whose pockets contain *more* than a magicians?
A boy's. ~ Ray Bradbury,
98:The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable. ~ Aleister Crowley,
99:The art of a magician is to create wonder. If we live with a sense of wonder, our lives become filled with joy. ~ Doug Henning,
100:The black magician's motto is: "might is right" (survival of the fittest). ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
101:The magician to some degree is trying to drive him or herself mad in a controlled setting, within controlled laws. ~ Alan Moore,
102:What’s the point of being a magician if you can’t wave your wand and make the people you care about feel better? ~ Rick Riordan,
103:A beautiful dress holds a little bit of magic in it. A dressmaker like myself is looking kelt to be the magician. ~ Jane L Rosen,
104:Well, I suppose one ought not to employ a magician and then complain that he does not behave like other people. ~ Susanna Clarke,
105:The poet is a magician who hardly knows the secret of his own spell. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, The Word and the Spirit,
106:Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. 'Are you a animal, vegetable, or mineral?' - The Magician's Nephew ~ C S Lewis,
107:I'm not a magician. I'am an alchemyst, a man of science, though perhaps not the science you would be familiar with. ~ Michael Scott,
108:Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see, one chance out between two worlds, fire walk with me! ~ David Lynch,
109:We need a little more compassion, and if we cannot have it, then no politician or even a magician can save the planet. ~ Dalai Lama,
110:A Magician is not a Magician because he knows tricks, but because he knows Magic - the principles, the fundamentals. ~ Harlan Tarbell,
111:Now sir, said the bulldog in his business-like way. 'Are you a animal, vegetable, or mineral?'
- The Magician's Nephew ~ C S Lewis,
112:That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable. ~ Aleister Crowley, [T5],
113:As a magician, I think everything is possible. And I think if something is done by one person it can be done by others. ~ David Blaine,
114:Delilah Bard—always a thief, recently a magician, and one day, hopefully, a pirate—was running as fast as she could. Hold ~ V E Schwab,
115:As does a magician, a writer creates a world, immerses the reader in it, & makes the reader believe it's reality. ~ Mark Rubinstein,
116:a book of magic should be written by a practising magician, rather than a theoretical magician or a historian of magic. ~ Susanna Clarke,
117:Philosophers are always trying to climb up the fine hairs of the fur in order to stare right into the magician's eyes. ~ Jostein Gaarder,
118:A spoiled saint, a Pharisee, an inquisitor, or a magician, makes better sport to Hell than a mere common tyrant or debauchee. ~ C S Lewis,
119:Pyramids Road?’ Sadie said. ‘Obvious, much?’ ‘Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,’ I suggested. ~ Rick Riordan,
120:to the magician’s eyes the unicorn was the moon, cold and white and very old, lighting his way to safety, or to madness. ~ Peter S Beagle,
121:A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. ~ Lev Grossman,
122:Josh is the company tech expert, which means we all think he’s a little bit shaman, a little bit magician, and mostly a nerd. ~ Julia Kent,
123:Justice was like coloured balls in a magician's hand, changing colour and shape all the time beneath the light of politics. ~ Qiu Xiaolong,
124:The old magician had pulled out a spellbook and was flipping through its pages. “Web … web … how did that go?” he mumbled. ~ Margaret Weis,
125:A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first ~ Louis L Amour,
126:If I’m right…’ She was already walking quickly back towards the theatre. ‘If I’m right, science killed the magician.’ * ~ Jonathan L Howard,
127:She said, "I will go no farther."
"There is no choice. We can only go on." The magician said again. "We can only go on. ~ Peter S Beagle,
128:A magician is one who is capable of consciously molding the substances of matter of the three and a half worlds of material substance. [...],
129:A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. If you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first. ~ Louis L Amour,
130:407Justice was like coloured balls in a magician's hand, changing colour and shape all the time beneath the light of politics. ~ Qiu Xiaolong,
131:I discovered that magic tricks got me more attention from the girls in my class when I was nine - so a magician was born! ~ David Copperfield,
132:Performers and their public should never meet. Once the curtain comes down, the performer should fly away like a magician's dove. ~ Edith Piaf,
133:Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer. ~ Patti Smith,
134:I discovered at the age of six that everything was a phony, worked with mirrors. Since then, I've always wanted to be a magician. ~ Orson Welles,
135:Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. ~ Charles Dickens,
136:Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality. ~ Al Gore,
137:You know, any sane magician would never reveal his method of deception. And I don't think that a sensible musician would either. ~ Van Dyke Parks,
138:Manipulation, fueled with good intent, can be a blessing. But when used wickedly, it is the beginning of a magician's karmic calamity. ~ T F Hodge,
139:My interest was magic, believe it or not. I became an amateur magician and did something like 400 magic shows through my teen years. ~ David Pogue,
140:STONE: I mean, I know a lot about magic. DUBNER: One thing that a magician does a lot, that you did a little bit today is misdirection. ~ Anonymous,
141:One must first become a magician before one he can become a Kabbalist. As a Kabbalist, one works differently and more advantageously. ~ Franz Bardon,
142:When you work with David Lynch, you never know where he's going next and that's exciting. He's like a magician pulling out new tricks. ~ Richard Beymer,
143:I think people know Steve Jobs the showman. I think people know the guy who stood up and gave the keynotes. The magician. The salesman. ~ Ashton Kutcher,
144:But the other Ministers considered that to employ a magician was one thing, novelists were quite another and they would not stoop to it. ~ Susanna Clarke,
145:Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. ~ Charles Dickens,
146:According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion. ~ Franz Bardon,
147:If you would be a magician, honor the Earth. Honor life. Love. Know that magic is the birthright of every human being, and wisely use it. ~ Scott Cunningham,
148:I'd go to Coney Island to hang out, and I saw a magician doing a rope trick on the boardwalk. I was fascinated. I guess that's how it started. ~ David Blaine,
149:She didn’t have to be Cheshire’s ideal of a Magician or Hatcher’s ideal of a lover or her parents’ ideal of a daughter. She could be Alice. ~ Christina Henry,
150:As the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the Magician, so is the Magick Cup his Understanding.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick,
151:I have no doubt there are magician psychopaths, and magician serial killers. I doubt Brakebills admissions is very good at screening for those. ~ Lev Grossman,
152:It would be like Prospero’s island, but in a good way: not a country of exile, a model world, safe and peaceful and private. A magician’s land. ~ Lev Grossman,
153:With the caveat that it is much more difficult and much more dangerous and much more interesting to be a magician than it is to be a carpenter. ~ Lev Grossman,
154:As for Holmes, she disappeared into her magician's trunk and swallowed the key. There would be no prying her out, not until the big reveal. ~ Brittany Cavallaro,
155:Being a cab river is not unlike being a magician--minus the top hat, the cape, the rabbit, an the gorgeous assistant. But you do have an audience. ~ Gary Reilly,
156:She was a thief, a runaway, a pirate, a magician.
She was fierce, and powerful, and terrifying.
She was still a mystery.
And he loved her. ~ V E Schwab,
157:The moon was gone, but to the magician's eyes the unicorn was the moon, cold and white and very old, lighting his way to safety, or to madness. ~ Peter S Beagle,
158:Anyone can say he’s a magician these days. The old standards are gone, the old values have been abandoned. Besides, a real magician has a beard. ~ Peter S Beagle,
159:For me, the most exciting thing is to create good magic that's entertaining for an audience, and it would be lovely if a magician was fooled as well. ~ Ricky Jay,
160:The art of a magician is not found in the simple deception, but in what surrounds it, the construction of a reality which supports the illusion. ~ Jim Steinmeyer,
161:The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock. ~ Peter S Beagle,
162:He sighed. "Look, love, I know I seem like a tactical genius, but really, I'm just a magician who occasionally kills a bunny or drives a train. ~ Delilah S Dawson,
163:My parents are responsible for the two things I like doing most - driving and magic tricks. They bought me my first go-kart and a magician's kit. ~ Fernando Alonso,
164:One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane. ~ Laurell K Hamilton,
165:After all,” he thought, “what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic. ~ Susanna Clarke,
166:Best Witchcraft is Geometry
Best Witchcraft is Geometry
To the magician's mind His ordinary acts are feats
To thinking of mankind.
~ Emily Dickinson,
167:What would you have done, reader, who has been able to follow me like the Magician followed me, invisible and ever-watchful and without consequences? ~ Jeff VanderMeer,
168:Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” (Charles Dickens) ~ Lisa McKay,
169:Well, to cut a long story short, this magician that I was speaking about, he told us to do something we didn’t like. And why not? Because we didn’t want to. ~ C S Lewis,
170:What would you have done, reader, who has been able to follow me like the Magician followed me, invisible and ever-watchful and without consequence? * ~ Jeff VanderMeer,
171:Arcadius was nothing but an old hack, what Cenzars used to refer to as a faquin, an elven term for the most inept magician—knowledge without talent. ~ Michael J Sullivan,
172:If you are a happy person, don't spend your time trying to make an unhappy person happy. Near as I can tell, you have to be a magician to pull it off. ~ Ernie J Zelinski,
173:Singers always have an advantage. You know, everyone can connect to a song in a way that they cannot do to a basketball act or a magician act or whatever. ~ Piers Morgan,
174:..The argument he was conducting with his neighbor as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English. ~ Susanna Clarke,
175:I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. ~ Tennessee Williams,
176:Thane leaned his chin into his palm, much the same way he had at his titling ceremony when he became a magician, looking every bit the part of bored. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
177:There was a tall, sensible man in the room called Thorpe, a gentleman with very little magical learning, but a degree of common sense rare in a magician. ~ Susanna Clarke,
178:Harry Collins was the first magician I ever saw back in 1965 when I was five years old. He was doing a magic show and I was the volunteer from the audience. ~ Lance Burton,
179:Unless therefore the Magician be first anointed with this Oil, all his work will be wasted and evil.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part II, The Holy Oil,
180:And she never could remember; and ever since that day what Lucy means by a good story is a story which reminds her of the forgotten story in the Magician's Book. ~ C S Lewis,
181:But it was home. And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. ~ Charles Dickens,
182:In order for a holiday to be a great holiday, it must somehow involve water-related activity, because water is a magician who relaxes our soul and body! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
183:There was a tall, sensible man in the room called Thorpe, a gentleman with very little magical learning, but a degree of common sense rare in a magician. He ~ Susanna Clarke,
184:The York magicians had all looked over the letter and expressed their doubts that any body with such small handwriting could ever make a tolerable magician. ~ Susanna Clarke,
185:To make [parents] happy, I went to Fordham University for three weeks, while at the same time running ads in Variety, "magician-actor David Copperfield." ~ David Copperfield,
186:If only I were a magician who could make things possible. I'd give objects the gift of defiance: banisters, gramaphones, guns, the napes of necks, braided hair. ~ Sa a Stani i,
187:The primitive magician, the medicine man or shaman is not only a sick man, he is above all, a sick man who has been cured, who has succeeded in curing himself. ~ Mircea Eliade,
188:Ceony stared at the paper magician, words caught in her throat. He’d gone mad again. He’d tricked her into thinking he wasn’t mad, and yet now he’d proved— ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
189:Of course, as a model for my magician Strange is far from perfect --he lacks the true heroic nature; for that I shall be obliged to put in something of myself. ~ Susanna Clarke,
190:He was finally on the other side, down the rabbit hole, through the looking glass. He was going to sign the papers and he was going to be a motherfucking magician. ~ Lev Grossman,
191:A man may plan as much as he wants to, but nothing of consequence is likely to come of it until the magician circumstance steps in and takes the matter off his hands. ~ Mark Twain,
192:I know you all think I'm a magician, but I'm not. The magic comes out of the books
themselves, and I have no more idea than you or any of your men how it works. ~ Cornelia Funke,
193:I'm trying to think if there was ever the Lenny Bruce-y, observational, George Carlin kind of magician: "You know what I hate is ..." I don't think that ever existed. ~ Judd Apatow,
194:I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense. ~ Susanna Clarke,
195:At the moment we've only got 16 first-team players and my initials stand for Mick McCarthy, not Merlin the Magician (the new Wolves manager gets the excuses in early!) ~ Mick McCarthy,
196:If I wrote a musical it wouldn't be about me. Although I do some magic, so it would probably be about a magician who appeared and re-appeared all over the place. ~ Neil Patrick Harris,
197:It is more useful for the magician to consider living systems not as some unaware little eddies in a universal consciousness field, but as ‘outposts’ of the spirit world. ~ Gordon White,
198:Not our logical faculty, but our imaginative one is king over us. I might say, priest and prophet to lead us to heaven-ward, or magician and wizard to lead us hellward. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
199:The Altar represents the solid basis of the Work, the fixed Will* of the Magician; and the law under which he works.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part II, The Altar,
200:The Magician looks on the wicked as invalids whom one must pity and cure; the world, with its errors and vices, is to him God's hospital, and he wishes to serve in it.
   ~ Eliphas Levi,
201:Make your choice, adventurous Stranger, Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, till it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.
   ~ C S Lewis, The Magician's Nephew,
202:Magic has always been about seizing power or subverting it, the goal in either case being freedom from the conditions of reality in which the magician finds him or herself. ~ Gordon White,
203:...if the path of least resistance does not lead to the nearest tangle tree, it leads to some equivalent disaster." ~ Piers AnthonyGood Magician Humphrey~ Piers Anthony ~ Piers Anthony,
204:Magicians disappear all the time, but as soon as a regular person does it, everyone is all scared. "Tom's gone!" "Is he a magician?" "No." "Then let's print up some flyers!" ~ Mitch Hedberg,
205:The man under the hedge, sir. He is a magician. Did you never hear that if you wake a magician before his time, you risk bringing his dreams out of his head into the world? ~ Susanna Clarke,
206:Unlike a mere deception or a simple secret, which gives the impression that something's been taken away, a great magician makes you feel like something's been given to you. ~ Jim Steinmeyer,
207:I shove my reading matter back into my messenger bag (it’s a novel about a private magician for hire in Chicago—your taxpayer pounds at work) and go to stand in the doorway. ~ Charles Stross,
208:Speculation is the romance of trade, and casts contempt upon on all its sober realities. It renders the stock-jobber a magician, and the exchange a region of enchantment. ~ Washington Irving,
209:In the absence of The King the Warrior becomes a mercenary, the Magician becomes a sophist (able to argue any position and believing in none), and the Lover becomes an addict. ~ Robert L Moore,
210:Magic has always been of a great interest of mine. I was an amateur magician when I was young. I used to practice and read up on it a lot. I'm well-aware of the history of magic. ~ Woody Allen,
211:the more apparatus a magician carries about with him — coloured powders, stuffed cats, magical hats and so forth — the greater the fraud you will eventually discover him to be! ~ Susanna Clarke,
212:To label Jason Randal a magician does a disservice. You'll think the laws of physics, nature, the universe itself have been suspended. He's as good as Houdini was at his best! ~ David Letterman,
213:Not our Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward. ~ Thomas Carlyle,
214:How is a magician to exist without books? Let someone explain that to me. It is like asking a politician to achieve high office without the benefit of bribes or patronage. ~ Susanna Clarke,
215:Who was it that said a magician needs the subtlety of a Jesuit, the daring of a soldier and the wits of a thief? I believe it was meant for a insult, but it has some truth in it. ~ Susanna Clarke,
216:All magic is about transformation... the performance magician is telling you that you are the magician in your own life. You are the agent of transformation, your own transformation. ~ Eugene Burger,
217:Before one can become a magician he must learn to control his own mind; for mind is the substance with which the magician acts, and the power to control it is the beginning of magic. ~ Franz Hartmann,
218:No matter what system the magician chooses, in order to make it work most effectively he or she must first become attuned to that system's particular way of viewing of the universe. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette,
219:Magic is the only profession where it's easy to lie about your talent. If you do a trick and you can learn it very quickly, you can fool somebody into thinking you're a great magician. ~ David Copperfield,
220:In Wangechi Mutu’s mother tongue, Kikuyu, there is no word for “artist.” The closest term is something like “magician” or “a person who uses objects and imbues them with meaning and power, ~ Sarah Thornton,
221:The memory of my father is wrapped up in white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day of work. Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits out of his hat, he drew love from his small body. ~ Yehuda Amichai,
222:Why do we think love is a magician? Because the whole power of magic consists in love. The work of magic is the attraction of one thing by another because of a certain affinity of nature. ~ Marsilio Ficino,
223:One goes to the magician, as one goes to the analyst, or any quack—to reaffirm one’s own secret volitions. Not to be cured, not to be warned, not to be saved, but to become what one wants to be. ~ Ana s Nin,
224:It was reported that the New York Knicks have won all 12 of the home games attended by magician David Blaine. A spokesman for the Knicks said, 'if this is what it takes to win, it's not worth it.' ~ Tina Fey,
225:I get it,” Merlin leaned forward. “The magician simply redirects attention to one of these other fifty-five thousand realities, thereby distracting others from the reality they’re manipulating ~ Tony Vigorito,
226:In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer. ~ Patti Smith,
227:The choreographer and the dancer must rememberthat they reach the audience through the eye.It's the illusion created which convinces the audience,much as it is with the work of a magician. ~ George Balanchine,
228:Back in Khufu's day I knew a magician who parted the Nile just so he could climb to the bottom and retrieve a girl's necklace. Then there was that Israelite fellow, Mickey." "Moses?" "Yeah, him. ~ Rick Riordan,
229:Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could. ~ Susanna Clarke,
230:For me, there is very little difference between magic and art. To me, the ultimate act of magic is to create something from nothing: It's like when the stage magician pulls the rabbit from the hat. ~ Alan Moore,
231:It was formed of sandstorm and lightning, like Sadie described, and when it fanned out its cobra’s crest it displayed a blazing hieroglyph no magician would ever write – Isfet, the sign of Chaos: ~ Rick Riordan,
232:A mathematician is a magician who converts adjectives into nouns: continuous into continuum, infinite into infinity, infinitesimal into location, 0D into point, 1D into line, curved into geodesic... ~ Bill Gaede,
233:The choreographer and the dancer must remember
that they reach the audience through the eye.
It's the illusion created which convinces the audience,
much as it is with the work of a magician. ~ George Balanchine,
234:Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange.
Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could. ~ Susanna Clarke,
235:[A] competent magician should have the ability to stand still at a bus stop with closed eyes and have the entire universe disappear apart from a single blazing visualised sigil or muttered spell. ~ Peter J Carroll,
236:Always quick with the wit. It's your defense, isn't it? Little girl doesn't want the world to know how sad she is, how damaged. Your words, your attitude, all a big misdirection. A magician's trick. ~ Chuck Wendig,
237:The Magician's Elephant (DiCamillo, Kate;Tanaka, Yoko) - Your Highlight on page 84 | Location 528-528 | Added on Saturday, March 1, 2014 7:32:12 PM It is a bad thing to have love and nowhere to put it. ~ Anonymous,
238:I just wanted to be in show business. I didn't care if I was going to be an actor or a magician or what. Comedy was a point of the least resistance, really. And on the simplest level, I loved comedy. ~ Steve Martin,
239:Back in Khufu's day I knew a magician who parted the Nile just so he could climb to the bottom and retrieve a girl's necklace. Then there was that Israelite fellow, Mickey."
"Moses?"
"Yeah, him. ~ Rick Riordan,
240:But though the magician particularly asked to be taken there alone, his dear friends, Mr. Drawlight and Mr. Lascelles, were not so unkind as to leave him to face this great crisis of his career alone ~ Susanna Clarke,
241:Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker. ~ Susanna Clarke,
242:Are you hungry?”
“Well, perhaps I am a little,” said Lucy. “I’ve no idea what the time is.”
“Come,” said the Magician. “All times may be soon to Aslan; but in my home all hungry times are one o’clock. ~ C S Lewis,
243:A good magician’s performance tells a story. Each act should build on the next, becoming ever more engaging to fill the audience with wonder. It’s a bud that unfurls into a flower, meant to woo the audience. ~ Laura Lam,
244:Ah, that shows you the power of music, that magician of magician, who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh. ~ Mark Twain,
245:But that is impossible," said Peter.
"Magic is always impossible," said the magician. "It begins with the impossible and ends with the impossible and is impossible in between. That is why it is magic. ~ Kate DiCamillo,
246:Whoever is afraid must needs be dependent; a weak thing needs support. That is why the primitive mind, from deep psychological necessity, begot religious instruction and embodied it in a magician or a priest. ~ Carl Jung,
247:The physical world is the point of departure from whence the magician works and upon which every human being, initiated or not, live and moves through his senses, his spirit, his soul and his physical body. ~ Franz Bardon,
248:Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to me that you’re better than the rabbits we ate last night. ~ Barry Hannah,
249:So you’re Merlin the Magician? We studied you in school last year.” I had no idea the guy was so wacky. “Oh no, Merlin was my bwother.” Mermin smiled. “Made quite a name for himself in your world,” he chuckled. ~ L R W Lee,
250:The popular image of the Magician has certain features in common with that of the Artist: both are unselfishly devoted to lofty tasks-which frequently overlapped in the uomo universale of the Renaissance. ~ Arthur Koestler,
251:We know all about you, Rincewind the magician. You are a man of great cunning and artifice. You laugh in the face of Death. Your affected air of craven cowardice does not fool me.”
It fooled Rincewind. ~ Terry Pratchett,
252:You want to create a country with millions of great magicians? Then let the free thinking prevails everywhere. And thus creativity will increase and creativity is the greatest magician in our universe. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan,
253:The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all as things now are with slight endeavour and scanty success. ~ Francis Bacon,
254:Theft annoys me more than anything else. The purloining of effects from another magician. Some people think it's massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They're wrong. ~ Ricky Jay,
255:…though he no longer wanted to be a magician, he still had magic in his hands. I knew because when he squeezed mine, the tingle spread to my chest. It was like being in another world, safe and out of the way. ~ Dinah Jefferies,
256:I like cars. I like travel. I like the idea of people breaking down and I'm the only one who can help them get on the road again. It would be like being a magician. Just open up the hood and cast your magic spell. ~ Sam Shepard,
257:[A] competent magician should have the ability to stand still at a bus stop with closed eyes and have the entire universe disappear apart from a single blazing visualised sigil or muttered spell.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, The Octavo,
258:I have no cause to love Mr. Norrell- far from it. But I know this about him: he is a magician first and everything else second- and Jonathan is the same. Books and magic are all either of them really care about. ~ Susanna Clarke,
259:I've found you can go on writing in the dark, and that the act of writing itself, that mysterious, dangerous, intoxicating, absorbing, nourishing magician's trick, that act of creation is its own light. ~ Janette Turner Hospital,
260:Time was a dazzling lie, a magician worth a bird in his hat. The truth, I felt certain, was that everything happened at once. How old was I? I was every age at the same time. All the days of our lives were today. ~ Ramona Ausubel,
261:Before I was known, I would go on stage and pretend I was other people. Once I pretended I was mentally handicapped. It was really wrong. One time I was a bad magician. And one time I pretended I was a Christian comic. ~ Andy Dick,
262:...sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely see one another... ~ Jos Saramago,
263:Of course there are robots among us. There are also Magicians among us. I think we take turns playing each role, as a matter of fact. The Magician defines a reality-mesh and the robot lives in it. Grok? ~ Robert Anton Wilson,
264:Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they're good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. ~ W P Kinsella,
265:Did anyone think this canon of druggie men were out of control? Only in the most admirable of ways! Out of control like a shaman or a space explorer, like a magician sawing himself in half. Out of control like a poet. ~ Michelle Tea,
266:A 'tulpa' is a consciously-projected thought-form or servitor, which may perform a particular task for a magician or act as a general 'helper'. They are of a similar nature to Spirit Desire-Forms.
   ~ Phil Hine, Aspects of Evocation,
267:It’s incomprehensible to me why a magician would create something that can be used against him. It’s like giving your sword to your previously unarmed enemy, and then being surprised when he stabs you with it!” Bruns ~ Maria V Snyder,
268:The Great Work of Magic is the collapsing of the future into the immediate present; the magician seizes reality and lives now, free from the bonds of his past, and knowing that the future is the Manifestation of his Will. ~ Phil Hine,
269:He had grown fond of the old proprietress, Mrs. Matalov, who had been a magician's assistant back in the 1930s, and who now, even at ninety-three, had the stoic dignity of a beautiful woman who was about to be cut in half. ~ Dan Chaon,
270:Being the Magician isn't about being powerful when you have things and useless when you don't," Persephone said.
"The Magician sees what is out there and finds connections. The Magician can make anything magical. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
271:Magic has a spiritual element, and is considered very important and of value, and magicians have always been a little bit silly, so if you're going to portray a modern day magician, there's gotta be a little silliness. ~ Jon Turteltaub,
272:Ronan laughed suddenly. That sound, as crooked and joyful and terrible as the dream in his hand, should have woken these cattle if nothing else did.
"I hear if you want magic done," he said, "you ask a magician. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
273:Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. ~ Tennessee Williams,
274:There is no trick of a magician or spell of a witch doctor, no drug or mesmerism or bribery or torture or coercion that can compare in power with the force for change unleashed in the human breast through the touch of love. ~ Mike Mason,
275:Elimae was a magician with a key in her mouth, a foreign language, a matryoshka doll: uncomplicated on the surface, but with a dozen secret selves hidden inside. She thought I didn't notice her, but she's all I did notice. ~ Kirsty Logan,
276:He nodded nervously. ‘He looks like a magician. I hate magicians. They usually have rabbits.’ I stared at him. ‘You’re scared of bunnies?’ ‘Blah-hah-hah! They’re big bullies. Always stealing celery from defenceless satyrs. ~ Rick Riordan,
277:Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you? ~ Orson Welles,
278:Napoleon Buonaparte, it was said, was scouring France to find a magician of his own – but with no success. In London the Ministers were quite astonished to find that, for once, they had done something the Nation approved. ~ Susanna Clarke,
279:The white magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder - not a destroyer - and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
280:Hillary Clinton ripped FBI Director Louis Freeh on Wednesday. She said she can't understand how FBI documents could vanish and then mysteriously reappear. She has to say that or she'd be thrown out of the Magician's Society. ~ Argus Hamilton,
281:Strange began to laugh. 'Well, Henry, you can cease frowning at me. If I am a magician, I am a very indifferent one. Other adepts summon up fairy-spirits and long-dead kings. I appear to have conjured the spirit of a banker. ~ Susanna Clarke,
282:If “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted,” then there is no purpose or grand cosmic scheme to life beyond what we choose to impose or believe. To some this is cynicism. For the Chaos Magician, it is a breath of dizzying freedom. ~ Phil Hine,
283:I intended lilies, said the magician. but in the clutches of a desparate desire to do something extraordinary, I called down a greater magic and inadvertently caused you a profound harm. I will now try to undo what I have done. ~ Kate DiCamillo,
284:A white magician is one who is laboring to gain the confidence of the powers that be, and to prove, through the purity of his life and the sincerity of his motive, his worthiness to be entrusted with the great arcane (the wand of the Magus). [...],
285:Your magician self, that loopy doppelgänger, was always with you, tugging at your sleeve, whispering silently that your real life was a fake life, a crude and undignified and inauthentic charade that nobody was really buying anyway. ~ Lev Grossman,
286:What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling.
Schmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for. ~ Peter S Beagle,
287:On my fortieth birthday, rather than merely bore my friends by having anything as mundane as a midlife crisis I decided it might be more interesting to actually terrify them by going completely mad and declaring myself to be a magician. ~ Alan Moore,
288:I have been accused of being a ‘black magician.’ No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it. ~ Aleister Crowley,
289:That night, Kaz took Saskia’s red ribbon from beneath his pillow. He rolled it into a neat spiral and clutched it in his palm. He lay in bed and tried to pray, but all he could think about was the magician’s coin: there and then gone. ~ Leigh Bardugo,
290:The less a writer discusses his work and himself the better. The master chef slaughters no chickens in the dining room; the doctor writes prescriptions in Latin; the magician hides his hinges, mirrors, and trapdoors with the utmost care. ~ Jack Vance,
291:What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling.
Shchmendrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for. ~ Peter S Beagle,
292:After watching the house for a few days, she had concluded that the magician lived alone, but you never knew if someone had a secret lover stashed away. Or a very loud pet. That time with the peacock, for instance. Noisy birds, peacocks. ~ Yoon Ha Lee,
293:He nodded nervously. ‘He looks like a magician. I hate magicians. They usually have rabbits.’

I stared at him. ‘You’re scared of bunnies?’

‘Blah-hah-hah! They’re big bullies. Always stealing celery from defenceless satyrs. ~ Rick Riordan,
294:Okay, can you pass yourself off as a magician and gain Gerald's trust and pass us information about Celeste's plans and save all the magicians who want to be saved? Jaime asked. "Because if so awesome. I shall stay here and eat pie. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,
295:God is part of the universe, master architect but not master magician. In this conception, miracles do not represent, as they traditionally have, “the intervention of God in the natural order” or “the suspension of the natural order.”10 ~ Terryl L Givens,
296:The chilly rationale of hindsight is what exposes the how and why of something that once seemed supernatural. It's the magician's manual that shows you how the tricks are done, not with sorcery but with careful cues and mysterious devices. ~ Tayari Jones,
297:A brahmin once asked The Blessed One: "Are you a God?" "No, brahmin" said The Blessed One. "Are you a saint?" "No, brahmin" said The Blessed One. "Are you a magician?" "No, brahmin" said The Blessed One. "What are you then?" "I am awake." ~ Gautama Buddha,
298:Because I have been a magician for many years, people have often asked me whether I ever have sawn a woman in half. I reply, Oh, yes I've sawn over seventy women in half in my lifetime, and I'm learning the second half of the trick now. ~ Raymond Smullyan,
299:Liberty is so great a magician, endowed with so marvelous a power of productivity, that under the inspiration of this spirit alone, North America was able within less than a century to equal, and even surpass, the civilization of Europe. ~ Mikhail Bakunin,
300:I can even see that little flourish he often does with his hand. The one that looks like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, only the rabbit is your dignity and the hat is him slowly strangling it to death in front of you. Certainly ~ Charlotte Stein,
301:THE MAGICIAN
They asked St. Germain's manservant if his master was truly a thousand years old, as it was rumored he had claimed.

'How would I know?" the man replied. "I have only been in the master's employ for three hundred years. ~ Neil Gaiman,
302:One magician I worked for once called for my aid during an earthquake which was toppling his tower. Unfortunately, the words he used were "Preserve me!" A cork, a great big bottle, a vat of pickling fluid, and - presto! - the job was done. ~ Jonathan Stroud,
303:Where was the bloodied boy who'd collapsed on her bedroom floor?

Where was the tortured magician, veins turning black as he fought a talisman's pull?

Where was the sad, lonely royal who'd stood on the dock and watched her walk away? ~ V E Schwab,
304:Drummond is many things, and one of those things is a magician. (...) Art is magic, and so is pop. Bill Drummond is a cultural magician, and 45 is his logbook. Shelve alongside Brian Eno's A Year With Swollen Appendices. Hail Discordia ! ~ Charles Shaar Murray,
305:Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon the alter. I am the sacrificial butter. ~ James Joyce,
306:The magician was studying her face with his green eyes. "Your face is wet," he said worriedly. "I hope that's spray. If you've become human enough to cry, then no magic in the world — oh, it must be spray. Come with me. It had better be spray. ~ Peter S Beagle,
307:Mass was like grand opera, a magic show with the most expensive props in town. And faith, a sleight of hand trick, in which one was both the magician and the audience; the deceiver and the deceived. Still, who could resist a good magic trick? ~ Kathleen Tessaro,
308:The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you wont find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. ~ Christopher Priest,
309:Nelson Knutson?” I nodded. “What kind of name is that? It sounds like something a magician would say . . . you know, like abracadabra.” “It does?” “Yeah. You know, I’m waving my magic wand and . . . Nelson Knutson! . . . there’s a rabbit in my hat! ~ Ann Tatlock,
310:Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
311:Create your own “LUCK” in your personal life—instead of relying on “fate” and hoping that your happiness will spontaneously materialize sometime and somehow, as if by magic.

Be the “magician” of your own destiny. Take control of your own fate. ~ Sahara Sanders,
312:A black magician is one who seeks to gain authority over spiritual powers by means of force rather than by merit. In other words, he is one who is trying to storm the gates of heaven; he is one who is seeking spiritual power and occult dominion with an ulterior motive,
313:Around 1974, I graduated into the occult, and spent a sold six or seven years immersed in the Kabala and the Chaldean, Celtic, and Druidic traditions I also became fascinated with Aleister Crowley, the nineteenth-century magician who shared these beliefs. ~ Daryl Hall,
314:Ive said its a little bit like a magician performing for a convention of magicians... all the magicians in the audience watching this illusion-Do they see the illusion, or do they see the device that made the illusion? Probably they see a little of both. ~ Chuck Close,
315:Meditation on Savitri, August 7, 2020, Friday.A master Magician of measure and deviceHas made an eternity from recurring formsAnd to the wandering spectator thoughtAssigned a seat on the inconscient stage. ~ Sri Aurobindo, (1993). Savitri, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, p. 241,
316:the writing of fiction is akin to the work of a stage magician, a feat of sustained deception in which by imagery and language the trickster leads the audience to believe in the existence or possibility of a series of nonexistent or impossible things. ~ Michael Chabon,
317:Whatever it is that occurs at death, I believe it deserves to be called a miracle. The miracle, ironically, is that we don't die. The cessation of the body is an illusion, and like a magician sweeping aside a curtain, the soul reveals what lies beyond. ~ Deepak Chopra,
318:Impeccable artists of unerring forms,
Magician builders of sound and rhythmic words,
Wind-haired Gandharvas chanted to the ear
The odes that shape the universal thought, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Eternal Day, The Soul’s Choice and the Supreme Consummation,
319:properly-trained magician. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t fear the second best, Sergeant Miles had said. He fears the worst, because he doesn’t know what the idiot will do. Emily looked up at the battlements. It was hard to be sure, but ~ Christopher G Nuttall,
320:When [the magician] clicks his fingers and cards change to the four aces, we know we have experienced sleight of hand. Real magic would not be quite that quick and easy. Real magic would take investment. Real magic would draw you in, and make you nervous. ~ Derren Brown,
321:The Book of Spells or of Conjurations is the Record of every thought, word and deed of the Magician; for everything that he has willed is willed to a purpose. It is the same as if he had taken an oath or perform some achievement.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, The Book,
322:A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. ~ Lev Grossman,
323:Back so soon?" he asked. "Too bad. I was just about to organize a search for your dead body. What happened when you knocked on the southerner magician's door to sacrifice yourself? Did they kick you out, thinking you too half-witted to waste their time on? ~ Maria V Snyder,
324:It is the magician's bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. ~ C S Lewis,
325:It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. ~ C S Lewis,
326:The greatness and efficacy of a magician is measured by his refusal to use magic. The true magician, the greatest, is the poorest and most unfortunate of all mortals. Because between his magic and his person forgetfulness takes shape, in the form of the world. ~ Cesar Aira,
327:We have reached a period in the history of the world when ignorance is criminal and deserves the heaviest penalty. Ignorance is not black magic, but it is the greatest ally that the black magician has in the world today. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
328:Once I saw Desjardins’ house, I hated him even more. It was a huge mansion on the other side of the Tuileries, on the rue des Pyramids. “Pyramids Road?” Sadie said. “Obvious, much?” “Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,” I suggested. ~ Rick Riordan,
329:My mouth went dry. I imagined Annabeth invoking hieroglyphs at Camp Half-Blood, blowing up chariots on the racetrack, hurling giant blue fists during capture the flag. ‘So my girlfriend is a magician now, like, permanently? Because she was scary enough before. ~ Rick Riordan,
330:Once, no magic act was complete without the magician’s revealingly dressed assistant. Her job was not merely to be sawn in half but to dominate the mostly male audience’s attention at moments when a focus on the whereabouts of the rabbit might blow the gaff. That ~ Anonymous,
331:[Vaclav] thinks sometimes you know that it is a very long road to become a famous magician, and sometimes you have to spend your last dollar on buying a soda so that you have something to be grateful for that day, even if it lasts just one small piece of time. ~ Haley Tanner,
332:And now, Your Majesty," said Strange, "I think it is time we returned to the Castle. You and I, Your Majesty, are a British King and a British magician. Though Great Britain may desert us, we have no right to desert Great Britain. She may have need of us yet. ~ Susanna Clarke,
333:Which of you is better with that kind of magic?” “Sadie,” Carter said. “I’m more a combat magician.” “Giant chicken mode,” I remembered. “Dude, my avatar is a falcon-headed warrior.” “I still think you could get a sponsorship deal with KFC. Make some big bucks. ~ Rick Riordan,
334:Yes," agreed Childermass, "very great harm! For while he was in the pantry he ate three meat-pies."

"And two cream cheeses," added Lucas.

Mr. Norrell was forced to admit to himself that this did not seem much like the actions of a great magician ~ Susanna Clarke,
335:I'm glad you're here. Though ... how did you get in?"
"The bathroom. You really ought to lock your windows, arrogant magician. And don't be too pleased. I'm merely here to ask you to take on Jacky Boy and Ma'ati immediately. And to visit my bird, of course. ~ Kiersten White,
336:The short story is not as restrictive as the sonnet, but, of all the literary forms, it is possibly the most single-minded. ...at the end there has to be the literary equivalent of the magician's puff of smoke, an outcome that is both startling and anticipated. ~ Louis Menand,
337:Traveller on plateau and on musing ridge,
As one who sees in the World-Magician’s glass
A miracled imagery of soul-scapes flee
He traversed scenes of an immortal joy
And gazed into abysms of beauty and bliss. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Paradise of the Life-Gods,
338:But magic, like everything else, follows certain natural laws. Magic needs energy wherever it can find it. If no other source of energy is available, it will take the life force of the magician who created it. That is why every use of magic weakens the magician. ~ Michael Scott,
339:Before we do, I suggest you take a break. If you need to go to the bathroom, this is a good time. If you're sleepy, go to bed and save the next chapter for tomorrow. For the magician's story, you must have all your wits about you. No wandering minds allowed. ~ Pseudonymous Bosch,
340:Once I saw Desjardins’ house, I hated him even more. It was a huge mansion on the other side of the Tuileries, on the rue des Pyramids.
“Pyramids Road?” Sadie said. “Obvious, much?”
“Maybe he couldn’t find a place on Stupid Evil Magician Street,” I suggested. ~ Rick Riordan,
341:All was still and quiet. It seemed as if a magician had placed an enchantment upon the earth and that everything in the world was bound in an eternal sleep and would remain frozen and unchanging forevermore underneath the watchful gaze of the twinkling stars. ~ Christopher Paolini,
342:A locust job was the magician’s equivalent of erasing the porn from your dead buddy’s hard drive before his mom sees it. They’d scour Spengler’s house for any enchanted relics, journals, grimoires, and occult ciphers, anything that could raise a citizen’s eyebrow. ~ Craig Schaefer,
343:A Mexican magician promised the crowd that he had a great new trick.” Porter felt the heat of the blade growing close, and preemptively started biting into the stick again. Red continued, “He waved his wand and said, ‘Uno, dos…’ Poof! He disappeared without a tres.” The ~ A R Wise,
344:I had decided to be a magician well before I decided to be a writer. I was the little boy who would get up on-stage and do magic wearing a fake mustache, which would fall off during the performance. I'm still trying to perform those tricks. Now I do it with writing. ~ Ray Bradbury,
345:Motive is the key to the problem of magic. Even the greatest of white magicians can become a degenerate in an instant if his motive becomes unworthy. The white magician serves humanity; the black magician seeks to serve himself. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
346:Robert Vavra is one of these artists, part magician, part alchemist, who is able to create a series of photographs in unforgettable compositions. Only visible are the dunes, the blinding fields of flowers and the vast sky, the epic intimacy of Robert Vavra's vision. ~ Peter Ustinov,
347:I'm Carter Kane-part-time high school freshman, part-time magician, full-time worrier about all the Egyptian gods and monsters who are constantly trying to kill me.

Okay, that last part is an exaggeration. Not all the gods want me dead. Just a lot of them. ~ Rick Riordan,
348:It is a strange feeling for a girl when first she finds the power put into her hand of influencing the destiny of another to happiness or misery. She is like a magician holding for the first time a fairy wand, not having yet had experience of its potency. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,
349:Had I known you were going to pull a pretty ribbon out of your sleeve like some two-bit magician, tie me up with it, and indulge your mental torture fetish in your basement, I would've shot you. Many times."
"Two-bit magician?"
"Men like you enjoy being flattered. ~ Ilona Andrews,
350:It had not occurred to anybody in the crowd—that simple trick of inquiring about somebody who wasn't ten thousand miles away.  The magician was hit hard; it was an emergency that had never happened in his experience before, and it corked him; he didn't know how to meet it. ~ Mark Twain,
351:I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks,” he said. “I salute you, magician.” He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. “To small minds,” she told him, spine very straight, “any skill must look like sorcery. ~ Katherine Arden,
352:Why, then, grieve — tatra ka paridevana — asks Shri Krishna. This is the great mystery of God. As a magician creates the illusion of a tree and destroys it, so God sports in endless ways and does not let us know the beginning and the end of his play. Why grieve over it? ~ Mahatma Gandhi,
353:Only to a magician is the world forever fluid, infinitely mutable and eternally new. Only he knows the secret of change, only he knows truly that all things are crouched in eagerness to become something else, and it is from this universal tension that he draws his power. ~ Peter S Beagle,
354:Whoever said, Eyes are windows of the soul , didn't know what he was talking about. Eyes are curtains that prevent you from seeing. They're rabbits that climb out of a magician's hat. Eyes are the last thing you see smiling before a bullet slams into your midsection. ~ James Abel,
355:A patrol had been sent out to look at the road between two towns, but some Portuguese had come along and told the patrol that this was one of the English magician's roads and was certain to disappear in an hour or two taking everyone upon it to Hell - or possibly England. ~ Susanna Clarke,
356:She had never heard of a female magician. (‘Why are there so few of us?’ she asked Ilya once. ‘For one thing,’ he said, ‘the Inquisition. For two more, the Reformation and the Salem Witch Trials. What’s more, the clothing. You ever try to hide a dove in an evening gown?’) ~ Chloe Benjamin,
357:To Scottie July 1937
I honestly believed with no effort on my part [10 years earlier at 30 on his first trip to Hollywood] I was a sort of magician with words - an odd delusion on my part when I had worked so desperately hard to develop a hard, colorful prose style. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,
358:Ancient stone amulets from England? Silver spikes? The notions swirled through Don’s mind, getting mixed up with images of Merlin the magician and the Wicked Witch of the West. Don felt as if he’d stepped into a fairy tale. Next he’d start finding trolls under the bridges. ~ Chet Williamson,
359:Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another. You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you. ~ Holly Black,
360:From a magicial point of view, it is axiomatic that we have create the world in which we exist. Looking about himself, the magician can say 'thus have I will,' or 'thus do I perceive,' or more accurately, 'thus does my Kia manifest.'
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Enchantment [55],
361:A major determining factor by which a superior human can be isolated from his average counterparts is his very isolation—the degree to which he naturally removes himself from mass-media input and stimuli. You cannot be an elitist, a Magician, and be plugged into the system. ~ Anton Szandor LaVey,
362:The unicorn halted in her slow, desperate round of the cage, realizing for the first time that the magician understood her speech. He smiled, and she saw that his face was frighteningly young for a grown man-untraveled by time, unvisited by grief or wisdom. "I know you," he said. ~ Peter S Beagle,
363:In primitive society, where uniformity of occupation is the rule, and the distribution of the community into various classes of workers has hardly begun, every man is more or less his own magician; he practices charms and incantations for his own good and the injury of his enemies. ~ James G Frazer,
364:Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another.

You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you. ~ Holly Black,
365:It was professional courtesy backed up by the promise of mutually assured destruction. He could take out any one of us, if he put his back into it, but he knew that would bring every magician in the city down on his head at once. That was one fight nobody would be walking away from. ~ Craig Schaefer,
366:Night and day a picture of the showcase of the Lame Novelty Company and its gambling content would seem to appear before my eyes. Then I realized that I could not rest content and continue practising to become a magician until I knew what those gambling gimmicks in that showcase click. ~ John Scarne,
367:To "invoke" is to "call in", just as to "evoke" is to "call forth". This is the essential difference between the two branches of Magick. In invocation, the macrocosm floods the consciousness. In evocation, the magician, having become the macrocosm, creates a microcosm. ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
368:Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement - that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may some day be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic. ~ Charles Fort,
369:The Duke of York remarked that King Ferdinand of Spain had sent a letter to the Prince Regent complaining that many parts of his kingdom had been rendered entirely unrecognizable by the English magician and demanding that Mr Strange return and restore the country to its original form. ~ Susanna Clarke,
370:At the circus, a careless mother may let her child take part in the experiments of a Chinese magician. He puts him in a box. He opens the box; it's empty. He closes it again. He opens it; the child reappears and goes back to his seat. Now it is no longer the same child. Nobody doubts it. ~ Jean Cocteau,
371:There were moments when Lila wondered how the hell she’d gotten here. Which steps—and missteps—she’d taken. A year ago she’d been a thief in another London. A month ago she’d been a pirate, sailing on the open seas. A week ago she’d been a magician in the Essen Tasch. And now she was this. ~ V E Schwab,
372:I've watched every episode of Poirot and Midsomer Murders on TV. I never guess the ending and I can't wait for the moment when the detective gathers all the suspects in the room and, like a magician conjuring silk scarves out of the air, makes the whole thing make sense. ~ Anthony Horowitz,
373:When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment. ~ Pope Francis,
374:Magicians protect their secrets not because the secrets are large and important, but because they are so small and trivial. The wonderful effects created on stage are often the result of a secret so absurd that the magician would be embarrassed to admit that that was how it was done. ~ Christopher Priest,
375:Then what is magic for?" Prince Lír demanded wildly. "What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn?" He gripped the magician's shoulder hard, to keep from falling.

Schmedrick did not turn his head. With a touch of sad mockery in his voice, he said, "That's what heroes are for. ~ Peter S Beagle,
376:He who is going to be a magician will recognize that life is dependent on the work of the elements in the various planes and spheres. It is to be seen in great and in small things, in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm, temporarily and eternally, everywhere there are powers in action. ~ Franz Bardon,
377:I came up with the term 'mindfreak' because I didn't like the word 'magician.' I felt like I wanted to coin a term that would be basically the reaction to my art. It would be a mindfreak and so that's why I came up with that. But, many people say I'm really a student of humanity and psychology. ~ Criss Angel,
378:O my Bergson, you are a magician, and your book is a marvel, a real wonder in the history of philosophy . . . In finishing it I found . . . such a flavor of persistent euphony, as of a rich river that never foamed or ran thin, but steadily and firmly proceeded with its banks full to the brim. ~ William James,
379:That's why I always keep a handful of silver glitter in my pockets. If I get pushed into a conversational corner I throw the glitter into the air, and while the person I'm talking to is distracted, I run away. An additional benefit is that I look like a cool magician, so I've got that going for me. ~ Jon Acuff,
380:Adam had never been powerful in his life.

Being the magician isn't about being powerful when you have things and useless when you don't. The magician sees what is out there and finds connections. The magician can make anything magical.

Now, are you the magician? Or aren't you? ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
381:Time doesn’t fly, it steals. Like some skilled pickpocket or magician, it gets you to look the other way and when you do, it ruthlessly steals your essential things—memories, great moments that end much too soon, the lives of those you love. It knows how to trick you and then steal you blind. ~ Jonathan Carroll,
382:The magician acknowledges a desire, he lists the appropriate symbols and arranges them into an easily visualised glyph. Using any of the gnostic techniques he reifies the sigil and then, by force of will, hurls it into his subconscious from where the sigil can begin to work unencumbered by desire. ~ Ray Sherwin,
383:I believe, or sense, that the universe has not been constructed from a purely mechanical, logical, rational point of view, but there is a magic afoot in the universe, that God can be looked at as a kind of a magician in which we get to perform tricks ourselves, without knowing that we're doing so. ~ Fred Alan Wolf,
384:The leaving happened slowly, gradually, as these things do, and before we knew it, we were lost to each other, as if a magician had whisked a cloth off the table, leaving the dishes there, jolted. And when we looked back it was all a blur, time on fast forward, hurtling to an inevitable conclusion. ~ Kathryn Stern,
385:Kell tipped his head so that his copper hair tumbled out of his eyes, revealing not only the crisp blue of the left one but the solid black of the right. A black that ran edge to edge, filling white and iris both. There was nothing human about that eye. It was pure magic. The mark of the blood magician. ~ V E Schwab,
386:Each memory is like a paper flower stowed up a magician's sleeve: invisible one moment and then so substantial and florid the next I cannot imagine how it stayed hidden all this time. And like those paper flowers, once they've been let loose in the world, the memories are impossible to tuck away again. ~ Jodi Picoult,
387:For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal. The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play. ~ Garry Kasparov,
388:Love
isn't always magic.
But if I offered my body to the magician,
if I told him to cut me in half
so after that I could come to you whole
and ask for you back
would you listen
for this dark alley love song?
For the winter we heated our home
from the steam off our own bodies? ~ Andrea Gibson,
389:The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man. ~ Thomas Paine,
390:In the fish-market by the Grand Canal a fisherman sold Frank three mullet, but then almost neglected to take the money because his attention was given to the argument he was conducting with his neighbour as to whether the English magician had gone mad because he was a magician, or because he was English. ~ Susanna Clarke,
391:I think most people are fascinated by chess for that reason. It's just these mystical shapes. It's almost like Harry Potteresque, like wizard's chess in a way. The pieces come alive and you're the sorcerer. You're the magician and you get to do what you want with them and hopefully you don't screw it up. ~ Maurice Ashley,
392:I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. ~ Lev Grossman,
393:I was very aware of the legend, from such an early age. Being a Brit, you are so aware of King Arthur, Camelot, Guinevere and Morgan, the witch. Merlin is this mad magician who's cloaked in mystery. It has that mystery about it. And, it's a lead role for a woman that's strong and has a real journey to take. ~ Tamsin Egerton,
394:P.S. As far as the white rabbit is concerned, it might be better to compare it with the whole universe. We who live here are microscopic insects existing deep down in the rabbit’s fur. But philosophers are always trying to climb up the fine hairs of the fur in order to stare right into the magician’s eyes. ~ Jostein Gaarder,
395:The adept could, in truth, change those who were obnoxious to him into harmless and unimportant shapes, not as in the letter of the old stories, by transforming the enemy, but by transforming himself. The magician puts men below him by going up higher, as one looks down on a mountain city from a loftier crag. ~ Arthur Machen,
396:The magician therefore seeks unity of desire before he attempts to act. Desires are re-arranged before an act, not during it. In all things he must live like this. As reorganization of belief is the key to liberation, so is reorganization of desire the key to will.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Enchantment [56],
397:It is human nature to want to believe in the wizardry of the magician—but also to turn against him and to scorn him the moment that he commits the slightest error that reveals his trickery. Those in the audience are embarrassed to have been so easily astonished, and they blame the performer for their gullibility. ~ Dean Koontz,
398:Like the Artha-shastra, but perhaps for the opposite reason, the Kama-sutra is wary of nuns; it advises a married woman not to hang out with “any woman who is a beggar, a religious mendicant, a Buddhist nun, promiscuous, a juggler, a fortune-teller, or a magician who uses love-sorcery worked with roots (4.1.9). ~ Wendy Doniger,
399:It is human nature to want to believe in the wizardry of the magician--but also to turn against him and to scorn him the moment that he commits the slightest error that reveals his trickery. Those in the audience are embarrassed to have been so easily astonished, and they blame the performer for their gullibility. ~ Dean Koontz,
400:I warn you," the boy went on. "I am a magician of great power. I control many terrifying entities. This being you see before you" - here I rolled my shoulders back and puffed my chest up menacingly - "is but the meanest and least impressive of my slaves." (Here I slumped my shoulders and stuck my stomach out.) ~ Jonathan Stroud,
401:Bits and pieces here and there do no good for a man’s soul. Thinking all of it is right or all of it is wrong does no good, either. Just as a magician cannot work all materials. He must choose one. But how does he know? How do these people believe in this faith, but not the others? Yet they are happy.” Ceony ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
402:Are we so desperate for entertainment that we will fall for a Trickless magician?? Saw a woman in half. Pull a rabbit out of a hat. Do something! What tricks does this guy have? "I'm in a box...and I ain't gonna eat.". "I'm in a box... and I ain't gonna eat!!" That ain't no trick! That's called living in the projects! ~ Chris Rock,
403:Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll,
404:There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. ~ C S Lewis,
405:All things that move between the quiet poles
Shall be at my command. Emperors and kings
Are but obey'd in their several provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;
But his dominion that exceeds in this
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man!
A sound magician is a mighty god. ~ Christopher Marlowe,
406:He was ruthless in his pursuit of his pleasure. He made it an art form, this dissolute living. Almost stylized in its perfection. And so damned tempting she couldn’t turn away. She wanted him to teach her his secrets, like a magician to his apprentice. And above all, she wanted him to remember her when she was gone. ~ Pepper Winters,
407:There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. The ~ C S Lewis,
408:A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally
   ~ Peter J Carroll,
409:For if rice and tuna was his for-guests meal, Ceony couldn’t imagine what the man ate when he dined alone. Perhaps Mg. Aviosky had assigned her here merely to ensure England’s oddest paper magician got some decent nutrition and didn’t wither away, leaving the country with only eleven paper magicians instead of twelve. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
410:I'm one of the few reading and thinking people who loves Las Vegas for the vulgarity and omnipresence of the dream. The collective dream. There's something enormous about it. Let me say one thing: Las Vegas and cinema have similar roots. The country fair. The magician at the country fair. The vulgarity of the country fair. ~ Werner Herzog,
411:That kind of swagger. The “I got this” energy. That’s the Magician. You see this card a lot with successful people, or with people who’ve just found the correct path in their life and have just had that Eureka! moment. He’s President Barack Obama backed by the P-Funk All Stars. Just sit down, kiddo. He’s got this covered. ~ Melissa Cynova,
412:I came with many knots in my heart,
like the magician's rope.

You undid them all at once.
I see now the splendor of the student
and that of the teacher's art.

Love and this body sit inside your presence,
one demolished, the other drunk.

We smile. We weep, tree limbs
turning sere, then light green. ~ Rumi,
413:Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do. ~ John Hodgman,
414:Now…I live and breathe weirdness. It goes with the territory when you’re a demigod. But there are still moments when I do a mental double take: like when I’m flying upward inside a giant glowing vulture, flapping my arms to control make-believe wings, holding an almost-immortal magician in my talons…all so I can steal his hat. ~ Rick Riordan,
415:There was never any question about Scholesy's quality as a footballer. He was known as the little ginger magician in the youth team. Some reckon he's the best United player of the modern era, and there's a case for saying that. You don't hear him blowing his own trumpet, though - he just gets on with his job. He's the real deal. ~ Steve Bruce,
416:All here can change if the Magician choose.
   If human will could be made one with God's,
   If human thought could echo the thoughts of God,
   Man might be all-knowing and omnipotent;
   But now he walks in Nature's doubtful ray.
   Yet can the mind of man receive God's light,
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain,
417:A robed figure stood before a coin, a cup, a sword, a wand---all of the symbols of all the tarot suits. An infinity symbol floated above his head; one arm was lifted in a posture of power. Yes, thought Adam. Understanding prickled and then evaded him.

He read the words at the bottom of the card.

The Magician. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
418:Magicians think they’re wise and witty, full of patter and panache, walking around like they don’t deserve to be shot in the back of the head and dumped in a lake. For all the grandeur of its self-regard, magic consists of nothing more than making a total stranger feel stupid. Worse, the magician usually dresses like a jackass". ~ Grady Hendrix,
419:Yet magic is no more than the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic has but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen. ~ W Somerset Maugham,
420:He ran,” the unicorn said. “You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention.” Her voice was gentle, and without pity. “Never run,” she said. “Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking of something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly and she may not follow. Walk very slowly, magician. ~ Peter S Beagle,
421:Most important of all, perhaps, all the childhood images of God—God the Magician, God the Santa Claus, God the wrathful Judge, God the Puppeteer—disappear. We know now that the God of Creation has shared power with us and remains with us to help us see life through. Our role is to do our part, to do our best, to trust the path. ~ Joan D Chittister,
422:Peace and quiet. That’s one thing to be said for deserts. They give you a chance to get away from the everyday pressures of life. And when those everyday pressures consist of seven furious djinn and one apperplectic master magician, a few hindered thousand square miles of sand, rock, wind, and desolation is exactly what you need. ~ Jonathan Stroud,
423:On the heights above the river Xzan, at the site of certain ancient ruins, Iucounu the Laughing Magician had built a manse to his private taste: an eccentric structure of steep gables, balconies, sky-walks, cupolas, together with three spiral green glass towers through which the red sunlight shone in twisted glints and peculiar colors. ~ Jack Vance,
424:Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they’re good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples’ lives for them. ~ W P Kinsella,
425:Fear is like a ten-cent magician. If you watch the trick a couple of times, you see the flaws and you know how the magician is doing it. But the first time, that same trick looks good. When we're scared, we don't always think things through. We react. It's human nature. Fear can make the wrong decision feel right. By then, it's too late. ~ Kami Garcia,
426:As a magician, I try to show things to people that seem impossible. And I think magic, whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. It's practice, it's training, and It's practice, it's training and experimenting, while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be. And that's what magic is to me. ~ David Blaine,
427:Fortunately, our friend Raistlin taught me what to watch—” “Raistlin!” Flint puffed. “That pasty-faced, skinny magician. He’s more than half charlatan himself. Always sniveling and whining and poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. If it weren’t for his twin brother looking after him, someone would’ve put an end to his magic long ago. ~ Margaret Weis,
428:I’m not sure why Setne didn’t just magic himself away. I suppose even a powerful magician can succumb to panic. When you’re free-falling, you forget to think rationally: Gee, I have spells and stuff. Instead your animal brain takes over and you think: OH MY GOD THIS KID IS HOLDING ON TO ME AND I’M TRAPPED AND FALLING AND I’M GOING TO DIE! ~ Rick Riordan,
429:Theurgy is ritual magic - but magic that enacts the will of God, not of the magician. It brings divine energies down to earth, elevating and spiritualizing the world of matter, including the very being and substance of the participants. Each time the believer takes part with attention and devotion, he or she becomes more attuned to God. ~ Richard Smoley,
430:The lucid dream, located as it is at a crossroads between worlds and states of consciousness, places the magician in a unique position to influence the delicate balance of consciousness and the interplay it has on matter in the waking state, and is thus an opportunity to test one’s ability in the art of adjusting the mutable fabric of Maya. ~ Zeena Schreck,
431:And also, what kind of job was comic magician? She didn't think she could bear to be married to a comic magician, even if his breath were sweeter than Parma violets and his kisses were like atom bombs. Comic magicians belonged on seaside piers. Comic magicians were what she had come to London to escape, not to find, and certainly not to marry. ~ Nick Hornby,
432:Chaston wrote that a great many fairies harboured a vague sense of having been treated badly by the English. Though it was a mystery to Chaston — as it is to me — why they should have thought so. In the houses of the great English magicians fairies were the first among the servants and sat in the best places after the magician and his lady. ~ Susanna Clarke,
433:The Magician therefore represents the state of concentration without effort, i.e. the state of consciousness where the centre directing the will has “descended” (in reality it is elevated) from the brain to the rhythmic system, where the “oscillations of the mental substance” are reduced to silence and to rest, no longer hindering concentration. ~ Anonymous,
434:Are you strong enough to win?” she asked. Was he? This wasn’t a tournament magician. Wasn’t even a sliver of magic like Vitari. Osaron had destroyed an entire world. Changed another on a whim. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. Lila flashed a glimmer of a smile, sharp as glass. “Good,” she answered, pushing open the door. “Only fools are certain.” * ~ V E Schwab,
435:Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the Pledge. The magician shows you something ordinary. The second act is called the Turn. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary. But you wouldn't clap yet, because making something disappear isn't enough. You have to bring it back. ~ Michael Caine,
436:Reading about Bordertown was the first time I saw people like me in speculative fiction. Messed-up kids, making messsed-up choices. I couldn't be a magician's apprentice or a pig keeper who might or might not be a king's son or a princess with a prophecy hanging over my head. But I could, maybe, somehow, be part of a community of artists who loved magic. ~ Holly Black,
437:Theatres are curious places, magician's trick-boxes where the golden memories of dramtic triumphs linger like nostalgic ghosts, and where the unexplainable, the fantastic, the tragic, the comic and the absurd are routine occurences on and off the stage. Murders, mayhem, politcal intrigue, lucrative business, secret assignations, and of course, dinner. ~ E A Bucchianeri,
438:The human being does not hop out of the magician's hat in the way that the ape climbs down from the tree; he also does not emerge from the hand of a creator who surveys everything in advance with his foreknowledge. He is the product of a production that is not itself a human being. The human being was not yet what he would become before he became it. ~ Peter Sloterdijk,
439:I’d say, Ceony,” he said after swallowing, “had I not been present for the lessons, I’d think you’d found a way to enchant pasta.” Ceony smiled. “You like it?” He nodded, scooping up another bite. “It tastes just as good as it smells. That’s a sign of a well-rounded person. I should congratulate you.” “On my person or my pasta?” - The Paper Magician ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
440:the more apparatus a magician carries about with him – coloured powders, stuffed cats, magical hats and so forth – the greater the fraud you will eventually discover him to be!” And what, inquired Mr Horrocks politely, were the few tools that a magician did require? “Why! Nothing really,” said Mr Norrell. “Nothing but a silver basin for seeing visions in. ~ Susanna Clarke,
441:Hush, sir!” whispered the man, “Your voice. It is too loud. You will wake him up!” “Wake him up? Who?” “The man under the hedge, sir. He is a magician. Did you never hear that if you wake a magician before his time, you risk bringing his dreams out of his head into the world?” “And who knows what horrors he is dreaming of!” agreed another man, in a whisper. ~ Susanna Clarke,
442:If Albert Einstein, the last century’s very poster boy for the cunning man and the wild-haired magician of science, knew one thing, then it was simply that there was always more to be known. He didn’t pridefully condemn dreams of physics and incomplete theories. He pointed off into the future and named the unknown things as, in fact, spooky action at a distance. ~ Warren Ellis,
443:Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they’re good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples’ lives for them. I don’t write autobiography. ~ W P Kinsella,
444:I accused Hartley of being a 'fantasist', or perhaps that was Titus's word, but what a 'fantasist' I have been myself. I was the dreamer, I the magician. How much, I see as I look back, I read into it all, reading my own dream text and not looking at the reality. Hartley had been right when she said of our love that it was not part of the real world. It had no place. ~ Iris Murdoch,
445:I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician's assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way and letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don't vanish into thin air; that when you can't find someone, it's because you've been misdirected to look elsewhere. ~ Jodi Picoult,
446:Charles Dickens once said that “Home” is simply a name, a word, but it’s a strong one; stronger than any magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. And when I saw Blake again after we thought he’d died, as I held his son’s hand in that hospital room, I finally understood how, sometimes, “Home” is not a place. It’s a person . . . ~ Loreth Anne White,
447:When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. God is not a demiurge [demigod] or a magician, but the Creator who gives being to all entities. Evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve. ~ Pope Francis,
448:I'm a mix of both races, but I was born a magician. You have to know the truth." My heart pounded as I waited for his reply.

He was silent a moment. Then he said, "We need you. That's what is important. The rest is titles." Gently, he took my hand in his own. It wasn't a romantic gesture; it was deeper than that. We sat side by side, our burdens eased, if not lifted. ~ Jessica Cluess,
449:Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics - in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad. ~ Susanna Clarke,
450:Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic a magician. But how does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics – in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad. ~ Susanna Clarke,
451:So the particular strengths of the colon are beginning to become clear. A colon is nearly always preceded by a complete sentence, and in its simplest usage it rather theatrically announces what is to come. Like a well-trained magician's assistant, it pauses slightly to give you time to get a bit worried, and then efficiently whisks away the cloth and reveals the trick complete. ~ Lynne Truss,
452:Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped. ~ Ray Bradbury,
453:The closed door to the left of the hallway hid whatever room lay beyond it, but instead of walking farther into the house to see what the second right revealed, she shouted, “Magician Thane! Your guests are here and would greatly appreciate a real person at the door!”
“Miss Twill!” Mg. Aviosky said in a suppressed sort of hiss as the paper skeleton shut the front door. “Manners! ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
454:Okay, say the word again.”
“Thaumaturge,” she repeated. “I downloaded this dictionary app on my phone last night and that was the word of the day.”
“And the meaning?”
“A worker of wonders or miracles. A magician.”
“Okay, three things to say on this subject. One, what a badass word. Two, what a badass definition. Three, it’s a little sexy that you have a dictionary app. ~ Brittainy C Cherry,
455:When you see a movie, it's like you're attending a show of magic in which the magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. You don't know how he did it, but a part of you is fascinated, or hypnotized, by what happened, another part of your brain says, "Oh, I want to do the same thing! I want to be that wielder of that magic. I want to be that magician on stage, and do the same thing to other people." ~ Gaspar Noe,
456:He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams. ~ Peter S Beagle,
457:If I were a magician who could make things possible, then pictures could talk while we painted them. If I were a magaician who could make things possible, then houses could keep their promises. And they would have to promise not to lose their roofs or go up in flames. If I were a magician who could make things possible, the scars made in them by bullet holes would close up again over the years. ~ Sa a Stani i,
458:How you prepare for a role is entirely your business in my point of view. There is little enough mystery anymore left in the world in the part of our profession, which should be clouded in mystery because it isn't in the public. You don't want the magician to show his tricks or how he did them do you? So I do think that is a very private thing that we actors should protect ourselves from. ~ Christopher Plummer,
459:My dad's a prominent theatre director in Toronto, so I grew up in that world, directing and producing theater since I was a teenager. I always loved movies but they seemed too complicated until I got a job as an assistant on a movie-of-the-week and the technical process became demystified, like peeking behind a magician's curtain. Not long after that I switched to movies and never looked back. ~ Ed Gass Donnelly,
460:So three Bagmen and a slaver go into a bar . . .” Finn began as the wails grew closer.

Selena whipped her head around, hissing, “Are you serious, Magician? They’re almost here.”

“What?” Finn whispered. “Just because we’re about to be swarmed by bloodthirsty zombies doesn’t mean we can’t have a laugh.”

Matthew made a eureka! hand gesture. “Zomedy!”

“Damn straight, Matto. ~ Kresley Cole,
461:A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.…We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because we are in it, we are part of it. Actually we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference beween us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick. ~ Jostein Gaarder,
462:Every human is a magician, and in the interaction between the magicians, there are spells being cast everywhere. How? By misusing the word, by taking everything personally, by distorting everything we perceive with assumptions, by gossiping and spreading emotional poison with the word. Humans cast spells mainly upon the people we love the most, and the more authority we have, the more powerful the spells. ~ Miguel Ruiz,
463:Do you think I am a fool, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you never think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you never wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume? ~ Catherynne M Valente,
464:Quite a different thing is, if a seeker, dissatisfied by materialism and doctrines, and longing for spiritual support, will ask advice and information of an adept. In such a case the adept is obliged to supply the seeker with spiritual light and insight, according to his mental powers. Then the magician should spare neither time nor pains to communicate his spiritual treasures and lead the seeker to the light. ~ Franz Bardon,
465:let us beware of the mistakes that C. S. Lewis described in Screwtape Letters. He says, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and to feel an unhealthy interest in them! They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and they hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.” We have a ~ Corrie ten Boom,
466:The danger of ceremonial magick-the subtlest and deepest danger-is this: that the Magician will naturally tend to invoke that partial being which most strongly appeals to him, so that his natural excess in that direction will be still further exaggerated. Let him, before beginning his Work, endeavour to map out his own being, and arrange his invocations in such a way as to redress the balance.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
467:Was Wooden a genius, a magician able to turn mediocre players into champions? Actually, he admits that in terms of basketball tactics and strategies, he was quite average. What he was really good at was analyzing and motivating his players. With these skills he was able to help his players fulfill their potential, not just in basketballl - but in life. Something he found even more rewarding than winning games. ~ Carol S Dweck,
468:There's strong men of wisdom in many different fields. They say 5% of the people are wise and righteous and 10% are wise but use their wiseness for wickedness or to deceive others. It's like a magician: he knows the answer to the trick, but you don't. He has to keep you blind to the truth in order for the illusion to work. When you've got that kind of wisdom and somebody else doesn't, you can always take advantage of them. ~ RZA,
469:The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply. Just as in the ceremony the magician first of all marked out the limits of the area where the sacred powers were to come into play, so every work of art describes its own circumference which closes it off from actuality. ~ Theodor W Adorno,
470:Entrance into the Old Ways begins with the pricking of a finger with a rose thorn, which produces a drop of blood. This opens the way into the Thorned Path, a system, which uses five rose thorns to symbolize the five arts of Witchcraft that one should master. These arts are Herbalist, Fortune-Teller, Spirit Medium, Mystic, and Magician. We call mastering these aspects 'the gathered thorns' --thus the Thorned Path. ~ Raven Grimassi,
471:He didn’t know if he could explain it to a non-magician. Everything would simply be what it was and nothing else. All there would be was what you could see. What you felt and thought, all the longing and desire in your heart and mind, would count for nothing. With magic you could make those feelings real. They could change the world. Without it they would be stuck inside you forever, figments of your own imagination. ~ Lev Grossman,
472:In the beginning there was Isis: Oldest of the Old, She was the Goddess from whom all Becoming Arose. She was the Great Lady, Mistress of the two Lands of Egypt, Mistress of Shelter, Mistress of Heaven, Mistress of the House of Life, Mistress of the word of God. She was the Unique. In all Her great and wonderful works She was a wiser magician and more excellent than any other God. Thebes, Egypt, Fourteenth Century BC ~ Merlin Stone,
473:I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Saviour nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required on Him I supposed He would simply – well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contact which I solicited should have any consequences beyond restoring the status quo. ~ C S Lewis,
474:The white magician consecrates his life to study, meditation, and service, that he may know the law and may direct force to its appointed ends. He mods himself into the plan, becoming part of the divine rhythm by sacrificing himself and his wishes to the will of the Infinite, asking only to know wherein his duty lies and how he may be of the greatest service to the greatest number. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
475:The white magician consecrates his life to study, meditation, and service, that he may know the law and may direct force to its appointed ends. He mods himself into the plan, becoming part of the divine rhythm by sacrificing himself and his wishes to the will of the Infinite, asking only to know wherein his duty lies and how he may be of the greatest service to the greatest number. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
476:Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive, unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead. ~ Walter Isaacson,
477:In the life of every man there are sudden transitions of feeling, which seem almost miraculous. At once, as if some magician had touched the heavens and the earth, the dark clouds melt into the air, the wind falls, and serenity succeeds the storm. The causes which produce these changes may have been long at work within us, but the changes themselves are instantaneous, and apparently without sufficient cause. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
478:Tanis at first wondered what the mage was studying, then realized it was his spellbook. It is the curse of the magi that they must constantly study and recommit their spells to memory every day. The words of magic flame in the mind, then flicker and die when the spell is cast. Each spell burns up some of the magician’s physical and mental energy until he is totally exhausted and must rest before he can use his magic again. ~ Margaret Weis,
479:Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius. His imaginative leaps were instinctive,
unexpected, and at times magical. He was, indeed, an example of what the mathematician Mark Kac called a magician genius, someone whose insights come out of the blue and require intuition more than mere mental processing power. Like a pathfinder, he could absorb information, sniff the winds, and sense what lay ahead. ~ Walter Isaacson,
480:As God creates, so man can create. Given a certain intensity of will, and the shapes created by the mind become subjective. Hallucinations, they are called, although to their creator they are real as any visible object is to any one else. Given a more intense and intelligent concentration of this will, and the form becomes concrete, visible, objective; the man has learned the secret of secrets; he is a MAGICIAN. ~ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky,
481:Is there anything else you haven't told me?"
My head spun. So much had happened and we still needed to stop a powerful magician. Death was a real possibility. I needed Valek to know how I felt.
"I love you"
Valek wrapped me in his arms. "My love has been yours since the fire festival. If those goons had killed you, I knew then that I would never be the same. I didn't want or expect this. But I couldn't resist you. ~ Maria V Snyder,
482:On the other hand, the black magician is firmly of the belief that he knows what he needs, when in reality he only knows what he wants. He seeks to mold the Plan into his own desires. He believes that the universe wants him to be greater than his fellow men, when the Cosmic All does not know that he exists other than a tiny atom passing with myriads of similar things to an appointed end. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
483:Nick could see the gun shaking in Alan's hand now, in tight, terrified spasms. "Last night we put a magician in the river," Alan said, his voice low and intense as if he was making a promise."Maybe we should send you to join him." "You know the rules," the woman whispered. "Don't shoot the messenger." Nick interrupted, leaning down to speak in her ear. "Do they say 'Don't cut the messenger in half with your great big sword'? ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,
484:I think life would be much . . . simpler . . . if a man could believe in one solid thing,” he answered, still not looking at her. “Bits and pieces here and there do no good for a man’s soul. Thinking all of it is right or all of it is wrong does no good, either. Just as a magician cannot work all materials. He must choose one. But how does he know? How do these people believe in this faith, but not the others? Yet they are happy. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
485:Nick could see the gun shaking in Alan's hand now, in tight, terrified spasms. "Last night we put a magician in the river," Alan said, his voice low and intense as if he was making a promise."Maybe we should send you to join him."
"You know the rules," the woman whispered. "Don't shoot the messenger."
Nick interrupted, leaning down to speak in her ear. "Do they say 'Don't cut the messenger in half with your great big sword'? ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,
486:The formula of the Cup is not so well suited for Evocations, and the magical Hierarchy is not involved in the same way; for the Cup being passive rather than active, it is not fitting for the magician to use it in respect of anything but the Highest. In practical working it consequently means little but prayer, and that prayer the 'prayer of silence.'
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [148],
487:Any music star would be singing about his lost love. A movie would be about a relatable incident; it wasn't an untouchable magic dragon box. It was something that people could relate to, and when I vanished a girl, it would be a story about a girl that left me, or a cutting into pieces would be a date with a magician. I wouldn't just vanish a girl in a shower, I would do the shower scene from Psycho [1960] with a [Alfred] Hitchcock cameo. ~ Judd Apatow,
488:I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. “Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But ~ Lev Grossman,
489:Top Secret: I am not really a writer, I'm a magician (I'm a hustla'). While I wave my words with one hand in an attempt to distract you, I'm slowly and quietly reaching inside of you, to try to pull out your deepest emotions related to love...
Be it a smile or a sigh.
There, did it work?
Did you forget I was writing?
Did you forget it was a magic act?
Did I succeed?
Did you smile?
I did.
There, now you did!
See... ~ Jos N Harris,
490:I think life would be much . . . simpler . . . if a man could believe in one solid thing,” he answered, still not looking at her. “Bits and pieces here and there do no good for a man’s soul. Thinking all of it is right or all of it is wrong does no good, either. Just as a magician cannot work all materials. He must choose one. But how does he know? How do these people believe in this faith, but not the others? Yet they are happy.” Ceony ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
491:What is it?" asked the knight.
"Life," Merlin replied.
"Life?"
"Yes," said the wise magician. "Did it not first seem bitter, then, as you tasted more of it, was it not pleasant?"
The knight nodded. "Yes, and the last swallows were quite delicious."
"That was when you began to accept what you were drinking."
"Are you saying that life is good when you accept it?"
"Is it not?" replied Merlin, raising an eyebrow in amusement. ~ Robert Fisher,
492:Kingsley wrote to Maurice, ‘They find that now they have got rid of an interfering God – a master-magician, as I call it – they have to choose between the absolute empire of accident, and a living, immanent, ever-working God.’21 To another correspondent, an atheist, he wrote, ‘Whatever doubt or doctrinal Atheism you and your friends may have, don’t fall into moral atheism. Don’t forget the Eternal Goodness, whatever you call it. I call it God.’22 ~ A N Wilson,
493:It is not force or power, but the perversion of force which constitutes evil. The magician says: "Demon est deus inversus." We may say: "The Demon is power perverted." Therefore man, the perverter of power, is the creator of demons, because he is the lowest creature capable of exercising authority from within his own being. The lower kingdoms are forced to react upon group impression and obey unquestioningly. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
494:The poet he was escorting into Wales was a Horus-headed dud of some personal magnetism. The hair was feathered gell, the nose hooked. He stared at me and he didn’t. His eyes belonged to a magician; one bored into you, right through the lens into the depths of the vitreous humor—while the other popped and wobbled in the style of Ben Turpin. He folded in on himself, profile sharp as an axe. A labrys. This man would have no problem seeing around a corner. ~ Iain Sinclair,
495:More than one soldier wondered if, at last, the French had found a magician of their own; the French infantrymen appeared much taller than ordinary men and the light in their eyes as they drew closer burnt with an almost supernatural fury. But this was only the magic of Napoleon Buonaparte, who knew better than any one how to dress his soldiers so they would terrify the enemy, and how to deploy them so that any onlooker would think them indestructible. ~ Susanna Clarke,
496:To practise black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
   .
   I have been accused of being a 'black magician'. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practise it. ~ Aleister Crowley?,
497:He imagined that he was looking for her and couldn't find her anywhere, that the two of them were lost on a vast ship, sleep is a skilled magician, it changes the proportions of things, the distances between them, it separates people and they're lying next to each other, brings them together and they can barely see one another, the woman is sleeping only a few yards away from him and he cannot reach her, yet it's so very easy to go from port to starboard. ~ Jos Saramago,
498:It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step-crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple. ~ Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears,
499:I didn't really know much about the Houdinis when I started. As soon as they sent me the script, I wanted to find out everything I could about Bess. Luckily, I have a really wonderful friend named Michael Mitnick, who's a writer. He was a magician as a child, and that led him to the theater, which led to drama school, and he writes films now. Magic was really his thing, growing up, so he put me in touch with his magic teacher who is a real Houdini expert. ~ Kristen Connolly,
500:Hi, Ceony,” he said. He then stiffened like a soldier and added, “Magician Thane, it’s a pleasure to meet you finally.”

Bennet took a few long strides and offered his hand to the paper magician, who stood taller in height by several inches. Emery shook the apprentice’s hand with an amused twinkle in his eye. Bennet continued. “I’ve heard a great many things about you.”

“And you still shook my hand?” Emery asked. “Your mother raised you well. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
501:For the true magician there is no very clear line between what lies inside the mind and what lies outside it.If you desire something, it will become substance. If you despise it, you will see it destroyed. A master magician is not much different from a child or a madman in that respect. It takes a very clear head and a very strong will to operate once you are in that place. And you will find out very quickly whether or not you have that clarity and that strength. ~ Lev Grossman,
502:The conclusion of both modern physics and depth psychology is that things are not what they seem. What we experience as normal reality—about ourselves and nature—is only the tip of an iceberg that arises out of an unfathomable abyss. Knowledge of this hidden realm is the province of the Magician, and it is through the Magician energy that we will come to understand our lives with a degree of profundity not dreamed of for at least a thousand years of Western history. ~ Robert L Moore,
503:That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions. ~ Sherman Alexie,
504:Obviously the household of Richard the Fair was unused to hearing the magician laugh. Even Richard himself stopped pawing his willing partner to stare at Simon of Navarre. "Something amuses you, my Grendel?" he demanded.
"You have been gracious enough to gift me with a clever wife," Simon said.
"A clever woman is a curse," Richard said flatly, eyeing Alys with profound distrust. "Change your mind, my friend. Choose the pretty one."
"My lord," said Simon, "I did. ~ Anne Stuart,
505:His very first story, he told me as he was dying, was set in Camelot, the court of King Arthur in Britain: Merlin the Court Magician casts a spell that allows him to equip the Knights of the Round Table with Thompson submachine guns and drums of .45-caliber dumdums.
Sir Galahad, the purest in heart and mind, familiarizes himself with this new virtue-compelling appliance. While doing so, he puts a slug through the Holy Grail and makes a Swiss cheese of Queen Guinevere. ~ Kurt Vonnegut,
506:An occultist is an expert in the science of life. As an operative magician, he is able to manipulate the forces of nature to the gratification of whatever end he may desire but woe to him if those ends are not in harmony with the natural plan! By means of his knowledge, he may work miracles, like the magicians of India, but: his feats are miraculous only to those who do not know as much as he does concerning the subtle forces of nature. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
507:Emery was kneeling outside “gardening” when Ceony and Langston stepped through the illusion that masked the paper magician’s house. He had positioned himself outside the curving garden of meticulously crafted paper flowers, and seemed to be replacing all the red, tulip-shaped flower heads with blue, lily-shaped ones. Fennel chewed on the discarded spells as Emery worked, crumpling them in his paper mouth and then spitting the balls into an overturned trash receptacle. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
508:Unicorns are not to be forgiven." The magician felt himself growing giddy with jealousy, not only of the touch but of something like a secret that was moving between Molly and the unicorn. "Unicorns are for beginnings," he said, "for innocence and purity, for newness. Unicorns are for young girls."

Molly was stroking the unicorn's throat as timidly as though she were blind. She dried her grimy tears on the white mane. "You don't know much about unicorns," she said. ~ Peter S Beagle,
509:Oh, she understood wine, my mother. She understood the sweetening process, the fermentation, the seething and mellowing of life in the bottle, the darkening, the slow transformations, the birth of a new vintage in a bouquet of aromas like a magician’s bunch of paper flowers. If only she had had time and patience enough for us. A child is not a fruit tree. She understood that too late. There is no recipe to take a child into sweet, safe adulthood. She should have known that. ~ Joanne Harris,
510:That which you call the devil is part of you. The myth of the devil and of evil is imposed on us by our ignorance. The human mind is a great wonder and magician. It can assume the form of both a devil and a divine being any time it wishes. It can be a great enemy or a great friend, creating either hell or heaven for us. There are many tendencies hidden in the unconscious mind which must be uncovered, faced, and transcended before one intends to tread the path of enlightenment. ~ Swami Rama,
511:There are two kinds of geniuses: the 'ordinary' and the 'magicians'. An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they've done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. Even after we understand what they have done it is completely dark. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest calibre. -- Mark Kac ~ James Gleick,
512:The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. ~ Franz Bardon,
513:The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed ~ Michael Chabon,
514:If I were a magician who could make things possible, I'd have lemonade always tasting as it did on the evening Francesco explained how right it was for the Italian moon to be a feminine moon. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be able to understand all languages every evening between eight and nine. If I were a magician who could make things possible, all dams would keep their promises. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be really brave. ~ Sa a Stani i,
515:The unicorn was gray and still. "There is magic on me," she said. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I thought you knew," the magician answered gently. "After all, didn't you wonder how it could be that they recognized you?" Then he smiled, which made him look a little older. "No, of course not. You never would wonder about that."

"There has never been a spell on me before," the unicorn said. She shivered long and deep. "There has never been a world in which I was not known. ~ Peter S Beagle,
516:Witness

Never trust a witness.
By the time a thing is
Noticed, it has happened.
Some magician’s redirected
Our attention to the rabbit.
The best life is suspected,
Not examined.
And never trust reverse.
The mourners of the dead
Count backward from the date
Of the event, rehearsing
Its approach, investing
Final words with greatest weight,
As though weight ever
Carried what we meant:
As though he could have
Told us where he went. ~ Kay Ryan,
517:Inteligente. For years it had been enough to be the intelligent one. All that had meant, in the beginning, was that you could answer the kinds of questions that your teachers asked. The whole world appeared to be fact-based, and that had been a relief to Greer, who could dredge up facts with great ease, a magician pulling coins from behind any available ear. Facts appeared before her, and the she simply articulated them, and in this way she became known as the smartest one in her glass. ~ Meg Wolitzer,
518:But the true black magician does not work through the ethers which are the home of the etheric elementals. He works through the entities who dwell in the astral light or the animal magnetism of the lower astral plane. The true black magician can become (and usually is) clairvoyant, but he can never go any higher than the astral world. To this plane he is tied to his passions, hates, incantations, and the animal nature which is the basis of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
519:But the true black magician does not work through the ethers which are the home of the etheric elementals. He works through the entities who dwell in the astral light or the animal magnetism of the lower astral plane. The true black magician can become (and usually is) clairvoyant, but he can never go any higher than the astral world. To this plane he is tied to his passions, hates, incantations, and the animal nature which is the basis of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
520:I'm only a kind of book doctor. I can give books new bindings, rejuvenate them a little, stop the bookworms from eating them, and prevent them from losing their pages over the years like a man loses his hair. But inventing the stories in them, filling new, empty pages with right words-- I can't do that. That's a very different trade. A famous writer once wrote, 'An author can be seen as three things: a storyteller, a teacher, or magician-- but a magician, the enchanter, is in the ascendant. ~ Cornelia Funke,
521:We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts. . . . The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle . . . is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician. ~ George Balanchine,
522:This world is bullshit. And just because I appear in music video wherein I am in my underwear, and make young women feel not good enough so that they become anorxeic; and okay, maybe because of that I became popular more quickly than other singers who are, I don't know, maybe more talented or better songwriters. That doesn't matter because, and... um... my boyfriend is a magician, and he can pull a quarter out of your ear and say things like 'We have not met before have we?' Go with yourself. ~ Janeane Garofalo,
523:The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place. ~ Michael Chabon,
524:Theta clearing is about as practical and simple as repairing a shoe lace. It is nothing to do with hypnotism, voodooism, charalatanism, monkeyism or theosophy. Done, the thetan can do anything a stage magician can do in the way of moving objects around. But this isn't attained by holding one's breath or thinking right thoughts or voting Republican or any other superstitous or mystic practice. So for the reason I brought up, rule out, auditor, any mumbo jumbo or mysticism, spiritualism, or religion. ~ L Ron Hubbard,
525:But Malone was thinking now and as he watched the men lighting cigarettes for each other in the dark, having sex beneath the trees, he turned to his friend and said in a wondering voice: “Isn’t it strange that when we fall in love, this great dream we have, this extraordinary disease, the only thing in which either one of us is interested, it’s inevitably with some perfectly ordinary drip who for some reason we cannot define is the magic bearer, the magician, the one who brings all this to us. Why? ~ Andrew Holleran,
526:The other thing about the Nights is that it is quite racist. One parentheses is that I think this is one of the negative things that appeal to people, that The Arabian Nights could be used as a disguise for racism. It suited the West. You could smuggle racism into children's literature, you see. The African magician in the story of Aladdin, he's labeled explicitly as the "African Magician." He's not a character but a stereotype, and a lot of this got into nursery literature in this Oriental disguise. ~ Marina Warner,
527:By this it is understood that the animal excesses of man build, on the lower planes of the astral world, strange creatures, some resembling debased human beings, and others shaped like animals, lizards, snakes, and other reptiles. The power of the black magician lies in his ability to direct these soulless creatures, which, while not in reality individualized things, still have tremendous power over their own essences, both in the body of nature and of individuals. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
528:The things they see as unnecessary extras, the accretions of myth and legend, are excised by the scissors to expose the real Jesus. It seems so scientific, but it is all done with mirrors. The magician's art leaves us with the portrait of Rudolf Bultmann or John A. T. Robinson, and again the real Jesus is obscured. By preserving a modicum of New Testament data, we think we have avoided subjectivity. However, the result is the same-a Jesus shaped by the bias of the scholar wielding the scissors and getting ~ R C Sproul,
529:A magician creates magic and mesmerizes the audience. But it is a pantomime, and the audience knows that it’s a ruse. It’s in the name: a “magic trick”. They play along when the magician tugs his sleeves to show there is nothing hidden within them, or that the top hat is empty of a rabbit, or eggs, or flowers. Beneath the façade there is only sleight of hand, wires and contraptions, misdirection at a key moment.
“But what the audience does not realize is that it’s not always trickery. Or at least, not quite. ~ Laura Lam,
530:You will remember that Albertus Magnus, after describing minutely the process by which spirits may be invoked and commanded, adds emphatically that the process will instruct and avail only to the few - that a man must be born a magician! - that is, born with a peculiar physical temperament, as a man is born a poet. Rarely are men in whose constitution lurks this occult power of the highest order of intellect - usually in the intellect there is some twist, perversity, or disease.' ("The House And The Brain") ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton,
531:I had the chance to play with a ghost of the museum. The function and the institution are gone - it's closed - but there is still the building. I was looking for something between an experiment and an extended ritual. I asked 15 actors to be in this museum and take the position of the museum's personnel. I put this small group under certain conditions and influences, interpreted by another group of actors or by real professional performers, like a magician, a psychic, a model, a hypnotist, a singer, a psycho-dramaturge. ~ Pierre Huyghe,
532:Know all things to be like this: A mirage, a cloud castle, A dream, an apparition, Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen. Know all things to be like this: As the moon in a bright sky In some clear lake reflected, Though to that lake the moon has never moved. Know all things to be like this: As an echo that derives From music, sounds, and weeping, Yet in that echo is no melody. Know all things to be like this: As a magician makes illusions Of horses, oxen, carts and other things, Nothing is as it appears. ~ Gautama Buddha,
533:Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them
is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment, can you
deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you?
And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are
fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the
other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the
price is not impossible to pay. So, fear your captors, your
masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing freedom. ~ Carlos Castaneda,
534:The black magician, becoming a conscious channel for these forces, launches a stream of hell-demons into the world. In so doing, he sells his own soul (for these forces must pass through his own astral body) in exchange for the powers that these demons will give him over his fellow men. The powers of these elemental creatures are practically unlimited, and there are many depraved souls who are glad to barter their immortal spirits for the power which these demons give them over the material world. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
535:It would be better if we were high up on one of the peaks in the Beors, where only a dragon could fly, he said to Saphira. Then no one would be able to sneak up on us, no one except for Thorn, Murtagh, or some other magician.
Some other magician, like every elf in the land? Besides, it would be cold all the time!
I thought you didn’t mind the cold.
I don’t. But I don’t want to live in the snow year-round either. Sand is better for your scales; Glaedr told me. It helps polish them and keep them clean.
Mmh.
~ Christopher Paolini,
536:Science and technology were often used by [the magician of old], even before they came into the marketplace on a mass basis. For example, prior to the moving picture going into theatre, magicians were using the technique of images in motion as illusions in their shows. At that time the process was so new, an audience perceived it as magic. Also in the early stages of holograms magicians would use these images to baffle and mystify their fans. Hence, you always need to stay one step ahead of the technology game to "WOW" the audience. ~ David Copperfield,
537:SLEIGHT OF MIND IN INVOCATION
Invocation is a three stage process. Firstly the magician consciously identifies with what is traditionally called a god-form, secondly he enters gnosis and thirdly the magicians subconsciousness manifests the powers of the god-form. A successful invocation means nothing less than full "possession" by the god-form. With practice the first stage of conscious identification can be abbreviated greatly to the point where it may only be necessary to concentrate momentarily on a well used god-form. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos,
538:This is the most important lesson you must learn about magic," Miss Ochiba went on. "There are many ways of seeing. Each has an element of truth, but none is the whole truth. If you limit yourselves to one way of seeing, one truth, you will limit your power. You will also place limits on the kinds of spells you can cast, as well as their strength. To be a good magician, you must see in many ways. You must be flexible. You must be willing to learn from different sources. And you must always remember that the truths you see are incomplete. ~ Patricia C Wrede,
539:When the change comes, I ask only that you know it for what it is, and be aware. For the true magician there is no very clear line between what lies inside the mind and what lies outside it. If you desire something, it will become substance. If you despise it, you will see it destroyed. A master magician is not much different from a child or a madman in that respect. It takes a very clear head and a very strong will to operate once you are in that place. And you will find out very quickly whether or not you have that clarity and that strength. ~ Lev Grossman,
540:I think we're all actors. There's this friend of mine who's a great drummer, and he said, "I never thought I'd be a drummer, but I got really good at it. I always feel like I'm an actor playing the drums." His real calling was that he was going to be a magician. That's what he felt like he wanted to do. If you decide to act like a journalist, you'll probably be a better journalist than just being a journalist. What you're doing is, you're taking the executive role and stepping outside yourself so that you're able to make more objective decisions. ~ Matt Dillon,
541:Let the Magician therefore adventure himself upon the Astral Plane with the declared design to penetrate to a sanctuary of discarnate Beings such as are able to instruct and fortify him, also to prove their identity by testimony beyond rebuttal. All explanations other than these are of value only as extending and equilibrating Knowledge, or possibly as supplying Energy to such Magicians as may have found their way to the Sources of Strength. In all cases, naught is worth an obol save as it serve to help the One Great Work" ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, App 3,
542:In the first stages of civilisation the magician was the man of science. The mysteries of this magic art being inseparable from those of religion and philosophy, were preserved... hermetically sealed in the adyta of the temple. Its philosophy was the cabala. We must consequently look on the various cabalas or oral traditions, transmitted from age to age as the oracles of various faiths and creeds, as constituting the elements of that theory which the Jewish cabala promulgated some centuries later in a condensed and mutilated form. ~ Encyclopedia Brittanica (1875),
543:If we had any assurance of saving her by battle, our duty would be very plain. It appears to me that we have none. And the service they ask of her is in no way contrary to her Majesty’s honor, but a noble and heroical act. If the Queen’s heart moves her to risk the magician, I will not speak against it.”
As no one had ever known Reepicheep to be afraid of anything, he could say this without feeling at all awkward. But the boys, who had all been afraid quite often, grew very red. None the less, it was such obvious sense that they had to give in. ~ C S Lewis,
544:The key interest entity-wise is the notion of creating multiple avatars of the self; that is, multiple entities that go out and perform various functions for the magician. While that is hardly a new idea, the way the Spectre goes about it, showing how one entity splits himself off into multiple entities, is interesting and leads, I believe, to potential experimentation for the magician. For instance, the magician can take this principle and use it to multi-task, splitting hirself into multiple versions who attend to different tasks throughout the day. ~ Taylor Ellwood,
545:I'm an alien in my own world, a writer without words, a musician without a piano, a magician without a wand. I am fooled by infinite words that rush in my blood, yet imprisoned by the very thoughts of silence. I'm a gray green fallow leaf on trees and abandoned on the streets, a never-ending spring season and an eternal autumn. I'm the golden of the sun and the silver of the moon, the fog of dawn and the amber of dusk. I'm the white and the red flag , the obedient and the rebel. I am the coward in the brave, and the child in the man. I am, but a writer. ~ Nema Al Araby,
546:Becoming aware of these habits and understanding the importance of this agreement is the first step. But understanding its importance is not enough. Information or an idea is merely the seed in your mind. What will really make the difference is action. Taking the action over and over again strengthens your will, nurtures the seed, and establishes a solid foundation for the new habit to grow. After many repetitions these new agreements will become second nature, and you will see how the magic of your word transforms you from a black magician into a white magician. A ~ Miguel Ruiz,
547:The Temple represents the external Universe. The Magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, \Liber VII,\ V:I:2 \We made us a temple of stones in the shape of the Universem even ashou didst wear openly and I concealed.\ This shape is the vesica piscis; but it is only the greeatest Magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the Magician to reincarnate in a suitable body.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 04: Magick, Part II, Chapter 1, The Temple [49],
548:I was a she was a he was a we were a girl and a girl and a boy and a boy, we were blades, were a knife that could cut through myth, were two knives thrown by a magician, were arrows fired by a god, we hit heart, we hit home, we were the tail of a fish were the reck of a cat were the beack of a bird were the feather that mastered gravity were high above every landscape then down deep in the purple haze of the heather were roamin in a gloamin in a brash unending Scottish piece of perfect jiggling reeling reel can we really keep this up? this fast? this high? this happy? ~ Ali Smith,
549:There are 3 kinds of magic in our world. The peddling little magician magic like Uncle Andrew in 'The Magicians Newphew' where people mess around with things they don't understand. It's movie magic. Then there is the magic of the evil side of things. The demonic forces. And that's not really magic... it's corruption of what really exists. And then finally there is the magic of the Holy Spirit of God which is the creation and maintenence of the universe. We don't understand it... and we haven't the faintest idea how He does it. But it's real. That's the deep magic. ~ Douglas Gresham,
550:Wandering around back stage at a willie Nelson concert is a bit like being the parrot on the shoulder of the guy who's running the Ferris wheel. It's not the best seat in the house, but you see enough lights, action, people, and confusion to make you wonder if anybody knows what the hell's going on. If you're sitting out front, of course, it all rolls along as smoothly as a German train schedule, but as Willie, like any great magician, would be the first to point out, the real show is never in the center ring. As Willie always says, Fortunately, we're not in control. ~ Kinky Friedman,
551:Careful observation will confirm that virtually all spontaneous parapsychological events occur through some form of sleight of mind. It is invariably something hovering just below the threshold of awareness that initiated an unusual event or gave one a curious half sensed feeling that something was about to happen just before it did. The magician seeks to exploid this effect deliberately, but in doing so he must avoid doing it deliberately as it were. Conscious lust of result destroys magical effect, so trickery must be employed to annul it and to activate the subconscious. ~ Peter J Carroll,
552:The Magician archetype in a man is his “bullshit detector”; it sees through denial and exercises discernment. He sees evil for what and where it is when it masquerades as goodness, as it so often does. In ancient times when a king became possessed by his angry feelings and wanted to punish a village that had refused to pay its taxes, the magician, with measured and reasoned thinking or with the stabbing blows of logic, would reawaken the king’s conscience and good sense by releasing him from his tempestuous mood. The court magician, in effect, was the king’s psychotherapist. ~ Robert L Moore,
553:Now, what is unique about the child's perception of the world? For one thing, the extreme confusion of cause-and-effect relationships; for another, extreme unreality about the limits of his own powers. The child lives in a situation of utter dependence; and when his needs are met it must seem to him that he has magical powers, real omnipotence. If he experiences pain, hunger, or discomfort, all he has to do is to scream and he is relieved and lulled by gentle, loving sounds. He is a magician and a telepath who has only to mumble and to imagine and the world turns to his desires. ~ Ernest Becker,
554:I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one... ~ Susanna Clarke,
555:This one guy, the worst guy in the music. The Yanni man. You know Yanni? First of all, anyone who looks like a magician and doesn't do magic, I don't like. I don't even like magic, I hate it. But I love the word, "Ta-da"! I love that word! I don't get to say it, right? I never do any magic. You just can't go around walking, "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" "Ta-da!" The only time I can say it is when I do something really stupid or surprising. Like if I go out all night drinking and hitting strip clubs and I come home and I still got some money... "Ta-da!" I thought I was broke. Why does my jaw hurt? ~ Dave Attell,
556:One short man said: "I would give anything if only I were even a tiny bit taller."
He barely said it when he saw a lady magician standing in front of him.
"What do you want?" says the magician.
But the short man just stands there so frightened he can't even speak.
"Well?" says the magician.
The short man just stands there and says nothing. The magician vanishes.
Then the short man started crying and biting his nails. First he chewed off all the nails on his fingers, and then on his toes.

Reader! Think this fable over and it will make you somewhat uncomfortable. ~ Daniil Kharms,
557:On the Samael Qlipha, the magician makes a pact with the dark forces and realizes the invitation of Friedrich Neitzsche to re-evaluate old values. Insanity becomes wisdom; death becomes life. Samael is the 'Poison of God.' Here is where illusions are poisoned, and all categories and conceptions are deconstructed until nothing is left. The dark side of the astral plane could be compared to a chalice filled with poison or an intoxicating fluid. While Gamaliel is the chalice, Samael is the elixir and the following lower Qlipha, A'arab Zaraq, is where the magician experiences the effect. ~ Thomas Karlsson,
558:Origin stories are like birthday parties: very exciting and colorful and noisy; but in the end, they’re all the same. Anticipation sizzles around for weeks before the Big Day, but when it comes, your shindig looks pretty much like the little one Peter had last month. That’s an order of operations: take off your coats, pin the tail on the donkey, infection, singing, cake, mutation, balloon, gifts, branding, maybe a magician or a clown, exhaustion, and a bag of toys to take home. You’re the same person today as yesterday. You just got a really big present and a shiny new hat to wear. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
559:The heavy black she had worn for years was gone; her dress was of turquoise-colored silk, bright and soft as the evening sky. It belled out full from her hips, and all the skirt was embroidered with thin silver threads and seed pearls and tiny crumbs of crystal, so that it glittered softly, like rain in April. She looked at the magician, speechless. “Do you like it?” “Where—” “It’s like a gown I saw a princess wear once, at the Feast of Sun-return in the New Palace in Havnor,” he said, looking at it with satisfaction. “You told me to show you something worth seeing. I show you yourself. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
560:I'd become a follower of Emerson for that one sentence: the miracle of "the blowing clover and the falling rain." Just imagine what it would do for your religion if you shifted your sense of the miraculous from some astounding feat of a master magician to a profound appreciation of the miracle of rain. You would be a different kind of person living a different kind of life You wouldn't be sad from the weight of your religious obligations, but rather joyful at the beauty and holiness of the natural world. You'd be happy, open, and graceful, all because of your positive, world-based spiritual vision. ~ Thomas Moore,
561:When People Ask How I’m Doing I want to say, my depression is an angry deity, a jealous god a thirsty shadow that wrings my joy like a dishrag and makes juice out of my smile. I want to say, getting out of bed has become a magic trick. I am probably the worst magician I know. I want to say, this sadness is the only clean shirt I have left and my washing machine has been broken for months, but I’d rather not ruin someone’s day with my tragic honesty so instead I treat my face like a pumpkin. I pretend that it’s Halloween. I carve it into something acceptable. I laugh and I say, “I’m doing alright. ~ Rudy Francisco,
562:We were halfway back to the fireplace when Set caught us by surprise.
He was going on with his list of ridiculous ingredients: "And snakeskins. Yes, three large ones, with a sprinkling of hot sauce--" Then he stopped abruptly, like he'd had a revelation. He spoke in a much louder voice, calling across the room. "And a sacrificial victim would be good! Maybe a young idiot magician who can't do a proper invisibility spell, like CARTER KANE over there!"
Menshikov stared right at me. "My, my... how kind of you to deliver yourselves. Well done, Set."
"Hmm?" Set asked innocently. "Do we have visitors? ~ Rick Riordan,
563:I think you’re magicians because you’re unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you. ~ Lev Grossman,
564:Clever deceivers rarely tell outright falsehoods. It’s too risky. The art of deception is closely related to the magician’s craft: it involves knowing how to draw attention to a harmless place, to deflect it away from the action. Deeply entrenched patterns of perceptual, emotional, and cognitive dispositions serve as instruments of deception. A skilled deceiver is an illusionist who knows how to manipulate the normal patterns of what is salient to their audience. He places salient markers—something red, something anomalous, something desirable—in the visual field, to draw attention just where he wants it. ~ Clancy Martin,
565:with sin. Eve was tempted by a serpent (a phallic power symbol). It is interesting to note that the serpent has always been a symbol of power rather than a symbol of either good or evil in and of itself. Its ability to shed its skin makes it an especially appropriate symbol of eternal life. While snakes generally have a bad name even in our modern times, we might remember that Moses used serpents to prove that he was a more powerful magician than the Pharaoh's magicians. (Ex 8:1-12) "And the Lord spake to Moses ... take thy rod and cast it before Pharaoh and it shall become a serpent." Moses' supreme ~ Christopher S Hyatt,
566:To become a magician you must do something very different,” the man said. This was clearly his set piece. “You cannot study magic. You cannot learn it. You must ingest it. Digest it. You must merge with it. And it with you. “When a magician casts a spell, he does not first mentally review the Major, Minor, Tertiary, and Quaternary Circumstances. He does not search his soul to determine the phase of the moon, and the nearest body of water, and the last time he wiped his ass. When he wishes to cast a spell he simply casts it. When he wishes to fly, he simply flies. When he wants the dishes done, they simply are. ~ Lev Grossman,
567:Finn repeated Aric’s words, then looked shocked when more mysterious commands followed. His breath blurred as he spoke his Magician’s language.

Finn’s body quaked; the falcon fluttered.

The little hairs on my nape rose. Something was happening. Magic seemed to swirl all around us. Joules and Gabriel shared a look. They’d felt it too.

After another minute or two of speaking, Finn paused. “I feel like I completed a spell, or something. Could be that a white rabbit’s appearing in a black hat somewhere on earth.” With a grimace, he added, “But whatever spell I worked, I’m definitely fueling it. ~ Kresley Cole,
568:The black magician is one who learns to manipulate these forces for selfish and destructive purposes, his own aggrandizement of the fulfillment of desire, while the white magician prays that he may learn to manipulate them as God would have them manipulated - for the salvation of the divine creation. The powers are in the hands of those capable of invoking them; it makes no difference whether for good or ill. For this reason, the schools of white magic conceal these powers from man until, through growth, purification, and unfoldment, he gains the proper incentive for using them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
569:The problem with stealing the magician's assistant from a carnival was that you were always waiting for her to disappear. He expected her to vanish. She had in fact, multiple times, before Simon was born, and just after, too.

...Daniel wanted to be worried for, wanted to be missed without doing any of the leaving that missing demanded. When Paulina left, he counted breaths, and thought constantly of the disappearing box. The reappearing was the most important part of the trick. Eventually he stopped living in fear that she wouldn't come back. The more pressing concern was that she was cutting herself in two. ~ Erika Swyler,
570:The black magician is one who learns to manipulate these forces for selfish and destructive purposes, his own aggrandizement of the fulfillment of desire, while the white magician prays that he may learn to manipulate them as God would have them manipulated - for the salvation of the divine creation. The powers are in the hands of those capable of invoking them; it makes no difference whether for good or ill. For this reason, the schools of white magic conceal these powers from man until, through growth, purification, and unfoldment, he gains the proper incentive for using them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
571:The Magician should devise for himself a definite technique for destroying 'evil.' The essence of such a practice will consist in training the mind and the body to confront things which cause fear, pain, disgust, shame and the like. He must learn to endure them, then to become indifferent to them, then to analyze them until they give pleasure and instruction, and finally to appreciate them for their own sake, as aspects of Truth. When this has been done, he should abandon them, if they are really harmful in relation to health and comfort.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, APPENDIX VI: A FEW PRINCIPAL RITUALS, [311-312],
572:Israel Regardie (November 17th, 1907 – March 10th, 1985) met with the Golden Dawn magician Aleister Crowley (October 12th, 1875 – December 1st, 1947) in Paris, France on October 12th, 1928 to become his personal secretary and student (he also became Crowley‘s Confidential Agent and a IX° member of Crowley’s O.T.O.). On October 28th, 1930, Regardie took the Oath of the Probationer in Crowley’s Order of the A.·. A.·. (Astron Argon). The Order of the A.·. A.·. was Crowley’s reformulated and advanced version of the system of the Golden Dawn. He even maintained the name of the Golden Dawn (Aurora Aurea) for the Outer Order. ~ David Cherubim,
573:I cannot hope to make you understand how the world is truly made,' he told her. 'Metaphor, then: the world is a weave, like threads woven into cloth.' His hand came out of his sleeve with a strip of his red ribbon.

'If you say so.'

'Everything, stone, trees, beasts, the sky, the waters, all are a weave of fabric,' he said patiently. 'But when you think, it is different. Your thinking snarls the fabric, knots it. If you were a magician, you could use the knot of your mind to pull on other threads. That is magic, and now you see how every simple it is. I wonder everyone does not become an enchanter. ~ Adrian Tchaikovsky,
574:What could you teach me?” Jamie asked, a dimple flashing in his right cheek next to his earring. “Do I need to learn a secret magician handshake? Do I need to learn to do finger wands?”

Gerald burst out laughing. “I—” he said, and seemed somewhat at a loss. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like a finger gun, but only magicians get to do it,” Jamie explained, grinning and shifting his schoolbag on one shoulder. He swished one finger in a dramatic circle, making a swooshing sound to accompany the gesture.

“We don’t use wands,” said Gerald.

“Don’t think that wasn’t a crushing blow for me. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,
575:See, when you had magic in your life, it turned out, when you lived the double life of a secret underground magician, you paid a certain price, which was that your secret other life pulled at you always. Your magician self, that loopy doppelgänger, was always with you, tugging at your sleeve, whispering silently that your real life was a fake life, a crude and undignified and inauthentic charade that nobody was really buying anyway. Your real self, the one that mattered, was the other one, the one waving her hands around and chanting in a dead Slavic dialect on the busted-ass couch in the lime-green clapboard house on Throop Avenue. ~ Lev Grossman,
576:But I'll tell you something: I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength. Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you. ~ Lev Grossman,
577:The Coin Behind Your Ear
Before you knew you owned it
it was gone, stolen, and you were a fool.
How you never felt it is the wonder,
heavy and thick,
lodged deep in your hair like a burr.
You still see the smile of the magician
as he turned the coin in his long fingers,
which had so disturbed your ear
with their caress. You watched him
lift it into the light, bright as frost,
and slip it into his maze of pockets.
You felt vainly behind your ear
but there was no second coin,
nothing to tempt him back.
No one cared to know why he did it,
only how.
Submitted by Venus
~ Connie Wanek,
578:…But don’t be late, Troy, or I’ll…” She hesitated and laughed, not entirely happily. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever need to worry about you again, will I? I don’t suppose I’ve ever needed to worry over a magician.”

“There are always car accidents,” Tabitha declared cheerfully. “A car could come around the corner and… wallop! You’d need a terrific magician to get out of that one…”

“Or eagles dropping tortoises,” Troy added, looking amused. “That happened in Ancient Greece, you know. An eagle dropped a tortoise on some dramatist and killed him.”

“No eagles or tortoises here,” said Tabitha, “but a bit could fall off a plane. ~ Margaret Mahy,
579:St Germain, now a ‘messiah’ figure to many New Agers, was a friend of William of Hesse-Hanau, and his brother, Karl. Apparently, Karl wrote that Germain, an alchemist and magician, had been raised by the de Medici (Black Nobility) family in Italy.8 Many New Agers today talk about the Great White Brotherhood of ‘master souls’, including Germain, who are communicating ‘guidance’ to channellers about the coming transformation. This is yet another mind control operation by the Brotherhood to misdirect and imprison the more extreme of the New Age mentality and to stop it getting off its collective arse (and the ceiling) and so making a real difference. ~ David Icke,
580:While reading the Times of India each morning, my father spares a minute for the cartoon by R. K. Laxman. While my mother is, like a magician, making untidy sheets disappear in the bedroom and producing fresh towels in the bathroom, or braving bad weather in the kitchen, my father, in the extraordinary Chinese calm of the drawing-room, is dmiring the cartoon by R. K. Laxman, and, if my mother happens to be there, unselfishly sharing it with her. She, as expected, misunderstands it completely, laughing not at the joke but at the expressions on the faces of the caricatures, and at the hilarious fact that they talk to each other like human beings. ~ Amit Chaudhuri,
581:Would I have to go upstairs at night, or would it do in daylight?”
“Oh, daylight, daylight, to be sure,” said the Chief Voice. “Not at night. No one’s asking you to do that. Go upstairs in the dark? Ugh.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it,” said Lucy. “No,” she said, turning to the others, “don’t try to stop me. Can’t you see it’s no use? There are dozens of them there. We can’t fight them. And the other way there is a chance.”
“But a magician!” said Caspian.
“I know,” said Lucy. “But he mayn’t be as bad as they make out. Don’t you get the idea that these people are not very brave?”
“They’re certainly not very clever,” said Eustace. ~ C S Lewis,
582:He'd been right about the world, but he was wrong about himself. The word was a desert, but he was a magician, and to be a magician was to be a secret spring - a moving oasis. He wasn't desolate, and he wasn't empty. He was full of emotion, full of feelings, bursting with them, and when it came down to it, that's what being a magician was. They weren't ordinary feelings - they weren't the tame, domesticated kind. Magic was wild feelings, the kind that escaped out of you and into the world and changed things. There was a lot of skill to it, and a lot of learning, and a lot of work, but that was where the power began: the power to enchant the world. ~ Lev Grossman,
583:It was at these times that he began to understand, after all these years of study and performance, of feat and wonders and surprises, the nature of magic. The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scattered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place. ~ Michael Chabon,
584:It was at these times that he began to understand, after all those years of study and performance, of feats and wonders and surprises, the nature of magic. The magician seemed to promise that something torn to bits might be mended without a seam, that what had vanished might reappear, that a scettered handful of doves or dust might be reunited by a word, that a paper rose consumed by fire could be made to bloom from a pile of ash. But everyone knew that it was only an illusion. The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of all things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place. ~ Michael Chabon,
585:Biogenesis is in the first place psychogenesis. This truth was never more manifest than on Mars, where noosphere preceded biosphere-the layer of thought first enwrapping the silent planet from afar, inhabiting it with stories and plans and dreams, until the moment when John stepped out and said Here we are-from which point of ignition the green force spread like wildfire, until the whole planet was pulsing with viriditas. It was as if the planet itself had felt something missing, and at the tap of mind against rock, noosphere against lithosphere, the absent biosphere had sprung into the gap with the startling suddenness of a magician's paper flower ~ Kim Stanley Robinson,
586:She caught the old man napping, that little girl did,” said the Chief Monopod. “We’ve beaten him this time.”
“Just what we were going to say ourselves,” chimed the chorus. “You’re going stronger than ever today, Chief. Keep it up, keep it up.”
“But do they dare to talk about you like that?” said Lucy. “They seemed to be so afraid of you yesterday. Don’t they know you might be listening?”
“That’s one of the funny things about the Duffers,” said the Magician. “One minute they talk as if I ran everything and overheard everything and was extremely dangerous. The next moment they think they can take me in by tricks that a baby would see through--bless them! ~ C S Lewis,
587:A crack of thunder resounded overhead. The funnel cloud swirled above the shrine. Below, in the huge courtyard of Etemenanki, the entire army of ten thousand Stone Ones assembled and stood to attention at the command of Terah. Nimrod, with bandaged throat, stood beside Terah. The king oversaw the complete entourage of every magician, every sorcerer, every astrologer and omen diviner in Babylon surround the ziggurat with ritual incantations. The temple towered over them, standing three hundred feet high. It was a small mountain, a cosmic mountain. Soon it would be the new home of the gods, and an occultic portal through which they might storm heaven. It was time. ~ Brian Godawa,
588:We all did as much as the Dwarfs and none more than the King.”
“Tell that tale your own way for all I care,” answered Nikabrik. “But whether it was that the Horn was blown too late, or whether there was no magic in it, no help has come. You, you great clerk, you master magician, you know-all; are you still asking us to hang our hopes on Aslan and King Peter and all the rest of it?”
“I must confess--I cannot deny it--that I am deeply disappointed in the results of the operation,” came the answer. (“That’ll be Doctor Cornelius,” said Trumpkin.)
“To speak plainly,” said Nikabrik, “your wallet’s empty, your eggs addled, your fish uncaught, your promises broken. ~ C S Lewis,
589:To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness. Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
590:With my phone, I find myself always teetering between useful efficiency and meaningless habit. I am often reminded that my phone may be a lot of things, but it is not a toy. The magician and the wielder of a smartphone are close cousins, and this is because, suggests literary critic Alan Jacobs, our modern technology offers us a bewitching power not unlike the magic in the Harry Potter fantasy series: “Often fun, often surprising and exciting, but also always potentially dangerous. . . . The technocrats of this world hold in their hands powers almost infinitely greater than those of Albus Dumbledore and Voldemort.” Into our hands are placed these wands, these smartphones. ~ Tony Reinke,
591:Hawthorne
ROMANCER, far more coy than that coy sex!
Perchance some stroke of magic thee befell,
Ere thy baronial keep the Muse did vex,
Nor grant deliverance from enchanted spell,
But tease thee all the while and sore perplex,
Till thou that wizard tale shouldst fairly tell,
Better than poets in thy own clear prose.
Painter of sin in its deep scarlet dyes,
Thy doomsday pencil Justice doth expose,
Hearing and judging at the dread assize;
New England’s guilt blazoning before all eyes,
No other chronicler than thee she chose.
Magician deathless! dost thou vigil keep,
Whilst ’neath our pines thou feignest deathlike sleep?
~ Amos Bronson Alcott,
592:The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. ~ C S Lewis,
593:The use of visionary methods to aid the body in the healing
and cleansing process is an important skill for the magician
to learn.
Any human can use the mind in order to trigger
a healing or cleansing response, and this action engages the
consciousness in an active conversation with the body.
However,when such work is done by a magician who is trained or skilled in visionary magic, something very special happens: the consciousness becomes an active participant in an action that goes beyond the individual—it initiates a conversation not only with the body, but with the spiritual beings that flow all around us in the constant universal dance of creation and destruction. ~ Josephine McCarthy,
594:If the magician wishes to put himself into or out of any emotional state, then he should be provided with the techniques to accomplish this. The process requires no justification
   - that he wills it is sufficient. One cannot escape emotional experience in a human incarnation, and it is preferable to adopt a master rather than a slave relationship to it. The occult priest should be capable of instructing anyone in the procedures of emotional engineering. The main methods are the gnostic ones of casting oneself into a frenzied ecstacy, stilling the mind to a point of absolute quiescence, and evoking the laughter of the gods by combining laughter with the contemplation of paradox. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
595:The Art of Papier-Mâché,” he said, reading the title of the lowest book in the stack. He pointed to the ledger above it. “I want you to record notes on it while you read. Take thorough enough notes and I won’t make you write a report.”
Ceony’s jaw fell. “But—”
A Living Paper Garden,” he said, gesturing to the next book in the stack. “Do the same. I bookmarked chapters five, six, and twelve; they have exercises in them I’d like you to do. And A Tale of Two Cities. It’s just a good book. Have you read it?”
Ceony stared at the paper magician, words caught in her throat. He’d gone mad again. He’d tricked her into thinking he wasn’t mad, and yet now he’d proved— ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
596:Its half a dozen legs, divided into segments – either four or five, it was difficult to count them - had an elegance of movement that Lily found enthralling. As though choreographed to a beat mimicking the thumping in her breast, the precise spasmodic jerks of their several bends made her think of Madonna dancing to Vogue. They had the faultless coordination of intertwining cutlery in the hands of a hungry magician – or of the Queen eating dinner alone. This rush of ridiculous analogies caused Lily to laugh with delight, loudly, now without the slightest fear that the fly might be disturbed, because this fly was unlike other flies, and Lily knew that it would know not to feel under threat. ~ Panayotis Cacoyannis,
597:A woman must choose her friends and lovers wisely, for both can become like a bad stepmother and rotten stepsisters.

In the case of our lovers, we often invest them with the power of a great Mage - a great magician. This is easy to do , for if we become truly intimate, it dislike unlocking a lead crystal atelier, a magic one, or so it feels to us. A lover can engender and/or destroy even our most durable connections to our own cycle and ideas. The destructive lover must be avoided.

A better sort of lover is one finely wrought of strong psychic muscle and tender flesh. For Wild Woman it also helps if the lover is just a bit psychic too, a person who can "see into" her heart. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Est s,
598:Preparing myself for the ritual, dressing myself in beautiful things in white, blue and gold, and arriving at the doors of the temple, I am always thinking about what I am about to do, the role I am about to step into, and preparing a space in my thoughts for that. When I hear the ritual begin, a deep calm enters me and any thoughts I had of who I am and what I may be doing in my everyday life leave me, making that space for the Goddess. Entering the temple and seeing the assembled congregation sets up a dialogue with them in my actions, it is their presence that elevates me from being a magician seeking a connection with the divine, to a Priestess seeking that connection in the service of others. ~ Sorita d Este,
599:Create your own “LUCK” in your personal life—instead of relying on “fate” and hoping that your happiness will spontaneously materialize sometime and somehow, as if by magic.
Be the “magician” of your own destiny. Take control of your own fate. Be aware. Instead of following the crowd of complainers and repeating their common mistakes, use the Smart Dating Strategies, which are clearly described in the chapters of our exclusive eBooks.
Be successful in your personal life and genuinely loved by the woman of your dreams.
Read how to do it; learn the secrets to use and master them.

Get the keys to the door of your own happiness.

Make things happen.

Choose to be a WINNER! ~ Sahara Sanders,
600:All right, then, I’ll do it,” said Lucy. “No,” she said, turning to the others, “don’t try to stop me. Can’t you see it’s no use? There are dozens of them there. We can’t fight them. And the other way there is a chance.”
“But a magician!” said Caspian.
“I know,” said Lucy. “But he mayn’t be as bad as they make out. Don’t you get the idea that these people are not very brave?”
“They’re certainly not very clever,” said Eustace.
“Look here, Lu,” said Edmund. “We really can’t let you do a thing like this. Ask Reep, I’m sure he’ll say just the same.”
“But it’s to save my own life as well as yours,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to be cut to bits with invisible swords any more than anyone else. ~ C S Lewis,
601:Ceony made her way down the hall, peeking briefly into her room. The bed had been remade, and she smiled. Emery’s odd knack for tidiness had him folding and tucking blanket corners as though crafting a spell, and while he had demonstrated to Ceony how to properly make a bed, she’d never taken the time to mimic the art. She often kept the door to her room closed just so Emery wouldn’t be tempted to rearrange her things, but with her out of the house, there was nothing to stop him.
He must be bored.
She passed her room and stuck her head into the library, but the paper magician wasn’t there. The table and telegraph had both been moved to the right of the window, however. Terribly bored, then. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
602:The physical form of a magical weapon is no more than a convenient handle or anchor for its aetheric form.
The Sword and Pentacle are weapons of analysis and synthesis respectively. Upon the pentacle aetheric forms, images, and powers are assembled when the magical will and perception vitalize the imagination. The magician may create hundreds of pentacles in the course of his sorceries, yet there is a virtue in having a general purpose weapon of this class, for its power increases with use, and it can be employed as an altar for the consecration of lesser pentacles. For many operations of an evocatory type, the pentacle is placed on the cup and the conjuration performed with the wand. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
603:Wonder and love and great sorrow shook Schmendrick the Magician then, and came together inside him and filled him, filled him until he felt himself brimming and flowing with something that was none of these. He did not believe it, but it came to him anyway, as it had touched him twice before and left him more barren than he had been. This time, there was too much of it for him to hold; it spilled through his fingers and toes, welled up equally in his eyes and his hair and the hollows of his shoulders. There was too much to hold — too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full. ~ Peter S Beagle,
604:So you believe he is merely a magician?” Demas evaded him, “Do you believe he is the Messiah?” “I do not know what I believe at this point, Demas. But feeding five thousand people with four loaves and two fish is no magic trick. That is a miracle.” “Five thousand people is a crowd large enough to hide the presence of secreted food stores.” “No magician can heal a man born blind, or a lifelong paralytic and then forgive his sins.” “Claim to forgive his sins. And why did he not heal the boy that we met with the hair lip? Is that not spectacular enough for his reputation?” Gestas sighed. “Some people will just find any excuse not to believe.” Demas smirked. “And some people will just find any excuse to believe. ~ Brian Godawa,
605:The impulse is being called reactionary now, but lovers of Middle-earth want to go there. I would myself, like a shot. For in the end it is Middle-earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien’s considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day’s madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers—thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams. ~ Peter S Beagle,
606:Intellectual 'work' is misnamed; it is a pleasure, a dissipation, and is its own highest reward. The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer, is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the magician with the fiddle-bow in his hand, who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him - why, certainly he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. The law of work does seem utterly unfair - but there it is, and nothing can change it: the higher the pay in enjoyment the worker gets out of it, the higher shall be his pay in cash also. ~ Mark Twain,
607:Here, there is no church to go to at all. But this is where I've been learning to pray. Simply, but often and earnestly.'
'And does it change things?' Julianne's reputation was ruined, her occupation discredited, and though she knew in her mind that babies did not miscarry from wounds to a mother's skin, her heart was unconvinced that her child had escaped the ordeal unscathed. Would prayer erase the mark from her skin and resurrect her hope?
Denise's brown eyes softened. 'Prayer is not a magician's trick. The changes it brings cannot always be seen at first glance. But just as a slippery elm soothes inflammation, prayer is a balm for a raw and ragged soul. And isn't your soul in more need of healing than your skin? ~ Jocelyn Green,
608:How many men can honestly say a woman has walked their heart?” he asked. “But I can. And if you’ll have me, I’d like you to stay there.” Tears welled in Ceony’s eyes. She didn’t blink them away. Emery reached into his pocket and pulled from it a loop of white and violet paper about the width of his fist, made of dozens of tiny, crisscrossing links. Not a spell, just something crafted to be beautiful. From it hung a gold ring that glimmered rose in the sunlight. A diamond carved in the shape of a raindrop sat at its center, flanked on either side by a small emerald. The paper magician slipped the ring off the paper loop and turned it in his hands. Dropping to one knee, he said, “Ceony Maya Twill, will you marry me?” THE ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
609:He's that rascally kind of yogi
who has no sky or earth,
no hand, foot,
form or shape.
Where there's no market
he sets up shop,
weighs things
and keeps the accounts.
No deeds, no creeds,
no yogic powers,
not even a horn or gourd,
so how can he
go begging?

'I know you
and you know me
and I'm inside of you.'

When there isn't a trace
of creation or destruction,
what do you meditate on?
That yogi built a house
brimful of Ram.
He has no healing herbs,
his root-of-life
is Ram.

He looks and looks
at the juggler's tricks,
the magician's sleight-of-hand -
Kabir says, saints, he's made it
to the King's land.

~ Kabir, He's That Rascally Kind Of Yogi
,
610:He's that rascally kind of yogi who has no sky or earth, no hand, foot, form or shape. Where there's no market he sets up shop, weighs things and keeps the accounts. No deeds, no creeds, no yogic powers, not even a horn or gourd, so how can he go begging? "I know you and you know me and I'm inside of you." When there isn't a trace of creation or destruction, what do you meditate on? That yogi built a house brimful of Ram. He has no healing herbs, his root-of-life is Ram. He looks and looks at the juggler's tricks, the magician's sleight-of-hand -- Kabir says, saints, he's made it to the King's land. [2024.jpg] -- from The Bijak of Kabir, Translated by Linda Hess / Translated by Shukdeo Singh

~ Kabir, Hes that rascally kind of yogi
,
611:Love is the only bow on Life’s dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher.

It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.

Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,
612:The Constitution, the National Assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue and the red republicans, the heroes of Africa, the thunder from the platform, the sheet lightning of the daily press, the entire literature, the political names and the intellectual reputations, the civil law and penal code, the liberté, égalité, fraternité and the second of May 1852—all have vanished like a phantasmagoria before the spell of a man whom even his enemies do not make out to be a magician. Universal suffrage seems to have survived only for a moment, in order that with its own hand it may make its last will and testament before the eyes of all the world and declare in the name of the people itself: Everything that exists has this much worth, that it will perish. ~ Karl Marx,
613:Host: For those of you just tuning in, our guests tonight are the amazing Murder Magician, and his lovely minion, The Assistant...

Assistant: Charmed, I'm sure

Host: Who recently killed The Rumor. And you were awarded the Oppenheimer prize for villainy at last week's annual summit for dastardly deeds-- what are you going to do with all that money?

Murder Magician: Well, I'm so glad you asked that-- because I spent all the money on this giant MURDERBOT, and I've been dying to show it off!

Assistant: It's true... every penny.

Host: Wow! That's impressive! So what does it do?

Murder Magician: Well, Mr. Clark... it murders people.

Laughter.

Murder Magician: I'm serious.

Assistant: He is. ~ Gerard Way,
614:An illusion has three stages.

"First there is the setup, in which the nature of what might be attempted at is hinted at, or suggested, or explained. The apparatus is seen. volunteers from the audience sometimes participate in preparation. As the trick is being setup, the magician will make use of every possible use of misdirection.

"The performance is where the magician's lifetime of practice, and his innate skill as a performer, cojoin to produce the magical display.

"The third stage is sometimes called the effect, or the prestige, and this is the product of magic. If a rabbit is pulled from a hat, the rabbit, which apparently did not exist before the trick was performed, can be said to be the prestige of that trick. ~ Christopher Priest,
615:Optical Illusion"

Time is a stage magician
Pulling sleight-of-hand tricks
To make you think things go.

There
Eclipsed by the quick scarf
A lifetime of loves.

Zip—
The child is man.
Zip—
The friend in your arms
Is earth.
Zip—
The green tree is gold, is white,
Is smoking ash, is gone.

Zip—
Time's trick goes on.
All things loved—
Now you see them, now you don't.

Oh, this world has more
Of coming and of going
Than I can bear.
I guess it's eternity I want,
Where all things are
And always will be,
Where I can hold my loves
A little looser,
Where finally we realize
Time
Is the only thing that really dies. ~ Carol Lynn Pearson,
616:The Glass Cat is one of the most curious creatures in all Oz. It was made by a famous magician named Dr. Pipt before Ozma had forbidden her subjects to work magic. Dr. Pipt had made the Glass Cat to catch mice, but the Cat refused to catch mice and was considered more curious than useful.
This astonishing cat was made all of glass and was so clear and transparent that you could see through it as easily as through a window. In the top of its head, however, was a mass of delicate pink balls which looked like jewels but were intended for brains. It had a heart made of a blood-red ruby. The eyes were two large emeralds. But, aside from these colors, all the rest of the animal was of clear glass, and it had a spun-glass tail that was really beautiful. ~ L Frank Baum,
617:The life of the grownups had caught me, at first by a lock of hair or a finger, but soon it would have caught and bound me completely, the life lived according to goals, according to numbers, the life of order and jobs, or professions and examinations; soon the hour would strike for me too, soon I would be undergraduate, graduate student, minister, professor, would pay calls with a high hat and leather gloves to go with it, would no longer understand children, would perhaps envy them. But actually in my heart I didn't want any of this, I did not want to leave my world where things were good and precious. There was, to be sure, a completely secret goal for me when I thought about the future. The one thing I ardently wished for was to become a magician. ~ Hermann Hesse,
618:The magician was coming alive. The illusionist, the eternal pacifier and eflector of ridicule, the dancer on eggshells and creator of impossible karma was answering the call of the footlights. The Oliver of the rain-swept bus shelters, children's hospitals and Salvation Army hostels was performing for his life and Tiger's, while Tinatin cooked, and Yevgeny half-listened and counted his misfortunes in the flames, and Hoban and his fellow devils dreamed their sour mischief and pondered their dwindling options. And Oliver knew his audience. He empathized with its disarray, its stunned senses and confused allegiances. He knew how often in his own life, at its absolutely lowest moments, he would have given everything he had for one lousy conjurer with a stuffed raccoon. ~ John le Carr,
619:When will the spell work?” asked Lucy. “Will the Duffers be visible again at once?”
“Oh yes, they’re visible now. But they’re probably all asleep still; they always take a rest in the middle of the day.”
“And now that they’re visible, are you going to let them off being ugly? Will you make them as they were before?”
“Well, that’s rather a delicate question,” said the Magician. “You see, it’s only they who think they were so nice to look at before. They say they’ve been uglified, but that isn’t what I called it. Many people might say the change was for the better.”
“Are they awfully conceited?”
“They are. Or at least the Chief Duffer is, and he’s taught all the rest to be. They always believe every word he says.”
“We’d noticed that,” said Lucy. ~ C S Lewis,
620:The game spools on.” Deep in her abyss, Circe spun a finger, and a whirlpool circled here.

Ever since my grandmother had told me to look for symbols, I’d been seeing them everywhere. Infinity symbols. A bow. A jagged fracture of rock like a lightning bolt.

A vortex.

I recalled my dreams: When the Magician had created that infinity symbol for Fauna, there’d already been one in that scene. Behind the two of them, the lions’ long tails had curved over each other, making two perfect loops.

Patterns continued to appear before my eyes. Circe’s whirlpool was like a helicopter’s tailspin on its way down. Or a carousel that would never spin backward again. Like a tourniquet twisting.

“But for how long?” she murmured, and her whirlpool tightened. ~ Kresley Cole,
621:She'd have no purpose in a world like this one,' I explained. 'Not now. Even if we did rebuild her-and if I thought we could, if I thought that would make you both happy...' I shook my head. 'In any case, with all that being beside the point, she'd be too big for how things stand in Thremedon now. So, the only other alternative would be to make her smaller- take that same spark she had, reduce her to something tiny enough to fit in your pocket, or in the palm of your hand. And that's all wrong too, isn't it? She wouldn't be the same. What you might have thought you could do- return to a time and place when the war was still being fought, when the Corps was still trying to win- it would require a different sort of magician. I don't think there's ever been one that powerful. ~ Jaida Jones,
622:But for as long as I’ve done this, there are still times I’m blown away when souls drop in for a visit. I’ll never forget when, during a group reading, I saw a man sitting at the end of the dining room table. He wanted me to tell the host that he knew she was concerned about her best friend’s husband. Then he looked at me and said, “I’m going to be with my father now.” I told this story to the group in real time, and the host, overwhelmed with emotion, excused herself and left the room upset. When she came back, she said that just forty minutes before the session began, her best friend called to say that her husband died and his last words in private were, “I’m going to be with my father now.” Are you kidding me with this? If that’s a parlor trick, I’m one hell of a magician. ~ Theresa Caputo,
623:It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say! ~ G K Chesterton,
624:Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige". ~ Christopher Priest,
625:The Magician works in a Temple; the Universe, which is (be it remembered!) conterminous with himself. In this temple a Circle is drawn upon the floor for the limitation of his working. This circle is protected by divine names, the influences on which he relies to keep out hostile thoughts. Within the circle stands an Altar, the solid basis on which he works, the foundation of all. Upon the Altar are his Wand, Cup, Sword, and Pantacle, to represent his Will, his Understanding, his Reason, and the lower parts of his being, respectively. On the Altar, too, is a phial of Oil, surrounded by a Scourge, a Dagger, and a Chain, while above the Altar hangs a Lamp. The Magician wears a Crown, a single Robe, and a Lamen, and he bears a Book of Conjurations and a Bell.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick [54?],
626:This whole illusion has its history in ways of thinking—in the images, models, myths, and language systems which we have used for thousands of years to make sense of the world. These have had an effect on our perceptions which seems to be strictly hypnotic. It is largely by talking that a hypnotist produces illusions and strange behavioral changes in his subjects—talking coupled with relaxed fixation of the subject’s conscious attention. The stage magician, too, performs most of his illusions by patter and misdirection of attention. Hypnotic illusions can be vividly sensuous and real to the subject, even after he has come out of the so-called “hypnotic trance.” It is, then, as if the human race had hypnotized or talked itself into the hoax of egocentricity. There is no one to blame but ourselves. ~ Alan W Watts,
627:Those,” he said, slipping the knife into the folds of his coat, “are the sorts of questions you can’t ask.” “You don’t have to teach me how to do what you do. Just teach me—” “How I do what I do, but not how to do what I do? What if what I do has to do with my knowledge of what to do, and doing requires only the knowledge of doing? What would you do then?” I blinked. “I believe you hurt my brain.” “It’s a good brain, all things considered. Listen, my adorable bonfire, I cannot teach you much. Our safety requires it. But I suppose a little magic never did a body a great deal of harm. Unless it was the magical art of rearranging bones. Or turning flesh inside out. Or—never mind. Really, I’d forgotten how much I missed being collegial with my own kind. A magician without an apprentice is like a dog without a bark. ~ Jessica Cluess,
628:Oh, I believe you. It’s too ridiculous not to be true. It’s just that each time my world gets stranger, I think: Right. We’re at maximum oddness now. At least I know the full extent of it. First, I find out my brother and I are descended from the pharaohs and have magic powers. All right. No problem. Then I find out my dead father has merged his soul with Osiris and Why not? Then my uncle takes over the House of Life and oversees hundreds of magicians around the world. Then my boyfriend turns out to be a hybrid magician boy/immortal god of funerals. And all the while I’m thinking, Of course! Keep calm and carry on! I’ve adjusted! And then you come along on a random Thursday, la-di-da, and say, Oh, by the way, Egyptian gods are just one small part of the cosmic absurdity. We’ve also got the Greeks to worry about! Hooray! ~ Rick Riordan,
629:But she’s a ghost. And a demon.”
“Might be a closer struggle than otherwise,” Edmund agreed heavily. “But he does have us.”
“Oh, good,” said Reggie.
And a little voice in the back of her head asked her why they were even bothering to come out. If Janet’s trap had worked, if Colin, the part-dragon, the magician with more than a century of life behind him, was actually in danger, what exactly did Reggie think two mortals and a few lead projectiles would accomplish?
She told the voice to remember fables about mice and lions and traps—or was that thorns?—that in setting her trap for large prey, Janet might have left smaller openings unguarded, that there had to be a reason mortals were running so much of the world. Then she told the voice to go to the devil. Then she wished she hadn’t thought of the devil. ~ Isabel Cooper,
630:THE TRUE STUDENT OF OCCULT SCIENCE
   The White Magician uses none of the powers of the animal world in his work, but rather seeks to transmute the poles of the beast within himself into higher and finer qualities. The White Magician labors entirely with the finer forces of the elemental planes. He is a builder--not a destroyer--and seeks to liberate rather than to dominate his fellow creatures. The White Magician has dedicated his soul to the immortal light, while the Black Magician has sold his for mortal glory. The Grimores of the Middle Ages are filled with chants and charms for the invoking of spirits. History is filled with stories of Black Magicians but the true student of occult science must have nothing to do with these things other than to protect himself against them. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Natural Occultism, 28,
631:I feel that from the very beginning life played a terrible conjurer’s trick on me. I lost faith in it. It seems to me that every moment now it is playing tricks on me. So that when I hear love I am not sure it is love, and when I hear gaiety I am not sure it is gaiety, and when I have eaten and loved and I am all warm from wine, I am not sure it is either love or food or wine, but a strange trick being played on me, an illusion, slippery and baffling and malicious, and a magician hangs behind me watching the ecstasy I feel at the things which happen so that I know deep down it is all fluid and escaping and may vanish at any moment. Don’t forget to write me a letter and tell me I was here, and I saw you, and loved you, and ate with you. It is all so evanescent and I love it so much, I love it as you love the change in the days. ~ Ana s Nin,
632:That right will ultimately triumph, is undeniable; and that the black magician will fall victim to his own excess, is a literal truth; but many must bow their heads to the tyrant while he passes, and only those who are strong are in safety. Individuals who have mastered nature's forces to such a degree that they can stop the heartbeat of a person on the other side of the earth with a mental ray, or burn a two-inch hole through a foot and a half of ebony with astral fire, are dangerous whenever met, and the average so-called good person has absolutely no chance of withstanding the blows of black magic. Only fools underestimate this danger; wise men protect themselves against it, for an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The white ray places the shield of David between them and the dark forces, and in this way they protect themselves,
633:What is more, the whole apparatus of life has become so complex and the processes of production, distribution, and consumption have become so specialized and subdivided, that the individual person loses confidence in his own unaided capacities: he is increasingly subject to commands he does not understand, at the mercy of forces over which he exercises no effective control, moving to a destination he has not chosen. Unlike the taboo-ridden savage, who is often childishly over-confident in the powers of his shaman or magician to control formidable natural forces, however inimical, the machine-conditioned individual feels lost and helpless as day by day he metaphorically punches his time-card, takes his place on the assembly line, and at the end draws a pay check that proves worthless for obtaining any of the genuine goods of life. ~ Lewis Mumford,
634:I’m sure you’re just dying to tell me all the campus gossip about me. Right?”

“I do have a life. Maybe I’ve been too busy to listen to rumors,” he huffed, pretending to have hurt feelings.

I looked at him.

He sighed. “Okay, you win. I’m bored out of my skull. Second Magician is busy playing detective, and Gelsi is neck-deep in some project and I never see her anymore.” Dax paused dramatically. “My life is so boring that I have to live vicariously through your adventures.”

“And since the rumors are so accurate—”

“Your adventures have turned into legends.” He swept his arms wide, laughing. “So where are you off to now? Going to slay a dragon? Can Itag along as your lowly squire? I’ll polish your staff of power every night with my shirt. I promise.”

“I’m glad my problems are keeping you entertained, ~ Maria V Snyder,
635:Okay, where’s the camera icon?” Setne fumbled with his phone. “We have to get a picture together before I destroy you.” “Destroy me?” demanded the cobra goddess. She lashed out at Setne, but a sudden gust of rain and wind pushed her back. I was ten feet away from Annabeth. Riptide’s blade glowed as I dragged it through the mud. “Let’s see.” Setne tapped his phone. “Sorry, this is new to me. I’m from the Nineteenth Dynasty. Ah, okay. No. Darn it. Where did the screen go? Ah! Right! So what do modern folks call this…a snappie?” He leaned in toward the cobra goddess, held out his phone at arm’s length, and took a picture. “Got it!” “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Wadjet roared. “YOU DARE TAKE A SELFIE WITH THE COBRA GODDESS?” “Selfie!” said the magician. “That’s right! Thanks. And now I’ll take your crown and consume your essence. Hope you don’t mind. ~ Rick Riordan,
636:Malygris turned to the viper and spoke in a tone of melancholy reproof: “Why did you not warn me?” “Would the warning have availed?” was the counter-question. “All knowledge was yours, Malygris, excepting this one thing; and in no other way could you have learned it.” “What thing?” queried the magician. “I have learned nothing except the vanity of wisdom, the impotence of magic, the nullity of love, and the delusiveness of memory… Tell me, why could I not recall to life the same Nylissa whom I knew, or thought I knew?” “It was indeed Nylissa whom you summoned and saw,” replied the viper. “Your necromancy was potent up to this point; but no necromantic spell could recall for you your own lost youth or the fervent and guileless heart that loved Nylissa, or the ardent eyes that beheld her then. This, my master, was the thing that you had to learn. ~ Clark Ashton Smith,
637:Oh, I believe you. It’s too ridiculous not to be true. It’s just that each time my world gets stranger, I think: Right. We’re at maximum oddness now. At least I know the full extent of it. First, I find out my brother and I are descended from the pharaohs and have magic powers. All right. No problem. Then I find out my dead father has merged his soul with Osiris and become the lord of the dead. Brilliant! Why not? Then my uncle takes over the House of Life and oversees hundreds of magicians around the world. Then my boyfriend turns out to be a hybrid magician boy/immortal god of funerals. And all the while I’m thinking, Of course! Keep calm and carry on! I’ve adjusted! And then you come along on a random Thursday, la-di-da, and say: Oh, by the way, Egyptian gods are just one small part of the cosmic absurdity. We’ve also got the Greeks to worry about! Hooray! ~ Rick Riordan,
638:Look here, Lu,” said Edmund. “We really can’t let you do a thing like this. Ask Reep, I’m sure he’ll say just the same.”
“But it’s to save my own life as well as yours,” said Lucy. “I don’t want to be cut to bits with invisible swords any more than anyone else.”
“Her Majesty is in the right,” said Reepicheep. “If we had any assurance of saving her by battle, our duty would be very plain. It appears to me that we have none. And the service they ask of her is in no way contrary to her Majesty’s honor, but a noble and heroical act. If the Queen’s heart moves her to risk the magician, I will not speak against it.”
As no one had ever known Reepicheep to be afraid of anything, he could say this without feeling at all awkward. But the boys, who had all been afraid quite often, grew very red. None the less, it was such obvious sense that they had to give in. ~ C S Lewis,
639:The world was fucking awful. It was a wretched, desolate place, a desert of meaninglessness, a heartless wasteland, where horrific things happened all the time for no reason and nothing good lasted for long.

He'd been right about the world, but he was wrong about himself. The world was a desert, but he was a magician, and to be a magician was to be a secret spring - a moving oasis. He wasn't desolate, and he wasn't empty. He was full of emotion, full of feelings, bursting with them, and when it came down to it, that's what being a magician was.
They weren't ordinary feelings - they weren't the tame, domesticated kind. Magic was wild feelings, the kind that escaped out of you and into the world and changed things. There was a lot of skill to it, and a lot of learning, and a lot of work, but that was where the power began: the power to enchant the world. ~ Lev Grossman,
640:An artist is the magician put among men to gratify--capriciously--their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships--and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes--husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer... ~ Tom Stoppard,
641:Of the many wonderful tales Moor told me, the most wonderful, the most delightful one, was “Hans Röckle.” It went on for months; it was a whole series of stories... Hans Röckle himself was a Hoffman-like magician, who kept a toyshop, and who was always “hard up.” His shop was full of the most wonderful things—of wooden men and women, giants and dwarfs, kings and queens, workmen and masters, animals and birds as numerous as Noah got into the Ark, tables and chairs, carriages, boxes of all sorts and sizes. And though he was a magician, Hans could never meet his obligations either to the devil or to the butcher, and was therefore—much against the grain—constantly obliged to sell his toys to the devil. These then went through wonderful adventures—always ending in a return to Hans Röckle’s shop. —Eleanor Marx, on her father Karl’s bedtime stories (in Stallybrass 1998:198) ~ David Graeber,
642:Prit?” she asked. “The boy you bullied in school?”

Emery scratched the back of his head. “‘Bullied’ sounds so juvenile . . .”

“But it’s him, isn’t it?” Ceony pushed. “Pritwin Bailey? He became a Folder after all?”

Emery nodded. “We graduated from Praff together, actually. But yes, he’s the same.”

Ceony relaxed somewhat. “So you two are on good terms, then?”

The paper magician barked a laugh. “Oh, heavens no. We haven’t spoken to each other since Praff, save for this telegram. He quite loathes me, actually.”

Ceony’s eyes bugged. “And you’re sending me to test with him?”

Emery smiled. “Of course, in a few days. What better way to prove you had no bias than to place your career aspirations in the hands of Pritwin Bailey?”

Ceony stared at him a long moment. “I’ve been shot to hell, haven’t I?”

“Language, love. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
643:The control which knowledge gives over ignorance on the spiritual planes of nature is very much like the control that wealth gives over poverty in the physical world. Wealth may be a blessing or a curse; so may knowledge, which is mental wealth. The wise man will always be master of the fool, for he has a mentality which is capable of demanding respect, and the fool must bow down to that thing which he cannot comprehend. In every age, a few have come into the realization of nature's tremendous powers, and in one way or another, legitimate or otherwise, have become temporary wielders of the serpent scepter. As a man can steal money and remain wealthy until the law dispossesses him, so may a black magician steal a certain amount of divine power and manipulate it to the gratification of his own ends until at last his misuse of power destroys him. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
644:IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness. ~ Lundy Bancroft,
645:In that case,” the herbalist said to Eragon, “you had best have this, since it seems you and I are to do most of the fighting.” She handed him her short sword, then drew a poniard with a jeweled hilt from within the folds of her dress.
“What is it made of?” Eragon asked as he peered through the transparent blade of the sword, noticing how it caught and reflected the light. The substance reminded him of diamond, but he could not imagine that anyone would make a weapon out of a gemstone; the amount of energy required to keep the stone from breaking with every blow would soon exhaust any normal magician.
“Neither stone nor metal,” said the herbalist. “A word of caution, though. You must take great care when handling it. Never touch the edge or allow anything you cherish to come near it, else you will regret it. Likewise, never lean the sword against something you might need--your leg, for example. ~ Christopher Paolini,
646:We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications? ~ Azar Nafisi,
647:The buggy should be here soon. Do you have your suitcase packed?”

“So eager to get rid of me?”

“Eager?” he repeated, rolling back the sleeves of his favorite indigo coat. “My kitchen will be empty in two days and I’ll be forced to purchase my own groceries. How could I be eager for that?”

Ceony smiled and scooped out more egg. “You could always have Jonto cook your meals.”

In fact, Emery once had tried to get Jonto to cook his meals. It had taken the paper magician two days to reconstruct the right hand and arm of the paper skeleton, which had burned off after Jonto attempted to light the coals in the oven.

“I’ll be sure to stock up on sandwich supplies,” Emery murmured.

And all you’ll miss is the food, hm?”

His eyes glimmered. “I may miss the mid-night companionship.”

Ceony flushed. “Emery Thane!” That was one time.

Emery just chuckled, the cursed man.  ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
648:In short, in contrast to the magician - who is still hidden in the medical practitioner – the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him.
Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art ~ Walter Benjamin,
649:In short, in contrast to the magician - who is still hidden in the medical practitioner – the surgeon at the decisive moment abstains from facing the patient man to man; rather, it is through the operation that he penetrates into him.
Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art. ~ Walter Benjamin,
650:To her amazement, snow began to fall. Paper snowflakes cascaded through the air, some as small as Ceony’s thumbnail, some as large as her hand. Hundreds of them poured down as the paper ceiling gave way, all somehow timed just right so that they fell like real snow. Ceony stood from her chair, laughing, and held out her hand to catch one. To her astonishment it felt cold, but didn’t melt against her palm. Only tingled.
“When did you do this?” she asked, her breath fogging in the library’s air as more snowflakes fell like crisp confetti from the ceiling. “This would take . . . ages to make.”
“Not ages,” Mg. Thane said. “You’ll get quicker as you learn.” He still sat on the floor, completely unfazed by the magic around him. But of course he would be—it was his creation. “Magician Aviosky mentioned you hadn’t exactly jumped at the news of your assignment, and I can’t blame you. But casting through paper has its own whimsy. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
651:We must disabuse our minds of the idea that the black magician cannot injure us because we are in the right, or that he is weak because he is evil. This is a foolish concept, taught to prevent man from strengthening himself, and is propaganda of the black path itself. It is just as foolish as to say that if a prize fighter were boxing a baby, the baby would win the fight because he had no ulterior motive, or because his soul is undefiled. Thousands of people have not enough ambition to develop the necessary strength. In fact, they do not even know that their soul is worth saving. They are living honestly, they are good Christian people, but so purely negative that they are positively advertising the fact that they are easy marks for anyone desiring to avail himself of the opportunity. They are not black themselves, but they are the type that helps to make possible the perpetuation of black magic. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics,
652:Great Scott!” said Peter. “So it was the horn--your own horn, Su--that dragged us all off that seat on the platform yesterday morning! I can hardly believe it; yet it all fits in.”
“I don’t know why you shouldn’t believe it,” said Lucy, “if you believe in magic at all. Aren’t there lots of stories about magic forcing people out of one place--out of one world--into another? I mean, when a magician in The Arabian Nights calls up a Jinn, it has to come. We had to come, just like that.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “I suppose what makes it feel so queer is that in the stories it’s always someone in our world who does the calling. One doesn’t really think about where the Jinn’s coming from.
“And now we know what it feels like for the Jinn,” said Edmund with a chuckle. “Golly! It’s a bit uncomfortable to know that we can be whistled for like that. It’s worse than what Father says about living at the mercy of the telephone. ~ C S Lewis,
653:I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom. ~ Peter S Beagle,
654:A MARWARI DEVOTEE: "Sir, what is the way?"

Two ways of God-realization

MASTER: "There are two ways. One is the path of discrimination, the other is that of love. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal.

God alone is the real and permanent Substance; all else is illusory and impermanent.

The magician alone is real; his magic is illusory. This is discrimination.

"Discrimination and renunciation. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal. Renunciation means to have dispassion for the things of the world. One cannot acquire them all of a sudden. They must be practised every day.

One should renounce 'woman and gold' mentally at first. Then, by the will of God, one can renounce it both mentally and outwardly. It is impossible to ask the people of Calcutta to renounce all for the sake of God. One has to tell them to renounce mentally. ~ Sri Ramakrishna,
655:The first thing he did was to attempt to analyse a mental device he was in the habit of resorting to - a device that supplied him with the secret substratum of his whole life. This was a certain trick he had of doing what he called 'sinking into his soul’. This trick had been a furtive custom with him from very early days. In his childhood his mother had often rallied him about it in her light-hearted way, and had applied to these trances, or these fits of absent-mindedness, an amusing but rather indecent nursery name. His father, on the other hand, had encouraged him in these moods, taking them very gravely, and treating him, when under their spell, as if he were a sort of infant magician.
It was, however, when staying in his grandmother's house at Weymouth that the word had come to him which he now always used in his own mind to describe these obsessions. It was the word ‘mythology’ ; and he used it entirely in a private sense of his own. ~ John Cowper Powys,
656:In vain I warned other Arab leaders, those pleasure-seeking gluttons who only listen to the fawning and simpering of those who owe them favors. There was a full complement of them at Cairo, lined up like onions, spying on each other on the sly, half of them so conceited they could not stop behaving like constipated patriarchs, the other half too thick to be able to look serious. Arrivistes who thought they had really arrived, comic-opera presidents unable to shake off their country-bumpkin reflexes, petrodollar emirs looking like rabbits straight out of the magician's hat, sultans wrapped in their robes like ghosts, disgusted at the blathering eulogies the speakers were trotting out ad infinitum. Why were they there? They cared for nothing that did not concern their personal fortunes. Busy stuffing their pockets, they refused to look up to see how dizzyingly fast the world was changing or how tomorrow's storm clouds of hate were gathering on the horizon. ~ Yasmina Khadra,
657:Have you ever plunged into the immensity of space and time by reading the geological treatises of Cuvier? Borne away on the wings of his genius, have you hovered over the illimitable abyss of the past as if a magician's hand were holding you aloft? As one penetrates from seam to seam, from stratum to stratum and discovers, under the quarries of Montmartre or in the schists of the Urals, those animals whose fossilized remains belong to antediluvian civilizations, the mind is startled to catch a vista of the milliards of years and the millions of peoples which the feeble memory of man and an indestructible divine tradition have forgotten and whose ashes heaped on the surface of our globe, form the two feet of earth which furnish us with bread and flowers. Is not Cuvier the greatest poet of our century? Certainly Lord Byron has expressed in words some aspects of spiritual turmoil; but our immortal natural historian has reconstructed worlds from bleached bones. ~ Honor de Balzac,
658:Don’t be fooled by clever hands, sir” the Sunlight Man said. He’d be lying with the back of his head on his hands, as he always lay. “Entertainment’s all very well, but the world is serious. It’s exceedingly amusing, when you think about it: nothing in life is as startling or shocking or mysterious as a good magician’s trick. That’s what makes stagecraft deadly. Listen closely, friend. You see great marvels performed on the stage - the lady sawed in half, the fat man supported by empty air, the Hindu vanishing with the folding of a cloth - and the subtlest of poisons drifts into your brain: you think the earth dead because the sky is full of spirits, you think the hall drab because the stage is adazzle with dimestore gilt. So King Lear rages, and the audience grows meek, and tomorrow, in the gray of old groceries, the housewife will weep for Cordelia and despair for herself. They weren’t fools, those old sages who called all art the Devil’s work. It eats the soul. ~ John Gardner,
659:I have a little theory that I'd like to air here, if I may. What is it that you think makes you magicians?" More silence. Fogg was well into rhetorical-question territory now anyway. He spoke more softly. "Is it because you are intelligent? Is it because you are brave and good? Is is because you're special?

Maybe. Who knows. But I'll tell you something: I think you're magicians because you're unhappy. A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.

Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you. ~ Lev Grossman,
660:She sets the hard inventions of her brain
In a pattern of eternal fixity:
Indifferent to the cosmic dumb demand,
Unconscious of too close realities,
Of the unspoken thought, the voiceless heart,
She leans to forge her credos and iron codes
And metal structures to imprison life
And mechanic models of all things that are.
For the world seen she weaves a world conceived:
She spins in stiff but unsubstantial lines
Her gossamer word-webs of abstract thought,
Her segment systems of the Infinite,
Her theodicies and cosmogonic charts
And myths by which she explains the inexplicable.
At will she spaces in thin air of mind
Like maps in the school-house of intellect hung,
Forcing wide Truth into a narrow scheme,
Her numberless warring strict philosophies;
Out of Nature's body of phenomenon
She carves with Thought's keen edge in rigid lines,
Like rails for the World-Magician's power to run, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri,
661:I shall never go back, I said to myself.

A door had shut, the low door in the wall I had sought and found in Oxford; open it now and I should find no enchanted garden.

I had come to the surface, into the light of common day and the fresh sea-air, after long captivity in the sunless coral palaces and waving forests of the ocean bed.

I had left behind me – what? Youth? Adolescence? Romance? The conjuring stuff of these things, "the Young Magician's Compendium," that neat cabinet where the ebony wand had its place beside the delusive billiard balls, the penny that folded double and the feather flowers that could be drawn into a hollow candle.

"I have left behind illusion," I said to myself. "Henceforth I live in a world of three dimensions — with the aid of my five senses."

I have since learned that there is no such world; but then, as the car turned out of sight of the house, I thought it took no finding, but lay all about me at the end of the avenue. ~ Evelyn Waugh,
662:For the next hour and a half he tried all the magic he could think of. He cast spells of remembering, spells of finding, spells of awakening, spells to concentrate the mind, spells to dispel nightmares and evil thoughts, spells to find patterns in chaos, spells to find a path when one was lost, spells of demystification, spells of discernment, spells to increase intelligence, spells to cure sickness and spells to repair a limb that is shattered. Some of the spells were long and complicated. Some were a single word. Some had to be said out loud. Some had only to be thought. Some had no words at all but consisted of a single gesture. Some were spells that Strange and Norrell had employed in some form or other every day for the last five years. Some had probably not been used for centuries. Some used a mirror; two used a tiny bead of blood from the magician’s finger; and one used a candle and a piece of ribbon. But they all had this in common: they had no effect upon the King whatsoever. ~ Susanna Clarke,
663:I am struck by what a tawdry magician’s trick Time is after all. I am sixty-six years old. Viewed from your coign of vantage—facing toward the future—sixty-six years is a great deal of time. It is all of the experience of your life more than three times over. But, viewed from my coign of vantage—facing toward the past—this sixty-six years was the fluttering down of a cherry petal. I feel that my life was a picture hastily sketched but never filled in . . . for lack of time. Only yesterday—but more than fifty years ago—I walked along this river with my father. I can remember how big and strong his hand felt to my small fingers. Fifty years. But all the insignificant, busy things—the terribly important, now forgotten things that cluttered the intervening time collapse and fall away from my memory. And I remember another yesterday when my daughter was a little girl. We walked along here. At this very moment, the nerves in my hand remember the feeling of her chubby fingers clinging to one of mine. ~ Trevanian,
664:It has been said that the man who loves God needs seven incarnations in order to enter Nirvana and liberate himself, and that the man who hates him needs only three. It is without God but his own 'fury' that Parsifal achieved the Grail and his individuation, his Self, his totality. This is the difference between the Liquid Road and the Dry Road. We do not know whether, as well as his 'fury', his Phobos, his fear of the Mother, Parsifal carried with him a 'memory of a beloved', as he was supposed to have advised his friend Gawaine to do. Parsifal, with his 'fury', or his hatred, was resisting a participation mystique. Samadhi, fusion with Adhi, the Primordial Being, doesn't await him at the end of his road. Because this would be the way of sainthood. What awaits him is Kaivalya, total separation, supreme Individuation, Absolute Personality, the ultimate solitude of the Superman. This is the way of the magician, the Siddha, the tantric hero of the Grail. The cosmic isolation of the risen Purusha. ~ Miguel Serrano,
665:But Viv, if I've learned anything at all in the last eight years of my life? It's that people just like to tell themselves stories about where they came from. They can't help themselves. They don't trust the world around them--it's too good for them, or not good enough--so they tell themselves stories about it. They tell themselves an old magician who lives up in the sky made them out of clay and put them here until whenever he makes up his mind to take them out again. Your parents didn't like their creation myth, that's all--it had pain in it, and chaos, and their own parents were ashamed. So they told themselves a story that was at least partially true: about two good people who deserved happy lives. And probably at some point they started to believe that story. But the thing is, really, that it doesn't matter. For your parents or anyone else. It doesn't actually matter where we came from, or where we're going, or when. The only thing that matters is what we have to do while we're here and how well we do it. ~ Katie Coyle,
666:Do you think I am a foo, Masha? All this time, and you speak to me as though I were a flighty pinprick of a girl. I am a magician! Did you ever think, even once, that I loved lipstick and rouge for more than their color alone? I am a student of their lore, and it is arcane and hermetic beyond the dreams of alchemists. Did you ever wonder why I gave you so many pots, so many creams, so much perfume?
...
Cosmetics are an extension of the will. Why do you think all men paint themselves when they go to fight? When I paint my eyes to match my soup, it is not because I have nothing better to do than worry over trifles. It says, I belong here, and you will not deny me. When I streak my lips red as foxgloves, I say, Come here, male. I am your mate, and you will not deny me. When I pinch my cheeks and dust them with mother-of-pearl, I say, Death, keep off, I am your enemy and you will not deny me. I say these things, and the world listens, Masha. Because my magic is as strong as an arm. I am never denied. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
667:At the age of twenty, I obtained my first copy of The Eye in the Triangle at an Occult Bookstore in Los Angeles called The Psychic Eye and, naturally, I read it with the greatest enthusiasm and interest, and I excitedly extracted the essentials from its pages. It subsequently left a deep impression upon my mind, and it has continued to influence my life in ways invaluable to my growth as both a man and a magician. Since that first reading, I have read the book a few more times, including recently, and every time it has illumined my understanding of Crowley, his magick and his mysticism in some manner or another useful to my life and magical progress. I have read most published and unpublished works by Israel Regardie, but this book is the one he wrote that moved me the most, finding the greatest meaning and place in the sanctuary of my soul. I feel that The Eye in the Triangle is essential reading material for anyone who is seriously interested in learning about the life, magick and mysticism of Aleister Crowley. ~ David Cherubim,
668:A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows 'to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally'
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, Liber LUX, Augoeides [49-50],
669:HOW ATTRACTION HAPPENS

Moses is talking to someone drunk with worshiping the golden calf. "What happened to your

doubt? You used to be so skeptical of me. The Red Sea parted. Food came every day in the

wilderness for forty years. A fountain sprang out of a rock. You saw these things

and still reject the idea of prophethood. Then the magician Samiri does a trick to make

the metal cow low, and immediately you kneel! What did that hollow statue say? Have you

heard a dullness like your own?" This is how attraction happens: people with nothing

they value delight in worthlessness. Someone who thinks there's no meaning or purpose

feels drawn to images of futility. Each moves to be with its own. The ox does not turn

toward a lion. Wolves have no interest in Joseph, unless to devour him. But if a wolf

is cured of wolfishness, it will sleep close by Joseph, like a dog in the presence of

meditators. Soul companionship gives safety and light to a cave full of friends. ~ Rumi,
670:He likes reading," his parents had told their friends in the same awed tones they might have used to announce he'd been awarded the Victoria Cross.
Peter did like reading. He'd read his way through the entire children's section of the Kilburn Library bu the time he was eight, a feat that might have been a source of pride and celebration but for the problem posed by his still being years off acquiring the coveted adult borrowing card. Thank God for Miss Talbot, who'd bitten her lip and straightened the library name badge on her lemon cardigan, and told him-a faint quiver of purpose enlivening her usually soft, smooth voice-that she would personally ensure he never ran out of things to read. She was a magician, as far as Peter was concerned. Decipherer of secret codes, master of index cards and Dewey decimal, opener of doors to wonderful places.
Those afternoons in the library, breathing the stale sun-warmed dust of a thousand stories (accented by the collective mildew of a hundred years of rising damp), had been enchanted. ~ Kate Morton,
671:The dead man's companions at the counter started to their feet, but halted as Voynod with great aplomb turned to face them. "Take care, you dunghill cocks! Notice the fate of your fellow! He died by the power of my magic blade, which is of inexorable metal and cuts rock and steel like butter. Behold!" And Voynod struck out at a pillar. The blade, striking an iron bracket, broke into a dozen pieces. Voynod stood non-plussed, but the bravo's companions surged forward.

"What then of your magic blade? Our blades are ordinary steel but bite deep!" And in a moment Voynod was cut to bits. The bravos now turned upon Cugel. "What of you? Do you wish to share the fate of your comrade?"
"By no means!" stated Cugel. "This man was but my servant, carrying my pouch. I am a magician; observe this tube! I will project blue concentrate at the first man to threaten me!" The bravos shrugged and turned away. Cugel secured Voynod's pouch, then gestured to the landlord. "Be so good as to remove these corpses; then bring a further mug of spiced wine. ~ Jack Vance,
672:This last figure, the White Magician, symbolizes the self-transcending element in the scientist's motivational drive and emotional make-up; his humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, his quest for the harmony of the spheres, the origin of life, the equations of a unified field theory. The conquistadorial urge is derived from a sense of power, the participatory urge from a sense of oceanic wonder. 'Men were first led to the study of natural philosophy', wrote Aristotle, 'as indeed they are today, by wonder.' Maxwell's earliest memory was 'lying on the grass, looking at the sun, and wondering'. Einstein struck the same chord when he wrote that whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, 'whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life'.

This oceanic feeling of wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art for art's sake; it is their common denominator and emotional bond. ~ Arthur Koestler,
673:This last figure, the White Magician, symbolizes the self-transcending element in the scientist's motivational drive and emotional make-up; his humble immersion into the mysteries of nature, his quest for the harmony of the spheres, the origin of life, the equations of a unified field theory. The conquistadorial urge is derived from a sense of power, the participatory urge from a sense of oceanic wonder. 'Men were first led to the study of natural philosophy', wrote Aristotle, 'as indeed they are today, by wonder.' Maxwell's earliest memory was 'lying on the grass, looking at the sun, and wondering'. Einstein struck the same chord when he wrote that whoever is devoid of the capacity to wonder, 'whoever remains unmoved, whoever cannot contemplate or know the deep shudder of the soul in enchantment, might just as well be dead for he has already closed his eyes upon life'.

This oceanic feeling of wonder is the common source of religious mysticism, of pure science and art for art's sake; it is their common denominator and emotional bond. ~ Arthur Koestler,
674:Megan glanced at Finn, who was sitting next to Evan, then checked on John. His eyes were trained on the TV. “Um…aren’t you supposed to be grounded?” Megan whispered, crouching at the back of the couch.
“Shhh!” Finn said as he leaned forward for a bag of mini-pretzels. “My dad’s so mesmerized he hasn’t noticed me yet.”
“Nice.”
“So, hey, you wanna meet me out in the shed later?” Finn asked, popping a pretzel into his mouth.
“Oh, sure,” Megan replied, flushing slightly.
“What’re you two doing in the shed together?” Evan asked, raising his eyebrows.
Megan’s flush deepened.
“An artist never discusses his work,” Finn replied.
“I think it’s a magician never reveals his secrets,” Megan said.
“Same thing,” Finn replied. Megan and Evan looked at him like he was crazy. “Okay, it’s really not,” he amended.
“So, you’re calling yourself an artist these days?” Evan asked. “Usually you’re just going off about how much you suck.”
Finn punched Evan on the arm, hard. Evan punched him back. Megan rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you guys later. ~ Kate Brian,
675:[invocation] Let us describe the magical method of identification. The symbolic form of the god is first studied with as much care as an artist would bestow upon his model, so that a perfectly clear and unshakeable mental picture of the god is presented to the mind. Similarly, the attributes of the god are enshrined in speech, and such speeches are committed perfectly to memory. The invocation will then begin with a prayer to the god, commemorating his physical attributes, always with profound understanding of their real meaning. In the second part of the invocation, the voice of the god is heard, and His characteristic utterance is recited. In the third portion of the invocation the Magician asserts the identity of himself with the god. In the fourth portion the god is again invoked, but as if by Himself, as if it were the utterance of the will of the god that He should manifest in the Magician. At the conclusion of this, the original object of the invocation is stated.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, Book 4, Magick, Part 3, The Formuale of the Elemental Weapons [149] [T4],
676:…but to the unicorn’s eyes Molly was becoming a softer country, full of pools and caves, where old flowers came burning out of the ground. Under the dirt and indifference, she appeared only thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old - no older than Schmendrick, surely, despite the magician’s birthdayless face. Her rough hair bloomed, her skin quickened, and her voice was nearly as gentle to all things as it was when she spoke to the unicorn. The eyes would never be joyous, any more than they could ever turn green or blue, but they too had wakened in the earth. She walked eagerly into King Haggard’s realm on bare, blistered feet, and she sang often.
And far away on the other side of the unicorn, Schmendrick the Magician stalked in silence. His black cloak was sprouting holes, coming undone, and so was he. The rain that renewed Molly did not fall on him, and he seemed ever more parched and deserted, like the land itself. The unicorn could not heal him. A touch of her horn could have brought him back from death, but over despair she had no power, nor over magic that had come and gone. ~ Peter S Beagle,
677:Maman had been a gifted writer. Pari has read every word Maman had written in French and every poem she had translated from Farsi as well. The power and beauty of her writing was undeniable. But if the account Maman had given of her life in the interview was a lie, then where did the images of her work come from? Where was the wellspring for words that were honest and lovely and brutal and sad? Was she merely a gifted trickster? A magician, with a pen for a wand, able to move an audience by conjuring emotions she had never known herself? Was that even possible?
Pari does not know—she does not know. And that, perhaps, may have been Maman’s true intent, to shift the ground beneath Pari’s feet. To intentionally unsteady and upend her, to turn her into a stranger to herself, to heave the weight of doubt on her mind, on all Pari thought she knew of her life, to make her feel as lost as if she were wandering through a desert at night, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, the truth elusive, like a single tiny glint of light in the distance flickering on and off, forever moving, receding. ~ Khaled Hosseini,
678:A surprising fact about the magician Bernard Kornblum, Joe remembered, was that he believed in magic. Not in the so-called magic of candles, pentagrams, and bat wings. Not in the kitchen enchantments of Slavic grandmothers with their herbiaries and parings from the little toe of a blind virgin tied up in a goatskin bag. Not in astrology, theosophy, chiromancy, dowsing rods, séances, weeping statues, werewolves, wonders, or miracles. What bewitched Bernard Kornblum, on the contrary, was the impersonal magic of life, when he read in a magazine about a fish that could disguise itself as any one of seven different varieties of sea bottom, or when he learned from a newsreel that scientists had discovered a dying star that emitted radiation on a wavelength whose value in megacycles approximated π. In the realm of human affairs, this type of enchantment was often, though not always, a sadder business—sometimes beautiful, sometimes cruel. Here its stock-in-trade was ironies, coincidences, and the only true portents: those that revealed themselves, unmistakable and impossible to ignore, in retrospect. ~ Michael Chabon,
679:myself to produce by will power a firm belief that my prayers for her recovery would be successful; and, as I thought, I achieved it. When nevertheless she died I shifted my ground and worked myself into a belief that there was to be a miracle. The interesting thing is that my disappointment produced no results beyond itself. The thing hadn’t worked, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it. I think the truth is that the belief into which I had hypnotized myself was itself too irreligious for its failure to cause any religious revolution. I had approached God, or my idea of God, without love, without awe, even without fear. He was, in my mental picture of this miracle, to appear neither as Savior nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He had done what was required of Him I supposed He would simply—well, go away. It never crossed my mind that the tremendous contact which I solicited should have any consequences beyond restoring the status quo. I imagine that a “faith” of this kind is often generated in children and that its disappointment is of no religious importance; ~ C S Lewis,
680:Max caught the rapidly melting ice cream on his tongue. With his mouth half full, he said in a deliberately casual tone: "I'm going to write children's books. I've got a couple of ideas." [...] Max pulled his notebook from his back pocket and read aloud: "The old master magician was wondering when a brave girl might finally come along and dig him up from the garden where he had lain forgotten under the strawberries for a century and a half..." "Or the story of the little cow [...] the holy cow that always has to take the blame. I imagine that even the holy cow used to be a young calf once, before people started saying, 'holy cow, what did you say you want to be? A writer?' " Max grinned. "And another one about Claire, a girl who swaps bodies with her kitty cat." [...] "... and the one where little Bruno complains to the guardians of heaven about the family they lumbered him with... " [...] "... and when people's shadows go back to straighten their owners' childhoods out a bit..."

Wonderful, thought Jean. I'll send my shadow back in time to straighten my life out. How tempting. How sadly impossible. ~ Nina George,
681:I know why you did it too. You can't become mortal yourself until you change her back again. Isn't that it? You don't care what happens to her, or to the others, just as long as you become a real magician, even if you change the Bull into a bullfrog, because it's still just a trick when you do it. You don't care about anything but magic, and what kind of magician is that? Schmendrick, I don't feel good. I have to sit down."

Schmendrick must have carried her for a time, because she was definitely not walking and his green eyes were ringing in her head. "That's right. Nothing but magic matters to me. I would round up unicorns for Haggard myself if it would heighten my power but half a hair. It's true. I have no preferences and no loyalties. I have only magic." His voice was hard and sad.

"Really?" she asked, rocking dreamily in her terror, watching the brightness flowing by. "That's awful." She was very impressed. "Are you really like that?"

"No," he said, then or later. "No, it's not true. How could I be like that, and still have all these troubles?" Then he said, "Molly, you have to walk now. ~ Peter S Beagle,
682:lived a poor tailor, who had a son called Aladdin, a careless, idle boy who would do nothing but play all day long in the streets with little idle boys like himself. This so grieved the father that he died; yet, in spite of his mother's tears and prayers, Aladdin did not mend his ways. One day, when he was playing in the streets as usual, a stranger asked him his age, and if he were not the son of Mustapha the tailor. "I am, sir," replied Aladdin; "but he died a long while ago." On this the stranger, who was a famous African magician, fell on his neck and kissed him, saying: "I am your uncle, and knew you from your likeness to my brother. Go to your mother and tell her I am coming." Aladdin ran home, and told his mother of his newly found uncle. "Indeed, child," she said, "your father had a brother, but I always thought he was dead." However, she prepared supper, and bade Aladdin seek his uncle, who came laden with wine and fruit. He presently fell down and kissed the place where Mustapha used to sit, bidding Aladdin's mother not to be surprised at not having seen him before, as he had been forty years out of the country. ~ Anonymous,
683:You invisible people, what do you want with us? And what have we done to earn your enmity?”
“We want something that little girl can do for us,” said the Chief Voice. (The others explained that this was just what they would have said themselves.)
“Little girl!” said Reepicheep. “The lady is a queen.”
“We don’t know about queens,” said the Chief Voice. (“No more we do, no more we do,” chimed in the others.) “But we want something she can do.”
“What is it?” said Lucy.
“And if it is anything against her Majesty’s honor or safety,” added Reepicheep, “you will wonder to see how many we can kill before we die.”
“Well,” said the Chief Voice. “It’s a long story. Suppose we all sit down?”
The proposal was warmly approved by the other voices but the Narnians remained standing.
“Well,” said the Chief Voice. “It’s like this. This island has been the property of a great magician time out of mind. And we all are--or perhaps in a manner of speaking, I might say, we were--his servants. Well, to cut a long story short, this magician that I was speaking about, he told us to do something we didn’t like. And why not? Because we didn’t want to. ~ C S Lewis,
684:At that moment she heard soft, heavy footfalls coming along the corridor behind her; and of course she remembered what she had been told about the Magician walking in his bare feet and making no more noise than a cat. It is always better to turn round than to have anything creeping up behind your back. Lucy did so.
Then her face lit up till, for a moment (but of course she didn’t know it), she looked almost as beautiful as that other Lucy in the picture, and she ran forward with a little cry of delight and with her arms stretched out. For what stood in the doorway was Aslan himself, The Lion, the highest of all High Kings. And he was solid and real and warm and he let her kiss him and bury herself in his shining mane. And from the low, earthquake-like sound that came from inside him, Lucy even dared to think that he was purring.
“Oh, Aslan,” said she, “it was kind of you to come.”
“I have been here all the time,” said he, “but you have just made me visible.”
“Aslan!” said Lucy almost a little reproachfully. “Don’t make fun of me. As if anything I could do would make you visible!”
“It did,” said Aslan. “Do you think I wouldn’t obey my own rules? ~ C S Lewis,
685:What was it you uglified them for--I mean, what they call uglified?”
“Well, they wouldn’t do what they were told. Their work is to mind the garden and raise food--not for me, as they imagine, but for themselves. They wouldn’t do it at all if I didn’t make them. And of course for a garden you want water. There is a beautiful spring about half a mile away up the hill. And from that spring there flows a stream which comes right past the garden. All I asked them to do was to take their water from the stream instead of trudging up to the spring with their buckets two or three times a day and tiring themselves out besides spilling half of it on the way back. But they wouldn’t see it. In the end they refused point blank.”
“Are they as stupid as all that?” asked Lucy.
The Magician sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the troubles I’ve had with them. A few months ago they were all for washing up the plates and knives before dinner: they said it saved time afterward. I’ve caught them planting boiled potatoes to save cooking them when they were dug up. One day the cat got into the dairy and twenty of them were at work moving all the milk out; no one thought of moving the cat. ~ C S Lewis,
686:Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults. That's what happened to me. Once upon a time, I was a boy named Hugo Cabret, and I desperately believed that a broken automaton would save my life. Now that my cocoon has fallen away and I have emerged as a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, I can look back and see that I was right. The automaton my father discovered did save me. But now I have built a new automaton. I spent countless hours designing it. I made every gear myself, carefully cut every brass disk, and fashioned every bt of machinery with my own hands. When you wind it up, it can do something I'm sure no other automaton in the world can do. It can tel you the incredible story of Georges Melies, his wife, their goddaughter, and a beloved clock maker whose son grew up to be a magician. The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one-hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can wrote, letter, by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words.

THE END ~ Brian Selznick,
687:Kaylee,
For over a hundred years, magicians have been pulling objects out of hats. Rabbits, flowers... It's become such a famous trick that rabbits are known to represent magic in general.
I'm a magician. I've been pulling things from hats since I learned the trick at ten years old. It's all about sleight of hand. Misdirection.
Distraction.
What people don't really know is it isn't the magician that makes the trick magical. It's the object. What is a zig-zag box without the blades? What is a cage without a dove?
The object is the spark--the real reason why the illusion is worth seeing, worth doing, worth discovering.
Sometimes magicians lose their rabbits. They get lost in the act, or the magician makes a mistake and has to coax the rabbit back out. Because without the rabbit, the trick is useless. Without the rabbit, the hat becomes insignificant.
Kaylee Elizabeth Sperling, you are the rabbit to my hat, and I love you. Please forgive me for losing the spark in your trick. I will do whatever I can to make it up to you, starting with this deck of cards. 52 reasons why I love you. And I could fill another deck. Perhaps two more or three.
Whatever it takes to coax my rabbit back out.
-Nate ~ Cassie Mae,
688:But why do you want me to do this?” asked Lucy. “Why can’t one of your own people? Haven’t you got any girls?”
“We dursen’t, we dursen’t,” said all the Voices. “We’re not going upstairs again.”
“In other words,” said Caspian, “you are asking this lady to face some danger which you daren’t ask your own sisters and daughters to face!”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said all the Voices cheerfully. “You couldn’t have said it better. Eh, you’ve had some education, you have. Anyone can see that.”
“Well, of all the outrageous--” began Edmund, but Lucy interrupted.
“Would I have to go upstairs at night, or would it do in daylight?”
“Oh, daylight, daylight, to be sure,” said the Chief Voice. “Not at night. No one’s asking you to do that. Go upstairs in the dark? Ugh.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it,” said Lucy. “No,” she said, turning to the others, “don’t try to stop me. Can’t you see it’s no use? There are dozens of them there. We can’t fight them. And the other way there is a chance.”
“But a magician!” said Caspian.
“I know,” said Lucy. “But he mayn’t be as bad as they make out. Don’t you get the idea that these people are not very brave?”
“They’re certainly not very clever,” said Eustace. ~ C S Lewis,
689:In the seventeenth century, John Locke spoke of tolerance. Asking, ‘Where is the man that has incontestable evidence of the truth of all he holds?’ he asserted that nobody could ever be sure of what is true. How do we have the right, then, to proclaim our own infallible truth or judge others’ ideas as right or wrong? Once again Locke’s words support a fundamental concept within modern *Pagan thought, and one here that allows a circle of Pagans to gather together to share prayers of reverence and respect in ceremony, a Wiccan devotee of Demeter who sees her as one aspect of the Great Goddess she calls Isis, beside a Druid polytheist who lives in the service of his god Gwyn ap Nydd, a Witch who is a priestess of the horse goddess Epona, an animist honouring a power she calls Darkness, a Heathen who has struck a good deal with Odin, and a chaos magician who thinks they’re all completely mad, himself honouring the power that seethes within the patterns of all life. The harmony that allows them to stand in ceremony together comes from that acknowledgement that there is no one truth that can be shared. Each individual has questioned, studied, explored, experienced life and made choices of belief that are uniquely personal. ~ Emma Restall Orr,
690:Non-attachment/Non-disinterest best describes the magical condition of acting without lust of result. It is very difficult for humans to decide on something and then to do it purely for its own sake. Yet it is precisely this ability which is required to execute magical acts. Only single-pointed awareness will do. Attachment is to be understood both in the positive and negative sense, for aversion is its other face. Attachment to any attribute of oneself, ones personality, ones ambitions, ones relationships or sensory experiences - or equally, aversion to any of these - will prove limiting. On the other hand, it is fatal to lose interest in these things for they are ones symbolic system or magical reality. Rather, one is attempting to touch the sensitive parts of ones reality more lightly in order to deny the spoiling hand of grasping desire and boredom. Thereby one may gain enough freedom to act magically. In addition to these two meditations there is a third, more active, form of metamorphosis, and this involves ones everyday habits. However innocuous they might seem, habits in thought, word, and deed are the anchor of the personality. The magician aims to pull up that anchor and cast himself free on the seas of chaos.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
691:The Devil One evening after my brother disciple and I had walked thirty miles in the mountains, we stopped to rest two miles beyond Kedarnath. I was very tired and soon fell asleep, but my sleep was restless because of my extreme fatigue. It was cold and I did not have a blanket to wrap around me, so I put my hands around my neck to keep warm. I rarely dream. I had dreamt only three or four times in my life, and all of my dreams had come true. That night I dreamt that the devil was choking my throat with strong hands. I felt as though I were suffocating. When my brother disciple saw my breath rhythm change and realized that I was experiencing considerable discomfort, he came to me and woke me up. I said, “Somebody was choking my throat!” Then he told me that my own hands were choking my throat. That which you call the devil is part of you. The myth of the devil and of evil is imposed on us by our ignorance. The human mind is a great wonder and magician. It can assume the form of both a devil and a divine being any time it wishes. It can be a great enemy or a great friend, creating either hell or heaven for us. There are many tendencies hidden in the unconscious mind which must be uncovered, faced, and transcended before one intends to tread the path of enlightenment. ~ Swami Rama,
692:Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
693:The third operation in any magical ceremony is the oath or proclamation. The Magician, armed and ready, stands in the centre of the Circle, and strikes once upon the bell as if to call the attention of the Universe. He then declares who he is, reciting his magical history by the proclamation of the grades which he has attained, giving the signs and words of those grades. He then states the purpose of the ceremony, and proves that it is necessary to perform it and to succeed in its performance. He then takes an oath before the Lord of the Universe (not before the particular Lord whom he is invoking) as if to call Him to witness the act. He swears solemnly that he will perform it-that nothing shall prevent him from performing it-that he will not leave the operation until it is successfully performed-and once again he strikes upon the bell. Yet, having demonstrated himself in that position at once infinitely lofty and infinitely unimportant, the instrument of destiny, he balances this by the Confession, in which there is again an infinite exaltation harmonised with an infinite humility. He admits himself to be a weak human being humbly aspiring to something higher; a creature of circumstance utterly dependent-even for the breath of life-upon a series of fortunate accidents.
   ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
694:The so-called “black magician” is a “new brain” hominid fear-merchant who has somewhere learned that there are more powerful intimidations than physical assault. The dimensions of horror, terror and mindwarp are discovered. You can scare more people, and acquire greater power, by the exploitation of psychic assault.

When a human’s “mind” or reality-construct is threatened, the person virtually ceases to exist as human, and regresses to the status of a terrorized mammal in a trap.

Just as the physical bully feeds on fear and is thrown off stride by the appearance of real courage, the psychic terrorist feeds on gullibility and is baffled by intelligence.

When the bully confronts true courage, he automatically ceases to attack. Instead, he seeks to make the maverick into an ally, and often offers the position of second-in-command. If that is declined in a respectful (not churlish) manner, he will probably agree to recognize the other as a separate sovereign with a private turf.

The psychic terrorist, similarly, is only accustomed to bamboozling the credulous. Confronted with a self-disciplined independent mind, he hesitates. Eventually, like the physical bully, he laughs and offers comradeship. “You and me, we’re smart. We’re not like these other jerks.” A nudge and a conspiratorial wink. ~ Robert Anton Wilson,
695:Milk Thistle teaches guerilla warfare. Adaptogen milagrosa, Milk Thistle works with what is here, the yellow layers of toxins, the charcoal grit, the green bile slow as crude oil pooling in the liver's reservoirs, waiting to learn to flow. Milk Thistle says take what you are and use it. She's a junkyard artist, crafting beauty out of the broken. She's a magician, melting scar tissue into silk. She's a miner, fingering greasy lumps of river clay for emeralds. She can enter the damaged cells of your life and recreate your liver from a memory of health. She can pass her hands over this torn and stained tapestry of memory and show us beauty, make the threads gleam with the promise of something precious gained. She will not flinch from anything you have done to keep yourself alive. Give it to me, she will say. I will make it into something new. She will show you your courage, hammered to a dappled sheen by use. She will remind you that you took yourself over and over to the edge of what you knew. She will remind you that the world placed limits on your powers. That you were not omnipotent. That some of the choices you made were not choices. Use what you are, she says again and again, insistent. You are every step of your journey, you are everything that has touched you, you are organic and unexpected. Use what you are. ~ Aurora Levins Morales,
696:I think life would be much . . . simpler . . . if a man could believe in one solid thing,” he answered, still not looking at her. “Bits and pieces here and there do no good for a man’s soul. Thinking all of it is right or all of it is wrong does no good, either. Just as a magician cannot work all materials. He must choose one. But how does he know? How do these people believe in this faith, but not the others? Yet they are happy.”
Ceony touched his elbow, finding it solid—more proof that this Emery Thane stood separate from the vision. “You just have to learn, I suppose,” she said. “Explore until you know which one’s right for you.”
He glanced at her, his green eyes deep in thought and wondering in a subdued sort of way. “Do you believe in one thing, Ceony?”
Her heart sped as he said her name.
She considered the question. “I’ve never given it a great deal of thought. I suppose I don’t. I think I understand what you mean, about there being good in all faiths. In all gods, in all beliefs. When I think about it . . . I guess I’ve just taken what bits and pieces I felt were right for me and made my own faith with them. Faith is a very personal thing, really. Just because you don’t meet with a group of people once a week who believe everything exactly the way you do doesn’t mean you don’t believe in something. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
697:I jerked my head up, my tie with Jack severed.
7

“You’re early,” I told the Magician as Matthew and I climbed down.

“Wanted to avoid the midnight-hour traffic.”

When Cyclops padded over hesitantly, Finn grumbled, “Free fort, sit where you want!”

He situated his crutch over his lap. “So an Empress, a horse, and a wolf walk into a fort. . . .”

“If this is a dirty joke, I’ll pass.” I’d missed the Magician’s humor. Tilting my head at him, I said, “You don’t look so good, Finn.”

“I feel like a bucket of fuck, but I’ll be ready,” he assured me. “Right, Matto?”

“Ready Magician!”

“H to the Azey. That army blows Baggers.”

“Somehow she dragged me back to the fort.”

“Good thing I’m dying young,” Finn continued in a nonchalant tone, “or I’d be shit out of luck with this bum leg.”

“Dying young?” He wasn’t kidding.

“Made peace with it.” He shrugged. “Kind of think we all should.”

Have you guys gotten snow here yet?” I thought I’d spied a single flake the night I’d left Aric.

“Not looking forward to that. SoCal surfer boy here, remember? Just think: if the snow comes down like the rain has . . .”

“Snowmageddon!” Matthew cried, cracking both of them up.

“Yeah, Matto, that groundhog came out to check for nuclear winter. But then a Bagger ate him! ~ Kresley Cole,
698:Captain Harcourt-Bruce was not only dashing, handsome, and brave, he was also rather romantic. The reappearance of magic in England thrilled him immensely. He was a great reader of the more exciting sort of history - and his head was full of ancient battles in which the English were outnumbered by the French and doomed to die, when all at once would be heard the sound of strange, unearthly music, and upon a hilltop would appear the Raven King in his tall, black helmet with it's mantling of raven-feathers streaming in the wind; he would gallop down the hillside on his tall, black horse with a hundred human knights and a hundred fairy knights at his back, and he would defeat the French by magic.

That was Captain Harcourt-Bruce's idea of a magician. That was the sort of thing which he now expected to see reproduced on every battlefield on the Continent. So when he saw Mr Norrell in his drawing-room in Hanoversquare, and after he had sat and watched Mr Norrell peevishly complain to his footman, first that the cream in his tea was too creamy, and next that it was too watery - well, I shall not surprize you when I say he was somewhat disappointed. In fact he was so downcast by the whole undertaking that Admiral Paycocke, a bluff old gentleman, felt rather sorry for him and only had the heart to laugh at him and tease him very moderately about it. ~ Susanna Clarke,
699:Here the genie of fire showed me in a crimson tableau the booth of a chestnut-seller where a pair of non-commissioned officers, their belts abandoned on chairs, were playing cards, without suspecting that they had been conjured out of the darkness by a magician, like a stage apparition, and presented as they actually were at that very moment to the eyes of a stopping passer-by who was invisible to them. In a little junk shop, a half-spent candle projected its red glow on to an engraving and turned it to the colour of blood, while the light cast by a big lamp, struggling with the darkness, bronzed a fragment of leather, nielloed a dagger with glittering spangles, spread a sheen of precious gold like the patina of the past or the varnish of a master over pictures which were only bad copies, and turned this whole hovel, in which there was nothing but cheap imitations and cast-off rubbish, into a marvellous Rembrandt painting. Occasionally I looked up towards some vast old apartment with its shutters still open and where amphibious men and women, adapting themselves each evening to living in an element different from their daytime one, swam about slowly in the dense liquid which at nightfall rises incessantly from the wells of lamps and fills the rooms to the brink of their walls of stone and glass, and as they moved about in it, their bodies sent forth unctuous golden ripples. ~ Marcel Proust,
700:An author who integrates alien signs into the medial surface of his own texts—signs behind which we presume the existence of other powerful, submedial subjects “as authors”—does not increase the comprehensibility of that text. Yet nonetheless, he increases the magical effectiveness this text exudes. Such quotations lead us to presume that the text houses a dangerous, manipulative subject, a magician with enough power to manipulate the signs of other powerful magicians and able to use them strategically for his own purposes. Thus an author who quotes alien signs conveys a stronger impression of powerful authorship than one who ad- vocates precisely his so-called own ideas—which do not interest anybody precisely because they are only his own. It is also well known that one may not quote the same author too often, in which case quoting gradu- ally looses its magical power and begins to irritate the reader. The reason for this gradual decrease of a quote’s magical effectiveness is that it looses its strangeness over time and gets integrated into the medial surface of a text, thereby becoming a proper part of it. In order to maintain their magical effect, quotes have to be exchanged constantly so as to continue to maintain the same appearance of foreignness and freshness. The quote functions as a magical fetish that lends the entire text a hidden, submedial power beyond its superficial meaning. ~ Boris Groys,
701:Ever since I first read Midori Snyder’s essay, ‘The Armless Maiden and the Hero’s Journey’ in The Journal of Mythic Arts, I couldn’t stop thinking about that particular strand of folklore and the application of its powerful themes to the lives of young women. There are many different versions of the tale from around the world, and the ‘Armless Maiden’ or ‘Handless Maiden’ are just two of the more familiar. But whatever the title, we are essentially talking about a narrative that speaks of the power of transformation – and, perhaps more significantly when writing young adult fantasy, the power of the female to transform herself. It’s a rite of passage; something that mirrors the traditional journey from adolescence to adulthood.

Common motifs of the stories include – and I am simplifying pretty drastically here – the violent loss of hands or arms for the girl of the title, and their eventual re-growth as she slowly regains her autonomy and independence. In many accounts there is a halfway point in the story where a magician builds a temporary replacement pair of hands for the girl, magical hands and arms that are usually made entirely of silver. What I find interesting is that this isn’t where the story ends; the gaining of silver hands simply marks the beginning of a whole new test for our heroine. ~ Karen Mahoney,
702:How Great Is Our God! And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, Who keeps covenant, loving-kindness, and mercy for those who love Him and keep His commandments… NEHEMIAH 1:5 AMP When Dorothy finally met the wizard she had been searching for in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, she was disappointed. The “Great and Terrible” magician, who had promoted himself as an all-powerful man with a short temper, turned out to be a normal person behind a curtain—albeit one who was good at special effects. Rest assured, when we finally meet God, we won’t have the same kind of letdown. The Bible notes God’s inestimable qualities—unconditional love, unending mercy, unimaginable strength—with reverence. The New Testament authors also repeatedly wrote about God’s mercy and compassion, lest we despair of ever coming near Him. Of course, we need to fear the holy Creator and Maker of all things and strive to do His will, but as the One who formed us, God knows that we will fail (and loves us anyway). His love is why He sent Jesus to die on the cross. Today, think about God’s love, mercy, and strength as you go about your day. When you face problems, ask Him to solve them, instead of trying to fix them yourself. Repeatedly and reverently surrender to Him—because He is great, but He’s certainly not terrible. Creator, Maker, Redeemer God—You are wonderful. Thank You for Your wisdom, strength, and love. Amen. ~ Anonymous,
703:To prepare for Astral Magic a temple or series of temples needs to be erected on the plane of visualized imagination. Such temples can take any convenient form although some magicians prefer to work with an exact simulacrum of their physical temple. The astral temple is visualized in fine detail and should contain all the equipment required for ritual or at least cupboards where any required instruments can be found.
   Any objects visualized into the temple should always remain there for subsequent inspection unless specifically dissolved or removed. The most important object in the temple is the magician's image of himself working in it. At first it may seem that he is merely manipulating a puppet of himself in the temple but with persistence this should give way to a feeling of actually being there. Before beginning Astral Magic proper, the required temple and instruments together with an image of the magician moving about in it should be built up by a repeated series of visualizations until all the details are perfect. Only when this is complete should the magician begin to use the temple. Each conjuration that is performed should be planned in advance with the same attention to detail as in Ritual Magic. The various acts of astral evocation, divination, enchantment, invocation and illumination take on a similar general form to the acts of Ritual Magic which the magician adapts for astral work. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos [T2],
704:The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak. There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the ‘wisdom’ of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious—such as digging up and mutilating the dead. ~ C S Lewis,
705:The vision which has been so faintly suggested in these pages has never been confined to monks or even to friars. It has been an inspiration to innumerable crowds of ordinary married men and women; living lives like our own, only entirely different. That morning glory which St. Francis spread over the earth and sky has lingered as a secret sunshine under a multitude of roots and in a multitude of rooms.

In societies like ours nothing is known of such a Franciscan following. Nothing is known of such obscure followers; and if possible less is known of the well-known followers. If we imagine passing us in the street a pageant of the Third Order of St. Francis, the famous figures would surprise us more than the strange ones. For us it would be like the unmasking of some mighty secret society. There rides St. Louis, the great king, lord of the higher justice whose scales hang crooked in favour of the poor. There is Dante crowned with laurel, the poet who in his life of passions sang the praises of Lady Poverty, whose grey garment is lined with purple and all glorious within. All sorts of great names from the most recent and rationalistic centuries would stand revealed; the great Galvani, for instance, the father of all electricity, the magician who has made so many modern systems of stars and sounds. So various a following would alone be enough to prove that St. Francis had no lack of sympathy with normal men, if the whole of his own life did not prove it. ~ G K Chesterton,
706:Once upon a time, powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. The marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’

And that was what they did: The king and queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such ‘wisdom’, why not allow him to rule the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days. ~ Paulo Coelho,
707:Inscription For An Ice-House
Stranger, approach! within this iron door
Thrice locked and bolted, this rude arch beneath
That vaults with ponderous stone the cell; confined
By man, the great magician, who controuls
Fire, earth and air, and genii of the storm,
And bends the most remote and opposite things
To do him service and perform his will,—
A giant sits; stern Winter; here he piles,
While summer glows around, and southern gales
Dissolve the fainting world, his treasured snows
Within the rugged cave.—Stranger, approach!
He will not cramp thy limbs with sudden age,
Nor wither with his touch the coyest flower
That decks thy scented hair. Indignant here,
Like fettered Sampson when his might was spent
In puny feats to glad the festive halls
Of Gaza's wealthy sons; or he who sat
Midst laughing girls submiss, and patient twirled
The slender spindle in his sinewy grasp;
The rugged power, fair Pleasure's minister,
Exerts his art to deck the genial board;
Congeals the melting peach, the nectarine smooth,
Burnished and glowing from the sunny wall:
Darts sudden frost into the crimson veins
Of the moist berry; moulds the sugared hail:
Cools with his icy breath our flowing cups;
Or gives to the fresh dairy's nectared bowls
A quicker zest. Sullen he plies his task,
And on his shaking fingers counts the weeks
Of lingering Summer, mindful of his hour
To rush in whirlwinds forth, and rule the year.
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
708:There is an Eastern tale that speaks about a very rich magician who had a great many sheep. But at the same time this magician was very mean. He did not want to hire shepherds, nor did he want to erect a fence about the pasture where the sheep were grazing. The sheep consequently often wandered into the forest, fell into ravines and so on, and above all, they ran away, for they knew that the magician wanted their flesh and their skins, and this they did not like.

At last the magician found a remedy. He hypnotized his sheep and suggested to them, first of all, that they were immortal and that no harm was being done to them when they were skinned; that on the contrary, it would be very good for them and even pleasant; secondly he suggested that the magician was a good master who loved his flock so much that he was ready to do anything in the world for them; and in the third place, he suggested that if anything at all were going to happen to them, it was not going to happen just then, at any rate not that day, and therefore they had no need to think about it. Further, the magician suggested to his sheep that they were not sheep at all; to some of them he suggested that they were lions, to some that they were eagles, to some that they were men, to others that they were magicians.

After this all his cares and worries about the sheep came to an end. They never ran away again, but quietly awaited the time when the magician would require their flesh and skins. This tale is a very good illustration of man’s position ~ Colin Wilson,
709:Where have you been?" she cried. "Damn you, where have you been?" She took a few steps toward Schmendrick, but she was looking beyond him, at the unicorn.

When she tried to get by, the magician stood in her way. "You don't talk like that," he told her, still uncertain that Molly had recognized the unicorn. "Don't you know how to behave, woman? You don't curtsy, either."

But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down.

"I am here now," she said at last.

Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?" With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. "I wish you had never come. Why did you come now?" The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose.

The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world."

"She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world to come to Molly Grue." She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn's cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, "It's all right. I forgive you. ~ Peter S Beagle,
710:I know you're a chocolate lover. I can always tell. I'm about to temper the chocolate. I have my own method; want to watch?"
"Could I?" Inside my head, a little voice was reminding me that I had to get back to the office, but it was drowned out by the scent of chocolate, which flooded all my senses with a heady froth of cocoa and coffee, passion fruit, cinnamon and clove. I closed my eyes, and for one moment I was back in Aunt Melba's kitchen with Genie.
I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working it to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me.
Now the scent changed as Kim began to dip fruit into the chocolate: raspberries, blackberries, tiny strawberries that smelled like violets. She put a chocolate-and-caramel-covered slice of peach into my mouth, and the taste of summer was so intense that I felt the room grow warmer. I lost all sense of time. ~ Ruth Reichl,
711:Living in the midst of a world where there was a plethora of the new I attached myself to the old. In every object there was a minute particle which particularly claimed my attention. I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object. Whatever set the object apart, or made it unserviceable, or gave it a date, attracted and endeared it to me. If this was perverse it was also healthy, considering that I was not destined to belong to this world which was springing up about me. Soon I too would become like these objects which I venerated, a thing apart, a non-useful member of society. I was definitely dated, that was certain. And yet I was able to amuse, to instruct, to nourish. But never to be accepted, in a genuine way. When I wished to, when I had the itch, I could single out any man, in any stratum of society, and make him listen to me. I could hold him spellbound, if I chose, but, like a magician, or a sorcerer, only as long as the spirit was in me. At bottom I sensed in others a distrust, an uneasiness, an antagonism which, because it was instinctive, was irremediable. I should have been a clown; it would have afforded me the widest range of expression. But I underestimated the profession. Had I become a clown, or even a vaudeville entertainer, I would have been famous. People would have appreciated me precisely because they would not have understood; but they would have understood that I was not to be understood. That would have been a relief, to say the least. ~ Henry Miller,
712:Although neither an alchemist, magician, nor astrologer, but simply a great philosopher, Henry More, of Cambridge University — a man universally esteemed, may be named as a shrewd logician, scientist, and metaphysician... His faith in immortality and able arguments in demonstration of the survival of man's spirit after death are all based on the Pythagorean system... and other mystics. The infinite and uncreated spirit that we usually call God, a substance of the highest virtue and excellency, produced everything else by emanative causality. God thus is the primary substance... He...stoutly defended the theory of the individuality of every soul in which "personality, memory, and conscience will surely continue in the future state." He divided the astral spirit of man after its exit from the body into two distinct entities: the "aerial" and the "aethereal vehicle." During the time that a disembodied man moves in its aerial clothing, he is subject to Fate -- i.e., evil and temptation, attached to its earthly interests, and therefore is not utterly pure; it is only when he casts off this garb of the first spheres and becomes ethereal that he becomes sure of his immortality. "For what shadow can that body cast that is a pure and transparent light, such as the ethereal vehicle is? And therefore that oracle is then fulfilled, when the soul has ascended into that condition we have already described, in which alone it is out of the reach of fate and mortality." ~ H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology, Vol. I, Before the Veil, (1877),
713:The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God—"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"—whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour. Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya—one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy—has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya. (...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action". It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else. In the words of the Gita Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life. ~ Fritjof Capra,
714:I reviewed in thought the modern era of raps and apparitions, beginning with the knockings of 1848, at the hamlet of Hydesville, N.Y., and ending with grotesque phenomena at Cambridge, Mass.; I evoked the anklebones and other anatomical castanets of the Fox sisters (as described by the sages of the University of Buffalo ); the mysteriously uniform type of delicate adolescent in bleak Epworth or Tedworth, radiating the same disturbances as in old Peru; solemn Victorian orgies with roses falling and accordions floating to the strains of sacred music; professional imposters regurgitating moist cheesecloth; Mr. Duncan, a lady medium's dignified husband, who, when asked if he would submit to a search, excused himself on the ground of soiled underwear; old Alfred Russel Wallace, the naive naturalist, refusing to believe that the white form with bare feet and unperforated earlobes before him, at a private pandemonium in Boston, could be prim Miss Cook whom he had just seen asleep, in her curtained corner, all dressed in black, wearing laced-up boots and earrings; two other investigators, small, puny, but reasonably intelligent and active men, closely clinging with arms and legs about Eusapia, a large, plump elderly female reeking of garlic, who still managed to fool them; and the skeptical and embarrassed magician, instructed by charming young Margery's "control" not to get lost in the bathrobe's lining but to follow up the left stocking until he reached the bare thigh - upon the warm skin of which he felt a "teleplastic" mass that appeared to the touch uncommonly like cold, uncooked liver. ("The Vane Sisters") ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
715:***What reasons made you to found the Dragon Rouge? When the idea to found it for the first time in your head appeared?***

It was several reasons, and its a long story so I can’t tell the whole story here, but three reasons were most important: 1) it was a need for a new practical oriented order, 2) it was a need for a new order working with the LHP, Draconian Current and Nightside Tradition, 3) I got the impulse from older draconian magicians both in Sweden and Marocco to found a new magical order based upon a practical oriented version of the LHP, Draconian Current and the Nightside Tradition.

***I`m not sure do I remember well, but somone told this was not your idea, but it was the decision of the secret association derived from Yezidian and Tyfonic traditions? Is it true? Can you say something about that association?***

Yes, you are right. As I said above I got the idea from a secret group of Swedish magicians. I got a lot of magical texts from them and their work was partly based upon the typhonian tradition and there interpretation of yezidism. They claimed that their founder was inititated in a yezidi circle in Kurdistan. Much of their concept reminds me of what you find in the writings of Kenneth Grant and I think they were inspired by him, although they made a lot of new interpretations and inventions. I also recieved small but important magical things on a journey to Marocco in the days when Dragon Rouge was about to be founded, and one of our earliest members was a pupil to a american magician who gave us a lot of unique material about LHP Egyptian magic and dark Egyptian deities.

interview - Therion.Metal.Pl and for e-zine Rock4eveR both on 16th of September 2003. ~ Thomas Karlsson,
716:Sinfonia Eroica
(To Sylvia.)
My Love, my Love, it was a day in June,
A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon;
And all the eager people thronging came
To that great hall, drawn by the magic name
Of one, a high magician, who can raise
The spirits of the past and future days,
And draw the dreams from out the secret breast,
Giving them life and shape.
I, with the rest,
Sat there athirst, atremble for the sound;
And as my aimless glances wandered round,
Far off, across the hush'd, expectant throng,
I saw your face that fac'd mine.
Clear and strong
Rush'd forth the sound, a mighty mountain stream;
Across the clust'ring heads mine eyes did seem
By subtle forces drawn, your eyes to meet.
Then you, the melody, the summer heat,
Mingled in all my blood and made it wine.
Straight I forgot the world's great woe and mine;
My spirit's murky lead grew molten fire;
Despair itself was rapture.
Ever higher,
Stronger and clearer rose the mighty strain;
Then sudden fell; then all was still again,
And I sank back, quivering as one in pain.
Brief was the pause; then, 'mid a hush profound,
Slow on the waiting air swell'd forth a sound
So wondrous sweet that each man held his breath;
A measur'd, mystic melody of death.
Then back you lean'd your head, and I could note
The upward outline of your perfect throat;
And ever, as the music smote the air,
Mine eyes from far held fast your body fair.
And in that wondrous moment seem'd to fade
67
My life's great woe, and grow an empty shade
Which had not been, nor was not.
And I knew
Not which was sound, and which, O Love, was you.
~ Amy Levy,
717:Man, rather the Superman, by participating with his Self, not with his 'I', in the immense process of Energy, which Nietzsche calls Will of Power, He does it without changing anything, accepting the fatality of chance of the Eternal Return, because you can not modify it, you can not change a single blade, or a detail, or a star.

However, by accepting the Eternal Return, having had the 'vision' (which includes nostalgia) has passed, in an instant (at the Gateway of the Moment) to modify everything irremediably and forever. How? Giving The Sense your acceptance.

That is, he has created, he has invented an Inexistent Flower, but it is more real than all the flowers of the gardens of the earth.

We will not try to explain this mostly, because you can not. the same Superman is a creation of this kind, non-existent, an illusion. Pure magic.

It is not real and it is more real than everything real. Without us everything will return, without doubt, but when we enter to intervene, wishing it with the Self and from the Self, everything will return in a different way, everything will be different, even when nothing has changed apparently. However, the alteration is essential, definitive: chance has been transformed into destination. Amor fati takes ownership of the process. This is why Nietzsche is a magician, a poet-magician.

We will return to this key point and center of the Drama, which is thus transmuted into game, in the Great Game of the Maya-Power, in the Dance of the Shakti-Power.

It's a Comedy, a Gay-Comedy, a histrionics, a slapstick, an affair cheerful, or a joy of pain, as Nietzsche would like to say, imagining that 'the highest music would be the one that could interpret the joy of pain and none another.' It is a Divine Comedy. ~ Miguel Serrano,
718:First, of course, the work ethic, which is being so strenuously advocated in our day. This is one of those neat magician’s tricks in which all our attention is focused on one hand while the other hand does the manipulating. Implicit in the work ethic are the ideas (1) that because one must work to acquire wealth, work equals wealth, and (2) that that is the whole equation. With these go the corollaries that anyone who has wealth must have earned it by hard work and is, therefore, beyond criticism; that anyone who doesn’t have it deserves to suffer—thus penalizing any who do not work for money; and (since you have a right to all you earn) that the only real work is for one’s self; and, finally, that any limit set to the amount of wealth an individual may acquire is a satanic device to deprive men of their free agency—thus making mockery of the Council of Heaven.

These editorial syllogisms we have heard a thousand times, but you will not find them in the scriptures. Even the cornerstone of virtue, “He that is idle shall not eat the bread . . . of the laborer” (D&C 42:42), hailed as the franchise of unbridled capitalism, is rather a rebuke to that system which has allowed idlers to live in luxury and laborers in want throughout the whole course of history. The whole emphasis in the holy writ is not on whether one works or not, but what one works for: “The laborer in Zion shall labor for Zion; for if they labor for money they shall perish” (2 Nephi 26:31). “The people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, . . . precious things, which they had obtained by their industry” (Alma 4:6) and which proved their undoing, for all their hard work.

In Zion you labor, to be sure, but not for money, and not for yourself, which is the exact opposite of our present version of the work ethic. ~ Hugh Nibley,
719:All Carolina folk are crazy for mayonnaise, mayonnaise is as ambrosia to them, the food of their tarheeled gods. Mayonnaise comforts them, causes the vowels to slide more musically along their slow tongues, appeasing their grease-conditioned taste buds while transporting those buds to a place higher than lard could ever hope to fly. Yellow as summer sunlight, soft as young thighs, smooth as a Baptist preacher's rant, falsely innocent as a magician's handkerchief, mayonnaise will cloak a lettuce leaf, some shreds of cabbage, a few hunks of cold potato in the simplest splendor, restyling their dull character, making them lively and attractive again, granting them the capacity to delight the gullet if not the heart. Fried oysters, leftover roast, peanut butter: rare are the rations that fail to become instantly more scintillating from contact with this inanimate seductress, this goopy glory-monger, this alchemist in a jar.
The mystery of mayonnaise-and others besides Dickie Goldwire have surely puzzled over this is how egg yolks, vegetable oil, vinegar (wine's angry brother), salt, sugar (earth's primal grain-energy), lemon juice, water, and, naturally, a pinch of the ol' calcium disodium EDTA could be combined in such a way as to produce a condiment so versatile, satisfying, and outright majestic that mustard, ketchup, and their ilk must bow down before it (though, a at two bucks a jar, mayonnaise certainly doesn't put on airs)or else slink away in disgrace. Who but the French could have wrought this gastronomic miracle? Mayonnaise is France's gift to the New World's muddled palate, a boon that combines humanity's ancient instinctive craving for the cellular warmth of pure fat with the modern, romantic fondness for complex flavors: mayo (as the lazy call it) may appear mild and prosaic, but behind its creamy veil it fairly seethes with tangy disposition. Cholesterol aside, it projects the luster that we astro-orphans have identified with well-being ever since we fell from the stars. ~ Tom Robbins,
720:What is more, the whole apparatus of life has become so complex and the processes of production, distribution, and consumption have become so specialized and subdivided, that the individual person loses confidence in his own unaided capacities: he is increasingly subject to commands he does not understand, at the mercy of forces over which he exercises no effective control, moving to a destination he has not chosen. Unlike the taboo-ridden savage, who is often childishly over-confident in the powers of his shaman or magician to control formidable natural forces, however inimical, the machine-conditioned individual feels lost and helpless as day by day he metaphorically punches his time-card, takes his place on the assembly line, and at the end draws a pay check that proves worthless for obtaining any of the genuine goods of life.

This lack of close personal involvement in the daily routine brings a general loss of contact with reality: instead of continuous interplay between the inner and the outer world, with constant feedback or readjustment and with stimulus to fresh creativity, only the outer world-and mainly the collectively organized outer world of the power system-exercises authority: even private dreams must be channeled through television, film, and disc, in order to become acceptable.

With this feeling of alienation goes the typical psychological problem of our time, characterized in classic terms by Erik Erikson as the 'Identity Crisis.' In a world of transitory family nurture, transitory human contacts, transitory jobs and places of residence, transitory sexual and family relations, the basic conditions for maintaining continuity and establishing personal equilibrium disappear. The individual suddenly awakens, as Tolstoi did in a famous crisis in his own life at Arzamas, to find himself in a strange, dark room, far from home, threatened by obscure hostile forces, unable to discover where he is or who he is, appalled by the prospect of a meaningless death at the end of a meaningless life. ~ Lewis Mumford,
721:There was a bell clanging in the tower of the building next to the black-shrike-thorn-cave. She found the noise irritating, so she twisted her neck and loosed a jet of blue and yellow flame at it. The tower did not catch fire, as it was stone, but the rope and beams supporting the bell ignited, and a few seconds later, the bell fell crashing into the interior of the tower.
That pleased her, as did the two-legs-round-ears who ran screaming from the area. She was a dragon, after all. It was only right that they should fear her.
One of the two-legs paused by the edge of the square in front of the black-shrike-thorn-cave, and she heard him shout a spell at her, his voice like the squeaking of a frightened mouse. Whatever the spell was, Eragon’s wards shielded her from it--at least she assumed they did, for she noticed no difference in how she felt or in the appearance of the world around her.
The wolf-elf-in-Eragon’s-shape killed the magician for her. She could feel how Blödhgarm grasped hold of the spellcaster’s mind and wrestled the two-legs-round-ears’ thoughts into submission, whereupon Blödhgarm uttered a single word in the ancient-elf-magic-language, and the two-legs-round-ears fell to the ground, blood seeping from his open mouth.
Then the wolf-elf tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Ready yourself, Brightscales. Here they come.”
She saw Thorn rising above the edge of the rooftops, Eragon-half-brother-Murtagh a small, dark figure on his back. In the light of the morning sun, Thorn shone and sparkled almost as brilliantly as she herself did. Her scales were cleaner than his, though, as she had taken special care when grooming earlier. She could not imagine going into battle looking anything but her best. Her enemies should not only fear her, but admire her.
She knew it was vanity on her part, but she did not care. No other race could match the grandeur of the dragons. Also, she was the last female of her kind, and she wanted those who saw her to marvel at her appearance and to remember her well, so if dragons were to vanish forevermore, two-legs would continue to speak of them with the proper respect, awe, and wonder. ~ Christopher Paolini,
722:sounded calm when she answered the phone. Which meant that Jody had probably left. They had begun the day with the two women arguing about whose phone the government had legal and moral authority to tap. Pearl and her daughter could discuss such subjects until they were all talked out and Quinn had long since fled to wherever it might be legal and moral to smoke a cigar. “Still reeling from the Minnie Miner show?” Pearl asked him. “Not per se,” Quinn said. “That sounds like something Winston Castle would say. He must have gotten to you with his member-of-parliament persona.” “I suppose that’s why I’m calling,” Quinn said. “There’s something familiar about Winston Castle’s act. It reminds me of a magician’s patter, designed to get you looking at one hand while he’s doing something with the other. Just when everybody’s attention is distracted, Presto! Out of the hat pops the rabbit.” “Or the right card,” “Never play poker with them,” Quinn said. “Rabbits?” “People. Like the ones in Winston Castle’s whack-job family, or whatever it is. They have their patter.” “Meaning?” “Maybe somebody has a real Michelangelo up a sleeve.” “Magicians,” Pearl said, not quite understanding. “I’ve always kind of liked them.” “Their act wouldn’t work if you didn’t.” “I still like them.” “They cut people in half, you know.” “Only beautiful girls. And it doesn’t seem to hurt.” “I wouldn’t want to see you proved wrong.” “Where are you going with this,” Pearl asked with a sigh. Jody had apparently worn her down. “We are going to stake out the Far Castle’s Garden.” “I thought we were concentrating on D.O.A.” “Maybe we are,” Quinn said. “My guess is he’s not one of the many people who think Bellazza isn’t in the garden, just because an imitation has already been found there.” “Are we among the many, Quinn?” “On one hand, yes.” “But on the other?” “Presto!” 78 The searcher came by night, as Quinn had suspected he would, and hours after the restaurant had closed. Quinn was slouching low behind the steering wheel in the black Lincoln. He’d parked where he had a catty-corner view across the intersection and the Far Castle’s outdoor dining area. Beyond the stacked and locked tables and chairs loomed the shadowed topiary forms of the garden. Beginning several feet behind the flower beds was the larger garden, wilder and less arranged than the beds, with a variety of ~ John Lutz,
723:t is discovered an extraordinary similarity between Nietzsche and the Hindu-Aryan Rishi, visionary poets of the Vedas.

They also thought the ideas from outside to inside: they 'appeared' to them. Rishi means 'he who sees'. See an Idea, express it, or try to express it. The job of the Rishis has been fulfilled for millennia and the vision of the Vedas was revised, elaborated, in subsequent visions, in scholastics, in doctrinal buildings and sophisticated verifications, through centuries.

In any case, he, who preached not to subtract anything that life offers as Will of Power, as possession, increasing its power, lived chaste, like a yogi, always looking for the highest tensions of the soul, climbing always, more and more lonely, to be able to open up to that style of thinking, where the ideas could possess him as the most authentic expression of life, as his 'pulse', hitting him in the center of the personal being, or of the existence there accumulated, and that he called, long before Jung and any other psychologist, the Self, to differentiate it from the conscious and limited self, from the rational self.

Let's clarify, then. What Nietzsche called thinking is something else, Nietzsche did not think with his head (because 'synchronistically' it hurt) but with the Self, with all of life and, especially, 'with the feet'. 'I think with my feet,' he said, 'because I think walking, climbing.'

That is, when the effort and exhaustion caused the conscious mind to enter a kind of drowsiness or semi-sleep, there it took possession of the work of thinking that 'other thing', the Self, opening up to the dazzling penetration of the Idea, or that expression of the Original Power of Life, of Being, of the Will of Power, which crosses man from part to part, as in a yoga samadhi, or in a kaivalya, from an ancient rishi, or Tantric Siddha.

Also like those rays that pierced the Etruscan 'fulgurators', to change them, and that they were able to resist thanks to a purified technique of concentration and initiation preparation.

That this is a deep Aryan, Hyperborean, that is, Nordic-polar, Germanic style of origins ('let's face ourselves, we are Hyperborean'), and that he knew it, is proved in the name he gave his more beautiful, bigger work: 'Thus spoke Zarathustra'. Zarathustra is the Aryan Magician-reformer of ancient Persia. ~ Miguel Serrano,
724:Well, then, to put it in a nutshell,” said the Chief Voice, “we’ve been waiting for ever so long for a nice little girl from foreign parts, like it might be you, Missie--that would go upstairs and go to the magic book and find the spell that takes off the invisibleness, and say it. And we all swore that the first strangers as landed on this island (having a nice little girl with them, I mean, for if they hadn’t it’d be another matter) we wouldn’t let them go away alive unless they’d done the needful for us. And that’s why, gentlemen, if your little girl doesn’t come up to scratch, it will be our painful duty to cut all your throats. Merely in the way of business, as you might say, and no offense, I hope.”
“I don’t see all your weapons,” said Reepicheep. “Are they invisible too?” The words were scarcely out of his mouth before they heard a whizzing sound and next moment a spear had stuck, quivering, in one of the trees behind them.
“That’s a spear, that is,” said the Chief Voice.
“That it is, Chief, that it is,” said the others. “You couldn’t have put it better.”
“And it came from my hand,” the Chief Voice continued. “They get visible when they leave us.”
“But why do you want me to do this?” asked Lucy. “Why can’t one of your own people? Haven’t you got any girls?”
“We dursen’t, we dursen’t,” said all the Voices. “We’re not going upstairs again.”
“In other words,” said Caspian, “you are asking this lady to face some danger which you daren’t ask your own sisters and daughters to face!”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said all the Voices cheerfully. “You couldn’t have said it better. Eh, you’ve had some education, you have. Anyone can see that.”
“Well, of all the outrageous--” began Edmund, but Lucy interrupted.
“Would I have to go upstairs at night, or would it do in daylight?”
“Oh, daylight, daylight, to be sure,” said the Chief Voice. “Not at night. No one’s asking you to do that. Go upstairs in the dark? Ugh.”
“All right, then, I’ll do it,” said Lucy. “No,” she said, turning to the others, “don’t try to stop me. Can’t you see it’s no use? There are dozens of them there. We can’t fight them. And the other way there is a chance.”
“But a magician!” said Caspian.
“I know,” said Lucy. “But he mayn’t be as bad as they make out. Don’t you get the idea that these people are not very brave?”
“They’re certainly not very clever,” said Eustace. ~ C S Lewis,
725:No sooner was she twenty-three years old than she was twenty-eight; no sooner twenty-eight than thirty-one; time is speeding past her while she examines her existence with a cold, deadly gaze that takes aim at the different areas of her life, one by one-the damp studio crawling with roaches, mold growing in the grout between tiles; the bank loan swallowing all her spare cash; close, intense friendships marginalized by newborn babies, polarized by screaming sweetness that leaves her cold; stress-soaked days and canceled girls’ nights out, but, legs perfectly waxed, ending up jabbering in dreary wine bars with a bevy or available women, shrieking with forced laughter, and always joining in, out of cowardice, opportunism; occasional sexual adventures on crappy mattresses, or against greasy, sooty garage doors, with guys who are clumsy, rushed, stingy, unloving; an excess of alcohol to make all this shine; and the only encounter that makes her heart beat faster is with a guy who pushes back a strand of her hair to light her cigarette, his fingers brushing her temple and the lobe of her ear, who has mastered the art of the sudden appearance, whenever, wherever, his movements impossible to predict, as if he spent his life hiding behind a post, coming out to surprise her in the golden light of a late afternoon, calling her at night in a nearby cafe, walking toward her one morning from a street corner, and always stealing away just as suddenly when it’s over, like a magician, before returning … That deadly gaze strips away everything, even her face, even her body, no matter how well she takes care of it-fitness magazines, tubes of slimming cream, and one hour of floor barre in a freezing hall in Docks Vauban. She is alone and disappointed, in a sate of disgrace, stamping her feet as her teeth chatter and disillusionment invades her territories and her hinterland, darkening faces, ruining gestures, diverting intentions; it swells, this disillusionment, it multiplies, polluting the rivers and forests inside her, contaminating the deserts, infecting the groundwater, tearing the petals from flowers and dulling the luster in animals’ fur; it stains the ice floe beyond the polar circle and soils the Greek dawn, it smears the most beautiful poems with mournful misfortune, it destroys the planet and all its inhabitants from the Big Bang to the rockets of the future, and fucks up the whole world- this hollow, disenchanted world. ~ Maylis de Kerangal,
726:Aladdin
Aladdin poor the wizard found,
Who moved from cavern’s mouth a stone;
Then bade him go beneath the ground,
And pace through unknown realms alone,
Till from a niche he bore away
A lamp—extinguishing its ray.
The youth obedient instant hied,
When fruits luxuriant met his sight;
The white were pearls in snowy pride,
Diamonds the clear—of brilliant light;
For red the rubies dazzling blazed,
Whereof Aladdin gathered store;
Then on the lamp in rapture gazed,
And from its niche the treasure bore.
Regained his home, he seized anon
The lamp, and cried “straight bring me food;”
The Genii instantly was gone,
But soon again before him stood.
The youth his fear-struck mother bore,
As plates of silver met his view;
Of viands choice, containing store,
And cups, with wine of rosy hue.
Aladdin next by chance descried,
The Sultan’s daughter, witching fair;
Love’s high control was not denied—
He sought to gain the beauty rare.
Before the Sultan lowly bent
His mother, and the jewels spread;
The Prince, astonished, gave consent,
And all Aladdin’s terrors fled.
In gorgeous robes the youth arrayed,
29
Vaulted anon his prancing steed;
And of the glittering, gay parade,
Right joyous smiling took the lead.
With loud huzzas then rang the air,
Which louder pealed, as gold amain
By slaves was cast, for mob to share,
That glittered on the vasty plain
Ne’er dreaming lamp so worn and old
More worth commanded than Peru,
Our Princess bartered wealth untold,
For the Magician’s lamp quite new:
So when this change the eunuch made
In scorn the rabble ’gan to shout;
Beholding such a silly trade,
They deemed the wizard fool and lout.
O’erwhelmed with grief, Aladdin prayed
Once more the Genii life would spare;
Beseeching he might be conveyed
Where late had stood his palace fair.
Then swift as thought, the spirit bore
The youth through airy realms above;
Who lighted safe on Afric’s shore,
And gained the chamber of his love
His foe the poison quaffed and fell—
A writhing form the wizard lay;
Aladdin knew how worked the spell,
And tore from vest the lamps, his prey.
The Princess with a panting heart,
Flew to receive affection’s kiss:
Thus met they, never more to part;
From that hour sealed their lasting blis
~ Anonymous Americas,
727:He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
728:Was this how you were going to awaken the creatures?"
Machiavelli,clutching the bars of his cell,smiled but said nothing.
Virginia stood in front of Dee and stared into his eyes,using herwill to calm him down. "So you tried to use the pages to awaken the cratures.Tell me what happened."
Dee jabbed a finger into the nearest cell. It was empty. Virginia stepped closer and discovered the pile of white dust in the corner.
"I don't even know what was in the cell-some winged monstrosity.Giant vampire bat,I think.I said the words,and the creature opened its eyes and immediately crumbled to dust."
"Maybe you said a word wrong?" Virginia suggested. She plucked a scrap of paper from Josh's hands. "I mean,it looks difficult."
"I am fluent," Dee snapped.
"He is," Machiavelli said, "I will give him that.And his accent is very good too, though not quite as good as mine."
Dee spun back to the cell holding Machiavelli. "Tell me what went wrong."
Machiavelli seemed to be considering it; then he shook his head. "I don't think so."
Dee jerked his thumb at the sphinx. "Right now she's absorbing your aura,ensuring that you cannot use any spells against me. But she'll be just as happy eating your flesh.Isn't that true?"he said, looking up into the crature's female face.
"Oh,I love Italian," she rumbled. She stepped away from Dee and dipped her head to look into the opposite cell. "Give me this one," she said,nodding at Billy the Kid. "He'll make a tasty snack." Her long black forked tongue flickered in the air before the outlaw, who immediately grabbed it,jerked it forward and allowed it to snap back like an elastic band. She screamed,coughed, and squawked all at the same time.
Billy grinned."I'll make sure I'll choke you on the way down."
"It might be difficult to do that if you have no arms," the sphinx said thickly,working her tongue back and forth.
"I'll still give you indigestion."
Dee looked at Machiavelli. "Tell me," he said again, "or I will feed your young American friend to the beast."
"Tell him nothing," Billy yelled.
"This is one of those occasions when I am in agreement with Billy.I am going to tell you nothing."
The Magician looked from one side of the cell to the other. Then he looked at Machiavelli."What happened to you? You were one of the Dark Elders' finest agents in this Shadowrealm. There were times you even made me look like an amateur."
"John,you were always an amateur." Machiavelli smiled."Why, look at the mess you're in now. ~ Michael Scott,
729:Not only could he share the memories, and control them, he could keep the link intact as their thoughts moved through time from the past to the present. The men of his clan enjoyed a richer, fuller ceremonial interrelationship than any other clan. But with the trained minds of the mog-urs, he could make the telepathic link from the beginning. Through him, all the mog-urs shared a union far closer and more satisfying than any physical one—it was a touching of spirits. The white liquid from Iza’s bowl that had heightened the perceptions and opened the minds of the magicians to The Mog-ur, had allowed his special ability to create a symbiosis with Ayla’s mind as well. The traumatic birth that damaged the brain of the disfigured man had impaired only a portion of his physical abilities, not the sensitive psychic overdevelopment that enabled his great power. But the crippled man was the ultimate end-product of his kind. Only in him had nature taken the course set for the Clan to its fullest extreme. There could be no further development without radical change, and their characteristics were no longer adaptable. Like the huge creature they venerated, and many others that shared their environment, they were incapable of surviving radical change. The race of men with social conscience enough to care for their weak and wounded, with spiritual awareness enough to bury their dead and venerate their great totem, the race of men with great brains but no frontal lobes, who made no great strides forward, who made almost no progress in nearly a hundred thousand years, was doomed to go the way of the woolly mammoth and the great cave bear. They didn’t know it, but their days on earth were numbered, they were doomed to extinction. In Creb, they had reached the end of their line. Ayla felt a sensation akin to the deep pulsing of a foreign bloodstream superimposed on her own. The powerful mind of the great magician was exploring her alien convolutions, trying to find a way to mesh. The fit was imperfect, but he found channels of similarity, and where none existed, he groped for alternatives and made connections where there were only tendencies. With startling clarity, she suddenly comprehended that it was he who had brought her out of the void; but more, he was keeping the other mog-urs, also linked with him, from knowing she was there. She could just barely sense his connection with them, but she could not sense them at all. They, too, knew he had made a connection with someone—or something—else, but never dreamed it was Ayla. ~ Jean M Auel,
730:The Interrogatio
The bright sun is hidden, the night shows its face
The night's hair is spread on shoulders of the earth
This black dress is preparation for some one's mourning
Perhaps the Nature's assemblage for the sun is mourning
The sky is casting a spell over the talking lip
The night's magician is watching the awakened eye
The wind current is submerged in the river of silence
However, the tolling bell's sound comes from the distance
Heart which in love's turmoil is evading the world
Has dragged me here far from the maddening crowd
I am the spectator of the spectacle of disappointments
I am the associate of those sleeping in solitude's corner
O My restlessness! Wait and let me rest awhile
And let me shed a few tears at this habitation
O those steeped in a swoon, 'Where are you?
Tell me something of the land where you live
Is that world also one of prevarication?
Is that world also one of denizens' struggle?
Is Man engulfed by sorrow in that land also?
Is Man's heart suppressed and helpless in that land also?
Does the moth burn itself in candle's love in that land also?
Does the tale of flower and nightingale exist in that garden also?
In this world a single hemistich perturbs the heart
Does there also the warmth of verse soften the heart?
This world's relations and alliances life's woes are
Are similar sharp thorns present in that garden also?
52
The daily bread and a million calamities this world has
Does the soul freedom from anxieties in that world has?
Are the thunder, the farmer, the harvest there also?
Are the caravan and the robber's fear there also?
Do birds collect bits of straw for nests there also?
Is the search for bricks and clay for house there also?
Are the humans unaware of their reality there also? 1
Are they after nations' and customs' discrimination there also
Does garden not cry at the nightingale's wail there also?
Like this world is there no sympathy in that world also?
Does the Paradise a garden or a restful mansion constitute?
Or does the Eternal Beauty's Unveiled Face it constitute? 2
Does hell a method of burning away sins constitute?
Or it in flames of fire a way of discipline constitute?
Has walking given way to speedy flying in that world?
What is the secret of what is called death by denizens of this world?
Life eases the heart's restlessness in this world
Is human knowledge also restricted in that world?
Does the separated heart get satisfaction by sight there also?
Are 'Lan Tar
~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal,
731:INVOCATION
   The ultimate invocation, that of Kia, cannot be performed. The paradox is that as Kia has no dualized qualities, there are no attributes by which to invoke it. To give it one quality is merely to deny it another. As an observant dualistic being once said:
   I am that I am not.
   Nevertheless, the magician may need to make some rearrangements or additions to what he is. Metamorphosis may be pursued by seeking that which one is not, and transcending both in mutual annihilation. Alternatively, the process of invocation may be seen as adding to the magician's psyche any elements which are missing. It is true that the mind must be finally surrendered as one enters fully into Chaos, but a complete and balanced psychocosm is more easily surrendered.
   The magical process of shuffling beliefs and desires attendant upon the process of invocation also demonstrates that one's dominant obsessions or personality are quite arbitrary, and hence more easily banished.
   There are many maps of the mind (psychocosms), most of which are inconsistent, contradictory, and based on highly fanciful theories. Many use the symbology of god forms, for all mythology embodies a psychology. A complete mythic pantheon resumes all of man's mental characteristics. Magicians will often use a pagan pantheon of gods as the basis for invoking some particular insight or ability, as these myths provide the most explicit and developed formulation of the particular idea's extant. However it is possible to use almost anything from the archetypes of the collective unconscious to the elemental qualities of alchemy.
   If the magician taps a deep enough level of power, these forms may manifest with sufficient force to convince the mind of the objective existence of the god. Yet the aim of invocation is temporary possession by the god, communication from the god, and manifestation of the god's magical powers, rather than the formation of religious cults.
   The actual method of invocation may be described as a total immersion in the qualities pertaining to the desired form. One invokes in every conceivable way. The magician first programs himself into identity with the god by arranging all his experiences to coincide with its nature. In the most elaborate form of ritual he may surround himself with the sounds, smells, colors, instruments, memories, numbers, symbols, music, and poetry suggestive of the god or quality. Secondly he unites his life force to the god image with which he has united his mind. This is accomplished with techniques from the gnosis. Figure 5 shows some examples of maps of the mind. Following are some suggestions for practical ritual invocation.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
732:I AM now,--what joy to hear it!--
Of the old magician rid;
And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit
Do whate'er by me is bid;
I have watch'd with rigour
All he used to do,
And will now with vigour
Work my wonders too.

Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!

And now come, thou well-worn broom,
And thy wretched form bestir;
Thou hast ever served as groom,
So fulfil my pleasure, sir!
On two legs now stand,
With a head on top;
Waterpail in hand,
Haste, and do not stop!

Wander, wander
Onward lightly,
So that rightly
Flow the torrent,
And with teeming waters yonder
In the bath discharge its current!

See! he's running to the shore,
And has now attain'd the pool,
And with lightning speed once more
Comes here, with his bucket full!

Back he then repairs;
See how swells the tide!
How each pail he bears
Straightway is supplied!

Stop, for, lo!
All the measure
Of thy treasure
Now is right!--

Ah, I see it! woe, oh woe!
I forget the word of might.
Ah, the word whose sound can straight
Make him what he was before!
Ah, he runs with nimble gait!

Would thou wert a broom once more!
Streams renew'd for ever
Quickly bringeth he;
River after river
Rusheth on poor me!

Now no longer
Can I bear him;
I will snare him,
Knavish sprite!
Ah, my terror waxes stronger!
What a look! what fearful sight

Oh, thou villain child of hell!
Shall the house through thee be drown'd
Floods I see that wildly swell,
O'er the threshold gaining ground.

Wilt thou not obey,
Oh, thou broom accurs'd?
Be thou still I pray,
As thou wert at first!

Will enough
Never please thee?
I will seize thee,
Hold thee fast,
And thy nimble wood so tough,
With my sharp axe split at last.

See, once more he hastens back!
Now, oh Cobold, thou shalt catch it!
I will rush upon his track;
Crashing on him falls my hatchet.

Bravely done, indeed!
See, he's cleft in twain!
Now from care I'm freed,
And can breathe again.

Woe, oh woe!
Both the parts,
Quick as darts,
Stand on end,
Servants of my dreaded foe!
Oh, ye gods protection send!

And they run! and wetter still
Grow the steps and grows the hail.
Lord and master hear me call!
Ever seems the flood to fill,

Ah, he's coming! see,
Great is my dismay!
Spirits raised by me
Vainly would I lay!

"To the side
Of the room
Hasten, broom,
As of old!
Spirits I have ne'er untied
Save to act as they are told."
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Pupil In Magic
,
733:I once saw a woman wearing a low-cut dress; she had a glazed look in her eyes, and she was walking the streets of Ljubljana when it was five degrees below zero. I thought she must be drunk, and I went to help her, but she refused my offer to lend her my jacket. Perhaps in her world it was summer and her body was warmed by the desire of the person waiting for her. Even if that person only existed in her delirium, she had the right to live and die as she wanted, don’t you think?”
Veronika didn’t know what to say, but the madwoman’s words made sense to her. Who knows; perhaps she was the woman who had been seen half-naked walking the streets of Ljubljana?
“I’m going to tell you a story,” said Zedka. “A powerful wizard, who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.
“The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, apart from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk the poisoned water, and they thought the king’s decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.
“When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king had gone mad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.
“In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: ‘Let us go and drink from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.’
“And that was what they did: The king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country?
“The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from those of its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days.”
Veronika laughed.
“You don’t seem crazy at all,” she said.
“But I am, although I’m undergoing treatment since my problem is that I lack a particular chemical. While I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being crazy, living my life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be. Do you know what exists out there, beyond the walls of Villete?”
“People who have all drunk from the same well.”
“Exactly,” said Zedka. “They think they’re normal, because they all do the same thing. Well, I’m going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them. ~ Paulo Coelho,
734:A floorboard cracked; knuckles tapped once on the open door. Adam looked up to see Niall Lynch standing in the doorway. No, it was Ronan, face lit bright on one side, in stark shadow on the other, looking powerful and at ease with his thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans, leather bracelets looped over his wrist, feet bare.
He wordlessly crossed the floor and sat beside Adam on the mattress. When he held out his hand, Adam put the model into it.
“This old thing,” Ronan said. He turned the front tyre, and again the music played out of it. They sat like that for a few minutes, as Ronan examined the car and turned each wheel to play a different tune. Adam watched how intently Ronan studied the seams, his eyelashes low over his light eyes. Ronan let out a breath, put the model down on the bed beside him, and kissed Adam.
Once, when Adam had still lived in the trailer park, he had been pushing the lawn mower around the scraggly side yard when he realized that it was raining a mile away. He could smell it, the earthy scent of rain on dirt, but also the electric, restless smell of ozone. And he could see it: a hazy gray sheet of water blocking his view of the mountains. He could track the line of rain travelling across the vast dry field towards him. It was heavy and dark, and he knew he would get drenched if he stayed outside. It was coming from so far away that he had plenty of time to put the mower away and get under cover. Instead, though, he just stood there and watched it approach. Even at the last minute, as he heard the rain pounding the grass flat, he just stood there. He closed his eyes and let the storm soak him.
That was this kiss.
They kissed again. Adam felt it in more than his lips.
Ronan sat back, his eyes closed, swallowing. Adam watched his chest rise and fall, his eyebrows furrow. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window.
He did not understand anything.
It was a long moment before Ronan opened his eyes, and when he did, his expression was complicated. He stood up. He was still looking at Adam, and Adam was looking back, but neither said anything. Probably Ronan wanted something from him, but Adam didn’t know what to say. He was a magician, Persephone had said, and his magic was making connections between disparate things. Only now he was too full of white, fuzzy light to make any sort of logical connections. He knew that of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them. He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm. He knew he had started his entire time at Aglionby certain that all he wanted to do was get as far away from this state and everything in it as possible.
He was pretty sure he had just been Ronan’s first kiss.
“I’m gonna go downstairs,” Ronan said. ~ Maggie Stiefvater,
735:Death told me the Fool showed you a vision with ten swords in your back.”

I nodded. “The ten of swords card indicates that a devastating catastrophe is headed one’s way and will strike without warning. Bingo, Matthew.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“That card is also about letting go and accepting one’s current circumstances.”

Accepting that you can’t change fate. As my mom had done with my dad. “Should I let go of Jack? Like you let go of the man you lost?”

She lifted one slim shoulder. “You’d already fallen for another.”

“I swore revenge on Richter. How can I think of surrendering that need?” Richter, I’m . . . not coming for you? “Do you know what I fear more than marching off to die fighting him? That I might have to live with what he did.”

“No one’s suggesting you give up your revenge. But what if we can’t find him for half a year? Two years? Will you cease living till then? Will you force Death to stop as well? He yearns to be a normal man. Even if just for a day. Will you not give that to him?”

“I made the point to him about our limited time,” I said, still cringing at my clumsiness. “All I did was insult him.”

“He wanted a wife. Not a buddy.”

Was she listening to everything in the castle? “I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t know what to do.”

She pinned my gaze with her own. “Therein lies the lesson of the card, Evie Greene. The lesson of life. When you can’t change your situation, you must change yourself. You must rise and walk—despite the ten swords in your back.”

What was harder than dying? Living a nightmare.

Mom had learned to live without Dad. I had learned to live without Mom. Could I go on without Jack? “I shouldn’t even be thinking about Aric. I disobeyed the dictates of the game, and I got Jack killed. What if I do the same to Aric?”

Circe made a sound of amusement. “You always did think highly of yourself. Do you believe you had something to do with that massacre? Think logically. Richter could have reversed the order of his attacks—targeting Fort Arcana earlier, vaporizing the Magician, one of Fauna’s wolves, and the stronghold of his enemies. He could have shot at the army by helicopter afterward. Instead he targeted mortals and one player. The Moon.”

My lips parted. “Because she was more of a threat to him.”

“She was the only one in the area who could slay him from a distance. Richter will target the Tower as well, since Joules shares that ability,” she said. “So if we should blame any card for your mortal’s death, blame the Moon.”

“I’ll never blame her.”

“Yet you’ll blame yourself?” Circe shook her head, and the river swirled. “I say we blame the Emperor.” Could it be that easy?

Had Richter always had Selena in his sights? If fate couldn’t be changed—then she’d been doomed to die the second we’d saved her from the Lovers. ~ Kresley Cole,
736:Eternal, unconfined, unextended, without cause and without effect, the Holy Lamp mysteriously burns. Without quantity or quality, unconditioned and sempiternal, is this Light.
It is not possible for anyone to advise or approve; for this Lamp is not made with hands; it exists alone for ever; it has no parts, no person; it is before "I am." Few can behold it, yet it is always there. For it there is no "here" nor "there," no "then" nor "now;" all parts of speech are abolished, save the noun; and this noun is not found either in {106} human speech or in Divine. It is the Lost Word, the dying music of whose sevenfold echo is I A O and A U M.
Without this Light the Magician could not work at all; yet few indeed are the Magicians that have know of it, and far fewer They that have beheld its brilliance!

The Temple and all that is in it must be destroyed again and again before it is worthy to receive that Light. Hence it so often seems that the only advice that any master can give to any pupil is to destroy the Temple.

"Whatever you have" and "whatever you are" are veils before that Light. Yet in so great a matter all advice is vain. There is no master so great that he can see clearly the whole character of any pupil. What helped him in the past may hinder another in the future.

Yet since the Master is pledged to serve, he may take up that service on these simple lines. Since all thoughts are veils of this Light, he may advise the destruction of all thoughts, and to that end teach those practices which are clearly conductive to such destruction.

These practices have now fortunately been set down in clear language by order of the A.'.A.'..

In these instructions the relativity and limitation of each practice is clearly taught, and all dogmatic interpretations are carefully avoided. Each practice is in itself a demon which must be destroyed; but to be destroyed it must first be evoked.

Shame upon that Master who shirks any one of these practices, however distasteful or useless it may be to him! For in the detailed knowledge of it, which experience alone can give him, may lie his opportunity for crucial assistance to a pupil. However dull the drudgery, it should be undergone. If it were possible to regret anything in life, which is fortunately not the case, it would be the hours wasted in fruitful practices which might have been more profitably employed on sterile ones: for NEMO<> in tending his garden seeketh not to single out the flower that shall be NEMO after him. And we are not told that NEMO might have used other things than those which he actually does use; it seems possible that if he had not the acid or the knife, or the fire, or the oil, he might miss tending just that one flower which was to be NEMO after him! ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA, The Lamp,
737:Are you Countless of Tlanth?” she asked as I dismounted.
I nodded, and she bustled over to a friend, handed off the horse, then beckoned me inside. “I’m to show you to the south parlor, my lady.”
Muddy to the eyebrows, I squelched after her up a broad stair into a warm, good-smelling hallway. Genial noise smote me from all directions, and people came and went. But my guide threaded her way through, then indicated a stairway with a fine mosaic rail, and pointed. “Top, right, all across the back is where your party will be,” she said. “Parlor’s through the double door.” She curtsied and disappeared into the crowd.
I trod up the stairs, making wet footprints on the patterned carpet at each step. The landing opened onto a spacious hallway.
I turned to the double doors, which were of foreign plainwood, and paused to admire the carving round the latch, and the painted pattern of leaves and blossoms worked into it. Then I opened one, and there in the middle of a lovely parlor was Shevraeth. He knelt at a writing table with his back to a fire, his pen scratching rapidly across a paper.
He glanced up inquiringly. His hair seemed damp, but it wasn’t muddy, and his clothing looked miraculously dry.
I gritted my teeth, crossed my arms, and advanced on him, my cold-numbed lips poonched out below what I knew was a ferocious glare.
Obviously on the verge of laughter, he raised his quill to stop me. “As the winner,” he murmured, “I choose the time and place.”
“You cheated,” I said, glad enough to have the embarrassment postponed.
“If you had waited, I would have shown you that shortcut,” he retorted humorously.
“It was a trick,” I snarled. “And as for your wager, I might as well get it over now.”
He sat back, eyeing me. “Wet as you are--and you have to be cold--it’d feel like kissing a fish. We will address this another time. Sit down and have some cider. It’s hot, just brought in. May I request your opinion of that?” He picked up a folded paper and tossed it in my direction. He added, with a faint smile, “Next time you’ll have to remember to bring extra gear.”
“How come you’re not all soggy?” I asked as I set aside my sodden hat and waterlogged riding gloves.
He indicated the black cloak, which was slung over a candle sconce on the wall, and the hat and gloves resting on a side table. “Water-resistant spells. Expensive, but eminently worthwhile.”
“That’s what we need in Remalna,” I said, kneeling on the cushions opposite him and pouring out spicy-smelling cider into a porcelain cup painted with that same leaf-and-blossom theme. “A wizard.”
Shevraeth laid his pen down. “I don’t know,” he said. “A magician is not like a tree that bears fruit for all who want it and demands nothing in return. A wizard is human and will have his or her own goals.”
“And a way of getting them that we couldn’t very well stand against,” I said. “All right. No wizard. But I shall get me one of those cloaks. ~ Sherwood Smith,
738:SYNCHRONICITY

'The earth is alive, and it feels with you. It follows your footsteps, your search, with equal anxiety, because it will be transfigured in your triumph. The end of Kaliyuga and the entry into a new Golden Age depend on the results of your war. The earth by itself cannot finish the work that Nature leaves incomplete. Today the earth has joined forces with man in his destructive passion. The great catastrophe will occur in the first years of the Age of Aquarius. But if you can find the entrance to the Invisible Double of this earth, fulfilling the mystery of 'loveless A-Mor', the volcanoes will become calm, the earthquake will cease and the catastrophe will be avoided.

'There is an essential 'synchronicity' between the soul and the landscape. What you achieve in yourself will have repercussions in even the remotest corner of the universe, like the ringing of a bell which announces a triumph or a defeat, producing irreversible effects in a secret centre where Destiny acts. The Archetype is indivisible and, if you once confront it in an essential manner, the effects are universal and valid for all eternity. The old Chinese saying expresses it well: 'If a man, sitting in his room, thinks the right thoughts, he will be heard thousands of leagues away.' And the alchemical saying, too: 'It doesn't matter how alone you are. If you do true work, unknown friends will come to your aid.'

'What I have called "synchronicity', Nietzsche called 'lucky occurrences filled with meaning'. It becomes a poetic dialogue, a concerto for two violins, between the man-magician and Nature. The world presents you with a 'lucky occurrence filled with meaning', it hands you a subtle, almost secret message, something which happens without apparent reason, a-causal, but which you feel is full of meaning. This being exactly what the world is looking for, that you should extract that meaning from it, which you alone are capable of seeing, because it 'synchronises', it fully coincides with your immediate state of mind, with an event in your life, so that it is able to transform itself, with your assistance, into legend and destiny. A lucky occurrence which transformed itself into Destiny. And once you have achieved this, everything will appear to become the same as before, as if nothing had happened. Nevertheless, everything has changed fundamentally and for all time, although the only ones to know it will be you and the earth — which is now your earth, your world, since it has given itself up to you so that you can make it fruitful. 'The earth has made itself invisible inside you', as Rilke would say, it has become an individualised universe inside you. And although perhaps nothing may have changed, 'it might seem as if it were so, it might seem as if it were so', to use your own words. And you will be a creative God of the world; because you have conceived a Non-Existent Flower. You have given a meaning to your flower. ~ Miguel Serrano,
739:There is no requirement for those affected by an idea to be aware of any of this, of course. When the writer and media critic Philip Sandifer writes that "David Whitaker, at once the most important figure in Doctor Who's development and the least understood, created a show that is genuinely magical and this influence cannot be erased from within the show," he does not mean that any of the hundreds of actors and writers who went on to work on the programme saw it in those terms. Or as Sandifer so clearly puts it, "I don't actually believe that the writers of Doctor Who were consciously designing a sentient metafiction to continually disrupt the social order through a systematic process of détournement. Except maybe David Whitaker." From Drummond and Cauty's perspective, the story of Doctor Who is irrelevant. All that was happening was that they were exploring their mental landscape, and they were fulfilling their duty as artists by doing so more deeply than normal people. This is a landscape with many unseen, unknown areas where who-knows-what might be found. The KLF explored further than most and, if we were to accept Moore's model, it would perhaps not be surprising that a fiction as complex as Doctor Who could encounter them in Ideaspace and, being at its lowest point and in dire need of help, use them for its own ends. For Moore, and other artists such as David Lynch who use similar models, the role of the artist is like that of a fisherman. It is their job to fish in the collective unconscious and use all their skill to best present their catch to an audience. Drummond and Cauty, on the other hand, appear to have been caught by the fish. Lacking any clear sense of what they were doing, they dived in as deeply as Moore and Lynch. They did not have a specific purpose for doing so. They just needed to make something happen - anything really, such is the path of chaos. "It was supposed to be a proper dance record, but we couldn't fit the four-four beat to it, so we ended up with the glitter beat, which was never really our intention but we had to go with it," Cauty has said. "It was like an out of control lorry, you know, you're just trying to steer it, and that track took itself over really, and did what it wanted to do. We were just watching." This lack of intention is significant, from a magical point of view. One of the most important aspects of magical practice is the will. Aleister Crowley defined magic as being changes in the world brought about by the exercise of the will, hence his maxim 'Do what thou Will shall be the whole of the Law.' The will or intention of a magical act is important because the magician opens himself up to all sorts of strange powers and influences and he must avoid being controlled by them. Drummond and Cauty were not exerting any control on the process, and so they made themselves vulnerable to the who-knows-whats that live out of sight in the depths of Ideaspace. For this reason, you could understand why Moore would think that Bill Drummond was “totally mad." All this only applies if you're prepared to accept the notion of magic, of course. ~ J M R Higgs,
740:SLEIGHT OF MIND IN ILLUMINATION
Only those forms of illumination which lead to useful behaviour changes deserve to be known as such. When I hear the word "spirituality", I tend to reach for a loaded wand. Most professionally spiritual people are vile and untrustworthy when off duty, simply because their beliefs conflict with basic drives and only manage to distort their natural behaviour temporarily. The demons then come screaming up out of the cellar at unexpected moments.

When selecting objectives for illumination, the magician should choose forms of self improvement which can be precisely specified and measured and which effect changes of behaviour in his entire existence. Invocation is the main tool in illumination, although enchantment where spells are cast upon oneselves and divination to seek objectives for illumination may also find some application.

Evocation can sometimes be used with care, but there is no point in simply creating an entity that is the repository of what one wishes were true for oneself in general. This is a frequent mistake in religion. Forms of worship which create only entities in the subconscious are inferior to more wholehearted worship, which, at its best, is pure invocation. The Jesuits "Imitation of Christ" is more effective than merely praying to Jesus for example.

Illumination proceeds in the same general manner as invocation, except that the magician is striving to effect specific changes to his everyday behaviour, rather than to create enhanced facilities that can be drawn upon for particular purposes. The basic technique remains the same, the required beliefs are identified and then implanted in the subconscious by ritual or other acts. Such acts force the subconscious acquisition of the beliefs they imply.

Modest and realistic objectives are preferable to grandiose schemes in illumination.

One modifies the behaviour and beliefs of others by beginning with only the most trivial demands. The same applies to oneselves. The magician should beware of implanting beliefs whose expression cannot be sustained by the human body or the environment. For example it is possible to implant the belief that flight can be achieved without an aircraft. However it has rarely proved possible to implant this belief deeply enough to ensure that such flights were not of exceedingly short duration. Nevertheless such feats as fire-walking and obliviousness to extreme pain are sometimes achieved by this mechanism.

The sleight of mind which implants belief through ritual action is more powerful than any other weapon that humanity possesses, yet its influence is so pervasive that we seldom notice it. It makes religions, wars, cults and cultures possible. It has killed countless millions and created our personal and social realities. Those who understand how to use it on others can be messiahs or dictators, depending on their degree of personal myopia. Those who understand how to apply it to themselves have a jewel beyond price if they use it wisely; otherwise they tend to rapidly invoke their own Nemesis with it. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Kaos,
741:Once upon a time there was a young prince who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.

But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.

Are those real islands?' asked the young prince.

Of course they are real islands,' said the man in evening dress.

And those strange and troubling creatures?'

They are all genuine and authentic princesses.'

Then God must exist!' cried the prince.

I am God,' replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.

The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.

So you are back,' said the father, the king.

I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God,' said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved.

Neither real islands, nor real princesses, I have seen God,' said the prince reproachfully.

The king was unmoved.

Neither real islands, nor real princesses, nor a real God exist.'

I saw them!'

Tell me how God was dressed.'

God was in full evening dress.'

Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?'

The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.

That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived.'

At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.

My father the king has told me who you are,' said the young prince indignantly. 'You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician.'

The man on the shore smiled.

It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them.'

The prince pensively returned home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.

Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?'

The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.

Yes, my son, I am only a magician.'

Then the man on the shore was God.'

The man on the shore was another magician.'

I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic.'

There is no truth beyond magic,' said the king.

The prince was full of sadness.

He said, 'I will kill myself.'

The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.

Very well,' he said. 'I can bear it.'

You see, my son,' said the king, 'you too now begin to be a magician. ~ John Fowles,
742:In the State of Cheng there was a wonderful magician named Chi Han. He knew all about birth and death, gain and loss, misfortune and happiness, long life and short life—predicting events to a day with supernatural accuracy. The people of Cheng used to flee at his approach; but Lieh Tzu went to see him, and became so infatuated that on his return he said to Hu Tzu,  "I used to look upon your Tao as perfect. Now I know something more perfect still." "So far," replied Hu Tzu, "I have only taught you the ornamentals, not the essentials, of Tao; and yet you think you know all about it. Without cocks in your poultry-yard, what sort of eggs do the hens lay?  If you go about trying to force Tao down people's throats, you will be simply exposing yourself. Bring your friend with you, and let me show myself to him." So next day Lieh Tzu went with Chi Han to see Hu Tzu, and when they came out Chi Han said: "Alas! your teacher is doomed. He cannot live. I hardly give him ten days. I am astonished at him. He is but wet ashes." Lieh Tzu went in and wept bitterly, and told Hu Tzu; but the latter said: "I showed myself to him just now as the earth shows us its outward form, motionless and still, while production is all the time going on. I merely prevented him from seeing my pent-up energy within. Bring him again." Next day the interview took place as before; but as they were leaving Chi Han said to Lieh Tzu: "It is lucky for your teacher that he met me. He is better. He will recover. I saw he had recuperative power." Lieh Tzu went in and told Hu Tzu; whereupon the latter replied: "I showed myself to him just now as heaven shows itself in all its dispassionate grandeur, letting a little energy run out of my heels. He was thus able to detect that I had some. Bring him here again." Next day a third interview took place, and as they were leaving, Chi Han said to Lieh Tzu: "Your teacher is never one day like another; I can tell nothing from his physiognomy. Get him to be regular, and I will then examine him again." This being repeated to Hu Tzu as before, the latter said: "I showed myself to him just now in a state of harmonious equilibrium. Where the whale disports itself,—is the abyss. Where water is at rest,—is the abyss. Where water is in motion,—is the abyss. The abyss has nine names. These are three of them." Next day the two went once more to see Hu Tzu; but Chi Han was unable to stand still, and in his confusion turned and fled. "Pursue him!" cried Hu Tzu; whereupon Lieh Tzu ran after him, but could not overtake him; so he returned and told Hu Tzu that the fugitive had disappeared. "I showed myself to him just now," said Hu Tzu, "as Tao appeared before time was. I was to him as a great blank, existing of itself. He knew not who I was. His face fell. He became confused. And so he fled." Upon this Lieh Tzu stood convinced that he had not yet acquired any real knowledge, and at once set to work in earnest, passing three years without leaving the house. He helped his wife to cook the family dinner, and fed his pigs just like human beings. He discarded the artificial and reverted to the natural. He became merely a shape. Amidst confusion he was unconfounded. And so he continued to the end. ~ Lao Tzu,
743:EVOCATION
   Evocation is the art of dealing with magical beings or entities by various acts which create or contact them and allow one to conjure and command them with pacts and exorcism. These beings have a legion of names drawn from the demonology of many cultures: elementals, familiars, incubi, succubi, bud-wills, demons, automata, atavisms, wraiths, spirits, and so on. Entities may be bound to talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or be mobile in the aether. It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind. Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may be budded off and attached to objects and places in the form of ghosts, spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes, familiars, or poltergeists. These beings consist of a portion of Kia or the life force attached to some aetheric matter, the whole of which may or may not be attached to ordinary matter.

   Evocation may be further defined as the summoning or creation of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose. They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe. The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by will are several: the entity will continue to fulfill its function independently of the magician until its life force dissipates. Being semi-sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in that a non-conscious simple spell cannot. During moments of the possession by certain entities the magician may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.

   Entities may be drawn from three sources - those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in grimoires of spirits and demons, and those which the magician may wish to create himself.

   In all cases establishing a relationship with the spirit follows a similar process of evocation. Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind. Automatic drawing or writing, where a stylus is allowed to move under inspiration across a surface, may help to uncover the nature of a clairvoyantly discovered being. In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the magician assembles the ingredients of a composite sigil of the being's desired attributes. For example, to create an elemental to assist him with divination, the appropriate symbols might be chosen and made into a sigil such as the one shown in figure 4.

   A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental.

   Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's sigils or characteristics so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force and begin autonomous existence. In the case of preexisting beings, this operation serves to bind the entity to the magician's will.

   This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the magician's consciousness to normal before he goes forth.

   An entity of a low order with little more than a singular task to perform can be left to fulfill its destiny with no further interference from its master. If at any time it is necessary to terminate it, its sigil or material basis should be destroyed and its mental image destroyed or reabsorbed by visualization. For more powerful and independent beings, the conjuration and exorcism must be in proportion to the power of the ritual which originally evoked them. To control such beings, the magicians may have to re-enter the gnostic state to the same depth as before in order to draw their power. ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null, #Tulpa #Servitor #Thoughtform,
744:This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals sails appeared charmed. They blazed red in the day and silver at night, like a magician’s cloak, hinting at mysteries concealed beneath, which Tella planned to uncover that night.
Drunken laughter floated above her as Tella delved deeper into the ship’s underbelly in search of Nigel the Fortune-teller. Her first evening on the vessel she’d made the mistake of sleeping, not realizing until the following day that Legend’s performers had switched their waking hours to prepare for the next Caraval. They slumbered in the day and woke after sunset.
All Tella had learned her first day aboard La Esmeralda was that Nigel was on the ship, but she had yet to actually see him. The creaking halls beneath decks were like the bridges of Caraval, leading different places at different hours and making it difficult to know who stayed in which room. Tella wondered if Legend had designed it that way, or if it was just the unpredictable nature of magic.
She imagined Legend in his top hat, laughing at the question and at the idea that magic had more control than he did. For many, Legend was the definition of magic.
When she had first arrived on Isla de los Sueños, Tella suspected everyone could be Legend. Julian had so many secrets that she’d questioned if Legend’s identity was one of them, up until he’d briefly died. Caspar, with his sparkling eyes and rich laugh, had played the role of Legend in the last game, and at times he’d been so convincing Tella wondered if he was actually acting. At first sight, Dante, who was almost too beautiful to be real, looked like the Legend she’d always imagined. Tella could picture Dante’s wide shoulders filling out a black tailcoat while a velvet top hat shadowed his head. But the more Tella thought about Legend, the more she wondered if he even ever wore a top hat. If maybe the symbol was another thing to throw people off. Perhaps Legend was more magic than man and Tella had never met him in the flesh at all.
The boat rocked and an actual laugh pierced the quiet.
Tella froze.
The laughter ceased but the air in the thin corridor shifted. What had smelled of salt and wood and damp turned thick and velvet-sweet. The scent of roses.
Tella’s skin prickled; gooseflesh rose on her bare arms.
At her feet a puddle of petals formed a seductive trail of red.
Tella might not have known Legend’s true name, but she knew he favored red and roses and games.
Was this his way of toying with her? Did he know what she was up to?
The bumps on her arms crawled up to her neck and into her scalp as her newest pair of slippers crushed the tender petals. If Legend knew what she was after, Tella couldn’t imagine he would guide her in the correct direction, and yet the trail of petals was too tempting to avoid. They led to a door that glowed copper around the edges.
She turned the knob.
And her world transformed into a garden, a paradise made of blossoming flowers and bewitching romance. The walls were formed of moonlight. The ceiling was made of roses that dripped down toward the table in the center of the room, covered with plates of cakes and candlelight and sparkling honey wine.
But none of it was for Tella.
It was all for Scarlett. Tella had stumbled into her sister’s love story and it was so romantic it was painful to watch.
Scarlett stood across the chamber. Her full ruby gown bloomed brighter than any flowers, and her glowing skin rivaled the moon as she gazed up at Julian.
They touched nothing except each other. While Scarlett pressed her lips to Julian’s, his arms wrapped around her as if he’d found the one thing he never wanted to let go of.
This was why love was so dangerous. Love turned the world into a garden, so beguiling it was easy to forget that rose petals were as ephemeral as feelings, eventually they would wilt and die, leaving nothing but the thorns. ~ Stephanie Garber,
745:I had no conscious plan in mind, but it turned out I did not need one; when I reached the other side of the house, I glimpsed through a wall of vines a splendid terrace, and seated at a table on it was Lord Flauvic. Exquisitely dressed in pale shades of peach and gray, he was all alone, absorbed in reading and writing.
I stooped, picked up some small gravel, and tossed it in his direction.
He went very still. Just for a moment. Then his head turned deliberately. When he saw me he smiled slightly. Moving with swift grace, he swung to his feet and crossed the terrace. “Serenades,” he said, “are customarily performed under moonslight, or have fashions here changed?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “No one’s serenaded me, and as for my serenading anyone else, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, my singing voice sounds like a sick crow.”
“Then to what do I owe the honor of this delightful--but admittedly unorthodox--visit?”
“That.” I demonstrated his gesture with my hands. “You did that when your mother took me away last night. I want to know what you meant by it.”
His fine brows lifted just slightly, and with leisurely grace he stepped over the low terrace wall and joined me among the ferns. “You do favor the blunt, don’t you?”
It was phrased as a question, but his lack of surprise hinted fairly broadly that he’d heard gossip to this effect. My chin came up; I said, “I favor truth over style.”
He retorted in the mildest voice, “Having endured the blunt style favored by my late Uncle Galdran, which had little to do with truth as anyone else saw it, I beg you to forgive me when I admit that I am more dismayed than impressed.”
“All right,” I said. “So there can be truth with style, as well as the opposite. It’s just that I haven’t been raised to think that I’d find much truth in Court, though there’s plenty of style to spare there.”
“Will I seem unnecessarily contentious if I admit that my own life experience has engendered in me a preference for style, which at least has the virtue of being diverting?” It seemed impossible that Flauvic was exactly my age. “Not so diverting is the regrettable conviction that truth doesn’t exist.” His golden eyes were wide and curiously blank.
“Doesn’t exist? Of course it does,” I exclaimed.
“Is your truth the same as mine? I wonder.” He was smiling just slightly, and his gaze was still as limpid as the stream rilling at our feet, but I sensed a challenge.
I said gloomily, “All right, then, you’ve neatly sidestepped my question--if you even intended to answer it.”
He laughed, so softly I just barely heard it, and bowed, his hands moving in a quick airy gesture. I gasped when I saw the bouquet of flowers in his hands. As I reached, they poofed into glowing cinders of every color, which then swirled around and reformed into butterflies. Then he clapped his hands, and they vanished.
“Magic!” I exclaimed. “You know magic?”
“This is merely illusion,” he said. “It’s a kind of fad in Erev-li-Erval. Or was. No one is permitted to study true magic unless invited by the Council of Mages, which is overseen by the Empress.”
“I’d love to learn it,” I exclaimed. “Real magic or not.”
We were walking, randomly I thought; in the distance I heard the sweet chiming bells announcing second-gold.
Flauvic shrugged slightly. “I could show you a few tricks, but I’ve forgotten most of them. You’d have to ask a play magician to show you--that’s how we learned.”
“Play magician?” I repeated.
“Ah,” he said. “Plays here in Remalna are still performed on a bare stage, without illusion to dress it.”
“Well, some players now have painted screens and costumes, as in two plays here during recent days. I take it you haven’t seen them?”
“I rarely leave the house,” he said apologetically.
We reached a path just as the beat of horse hooves sounded from not far ahead. I stepped back; Flauvic looked up as two riders trotted into view.
My first reaction was blank dismay when I saw Savona and Shevraeth riding side by side. ~ Sherwood Smith,
746:The Last Bisson
EIGHT years have fled since, in the wilderness,
I drew the rein to rest my comrade thereMy supple, clean-limbed pony of the plains.
He was a runner of pure Indian blood,
Yet in his eye still gleamed the desert's fire,
And form and action both bespoke the Barb.
A wondrous creature is the Indian's horse;
Degenerate now, but from the 'Centaurs' drawnThe apparitions which dissolved with fear
Montezuma's plumed Children of the Sun,
And throned rough Cortez in his realm of gold.
A gentle vale, with rippling aspens clad,
Yet open to the breeze, invited rest.
So there I lay, and watched the sun's fierce beams
Reverberate in wreathed ethereal flame;
Or gazed upon the leaves which buzzed o'erhead,
Like tiny wings in simulated flight.
Within the vale a lakelet, lashed with flowers,
Lay like a liquid eye among the hills,
Revealing in its depths the fulgent light
Of snowy cloud-land and cerulean skies.
And rising, falling, fading far around,
The homeless and unfurrowed prairies spread
In solitude and idleness eterne.
And all was silent save the rustling leaf,
The gadding insect, or the grebe's lone cry,
Or where Saskatchewan, with turbid moan,
Deep-sunken in the plain, his torrent poured.
Here Loneliness possessed her realm supreme,
Her prairies all about her, undeflowered,
Pulsing beneath the summer sun, and sweet
With virgin air and waters undefiled.
Inviolate still! Bright solitudes, with power
To charm the spirit-bruised, where ways are foul,
Into forgetfulness of chuckling wrong
And all the weary clangour of the world.
Yet, Sorrow, too, had here its kindred place,
As o'er my spirit swept the sense of change.
Here sympathy could sigh o'er man's decay;
For here, but yesterday, the warrior dwelt
Whose faded nation had for ages held,
In fealty to Nature, these domains.
Around me were the relics of his race:
The grassy circlets where his village stood,
Well-ruled by custom's immemorial law.
Along these slopes his happy offspring roved
In days gone by, and dusky mothers plied
Their summer tasks, or loitered in the shade.
Here the magician howled his demons up,
And here the lodge of council had its seat,
Once resonant with oratory wild.
All vanished! perished in the swelling sea
And stayless tide of an enroaching power
Whose civil fiat, man-devouring still,
Will leave, at last, no wilding on the earth
To wonder at or love!
With them had fled
The bison-breed which overflowed the plains,
And, undiminished, fed uncounted tribes.
Its vestiges were here-its wallows, paths,
And skulls and shining ribs and vertebrae:
Gray bones of monarchs from the herds, perchance,
Descended, by De Vaca first beheld,
Or Coronada, in mad quest of gold.
Here hosts had had their home; here had they roamed,
Endless and infinite-vast herds which seemed
Exhaustless as the sea. All vanished now!
Of that wild tumult not a hoof remained
To scour the countless paths where myriads trod.
Long had I lain 'twixt dreams and waking, thus,
Musing on change and mutability,
And endless evanescence, when a burst
Of sudden roaring filled the vale with sound.
Perplexed and startled, to my feet I sprang,
And in amazement from my covert gazed,
10
For, presently, into the valley came
A mighty bison, which, with stately tread
And gleaming eyes, descended to the shore.
Spell-bound I stood. Was this a living form,
Or but an image by the fancy drawn?
But no-he breathed! and from a wound blood flowed,
And trickled with the frothing from his lips.
Uneasily he gazed, yet saw me not,
Haply concealed; then, with a roar so loud
That all the echoes rent their valley-horns,
He stood and listened; but no voice replied!
Deeply he drank, then, lashed his quivering flanks,
And roared again, and hearkened, but no sound,
No tongue congenial answered to his callHe was the last survivor of his clan!
Huge was his frame! the famed Burdash, so grown
To that enormous bulk whose presence filled
The very vale with awe. His shining horns
Gleamed black amidst his fell of floating hairHis neck and shoulders, of the lion's build,
~ Charles Mair,
747:CHAPTER XIII
OF THE BANISHINGS: AND OF THE PURIFICATIONS.
Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The wand is not a wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it.

That is a mere logical commonplace: in magick one must go much farther than this. One finds one's analogy in electricity. If insulation is imperfect, the whole current goes back to earth. It is useless to plead that in all those miles of wire there is only one-hundredth of an inch unprotected. It is no good building a ship if the water can enter, through however small a hole.

That first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.
If one littlest thought intrude upon the mind of the Mystic, his concentration is absolutely destroyed; and his consciousness remains on exactly the same level as the Stockbroker's. Even the smallest baby is incompatible with the virginity of its mother. If you leave even a single spirit within the circle, the effect of the conjuration will be entirely absorbed by it.> {101}

The Magician must therefore take the utmost care in the matter of purification, "firstly", of himself, "secondly", of his instruments, "thirdly", of the place of working. Ancient Magicians recommended a preliminary purification of from three days to many months. During this period of training they took the utmost pains with diet. They avoided animal food, lest the elemental spirit of the animal should get into their atmosphere. They practised sexual abstinence, lest they should be influenced in any way by the spirit of the wife. Even in regard to the excrements of the body they were equally careful; in trimming the hair and nails, they ceremonially destroyed> the severed portion. They fasted, so that the body itself might destroy anything extraneous to the bare necessity of its existence. They purified the mind by special prayers and conservations. They avoided the contamination of social intercourse, especially the conjugal kind; and their servitors were disciples specially chosen and consecrated for the work.

In modern times our superior understanding of the essentials of this process enables us to dispense to some extent with its external rigours; but the internal purification must be even more carefully performed. We may eat meat, provided that in doing so we affirm that we eat it in order to strengthen us for the special purpose of our proposed invocation.> {102}

By thus avoiding those actions which might excite the comment of our neighbours we avoid the graver dangers of falling into spiritual pride.

We have understood the saying: "To the pure all things are pure", and we have learnt how to act up to it. We can analyse the mind far more acutely than could the ancients, and we can therefore distinguish the real and right feeling from its imitations. A man may eat meat from self-indulgence, or in order to avoid the dangers of asceticism. We must constantly examine ourselves, and assure ourselves that every action is really subservient to the One Purpose.

It is ceremonially desirable to seal and affirm this mental purity by Ritual, and accordingly the first operation in any actual ceremony is bathing and robing, with appropriate words. The bath signifies the removal of all things extraneous to antagonistic to the one thought. The putting on of the robe is the positive side of the same operation. It is the assumption of the fame of mind suitable to that one thought.

A similar operation takes place in the preparation of every instrument, as has been seen in the Chapter devoted to that subject. In the preparation of theplace of working, the same considerations apply. We first remove from that place all objects; and we then put into it those objects, and only those {103} objects, which are necessary. During many days we occupy ourselves in this process of cleansing and consecration; and this again is confirmed in the actual ceremony.

The cleansed and consecrated Magician takes his cleansed and consecrated instruments into that cleansed and consecrated place, and there proceeds to repeat that double ceremony in the ceremony itself, which has these same two main parts. The first part of every ceremony is the banishing; the second, the invoking. The same formula is repeated even in the ceremony of banishing itself, for in the banishing ritual of the pentagram we not only command the demons to depart, but invoke the Archangels and their hosts to act as guardians of the Circle during our pre-occupation with the ceremony proper.

In more elaborate ceremonies it is usual to banish everything by name. Each element, each planet, and each sign, perhaps even the Sephiroth themselves; all are removed, including the very one which we wished to invoke, for that force ... ~ Aleister Crowley, Liber ABA,
748:AUGOEIDES:
   The magicians most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
   The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison detre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of ones true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
   The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed. A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally.
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
   The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
749:ON SCIENCE

Thus sang the magician; and all who were gathered
there went unwittingly as birds into the net of his cunning and melancholy lust. Only the conscientious in
spirit was not caught: quickly he took the harp away
from the magician and cried: "Air! Let in good air! Let
in Zarathustral You are making this cave sultry and
poisonous, you wicked old magician. You are seducing
us, you false and subtle one, to unknown desires and
wildernesses. And beware when such as you start making speeches and fuss about truth! Woe unto all free
spirits who do not watch out against such magicians!
Then it is over with their freedom: you teach us and lure
us back into prisons. You old melancholy devil: out of
your lament a bird call lures us; you are like those
whose praise of chastity secretly invites to voluptuous
delights."
Thus spoke the conscientious man; but the old magician looked around, enjoyed his triumph, and for its sake
swallowed the annoyance caused him by the conscientious man. "Be still" he said in a modest voice; "good
songs want to resound well; after good songs one should
long keep still. Thus do all these higher men. But perhaps you have understood very little of my song? In
you there is little of a magic spirit."
"You praise me by distinguishing me from yourself,"
retorted the conscientious man. "Well then! But you
others, what do I see? You are all still sitting there with
lusting eyes: you free souls, where is your freedom gone?
You are almost like men, it seems to me, who have long
watched wicked, dancing, naked girls: your souls are
dancing too. In you, you higher men, there must be
302
more of what the magician calls his evil spirit of magic
and deception: we must be different.
"And verily, we talked and thought together enough
before Zarathustra returned home to his cave for me to
know that we are different. We also seek different things
up here, you and I. For I seek more security, that is why
I came to Zarathustra. For he is the firmest tower and
will today, when everything is tottering and all the earth
is quaking. But you-when I see the eyes you make, it
almost seems to me that you are seeking more insecurity: more thrills, more danger, more earthquakes. You
desire, I should almost presume-forgive my presumption, you higher men-you desire the most wicked, most
dangerous life, of which I am most afraid: the life of
wild animals, woods, caves, steep mountains, and labyrinthian gorges. And it is not the leaders out of danger
who appeal to you most, but those who induce you to
leave all ways, the seducers. But even if such desire in
you is real, it still seems impossible to me.
"For fear is the original and basic feeling of man;
from fear everything is explicable, original sin and original virtue. From fear my own virture too has grown,
and it is called: science. For the fear of wild animals,
that was bred in man longest of all-including the animal he harbors inside himself and fears: Zarathustra
calls it 'the inner beast.' Such long old fear, finally refined, spiritualized, spiritual-today, it seems to me, this
is called science."
Thus spoke the conscientious man; but Zarathustra,
who was just coming back into his cave and had heard
and guessed this last speech, threw a handful of roses
at the conscientious man and laughed at his "truths."
"What?" he cried. "What did I hear just now? Verily, it
seems to me that you are a fool, or that I am one my-
303
self; and your 'truth' I simply reverse. For fear-that
is our exception. But courage and adventure and pleasure in the uncertain, in the undared-courage seems to
me man's whole prehistory. He envied the wildest, most
courageous animals and robbed all their virtues: only
thus did he become man. This courage, finally refined,
spiritualized, spiritual, this human courage with eagles'
wings and serpents' wisdom-that, it seems to me, is today called-"
"Zarathustrar'all who were sitting together cried as
with one mouth, and they raised a great laughter that
rose above them like a heavy cloud. The magician too
laughed and said cleverly: "Well then, he is gone, my
evil spirit. And have I myself not warned you of him
when I said that he was a deceiver, a spirit of lies and
deceptions? Especially when he appears naked. But am
I responsible for his wiles? Did I create him and the
world? Well then, let us make up again and make merry!
And although Zarathustra looks angry-look at him, he
bears me a grudge-before night falls he will learn again
to love me and laud me; he cannot live long without
committing such follies. He loves his enemies; this art
he understands best of all whom I have ever seen. But
he takes revenge for this on his friends."
Thus spoke the old magician, and the higher men
applauded him; so Zarathustra walked around and shook
his friends' hands with malice and love-like one who
has to make up for something and apologize. But when
he reached the door of his cave, behold, he again felt
a desire for the good air outside and for his animalsand he wanted to slip out.
304
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, ON SCIENCE
,
750:THE AWAKENING
1

After the song of the wanderer and shadow, the cave
all at once became full of noise and laughter; and since
all of the assembled guests talked at the same time and
even the ass, thus encouraged, would no longer remain
silent, Zarathustra was overcome by a slight aversion
and by scorn for his company, although he enjoyed their
gaiety. For this seemed to him a sign of convalescence.
So he slipped out into the open and talked to his
animals.
'Where is their distress now?" he said, and immediately he felt relief from his own little annoyance. "Up
here with me, it seems, they have unlearned crying in
distress. Although unfortunately not yet crying in general." And Zarathustra covered up his ears, for just then
the Yeah-Yuh of the ass was strangely blended with the
jubilating noise of these higher men.
"They are merry," he began again, "and, who knows?
perhaps at their hoses expense. And if they learned to
laugh from me, it still is not my laughter that they have
learned. But what does it matter? They are old people,
convalescing in their own way, laughing in their own
way; my ears have suffered worse things without becoming grumpy. This day represents a triumph: he is
even now retreating, he is fleeing, the spirit of gravity,
my old archenemy. How happily this day wants to end
after beginning so badly and gravely. And it wants to
end. Even now evening is approaching: he is riding over
the sea, this good rider. How the blessed one, returning
home, sways in his crimson saddle! The sky looks clear,
the world lies deep: 0 all you strange visitors, living
with me is well worth while!"
311

Thus spoke Zarathustra. And again the clamor and
laughter of the higher men came to him from the cave,
so he began again: "They are biting, my bait is working: from them too their enemy retreats, the spirit of
gravity. Even now they have learned to laugh at themselves: do I hear right? My virile nourishment, the savor
and strength of my words, are taking effect; and verily,
I did not feed them bloating vegetables, but warriors'
nourishment, conquerors' nourishment: I wakened new
desires. New hopes throb in their arms and legs; their
hearts stretch out. They are finding new words, soon
their spirit will brea the prankishness. Such nourishment,
to be sure, may not be suitable for children or for
nostalgic old and young little females. Their entrails are
persuaded in a different way; I am not their physician
and teacher.
"Nausea is retreating from these higher men. Well
then That is my triumph. In my realm they feel safe,
all stupid shame runs away, they unburden themselves.
They unburden their hearts, good hours come back to
them, they celebrate and chew the cud: they become
grateful. This I take to be the best sign: they become
grateful. Not much longer, and they will think up
festivals and put up monuments to their old friends.
They are convalescing" Thus spoke Zarathustra gaily
to his heart, and he looked out; but his animals pressed
close to him and respected his happiness and his
silence.
2

Suddenly, however, Zarathustra's ears were startled;
for the cave which had so far been full of noise and
laughter suddenly became deathly still, while his nose
perceived a pleasant smoke and incense, as of burning
pine cones. "What is going on? What are they doing?"
312
he asked himself, and he stole to the entrance to watch
his guests, unnoticed. But, wonder upon wonder What
did he have to see with his own eyes?
"They have all become pious again, they are praying,
thev are mad!" he said, and he was amazed beyond
measure. And indeed, all these higher men, the two
kings, the retired pope, the wicked magician, the voluntary beggar, the wanderer and shadow, the old soothsayer, the conscientious in spirit, and the ugliest manthey were all kneeling like children and devout little
old women and adoring the ass. And just then the ugliest
man began to gurgle and snort as if something inexpressible wanted to get out of him; but when he really
found words, behold, it was a pious, strange litany to
glorify the adored and censed ass. And this litany went
thus:
Amen! And praise and honor and wisdom and thanks
and glory and strength be to our god, from everlasting
to everlasting
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
He carries our burden, he took upon himself the
form of a servant, he is patient of heart and never says
No; and whoever loves his God, chastises him.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
He does not speak, except he always says Yea to the
world he created: thus he praises his world. It is his
cleverness that does not speak: thus he is rarely found
to be wrong.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
Plain-looking, he walks through the world. Gray is
the body color in which he shrouds his virtue. If he has
spirit, he hides it; but everybody believes in his long
ears.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
313
What hidden wisdom it is that he has long ears and
only says Yea and never No! Has he not created the
world in his own image, namely, as stupid as possible?
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
You walk on straight and crooked paths; it matters
little to you what seems straight or crooked to us men.
Beyond good and evil is your kingdom. It is your innocence not to know what innocence is.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
Behold how you push none away from you, not the
beggars nor the kings. Little children you let come unto
you, and when sinners entice you, you simply say YeaYuh.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
You love she-asses and fresh figs; you do not despise
food. A thistle tickles your heart if you happen to be
hungry. In this lies the wisdom of a god.
But the ass brayed: Yea-Yuh.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE AWAKENING
,
751:THE SONG

OF MELANCHOLY
1

While Zarathustra delivered these discourses he stood
near the entrance of his cave; but with the last words
he slipped away from his guests and fled into the open
for a short while.
"O pure smells about me!" he cried out. "O happy
silence about me! But where are my animals? Come
here, come here, my eagle and my serpent! Tell me,
my animals: these higher men, all of them-do they
perhaps smell bad? 0 pure smells about me! Only now
I know and feel how much I love you, my animals."
And Zarathustra spoke once more: "I love you, my
animals." But the eagle and the serpent pressed close to
him as he spoke these words, and looked up to him. In
this way the three of them were together silently, and
they sniffed and sipped the good air together. For the
air out here was better than among the higher men.
2

But Zarathustra had scarcely left his cave when the
old magician got up, looked around cunningly, and said:
"He has gone out! And immediately, you higher menif I may tickle you with this laudatory, flattering name,
as he did-immediately my wicked spirit of deception
and magic seizes me, my melancholy devil, who is
through and through an adversary of this Zarathustraforgive him! Now he wants to show you his magic; he
has his hour right now; in vain do I wrestle with this
evil spirit. Of all of you, whatever honors you may
confer on yourselves with words, whether you call yourselves 'free spirits' or 'truthful' or 'ascetics of the spirit'
297
or 'the unbound' or 'the great longers'-of all of you
who, like me, are suffering of the great nausea, for whom
the old god has died and for whom no new god lies
as yet in cradles and swaddling clothes-of all of you
my evil spirit and magic devil is fond.
"I know you, you higher men; I know him; I also
know this monster whom I love against my will, this
Zarathustra: he himself sometimes seems to me like a
beautiful mask of a saint, like a new strange masquerade
in which my evil spirit, the melancholy devil, enjoys
himself. I love Zarathustra, it often seems to me, for
the sake of my evil spirit.
"But even now he attacks me and forces me, this
spirit of melancholy, this devil of the dusk; and verily,
you higher men, he has the desire-you may well open
your eyes widel-he has the desire to come naked;
whether male or female I do not know yet-but he is
coming, he is forcing me; alas, open up your senses! The
day is fading away, evening is now coming to all things,
even to the best things: hear then and see, you higher
men, what kind of devil, whether man or woman, this
spirit of evening melancholy isl"
Thus spoke the old magician, looked around cunningly, and then reached for his harp.
3
In dim, de-lighted air
When the dew's comfort is beginning
To well down to the earth,
Unseen, unheardFor tender is the footwear of
The comforter dew, as of all that gently comfortDo you remember then, remember, hot heart,
How you thirsted once
For heavenly tears and dripping dew,
Thirsting, scorched and weary,
While on yellow paths in the grass
The glances of the evening sun were running
Maliciously around you through black treesBlinding, glowing glances of the sun, mocking your
pain?
"Suitor of truth?" they mocked me; "you?
Nol Only poet!
An animal, cunning, preying, prowling,
That must lie,
That must knowingly, willingly lie:
Lusting for prey,
Colorfully masked,
A mask for itself,
Prey for itselfThis, the suitor of truth?
No! Only fooll Only poetl
Only speaking colorfully,
Only screaming colorfully out of fools' masks,
Climbing around on mendacious word bridges,
On colorful rainbows,
Between false heavens
And false earths,
Roaming, hoveringOnly fooll Only poetl
This-the suitor of truth?
Not still, stiff, smooth, cold,
Become a statue,
A pillar of God,
Not placed before temples,
A god's gate guardNol an enemy of all such truth statues,
More at home in any desert than before temples,
299
Full of cats' prankishness,
Leaping through every windowSwishl into every chance,
Sniffing for every jungle,
Eagerly, longingly sniffing:
That in jungles
Among colorfully speckled beasts of prey
You might roam, sinfully sound and colorful, beautiful
With lusting lips,
Blissfully mocking, blissfully hellish, blissfully bloodthirstyPreying, prowling, peeringOr like the eagle that gazes long,
Long with fixed eyes into abysses,
His own abyssesOh, how they wind downward,
Lower and lower
And into ever deeper depthsl Then,
Suddenly, straight as sight
In brandished flight,
Pounce on lambs,
Abruptly down, hot-hungry,
Lusting for lambs,
Hating all lamb souls,
Grimly hating whatever looks
Sheepish, lamb-eyed, curly-wooled,
Gray, with lambs' and sheeps' goodwill.
Thus
Eagle-like, panther-like,
Are the poet's longings,
Are your longings under a thousand masks,
You fool! You poetl
300

You that have seen man
As god and sheep:
Tearing to pieces the god in man
No less than the sheep in man,
And laughing while tearingThis, this is your bliss
A panther's and eagle's bliss
A poet's and fools bliss!"
In dim, de-lighted air
When the moon's sickle is beginning
To creep, green between crimson
Reds, enviouslyHating the day,
Secretly step for step
Scything at sloping rose meads
Till they sink and, ashen,
Drown in nightThus I myself once sank
Out of my truth-madness,
Out of my day-longings,
Weary of day, sick from the lightSank downward, eveningward, shadowward,
Burned by one truth,
And thirsty:
Do you remember still, remember, hot heart,
How you thirsted?
That I be banished
From all truth,
Only fool!
Only poet!
301
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE SONG OF MELANCHOLY
,
752:THE

ASS FESTIVAL
1

At this point of the litany Zarathustra could no longer
control himself and himself shouted Yea-Yuh, even
louder than the ass, and he jumped right into the middle
of his guests, who had gone mad. "But what are you
doing there, children of men?" he cried as he pulled the
praying men up from the floor. "Alas, if someone other
than Zarathustra had watched youth Everyone would
judge that with your new faith you were the worst
blasphemers or the most foolish of all little old women.
"And you too, old pope, how do you reconcile this
with yourself that you adore an ass in this way as a
god?"
"O Zarathustra," replied the pope, "forgive me, but
314
in what pertains to God I am even more enlightened
than you. And that is proper. Better to adore God in
this form than in no form at all! Think about this maxim,
my noble friend: you will quickly see that there is
wisdom in such a maxim.
"He who said, 'God is a spirit,' took the biggest step
and leap to disbelief that anybody has yet taken on
earth: such a saying can hardly be redressed on earth.
My old heart leaps and jumps that there is still something on earth to adore. Forgive, 0 Zarathustra, an old
pious pope's heart!"
"And you," Zarathustra said to the wanderer and
shadow, "you call and consider yourself a free spirit?
And you go in for such idolatry and popery? You are
behaving even more wickedly, verily, than with your
wicked brown girls, you wicked new believer."
"Wickedly enough," replied the wanderer and
shadow; "you are right: but is it my fault? The old god
lives again, Zarathustra, you may say what you will. It
is all the fault of the ugliest man: he has awakened him
again. And when he says that he once killed him-in
the case of gods death is always a mere prejudice."
"And you," said Zarathustra, "you wicked old magician, what have you done? Who should henceforth believe in you in this free age, if you believe in such theoasininities? It was a stupidity that you committed; how
could you, you clever one, commit such a stupidity?"
"O Zarathustra," replied the clever magician, "you are
right, it was a stupidity; and it was hard enough for me
too."
"And you of all people," said Zarathustra to the conscientious in spirit, "consider with a finger alongside
your nose: doesn't anything here go against your con-

science? Is your spirit not too clean for such praying
and the haze of these canters?"
315
"There is something in this," replied the conscientious
man, placing a finger alongside his nose; "there is something in this spectacle that even pleases my conscience.
Perhaps I may not believe in God; but it is certain
that God seems relatively most credible to me in this
form. God is supposed to be eternal, according to the
witness of the most pious: whoever has that much time,
takes his time. As slowly and as stupidly as possible:
in this way, one like that can still get very far.
"And whoever has too much spirit might well grow
foolishly fond of stupidity and folly itself. Think about
yourself, 0 Zarathustral You yourself-verily, overabundance and wisdom could easily turn you too into
an ass. Is not the perfect sage fond of walking on the
most crooked ways? The evidence shows this, 0 Zarathustra-and you are the evidence."
"And you yourself, finally," said Zarathustra, turning to the ugliest man, who still lay on the ground, and
raising his arm toward the ass (for he was offering him
wine to drink). "Speak, you inexpressible one, what
have you done? You seem changed to me, your eyes are
glowing, the cloak of the sublime lies over your ugliness: what have you done? Is it true what they say, that
you have wakened him again? And why? Had he not
been killed and finished for a reason? You yourself seem
awakened to me: what have you done? Why did you
revert? Why did you convert yourself? Speak, you inexpressible onel"
"O Zarathustra," replied the ugliest man, "you are a
roguel Whether that one still lives or lives again or is
thoroughly dead-which of the two of us knows that
best? I ask you. But one thing I do know; it was from
you yourself that I learned it once, 0 Zarathustra: whoever would kill most thoroughly, laughs.
"'Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter'-thus
you once spoke. 0 Zarathustra, you hidden one, you
annihilator without wrath, you dangerous saint-you
are a rogue!"
2

But then it happened that Zarathustra, amazed at all
these roguish answers, jumped back toward the door of
his cave and, turning against all his guests, cried out
with a strong voice:
"O you roguish fools, all of you, you jestersl Why do
you dissemble and hide before me? How all your hearts
wriggled with pleasure and malice that at last you had
become again as little children, that is, pious; that at
last you did again what children do, namely, prayed,
folded your hands, and said, 'Dear God!' But now leave
this nursery, my own cave, where all childishness is at
home today! Cool your hot children's prankishness and
the noise of your hearts out there!
"To be sure: except ye become as little children, ye
shall not enter into that kingdom of heaven. (And Zarathustra pointed upward with his hands.) But we have
no wish whatever to enter into the kingdom of heaven:
we have become men-so we want the earth."
3
And yet once more Zarathustra began to speak. "O
my new friends," he said, "you strange higher men, how
well I like you now since you have become gay again.
Verily, you have all blossomed; it seems to me such
flowers as you are require new festivals, a little brave
nonsense, some divine service and ass festival, some old
gay fool of a Zarathustra, a roaring wind that blows your
souls bright.
"Do not forget this night and this ass festival, you
higher men. This you invented when you were with me
317

and I take that for a good sign: such things are invented only by convalescents.
"And when you celebrate it again, this ass festival,
do it for your own sakes, and also do it for my sake. And
in remembrance of me."
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE ASS FESTIVAL
,
753:AMONG

DAUGHTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
1

"Do not go away!" said the wanderer who called
himself Zarathustra's shadow. "Stay with us. Else our
old musty depression might seize us again. Even now
that old magician has given us a sample of his worst;
and behold, that good pious pope there has tears in his
eyes and has again embarked on the sea of melancholy.
These kings may still put up a bold front, for of all of
us here today they have learned this best. But if they
had no witness, I wager that for them too the evil routine would resume-the evil routine of drifting clouds,
of moist melancholy, of overcast skies, of stolen suns, of
howling autumn winds-the evil routine of our own
howling and cries of distress. Stay with us, 0 Zarathustra! There is much hidden misery here that desires to
speak, much evening, much cloud, much musty air. You
have nourished us with strong virile food and forceful
maxims: do not let the feeble feminine spirits seize us
again after dinner! You alone make the air around you
strong and clear. Have I ever found such good air anywhere on earth as here in your cave? Many countries
have I seen; my nose has learned to test and estimate
many kinds of air: but in your cave my nostrils are
tasting their greatest pleasure.
"Unless it were-unless it were-oh, forgive an old
reminiscence! Forgive me an old afterdinner song that
I once composed among daughters of the wilderness:
for near them the air was equally good, bright, and
oriental; never was I farther away from cloudy, moist,
melancholy old Europe. In those days I loved such
Oriental girls and other blue skies over which no clouds
and thoughts hang. You would not believe how nicely
305

they sat there when they were not dancing, deep but
without thoughts, like little secrets, like beribboned riddles, like afterdinner nuts-colorful and strange, to be
sure, but without clouds; riddles that let themselves be
guessed: for such girls I then thought out an afterdinner psalm."
Thus spoke the wanderer and shadow; and before
anyone answered him he had already seized the harp
of the old magician, crossed his legs, and looked around,
composed and wise. But with his nostrils he drew in
the air slowly and questioningly, as one tastes the new
foreign air in a new country. Then he began to sing
with a kind of roar,
2

Wilderness grows: woe unto him that harbors wildernesses!
Hah! Solemnl
Indeed solemnly
A worthy beginning.
African solemnity.
Worthy of a lion
Or of a moral howling monkeyBut nothing for you,
My most charming friends
At whose feet I,
As the first
European under palm trees,
Am allowed to sit. Selah.
Wonderful surely!
There I sit now,
Near the wilderness and already
So far from the wilderness again,
306
And in no way wild or wantonMerely swallowed
By this smallest oasis:
It just opened, yawning,
Its lovely orifice,
The most fragrant of all little mouthsAnd I fell in
And down and through-among you,
My most charming friends. Selah.
Hail, hail to that whale
If he let his guest be that
Well off! You do understand
My scholarly allusion?
Hail to his belly
If it was as
Lovely an oasis belly
As this-which, however, I should certainly doubt;
After all, I come from Europe
Which is more doubt-addicted than all
Elderly married women.
May God improve it!
Amen.
There I sit now,
In this smallest oasis,
Just like a date,
Brown, sweet through, oozing gold, lusting
For the round mouth of a girl,
But even more for girlish,
Ice-cold, snow-white, cutting
Incisors: for after these
Pants the heart of all hot dates. Selah.
Similar, all-too-similar
307
To the aforementioned fruit,
I lie here, sniffed at
And played about
By little winged bugsAlso by still smaller,
More foolish, more sinful
Wishes and notionsEnveloped by you,
Silent and foreboding
Girl-cats,
Dudu and SuleikaEnsphinxed, to crowd many
Feelings into one word
(May God forgive me
This linguistic sin!)I sit here, sniffing the best air,
Verily, paradise air,
Bright, light air, golden-striped,
As good air as ever
Fell down from the moonWhe ther by chance
Or did it happen from prankishness?
As the old poets relate.
I, being a doubter, however, should
Doubt it; after all, I come
From Europe
Which is more doubt-addicted than all
Elderly married women.
May God improve it!
Amen.
Drinking this most beautiful air,
My nostrils distended like cups,
Without future, without reminiscences,
Thus I sit here, 0
308
My most charming friends,
And am watching the palm tree
As, like a dancer, she curves
And swerves and sways above her hipsOne does it too, if one watches long.
Like a dancer who, as it would seem to me,
Has stood too long, dangerously long
Always, always only on one little leg.
She has forgotten, it would seem to me,
The other leg.
In vain, at least,
I looked for the missed
Twin jewelNamely, the other leg In the holy proximity
Of her most lovely, most delicate
Flimsy little fan-, flutter-, and tinsel-skirt.
Yes, if you would, my beautiful friends,
Believe me wholly:
She has lost itl
It is gone!
Forever gone
The other leg!
What a shame about that lovely other legal
Where may it be staying and mourning, forsaken?
The lonely leg?
Perhaps afraid of a
Grim, blond, curly
Lion monster? Or even now
Gnawed away, nibbled awayMisery, alas! alasl Nibbled awayl Selah.
Oh do not weep,
Soft hearts
Do not weep, you
309

Date hearts Milk bosomsl
You little licorice
Heart-sacsl
Weep no more,
Pale Dudu!
Be a man, Suleikal Couragel Couragel
Or should
Something invigorating, heart-invigorating
Be appropriate here?
An unctuous maxim?
A solemn exhortation?
Hahl Come up, dignity!
Virtuous dignity! European dignity!
Blow, blow again,
Bellows of virtue
Hah!
Once more roar,
Roar morally
As a moral lion
Roar before the daughters of the wilderness!
For virtuous howling,
My most charming girls,
Is more than anything else
European fervor, European ravenous hunger.
And there I stand even now
As a European;
I cannot do else; God help mel
Amen.
Wilderness grows: woe unto him that harbors wildernesses!
310
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, AMONG DAUGHTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
,
754:RETIRED

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had got away
from the magician, he again saw somebody sitting by
the side of his path: a tall man in black, with a gaunt
pale face; and this man displeased him exceedingly.
"Alas!" he said to his heart, "there sits muffled-up
melancholy, looking like the tribe of priests: what do
they want in my realm? How now? I have scarcely
escaped that magician; must another black artist cross
259
my way so soon-some wizard with laying-on of hands,
some dark miracle worker by the grace of God, some
anointed world-slanderer whom the devil should fetch?
But the devil is never where he should be: he always
comes too late, this damned dwarf and clubfoot!"
Thus cursed Zarathustra, impatient in his heart, and
he wondered how he might sneak past the black man,
looking the other way. But behold, it happened otherwise. For at the same moment the seated man had
already spotted him; and not unlike one on whom unexpected good fortune has been thrust, he jumped up
and walked toward Zarathustra.
"Whoever you may be, you wanderer," he said, "help
one who has lost his way, a seeker, an old man who
might easily come to grief here. This region is remote
and strange to me, and I have heard wild animals
howling; and he who might have offered me protection
no longer exists himself. I sought the last pious man, a
saint and hermit who, alone in his forest, had not yet
heard what all the world knows today."
"What does all the world know today?" asked Zarathustra. "Perhaps this, that the old god in whom all
the world once believed no longer lives?"
"As you say," replied the old man sadly. "And I
served that old god until his last hour. But now I am
retired, without a master, and yet not free, nor ever
cheerful except in my memories. That is why I climbed
these mountains, that I might again have a festival at
last, as is fitting for an old pope and church father-for
behold, I am the last pope-a festival of pious memories
and divine services. But now he himself is dead, the
most pious man, that saint in the forest who constantly
praised his god with singing and humming. I did not
find him when I found his cave; but there were two
wolves inside, howling over his death, for all animals
260
loved him. So I ran away. Had I then come to these
woods and mountains in vain? Then my heart decided
that I should seek another man, the most pious of all
those who do not believe in God-that I should seek
Zarathustral"
Thus spoke the old man, and he looked with sharp
eyes at the man standing before him; but Zarathustra
seized the hand of the old pope and long contemplated
it with admiration. "Behold, venerable one!" he said
then; "what a beautiful long hand! That is the hand of
one who has always dispensed blessings. But now it
holds him whom you seek, me, Zarathustra. It is I, the
godless Zarathustra, who speaks: who is more godless
than I, that I may enjoy his instruction?"
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and with his glances he
pierced the thoughts and the thoughts behind the
thoughts of the old pope. At last the pope began, "He
who loved and possessed him most has also lost him
most now; behold, now I myself am probably the more
godless of the two of us. But who could rejoice in that?"
"You served him to the last?" Zarathustra asked
thoughtfully after a long silence. "You know how he
died? Is it true what they say, that pity strangled him,
that he saw how man hung on the cross and that he
could not bear it, that love of man became his hell, and
in the end his death?"
The old pope, however, did not answer but looked
aside, shy, with a pained and gloomy expression. "Let
him go!" Zarathustra said after prolonged reflection,
still looking the old man straight in the eye. "Let him
gol He is gone. And although it does you credit that
you say only good things about him who is now dead,
you know as well as I who he was, and that his ways
were queer.
"Speaking in the confidence of three eyes," the old
261
pope said cheerfully (for he was blind in one eye), "in
what pertains to God, I am-and have the right to be
-more enlightened than Zarathustra himself. My love
served him many years, my will followed his will in
everything. A good servant, however, knows everything,
including even things that his master conceals from
himself. He was a concealed god, addicted to secrecy.
Verily, even a son he got himself in a sneaky way. At
the door of his faith stands adultery.
"Whoever praises him as a god of love does not have
a high enough opinion of love itself. Did this god not
want to be a judge too? But the lover loves beyond
reward and retri bution.
"When he was young, this god out of the Orient, he
was harsh and vengeful and he built himself a hell to
amuse his favorites. Eventually, however, he became
old and soft and mellow and pitying, more like a grandfa ther than a father, but most like a shaky old grandmo ther. Then he sat in his nook by the hearth, wilted,
grieving over his weak legs, weary of the world, weary
of willing, and one day he choked on his all-too-great
pity."
"You old pope," Zarathustra interrupted at this point,
"did you see that with your own eyes? Surely it might
have happened that way-that way, and also in some
other way. When gods die, they always die several
kinds of death. But-well then! This way or that, this
way and that-he is gone! He offended the taste of my
ears and eyes; I do not want to say anything worse
about him now that he is dead.
"I love all that looks bright and speaks honestly. But
he-you know it, you old priest, there was something
of your manner about him, of the priests manner: he
was equivocal. He was also indistinct. How angry he
got with us, this wrath-snorter, because we understood
262
him badly! But why did he not speak more cleanly?
And if it was the fault of our ears, why did he give us
ears that heard him badly? If there was mud in our
ears-well, who put it there? He bungled too much, this
potter who had never finished his apprenticeship. But
that he wreaked revenge on his pots and creations for
having bungled them himself, that was a sin against
good taste. There is good taste in piety too; and it was
this that said in the end, 'Away with such a god! Rather
no god, rather make destiny on one's own, rather be a
fool, rather be a god oneselfl"
"What is this I hear?" said the old pope at this
point, pricking up his ears. "0 Zarathustra, with such
disbelief you are more pious than you believe. Some
god in you must have converted you to your godlessness.
Is it not your piety itself that no longer lets you believe
in a god? And your overgreat honesty will yet lead you
beyond good and evil too. Behold, what remains to you?
You have eyes and hands and mouth, predestined for
blessing from all eternity. One does not bless with the
hand alone. Near you, although you want to be the
most godless, I scent a secret, sacred, pleasant scent of
long blessings: it gives me gladness and grief. Let me
be your guest, 0 Zarathustra, for one single night! Nowhere on earth shall I now feel better than with you."
"Amen! So be it!" said Zarathustra in great astonishment. "Up there goes the way, there lies Zarathustra's
cave. I should indeed like to accompany you there myself, you venerable one, for I love all who are pious. But
now a cry of distress urgently calls me away from you.
In my realm no one shall come to grief; my cave is a
good haven. And I wish that I could put everyone who
is sad back on firm land and firm legs.
"But who could take your melancholy off your shoulders? For that I am too weak. Verily, we might wait
263

long before someone awakens your god again. For this
old god lives no more: he is thoroughly dead."
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, RETIRED
,
755:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxvii
ILMARINEN'S BRIDE OF GOLD.
Ilmarinen, metal-worker,
Wept one day, and then a second,
Wept the third from morn till evening,
O'er the death of his companion,
Once the Maiden of the Rainbow;
Did not swing his heavy hammer,
Did not touch its copper handle,
Made no sound within his smithy,
Made no blow upon his anvil,
Till three months had circled over;
Then the blacksmith spake as follows:
'Woe is me, unhappy hero!
Do not know how I can prosper;
Long the days, and cold, and dreary,
Longer still the nights, and colder;
I am weary in the evening,
In the morning still am weary,
Have no longing for the morning,
And the evening is unwelcome;
Have no pleasure in the future,
All my pleasures gone forever,
With my faithful life-companion
Slaughtered by the hand of witchcraft!
Often will my heart-strings quiver
When I rest within my chamber,
When I wake at dreamy midnight,
Half-unconscious, vainly searching
For my noble wife departed.'
Wifeless lived the mourning blacksmith,
Altered in his form and features;
Wept one month and then another,
Wept three months in full succession.
Then the magic metal-worker
Gathered gold from deeps of ocean,
Gathered silver from the mountains,
Gathered many heaps of birch-wood.
562
Filled with faggots thirty sledges,
Burned the birch-wood into ashes,
Put the ashes in the furnace,
Laid the gold upon the embers,
Lengthwise laid a piece of silver
Of the size of lambs in autumn,
Or the fleet-foot hare in winter;
Places servants at the bellows,
Thus to melt the magic metals.
Eagerly the servants labor,
Gloveless, hatless, do the workmen
Fan the flames within the furnace.
Ilmarinen, magic blacksmith,
Works unceasing at his forging,
Thus to mould a golden image,
Mould a bride from gold and silver;
But the workmen fail their master,
Faithless stand they at the bellows.
Wow the artist, Ilmarinen,
Fans the flame with force of magic,
Blows one day, and then a second,
Blows the third from morn till even;
Then he looks within the furnace,
Looks around the oven-border,
Hoping there to see an image
Rising from the molten metals.
Comes a lambkin from the furnace,
Rising from the fire of magic,
Wearing hair of gold and copper,
Laced with many threads of silver;
All rejoice but Ilmarinen
At the beauty of the image.
This the language of the blacksmith:
'May the wolf admire thy graces;
I desire a bride of beauty
Born from molten gold and silver!'
Ilmarinen, the magician,
To the furnace threw the lambkin;
Added gold in great abundance,
And increased the mass of silver,
Added other magic metals,
Set the workmen at the bellows;
563
Zealously the servants labor,
Gloveless, hatless, do the workmen
Fan the flames within the furnace.
Ilmarinen, wizard-forgeman,
Works unceasing with his metals,
Moulding well a golden image,
Wife of molten gold and silver;
But the workmen fail their master,
Faithless do they ply the bellows.
Now the artist, Ilmarinen,
Fans the flames by force of magic;
Blows one day, and then a second,
Blows a third from morn till evening,
When he looks within the furnace,
Looks around the oven-border,
Hoping there, to see an image
Rising from the molten metals.
From the flames a colt arises,
Golden-maned and silver-headed,
Hoofs are formed of shining copper.
All rejoice but Ilmarinen
At the wonderful creation;
This the language of the blacksmith;
'Let the bears admire thy graces;
I desire a bride of beauty
Born of many magic metals.'
Thereupon the wonder-forger
Drives the colt back to the furnace,
Adds a greater mass of silver,
And of gold the rightful measure,
Sets the workmen at the bellows.
Eagerly the servants labor,
Gloveless, hatless, do the workmen
Fan the flames within the furnace.
Ilmarinen, the magician,
Works unceasing at his witchcraft,
Moulding well a golden maiden,
Bride of molten gold and silver;
But the workmen fail their master,
Faithlessly they ply the bellows.
Now the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Fans the flames with magic powers,
564
Blows one day, and then a second,
Blows a third from morn till even;
Then he looks within his furnace,
Looks around the oven-border,
Trusting there to see a maiden
Coming from the molten metals.
From the fire a virgin rises,
Golden-haired and silver-headed,
Beautiful in form and feature.
All are filled with awe and wonder,
But the artist and magician.
Ilmarinen, metal-worker,
Forges nights and days unceasing,
On the bride of his creation;
Feet he forges for the maiden,
Hands and arms, of gold and silver;
But her feet are not for walking,
Neither can her arms embrace him.
Ears he forges for the virgin,
But her ears are not for hearing;
Forges her a mouth of beauty,
Eyes he forges bright and sparkling;
But the magic mouth is speechless,
And the eyes are not for seeing.
Spake the artist, Ilmarinen:
'This, indeed, a priceless maiden,
Could she only speak in wisdom,
Could she breathe the breath of Ukko!'
Thereupon he lays the virgin
On his silken couch of slumber,
On his downy place of resting.
Ilmarinen heats his bath-room,
Makes it ready for his service,
Binds together silken brushes,
Brings three cans of crystal water,
Wherewithal to lave the image,
Lave the golden maid of beauty.
When this task had been completed,
Ilmarinen, hoping, trusting,
Laid his golden bride to slumber,
On his downy couch of resting;
Ordered many silken wrappings,
565
Ordered bear-skins, three in number,
Ordered seven lambs-wool blankets,
Thus to keep him warm in slumber,
Sleeping by the golden image
Re had forged from magic metals.
Warm the side of Ilmarinen
That was wrapped in furs and blankets;
Chill the parts beside the maiden,
By his bride of gold and silver;
One side warm, the other lifeless,
Turning into ice from coldness.
Spake the artist, Ilmarinen:
'Not for me was born this virgin
From the magic molten metals;
I shall take her to Wainola,
Give her to old Wainamoinen,
As a bride and life-companion,
Comfort to him in his dotage.'
Ilmarinen, much disheartened,
Takes the virgin to Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala,
To his brother speaks as follows:
'O, thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Look with favor on this image;
Make the maiden fair and lovely,
Beautiful in form and feature,
Suited to thy years declining!'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Looked in wonder on the virgin,
On the golden bride of beauty,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'Wherefore dost thou bring this maiden,
Wherefore bring to Wainamoinen
Bride of molten gold and silver?
Spake in answer Ilmarinen:
'Wherefore should I bring this image,
But for purposes the noblest?
I have brought her as companion
To thy life in years declining,
As a joy and consolation,
When thy days are full of trouble!'
Spake the good, old Wainamoinen:
566
'Magic brother, wonder-forger,
Throw the virgin to the furnace,
To the flames, thy golden image,
Forge from her a thousand trinkets.
Take the image into Ehstland,
Take her to the plains of Pohya,
That for her the mighty powers
May engage in deadly contest,
Worthy trophy for the victor;
Not for me this bride of wonder,
Neither for my worthy people.
I shall never wed an image
Born from many magic metals,
Never wed a silver maiden,
Never wed a golden virgin.'
Then the hero of the waters
Called together all his people,
Spake these words of ancient wisdom:
'Every child of Northland, listen,
Whether poor, or fortune-favored:
Never bow before an image
Born of molten gold and silver:
Never while the sunlight brightens,
Never while the moonlight glimmers,
Choose a maiden of the metals,
Choose a bride from gold created
Cold the lips of golden maiden,
Silver breathes the breath of sorrow.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
756:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxiv
KULLERVO FINDS HIS TRIBE-FOLK.
Kullerwoinen, young magician,
In his beauteous, golden ringlets,
In his magic shoes of deer-skin,
Left the home of Ilmarinen
Wandered forth upon his journey,
Ere the blacksmith heard the tidings
Of the cruel death and torture
Of his wife and joy-companion,
Lest a bloody fight should follow.
Kullerwoinen left the smithy,
Blowing on his magic bugle,
Joyful left the lands of Ilma,
Blowing blithely on the heather,
Made the distant hills re-echo,
Made the swamps and mountains tremble,
Made the heather-blossoms answer
To the music of his cow-horn,
In its wild reverberations,
To the magic of his playing.
Songs were heard within the smithy,
And the blacksmith stopped and listened,
Hastened to the door and window,
Hastened to the open court-yard,
If perchance he might discover
What was playing on the heather,
What was sounding through the forest.
Quick he learned the cruel story,
Learned the cause of the rejoicing,
Saw the hostess dead before him,
Knew his beauteous wife had perished,
Saw the lifeless form extended,
In the court-yard of his dwelling.
Thereupon the metal-artist
Fell to bitter tears and wailings,
Wept through all the dreary night-time,
Deep the grief that settled o'er him,
528
Black as night his darkened future,
Could not stay his tears of sorrow.
Kullerwoinen hastened onward,
Straying, roaming, hither, thither,
Wandered on through field and forest,
O'er the Hisi-plains and woodlands.
When the darkness settled o'er him,
When the bird of night was flitting,
Sat the fatherless at evening,
The forsaken sat and rested
On a hillock of the forest.
Thus he murmured, heavy-hearted:
'Why was I, alas! created,
Why was I so ill-begotten,
Since for months and years I wander,
Lost among the ether-spaces?
Others have their homes to dwell in,
Others hasten to their firesides
As the evening gathers round them:
But my home is in the forest,
And my bed upon the heather,
And my bath-room is the rain-cloud.
'Never didst thou, God of mercy,
Never in the course of ages,
Give an infant birth unwisely;
Wherefore then was I created,
Fatherless to roam in ether,
Motherless and lone to wander?
Thou, O Ukko, art my father,
Thou hast given me form and feature;
As the sea-gull on the ocean,
As the duck upon the waters,
Shines the Sun upon the swallow,
Shines as bright upon the sparrow,
Gives the joy-birds song and gladness,
Does not shine on me unhappy;
Nevermore will shine the sunlight,
Never will the moonlight glimmer
On this hapless son and orphan;
Do not know my hero-father,
Cannot tell who was my mother;
On the shore, perhaps the gray-duck
529
Left me in the sand to perish.
Young was I and small of stature,
When my mother left me orphaned;
Dead, my father and my mother,
Dead, my honored tribe of heroes;
Shoes they left me that are icy,
Stockings filled with frosts of ages,
Let me on the freezing ice-plains
Fall to perish in the rushes;
From the giddy heights of mountains
Let me tumble to destruction.
'O, thou wise and good Creator,
Why my birth and what my service?
I shall never fall and perish
On the ice-plains, in the marshes,
Never be a bridge in swamp-land,
Not while I have arms of virtue
That can serve my honored kindred!'
Then Kullervo thought to journey
To the village of Untamo,
To avenge his father's murder,
To avenge his mother's tortures,
And the troubles of his tribe-folk.
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Wait, yea wait, thou Untamoinen,
Thou destroyer of my people;
When I meet thee in the combat,
I will slay thee and thy kindred,
I will burn thy homes to ashes!'
Came a woman on the highway,
Dressed in blue, the aged mother,
To Kullervo spake as follows:
'Whither goest, Kullerwoinen,
Whither hastes the wayward hero?
Kullerwoinen gave this answer:
'I have thought that I would journey
To the far-off land of strangers,
To the village of Untamo,
To avenge my father's murder,
To avenge my mother's tortures,
And the troubles of my tribe-folk.'
Thus the gray-haired woman answered:
530
'Surely thou dost rest in error,
For thy tribe has never perished,
And thy mother still is living
With thy father in the Northland,
Living with the old Kalervo.'
'O, thou ancient dame beloved,
Worthy mother of the woodlands,
Tell me where my father liveth,
Where my loving mother lingers!'
'Yonder lives thine aged father,
And thy loving mother with him,
On the farthest shore of Northland,
On the long-point of the fish-lake!'
'Tell me, O thou woodland-mother,
How to journey to my people,
How to find mine honored tribe-folk.'
'Easy is the way for strangers:
Thou must journey through the forest,
Hasten to the river-border,
Travel one day, then a second,
And the third from morn till even,
To the north-west, thou must journey.
If a mountain comes to meet thee,
Go around the nearing mountain,
Westward bold thy weary journey,
Till thou comest to a river,
On thy right hand flowing eastward;
Travel to the river border,
Where three water-falls will greet thee;
When thou comest to a headland,
On the point thou'lt see a cottage
Where the fishermen assemble;
In this cottage is thy father,
With thy mother and her daughters,
Beautiful thy maiden sisters.'
Kullerwoinen, the magician,
Hastens northward on his journey,
Walks one day, and then a second,
Walks the third from morn till evening;
To the north-west walks Kullervo,
Till a mountain comes to meet him,
Walks around the nearing mountain;
531
Westward, westward, holds his journey,
Till he sees a river coming;
Hastens to the river border,
Walks along the streams and rapids
Till three waterfalls accost him;
Travels till he meets a headland,
On the point he spies a cottage,
Where the fishermen assemble.
Quick he journeys to the cabin,
Quick he passes through the portals
Of the cottage on the headland,
Where he finds his long-lost kindred;
No one knows the youth, Kullervo,
No one knows whence comes the stranger,
Where his home, nor where he goeth.
These the words of young Kullervo:
'Dost thou know me not, my mother,
Dost thou know me not, my father?
I am hapless Kullerwoinen
Whom the heroes of Untamo
Carried to their distant country,
When my height was but a hand-breadth.'
Quick the hopeful mother answers:
'O my worthy son, beloved,
O my precious silver-buckle,
Hast thou with thy mind of magic,
Wandered through the fields of Northland
Searching for thy home and kindred?
As one dead I long have mourned thee,
Had supposed thee, in Manala.
Once I had two sons and heroes,
Had two good and beauteous daughters,
Two of these have long been absent,
Elder son and elder daughter;
For the wars my son departed,
While my daughter strayed and perished
If my son is home returning,
Yet my daughter still is absent,
Kullerwoinen asked his mother:
'Whither did my sister wander,
What direction did she journey ?
This the answer of the mother:
532
'This the story of thy sister:
Went for berries to the woodlands,
To the mountains went my daughter,
Where the lovely maiden vanished,
Where my pretty berry perished,
Died some death beyond my knowledge,
Nameless is the death she suffered.
Who is mourning for the daughter?
No one mourns her as her mother,
Walks and wanders, Mourns and searches,
For her fairest child and daughter;
Therefore did the mother wander,
Searching for thy lovely sister,
Like the bear she roamed the forest,
Ran the glenways like the adder,
Searched one day and then a second,
Searched the third from morn till even,
Till she reached the mountain-summit,
There she called and called her daughter,
Till the distant mountains answered,
Called to her who had departed:
I Where art thou, my lovely maiden,
Come my daughter to thy mother!'
'Thus I called, and sought thy sister,
This the answer of the mountains,
Thus the hills and valleys echoed:
'Call no more, thou weeping mother,
Weep no more for the departed;
Nevermore in all thy lifetime,
Never in the course of ages,
Will she join again her kindred,
At her brother's landing-places,
In her father's humble dwelling.''
~ Elias Lönnrot,
757:The Kalevala - Rune Xli
WAINAMOINEN'S HARP-SONGS.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
Laves his hands to snowy whiteness,
Sits upon the rock of joyance,
On the stone of song be settles,
On the mount of silver clearness,
On the summit, golden colored;
Takes the harp by him created,
In his hands the harp of fish-bone,
With his knee the arch supporting,
Takes the harp-strings in his fingers,
Speaks these words to those assembled:
'Hither come, ye Northland people,
Come and listen to my playing,
To the harp's entrancing measures,
To my songs of joy and gladness.'
Then the singer of Wainola
Took the harp of his creation,
Quick adjusting, sweetly tuning,
Deftly plied his skillful fingers
To the strings that he had fashioned.
Now was gladness rolled on gladness,
And the harmony of pleasure
Echoed from the hills and mountains:
Added singing to his playing,
Out of joy did joy come welling,
Now resounded marvelous music,
All of Northland stopped and listened.
Every creature in the forest,
All the beasts that haunt the woodlands,
On their nimble feet came bounding,
Came to listen to his playing,
Came to hear his songs of joyance.
Leaped the squirrels from the branches,
Merrily from birch to aspen;
Climbed the ermines on the fences,
186
O'er the plains the elk-deer bounded,
And the lynxes purred with pleasure;
Wolves awoke in far-off swamp-lands,
Bounded o'er the marsh and heather,
And the bear his den deserted,
Left his lair within the pine-wood,
Settled by a fence to listen,
Leaned against the listening gate-posts,
But the gate-posts yield beneath him;
Now he climbs the fir-tree branches
That he may enjoy and wonder,
Climbs and listens to the music
Of the harp of Wainamoinen.
Tapiola's wisest senior,
Metsola's most noble landlord,
And of Tapio, the people,
Young and aged, men and maidens,
Flew like red-deer up the mountains
There to listen to the playing,
To the harp, of Wainamoinen.
Tapiola's wisest mistress,
Hostess of the glen and forest,
Robed herself in blue and scarlet,
Bound her limbs with silken ribbons,
Sat upon the woodland summit,
On the branches of a birch-tree,
There to listen to the playing,
To the high-born hero's harping,
To the songs of Wainamoinen.
All the birds that fly in mid-air
Fell like snow-flakes from the heavens,
Flew to hear the minstrel's playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
Eagles in their lofty eyrie
Heard the songs of the enchanter;
Swift they left their unfledged young ones,
Flew and perched around the minstrel.
From the heights the hawks descended,
From the, clouds down swooped the falcon,
Ducks arose from inland waters,
Swans came gliding from the marshes;
Tiny finches, green and golden,
187
Flew in flocks that darkened sunlight,
Came in myriads to listen '
Perched upon the head and shoulders
Of the charming Wainamoinen,
Sweetly singing to the playing
Of the ancient bard and minstrel.
And the daughters of the welkin,
Nature's well-beloved daughters,
Listened all in rapt attention;
Some were seated on the rainbow,
Some upon the crimson cloudlets,
Some upon the dome of heaven.
In their hands the Moon's fair daughters
Held their weaving-combs of silver;
In their hands the Sun's sweet maidens
Grasped the handles of their distaffs,
Weaving with their golden shuttles,
Spinning from their silver spindles,
On the red rims of the cloudlets,
On the bow of many colors.
As they hear the minstrel playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
Quick they drop their combs of silver,
Drop the spindles from their fingers,
And the golden threads are broken,
Broken are the threads of silver.
All the fish in Suomi-waters
Heard the songs of the magician,
Came on flying fins to listen
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
Came the trout with graceful motions,
Water-dogs with awkward movements,
From the water-cliffs the salmon,
From the sea-caves came the whiting,
From the deeper caves the bill-fish;
Came the pike from beds of sea-fern,
Little fish with eyes of scarlet,
Leaning on the reeds and rushes,
With their heads above the surface;
Came to bear the harp of joyance,
Hear the songs of the enchanter.
Ahto, king of all the waters,
188
Ancient king with beard of sea-grass,
Raised his head above the billows,
In a boat of water-lilies,
Glided to the coast in silence,
Listened to the wondrous singing,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
These the words the sea-king uttered:
'Never have I heard such playing,
Never heard such strains of music,
Never since the sea was fashioned,
As the songs of this enchanter,
This sweet singer, Wainamoinen.'
Satko's daughters from the blue-deep,
Sisters of the wave-washed ledges,
On the colored strands were sitting,
Smoothing out their sea-green tresses
With the combs of molten silver,
With their silver-handled brushes,
Brushes forged with golden bristles.
When they hear the magic playing,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen,
Fall their brushes on the billows,
Fall their combs with silver handles
To the bottom of the waters,
Unadorned their heads remaining,
And uncombed their sea-green tresses.
Came the hostess of the waters,
Ancient hostess robed in flowers,
Rising from her deep sea-castle,
Swimming to the shore in wonder,
Listened to the minstrel's playing,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
As the magic tones re-echoed,
As the singer's song out-circled,
Sank the hostess into slumber,
On the rocks of many colors,
On her watery couch of joyance,
Deep the sleep that settled o'er her.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Played one day and then a second,
Played the third from morn till even.
There was neither man nor hero,
189
Neither ancient dame, nor maiden,
Not in Metsola a daughter,
Whom he did not touch to weeping;
Wept the young, and wept the aged,
Wept the mothers, wept the daughters
Wept the warriors and heroes
At the music of his playing,
At the songs of the magician.
Wainamoinen's tears came flowing,
Welling from the master's eyelids,
Pearly tear-drops coursing downward,
Larger than the whortle-berries,
Finer than the pearls of ocean,
Smoother than the eggs of moor-hens,
Brighter than the eyes of swallows.
From his eves the tear-drops started,
Flowed adown his furrowed visage,
Falling from his beard in streamlets,
Trickled on his heaving bosom,
Streaming o'er his golden girdle,
Coursing to his garment's border,
Then beneath his shoes of ermine,
Flowing on, and flowing ever,
Part to earth for her possession,
Part to water for her portion.
As the tear-drops fall and mingle,
Form they streamlets from the eyelids
Of the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
To the blue-mere's sandy margin,
To the deeps of crystal waters,
Lost among the reeds and rushes.
Spake at last the ancient minstrel:
'Is there one in all this concourse,
One in all this vast assembly
That can gather up my tear-drops
From the deep, pellucid waters?'
Thus the younger heroes answered,
Answered thus the bearded seniors:
'There is none in all this concourse,
None in all this vast assembly,
That can gather up thy tear-drops
From the deep, pellucid waters.'
190
Spake again wise Wainamoinen:
'He that gathers up my tear-drops
From the deeps of crystal waters
Shall receive a beauteous plumage.'
Came a raven, flying, croaking,
And the minstrel thus addressed him:
'Bring, O raven, bring my tear-drops
From the crystal lake's abysses;
I will give thee beauteous plumage,
Recompense for golden service.'
But the raven failed his master.
Came a duck upon the waters,
And the hero thus addressed him:
'Bring O water-bird, my tear-drops;
Often thou dost dive the deep-sea,
Sink thy bill upon the bottom
Of the waters thou dost travel;
Dive again my tears to gather,
I will give thee beauteous plumage,
Recompense for golden service.'
Thereupon the duck departed,
Hither, thither, swam, and circled,
Dived beneath the foam and billow,
Gathered Wainamoinen's tear-drops
From the blue-sea's pebbly bottom,
From the deep, pellucid waters;
Brought them to the great magician,
Beautifully formed and colored,
Glistening in the silver sunshine,
Glimmering in the golden moonlight,
Many-colored as the rainbow,
Fitting ornaments for heroes,
Jewels for the maids of beauty.
This the origin of sea-pearls,
And the blue-duck's beauteous plumage.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
758:The Kalevala - Rune Vi
WAINAMOINEN'S HAPLESS JOURNEY.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Now arranges for a journey
To the village of the Northland,
To the land of cruel winters,
To the land of little sunshine,
To the land of worthy women;
Takes his light-foot, royal racer,
Then adjusts the golden bridle,
Lays upon his back the saddle,
Silver-buckled, copper-stirruped,
Seats himself upon his courser,
And begins his journey northward;
Plunges onward, onward, onward,
Galloping along the highway,
In his saddle, gaily fashioned,
On his dappled steed of magic,
Plunging through Wainola's meadows,
O'er the plains of Kalevala.
Fast and far he galloped onward,
Galloped far beyond Wainola,
Bounded o'er the waste of waters,
Till he reached the blue-sea's margin,
Wetting not the hoofs in running.
But the evil Youkahainen
Nursed a grudge within his bosom,
In his heart the worm of envy,
Envy of this Wainamoinen,
Of this wonderful enchanter.
He prepares a cruel cross-bow,
Made of steel and other metals,
Paints the bow in many colors,
Molds the top-piece out or copper,
Trims his bow with snowy silver,
Gold he uses too in trimming,
Then he hunts for strongest sinews,
Finds them in the stag of Hisi,
90
Interweaves the flax of Lempo.
Ready is the cruel cross-bow,
String, and shaft, and ends are finished,
Beautiful the bow and mighty,
Surely cost it not a trifle;
On the back a painted courser,
On each end a colt of beauty,
Near the curve a maiden sleeping
Near the notch a hare is bounding,
Wonderful the bow thus fashioned;
Cuts some arrows for his quiver,
Covers them with finest feathers,
From the oak the shafts be fashions,
Makes the tips of keenest metal.
As the rods and points are finished,
Then he feathers well his arrows
From the plumage of the swallow,
From the wing-quills of the sparrow;
Hardens well his feathered arrows,
And imparts to each new virtues,
Steeps them in the blood of serpents,
In the virus of the adder.
Ready now are all his arrows,
Ready strung, his cruel cross-bow.
Waiting for wise Wainamoinen.
Youkahainen, Lapland's minstrel,
Waits a long time, is not weary,
Hopes to spy the ancient singer;
Spies at day-dawn, spies at evening,
Spies he ceaselessly at noontide,
Lies in wait for the magician,
Waits, and watches, as in envy;
Sits he at the open window,
Stands behind the hedge, and watches
In the foot-path waits, and listens,
Spies along the balks of meadows;
On his back he hangs his quiver,
In his quiver, feathered arrows
Dipped in virus of the viper,
On his arm the mighty cross-bow,
Waits, and watches, and unwearied,
Listens from the boat-house window,
91
Lingers at the end of Fog-point,
By the river flowing seaward,
Near the holy stream and whirlpool,
Near the sacred river's fire-fall.
Finally the Lapland minstrel,
Youkahainen of Pohyola,
At the breaking of the day-dawn,
At the early hour of morning,
Fixed his gaze upon the North-east,
Turned his eyes upon the sunrise,
Saw a black cloud on the ocean,
Something blue upon the waters,
And soliloquized as follows:
'Are those clouds on the horizon,
Or perchance the dawn of morning?
Neither clouds on the horizon,
Nor the dawning of the morning;
It is ancient Wainamoinen,
The renowned and wise enchanter,
Riding on his way to Northland;
On his steed, the royal racer,
Magic courser of Wainola.'
Quickly now young Youkahainen,
Lapland's vain and evil minstrel,
Filled with envy, grasps his cross-bow,
Makes his bow and arrows ready
For the death of Wainamoinen.
Quick his aged mother asked him,
Spake these words to Youkahainen:
'For whose slaughter is thy cross-bow,
For whose heart thy poisoned arrows?'
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'I have made this mighty cross-bow,
Fashioned bow and poisoned arrows
For the death of Wainamoinen,
Thus to slay the friend of waters;
I must shoot the old magician,
The eternal bard and hero,
Through the heart, and through the liver,
Through the head, and through the shoulders,
With this bow and feathered arrows
Thus destroy my rival minstrel.'
92
Then the aged mother answered,
Thus reproving, thus forbidding.
Do not slay good Wainamoinen,
Ancient hero of the Northland,
From a noble tribe descended,
He, my sister's son, my nephew.
If thou slayest Wainamoinen,
Ancient son of Kalevala,
Then alas! all joy will vanish,
Perish all our wondrous singing;
Better on the earth the gladness,
Better here the magic music,
Than within the nether regions,
In the kingdom of Tuoni,
In the realm of the departed,
In the land of the hereafter.'
Then the youthful Youkahainen
Thought awhile and well considered,
Ere he made a final answer.
With one hand he raised the cross-bow
But the other seemed to weaken,
As he drew the cruel bow-string.
Finally these words he uttered
As his bosom swelled with envy:
'Let all joy forever vanish,
Let earth's pleasures quickly perish,
Disappear earth's sweetest music,
Happiness depart forever;
Shoot I will this rival minstrel,
Little heeding what the end is.'
Quickly now he bends his fire-bow,
On his left knee rests the weapon,
With his right foot firmly planted,
Thus he strings his bow of envy;
Takes three arrows from his quiver,
Choosing well the best among them,
Carefully adjusts the bow-string,
Sets with care the feathered arrow,
To the flaxen string he lays it,
Holds the cross-bow to his shoulder,
Aiming well along the margin,
At the heart of Wainamoinen,
93
Waiting till he gallops nearer;
In the shadow of a thicket,
Speaks these words while he is waiting
'Be thou, flaxen string, elastic;
Swiftly fly, thou feathered ash-wood,
Swiftly speed, thou deadly missile,
Quick as light, thou poisoned arrow,
To the heart of Wainamoinen.
If my hand too low should hold thee,
May the gods direct thee higher;
If too high mine eye should aim thee,
May the gods direct thee lower.'
Steady now he pulls the trigger;
Like the lightning flies the arrow
O'er the head of Wainamoinen;
To the upper sky it darteth,
And the highest clouds it pierces,
Scatters all the flock of lamb-clouds,
On its rapid journey skyward.
Not discouraged, quick selecting,
Quick adjusting, Youkahainen,
Quickly aiming shoots a second.
Speeds the arrow swift as lightning;
Much too low he aimed the missile,
Into earth the arrow plunges,
Pierces to the lower regions,
Splits in two the old Sand Mountain.
Nothing daunted, Youkahainen,
Quick adjusting shoots a third one.
Swift as light it speeds its journey,
Strikes the steed of Wainamoinen,
Strikes the light-foot, ocean-swimmer,
Strikes him near his golden girdle,
Through the shoulder of the racer.
Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
Headlong fell upon the waters,
Plunged beneath the rolling billows,
From the saddle of the courser,
From his dappled steed of magic.
Then arose a mighty storm-wind,
Roaring wildly on the waters,
Bore away old Wainamoinen
94
Far from land upon the billows,
On the high and rolling billows,
On the broad sea's great expanses.
Boasted then young Youkahainen,
Thinking Waino dead and buried,
These the boastful words be uttered:
'Nevermore, old Wainamoinen,
Nevermore in all thy life-time,
While the golden moonlight glistens,
Nevermore wilt fix thy vision
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala;
Full six years must swim the ocean,
Tread the waves for seven summers,
Eight years ride the foamy billows,
In the broad expanse of water;
Six long autumns as a fir-tree,
Seven winters as a pebble;
Eight long summers as an aspen.'
Thereupon the Lapland minstrel
Hastened to his room delighting,
When his mother thus addressed him
'Hast thou slain good Wainamoinen,
Slain the son of Kalevala?'
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'I have slain old Wainamoinen,
Slain the son of Kalevala,
That he now may plow the ocean,
That he now may sweep the waters,
On the billows rock and slumber.
In the salt-sea plunged he headlong,
In the deep sank the magician,
Sidewise turned he to the sea-shore
On his back to rock forever,
Thus the boundless sea to travel,
Thus to ride the rolling billows.'
This the answer of the mother:
'Woe to earth for this thine action,
Gone forever, joy and singing,
Vanished is the wit of ages!
Thou hast slain good Wainamoinen.
Slain the ancient wisdom-singer,
95
Slain the pride of Suwantala,
Slain the hero of Wainola,
Slain the joy of Kalevala.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
759:THE

MAGICIAN
1

But when Zarathustra came around a rock he beheld,
not far below on the same path, a man who threw his
limbs around like a maniac and finally flopped down
252
on his belly. "Waitl" Zarathustra said to his heart; "that
must indeed be the higher man; from him came that
terrible cry of distress; let me see if he can still be
helped." But when he ran to the spot where the man lay
on the ground he found a trembling old man with
vacant eyes; and however Zarathustra exerted himself
to help the man to get up on his feet again, it was all
in vain. Nor did the unfortunate man seem to notice
that anybody was with him; rather he kept looking
around with piteous gestures, like one abandoned and
forsaken by all the world. At last, however, after many
shudders, convulsions, and contortions, he began to
moan thus:
"Who warms me, who loves me still?
Give hot hands
Give a heart as glowing coalsl
Stretched out, shuddering,
Like something half dead whose feet one warmsShaken, alas, by unknown fevers,
Shivering with piercing icy frost-arrows,
Hunted by thee, 0 thought
Unnamable, shrouded, terrible onel
Thou hunter behind clouds
Struck down by thy lightning bolt,
Thou mocking eye that stares at me from the dark:
Thus I lie
Writhing, twisting, tormented
With all eternal tortures,
Hit
By thee, cruelest hunter,
Thou unknown god!
Hit deeper
Hit once more yetl
Drive a stake through and break this heart!
253
Why this torture
With blunt-toothed arrows?
Why dost thou stare again,
Not yet weary of human agony,
With gods' lightning eyes that delight in suffering?
Thou wouldst not kill,
Only torture, torture?
Why torture me,
Delighted by suffering, thou unknown god?
Hahl hah! Thou art crawling close?
In such midnightWhat dost thou want? Speakl
Thou art crowding, pressing meHah! Far too closely
Awayl Awayl
Thou art listening to me breathe,
Thou art listening to my heart,
Thou jealous one
Jealous of what?
Awayl Awayl Why the ladder?
Wouldst thou enter
The heart,
Climb in, deep into my
Most secret thoughts?
Shameless onel Unknown thief
What wouldst thou steal?
What wouldst thou gain by listening?
What wouldst thou gain by torture,
Thou torturer!
Thou hangman-godl
Or should I, doglike,
Roll before thee?
Devotedly, frantic, beside myself,
Wag love to thee?
254
In vain! Pierce on,
Cruelest thorn! No,
No dog-only thy game am I,
Cruelest hunter!
Thy proudest prisoner,
Thou robber behind clouds!
Speak at last!
What wouldst thou, waylayer, from me?
Thou lightning-shrouded onel Unknown one! Speak,
What wilt thou, unknown-god?
What? Ransom?
Why wilt thou ransom?
Demand much Thus my pride advises.
And make thy speech short! That my other pride
advises.
Hah, hahl
Me thou wilt have? Me?
Me-entirely?
Hah, hahl
And art torturing me, fool that thou art,
Torturing my pride?
Give love to me-who warms me still?
Who loves me still?-Give hot hands,
Give a heart as glowing coals,
Give me, the loneliest
Whom ice, alas, sevenfold ice
Teaches to languish for enemies,
Even for enemies,
Give, yes, give wholly,
Cruelest enemy,
Give me-thyself!
255
Awayl
He himself fled,
My last, only companion,
My great enemy,
My unknown,
My hangman-god.
Nol Do come back
With all thy tortures!
To the last of all that are lonely,
Oh, come back!
All my tear-streams run
Their course to thee;
And my heart's final flameFlares up for theel
Oh, come back,
My unknown godl My pain! My last-happiness!"

At this point, however, Zarathustra could not restrain
himself any longer, raised his stick, and started to beat
the moaning man with all his might. "Stop itl" he
shouted at him furiously. "Stop it, you actor You
counterfeiter! You liar from the bottom! I recognize you
well! I'll warm your legs for you, you wicked magician.
I know well how to make things hot for such as you."
"Leave offl" the old man said and leaped up from the
ground. "Don't strike any more, Zarathustral I did all
this only as a game. Such things belong to my art; it
was you that I wanted to try when I treated you to this
tryout. And verily, you have seen through me very well.
But you too have given me no small sample of yourself to
try out: you are hard, wise Zarathustra. Hard do you hit
with your 'truths'; your stick forces this truth out of me."
"Don't flatter!" replied Zarathustra, still excited and
angry, "you actor from the bottom! You are false; why
do you talk of truth? You peacock of peacocks, you sea
of vanity, what were you playing before me, you wicked
magician? In whom was I to believe when you were
moaning in this way?"
"The ascetic of the spirit," said the old man, "I played
him-you yourself once coined this word-the poet
and magician who at last turns his spirit against himself, the changed man who freezes to death from his
evil science and conscience. And you may as well confess it: it took a long time, 0 Zarathustra, before you
saw through my art and lie. You believed in my distress
when you held my head with both your hands; I heard
you moan, 'He has been loved too little, loved too little.'
That I deceived you to that extent made my malice
jubilate inside me."
"You may have deceived people subtler than I,"
Zarathustra said harshly. "I do not guard against
deceivers; I have to be without caution; thus my lot
wants it. You, however, have to deceive: that far I
know you. You always have to be equivocal-tri-,
quadri-, quinquevocal. And what you have now confessed, that too was not nearly true enough or false
enough to suit me. You wicked counterfeiter, how could
you do otherwise? You would rouge even your disease
when you show yourself naked to your doctor. In the
same way you have just now rouged your lie when you
said to me, 'I did all this only as a game.' There was
seriousness in it too: you are something of an ascetic
of the spirit. I solve your riddle: your magic has
enchanted everybody, but no lie or cunning is left to
you to use against yourself: you are disenchanted for
yourself. You have harvested nausea as your one truth.
Not a word of yours is genuine any more, except your
257
mouth-namely, the nausea that sticks to your mouth."
"Who are you?" cried the old magician at this point,
his voice defiant. "Who may speak thus to me, the
greatest man alive today?" And a green lightning bolt
flashed from his eye toward Zarathustra. But immediately afterward he changed and said sadly, "O Zarathustra, I am weary of it; my art nauseates me; I am
not great-why do I dissemble? But you know it too:
I sought greatness. I wanted to represent a great human
being and I persuaded many; but this lie went beyond
my strength. It is breaking me. 0 Zarathustra, everything about me is a lie; but that I am breaking-this,
my breaking, is genuine."
"It does you credit," said Zarathustra gloomily, looking aside to the ground, "it does you credit that you
sought greatness, but it also betrays you. You are not
great. You wicked old magician, this is what is best
and most honest about you, and this I honor: that you
wearied of yourself and said it outright: 'I am not
great.' In this I honor you as an ascetic of the spirit;
and even if it was only a wink and a twinkling, in this
one moment you were genuine.
"But speak, what are you seeking here in my woods
and rocks? And lying down on my path, how did you
want to try me? In what way were you seeking to test
me?' Thus spoke Zarathustra, and his eyes flashed.
The old magician remained silent for a while, then
said, "Did I seek to test you? I-merely seek. 0 Zarathustra, I seek one who is genuine, right, simple,
unequivocal, a man of all honesty, a vessel of wisdom,
a saint of knowledge, a great human being. Do you not
know it, Zarathustra? I seek Zarathustra."
And at this point there began a long silence between
the two. But Zarathustra became deeply absorbed and
258
closed his eyes. Then, however, returning to his partner
in the conversation, he seized the hand of the magician
and said, full of kindness and cunning, "Well! Up there
goes the path; there lies Zarathustra's cave. There you
may seek him whom you would find. And ask my
animals for advice, my eagle and my serpent: they shall
help you seek. But my cave is large. I myself, to be
sure-I have not yet seen a great human being. For
what is great, even the eyes of the subtlest today are
too coarse. It is the realm of the mob. Many have I seen,
swollen and straining, and the people cried, 'Behold a
great manly' But what good are all bellows? In the end,
the wind comes out. In the end, a frog which has
puffed itself up too long will burst: the wind comes out.
To stab a swollen man in the belly, I call that a fine
pastime. Hear it well, little boys
"Today belongs to the mob: who could still know
what is great and what small? Who could still successfully seek greatness? Only a fool: fools succeed. You
seek great human beings, you queer fool? Who taught
you that? Is today the time for that? 0 you wicked
seeker, why did you seek to test me?"
Thus spoke Zarathustra, his heart comforted, and he
continued on his way, laughing.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE MAGICIAN
,
760:THE WELCOME

It was only late in the afternoon that Zarathustra,
after much vain searching and roaming, returned to
his cave again. But when he was opposite it, not twenty
paces away, that which he now least expected came
about: again he heard the great cry of distress. Andamazing!-this time it came from his own cave. But
it was a long-drawn-out, manifold, strange cry, and
Zarathustra could clearly discern that it was composed
of many voices, though if heard from a distance it might
sound like a cry from a single mouth.
Then Zarathustra leaped toward his cave, and behold, what a sight awaited him after this soundly For
279
all the men whom he had passed by during the day
were sitting there together: the king at the right and
the king at the left, the old magician, the pope, the
voluntary beggar, the shadow, the conscientious in spirit,
the sad soothsayer, and the ass; and the ugliest man had
put on a crown and adorned himself with two crimson
belts, for like all who are ugly he loved to disguise
himself and pretend that he was beautiful. But in the
middle of this melancholy party stood Zarathustra's
eagle, bristling and restless, for he had been asked too
many questions for which his pride had no answer;
and the wise serpent hung around his neck.
Zarathustra beheld all this with great amazement;
then he examined every one of his guests with friendly
curiosity, read their souls, and was amazed again.
Meanwhile all those gathered had risen from their
seats and were waiting respectfully for Zarathustra
to speak. But Zarathustra spoke thus:
"You who despair You who are strange! So it was
your cry of distress that I heard? And now I also know
where to find him whom I sought in vain today: the
higher man. He sits in my own cave, the higher man.
But why should I be amazed? Have I not lured him to
myself with honey sacrifices and the cunning siren calls
of my happiness?
"Yet it seems to me that you are poor company; you
who utter cries of distress upset each other's hearts as
you sit here together. First someone must come-someone to make you laugh again, a good gay clown, a
dancer and wind and wildcat, some old fool. What do
you think?
"Forgive me, you who despair, that I speak to you
with such little words, unworthy, verily, of such guests.
But you do not guess what makes me so prankish: it is
you yourselves who do it, and the sight of you; forgive
280
me! For everyone becomes brave when he observes one
who despairs. To encourage one who despairs-for
that everyone feels strong enough. Even to me you gave
this strength: a good gift, my honored guests A proper
present to ensure hospitality! Well then, do not be
angry if I also offer you something of what is mine.
"This is my realm and my dominion; but whatever is
mine shall be yours for this evening and this night. My
animals shall serve you, my cave shall be your place
of rest. In my home and house nobody shall despair; in
my region I protect everybody from his wild animals.
And this is the first thing I offer you: security. The
second thing, however, is my little finger. And once
you have that, by all means take the whole hand; well,
and my heart tool Be welcome here, welcome, my
guests!"
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and he laughed from love
and malice. After this welcome his guests bowed again
and were respectfully silent; but the king at the right
hand answered him in their name: "From the manner,
o Zarathustra, in which you offered us hand and welcome, we recognize you as Zarathustra. You humbled
yourself before us; you almost wounded our reverence.
But who would know as you do, how to humble himself
with such pride? That in itself uplifts us; it is refreshing for our eyes and hearts. Merely to see this one thing,
we would gladly climb mountains higher than this one.
For we came, eager to see; we wanted to behold what
makes dim eyes bright. And behold, even now we are
done with all our cries of distress. Even now our minds
and hearts are opened up and delighted. Little is lacking, and our spirits will become sportive.
"Nothing more delightful grows on earth, 0 Zarathustra, than a lofty, strong will: that is the earth's most
beautiful plant. A whole landscape is refreshed by one
281
such tree. Whoever grows up high like you, 0 Zarathustra, I compare to the pine: long, silent, hard, alone,
of the best and most resilient wood, magnificent-and
in the end reaching out with strong green branches for
his own dominion, questioning wind and weather and
whatever else is at home on the heights with forceful
questions, and answering yet more forcefully, a commander, triumphant: oh, who would not climb high
mountains to see such plants? Your tree here, 0 Zarathustra, refreshes even the gloomy ones, the failures;
your sight reassures and heals the heart even of the
restless. And verily, toward your mountain and tree
many eyes are directed today; a great longing has arisen,
and many have learned to ask, 'Who is Zarathustra?'
"And those into whose ears you have once dripped
your song and your honey, all the hidden, the lonesome,
the twosome, have all at once said to their hearts, 'Does
Zarathustra still live? Life is no longer worth while, all
is the same, all is in vain, or-we must live with Zarathustra.'
"'Why does he not come who has so long announced
himself?' ask many. 'Has solitude swallowed him up? Or
are we perhaps supposed to come to him?'
"Now it happens that solitude itself grows weary
and breaks, like a tomb that breaks and can no longer
hold its dead. Everywhere one sees the resurrected.
Now the waves are climbing and climbing around your
mountain, 0 Zarathustra. And however high your height
may be, many must come up to you: your bark shall not
be stranded much longer. And that we who were despairing have now come to your cave and no longer
despair-that is but a sign and symbol that those better
than we are on their way to you; for this is what is on
its way to you: the last remnant of God among men that is, all the men of great longing, of great nausea,
282
of great disgust, all who do not want to live unless they
learn to hope again, unless they learn from you, 0 Zarathustra, the great hope."
Thus spoke the king at the right, and he seized Zarathustra's hand to kiss it; but Zarathustra resisted his
veneration and stepped back, startled, silent, and as if
he were suddenly fleeing into remote distances. But
after a little while he was back with his guests again,
looking at them with bright, examining eyes, and he
said: "My guests, you higher men, let me speak to you
in plain and clear German. It was not for you that I
waited in these mountains."
("Plain and clear German? Good God!" the king at
the left said at this point, in an aside. "One can see that
he does not know our dear Germans, this wise man from
the Eastl But what he means is 'coarse German'; well,
these days that is not the worst of tastes.")
"You may indeed all be higher men," continued Zarathustra, "but for me you are not high and strong enough.
For me-that means, for the inexorable in me that is
silent but will not always remain silent. And if you
do belong to me, it is not as my right arm. For whoever
stands on sick and weak legs himself, as you do, wants
consideration above all, whether he knows it or hides
it from himself. To my arms and my legs, however, I
show no consideration; I show my warriorsno consideration: how then could you be fit for my war? With you I
should spoil my every victory. And some among you
would collapse as soon as they heard the loud roll of
my drums.
"Nor are you beautiful and wellborn enough for me.
I need clean, smooth mirrors for my doctrines; on your
surface even my own image is distorted. Many a burden,
many a reminiscence press on your shoulders; many a
wicked dwarf crouches in your nooks. There is hidden
283
mob in you too. And even though you may be high and
of a higher kind, much in you is crooked and misshapen.
There is no smith in the world who could hammer you
right and straight for me.
"You are mere bridges: may men higher than you
stride over you. You signify steps: therefore do not be
angry with him who climbs over you to his height. A
genuine son and perfect heir may yet grow from your
seed, even for me: but that is distant. You yourselves
are not those to whom my heritage and name belong.
"It is not for you that I wait in these mountains; it is
not with you that I am to go down for the last time.
Only as signs have you come to me, that those higher
than you are even now on their way to me: not the men
of great longing, of great nausea, of great disgust, and
that which you called the remnant of God; no, no,
three times nol It is for others that I wait here in these
mountains, and I will not lift my feet from here without
them; it is for those who are higher, stronger, more
triumphant, and more cheerful, such as are built perpendicular in body and soul: laughing lions must come
"O my strange guests Have you not yet heard anything of my children? And that they are on their way to
me? Speak to me of my gardens, of my blessed isles, of
my new beauty-why do you not speak to me of that?
This present I beseech from your love, that you speak
to me of my children. For this I am rich, for this I grew
poor; what did I not give, what would I not give to
have one thing: these children, this living plantation,
these life-trees of my will and my highest hope!"
Thus spoke Zarathustra, and suddenly he stopped in
his speech, for a longing came over him, and he closed
his eyes and mouth as his heart was moved. And all his
guests too fell silent and stood still in dismay; only the
old soothsayer made signs and gestures with his hands.
284
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE WELCOME
,
761:The Kalevala - Rune Viii
MAIDEN OF THE RAINBOW.
Pohyola's fair and winsome daughter,
Glory of the land and water,
Sat upon the bow of heaven,
On its highest arch resplendent,
In a gown of richest fabric,
In a gold and silver air-gown,
Weaving webs of golden texture,
Interlacing threads of silver;
Weaving with a golden shuttle,
With a weaving-comb of silver;
Merrily flies the golden shuttle,
From the maiden's nimble fingers,
Briskly swings the lathe in weaving,
Swiftly flies the comb of silver,
From the sky-born maiden's fingers,
Weaving webs of wondrous beauty.
Came the ancient Wainamoinen,
Driving down the highway homeward,
From the ever sunless Northland,
From the dismal Sariola;
Few the furlongs he had driven,
Driven but a little distance,
When he heard the sky-loom buzzing,
As the maiden plied the shuttle.
Quick the thoughtless Wainamoinen
Lifts his eyes aloft in wonder,
Looks upon the vault of heaven,
There beholds the bow of beauty,
On the bow the maiden sitting,
Beauteous Maiden of the Rainbow,
Glory of the earth and ocean,
Weaving there a golden fabric,
Working with the rustling silver.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Quickly checks his fleet-foot racer,
Looks upon the charming maiden,
107
Then addresses her as follows:
'Come, fair maiden, to my snow-sledge,
By my side I wish thee seated.'
Thus the Maid of Beauty answers:
'Tell me what thou wishest of me,
Should I join thee in the snow-sledge.'
Speaks the ancient Wainamoinen,
Answers thus the Maid of Beauty:
'This the reason for thy coming:
Thou shalt bake me honey-biscuit,
Shalt prepare me barley-water,
Thou shalt fill my foaming beer-cups,
Thou shalt sing beside my table,
Shalt rejoice within my portals,
Walk a queen within my dwelling,
In the Wainola halls and chambers,
In the courts of Kalevala.'
Thus the Maid of Beauty answered
From her throne amid the heavens:
'Yesterday at hour of twilight,
Went I to the flowery meadows,
There to rock upon the common,
Where the Sun retires to slumber;
There I heard a song-bird singing,
Heard the thrush simple measures,
Singing sweetly thoughts of maidens,
And the minds of anxious mothers.
'Then I asked the pretty songster,
Asked the thrush this simple question:
'Sing to me, thou pretty song-bird,
Sing that I may understand thee,
Sing to me in truthful accents,
How to live in greatest pleasure,
And in happiness the sweetest,
As a maiden with her father,
Or as wife beside her husband.'
'Thus the song-bird gave me answer,
Sang the thrush this information:
'Bright and warm are days of summer,
Warmer still is maiden-freedom;
Cold is iron in the winter,
Thus the lives of married women;
108
Maidens living with their mothers
Are like ripe and ruddy berries;
Married women, far too many,
Are like dogs enchained in kennel,
Rarely do they ask for favors,
Not to wives are favors given.''
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Answers thus the Maid of Beauty:
'Foolish is the thrush thus singing,
Nonsense is the song-bird's twitter;
Like to babes are maidens treated,
Wives are queens and highly honored.
Come, sweet maiden, to my snow-sledge,
I am not despised as hero,
Not the meanest of magicians;
Come with me and I will make thee
Wife and queen in Kalevala.'
Thus the Maid of Beauty answered-'Would consider thee a hero,
Mighty hero, I would call thee,
When a golden hair thou splittest,
Using knives that have no edges;
When thou snarest me a bird's egg
With a snare that I can see not.'
Wainamoinen, skilled and ancient,
Split a golden hair exactly,
Using knives that had no edges;
And he snared an egg as nicely
With a snare the maiden saw not.
'Come, sweet maiden, to my snow-sledge,
I have done what thou desirest.'
Thus the maiden wisely answered:
'Never enter I thy snow-sledge,
Till thou peelest me the sandstone,
Till thou cuttest me a whip-stick
From the ice, and make no splinters,
Losing not the smallest fragment.'
Wainamoinen, true magician,
Nothing daunted, not discouraged,
Deftly peeled the rounded sandstone,
Deftly cut from ice a whip-stick,
Cutting not the finest splinter,
109
Losing not the smallest fragment.
Then again be called the maiden,
To a seat within his snow-sledge.
But the Maid or Beauty answered,
Answered thus the great magician:
I will go with that one only
That will make me ship or shallop,
From the splinters of my spindle,
From the fragments of my distaff,
In the waters launch the vessel,
Set the little ship a-floating,
Using not the knee to push it,
Using not the arm to move it,
Using not the hand to touch it,
Using not the foot to turn it,
Using nothing to propel it.'
Spake the skilful Wainamoinen,
These the words the hero uttered:
'There is no one in the Northland,
No one under vault of heaven,
Who like me can build a vessel,
From the fragments of the distaff,
From the splinters of the spindle.'
Then he took the distaff-fragments,
Took the splinters of the spindle,
Hastened off the boat to fashion,
Hastened to an iron mountain,
There to join the many fragments.
Full of zeal be plies the hammer,
Swings the hammer and the hatchet;
Nothing daunted, builds the vessel,
Works one day and then a second,
Works with steady hand the third day;
On the evening of the third day,
Evil Hisi grasps the hatchet,
Lempo takes the crooked handle,
Turns aside the axe in falling,
Strikes the rocks and breaks to pieces;
From the rocks rebound the fragments,
Pierce the flesh of the magician,
Cut the knee of Wainamoinen.
Lempo guides the sharpened hatchet,
110
And the veins fell Hisi severs.
Quickly gushes forth a blood-stream,
And the stream is crimson-colored.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
The renowned and wise enchanter,
Thus outspeaks in measured accents:
'O thou keen and cruel hatchet,
O thou axe of sharpened metal,
Thou shouldst cut the trees to fragments,
Cut the pine-tree and the willow,
Cut the alder and the birch-tree,
Cut the juniper and aspen,
Shouldst not cut my knee to pieces,
Shouldst not tear my veins asunder.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Thus begins his incantations,
Thus begins his magic singing,
Of the origin of evil;
Every word in perfect order,
Makes no effort to remember,
Sings the origin of iron,
That a bolt he well may fashion,
Thus prepare a look for surety,
For the wounds the axe has given,
That the hatchet has torn open.
But the stream flows like a brooklet,
Rushing like a maddened torrent,
Stains the herbs upon the meadows,
Scarcely is a bit of verdure
That the blood-stream does not cover
As it flows and rushes onward
From the knee of the magician,
From the veins of Wainamoinen.
Now the wise and ancient minstrel
Gathers lichens from the sandstone,
Picks them from the trunks of birches,
Gathers moss within the marshes,
Pulls the grasses from the meadows,
Thus to stop the crimson streamlet,
Thus to close the wounds laid open;
But his work is unsuccessful,
And the crimson stream flows onward.
111
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Feeling pain and fearing languor,
Falls to weeping, heavy-hearted;
Quickly now his steed he hitches,
Hitches to the sledge of birch-wood,
Climbs with pain upon the cross-bench,
Strikes his steed in quick succession,
Snaps his whip above the racer,
And the steed flies onward swiftly;
Like the winds he sweeps the highway,
Till be nears a Northland village,
Where the way is triple-parted.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Takes the lowest of the highways,
Quickly nears a spacious cottage,
Quickly asks before the doorway:
'Is there any one here dwelling,
That can know the pain I suffer,
That can heal this wound of hatchet.
That can check this crimson streamlet?'
Sat a boy within a corner,
On a bench beside a baby,
And he answered thus the hero:
'There is no one in this dwelling
That can know the pain thou feelest,
That can heal the wounds of hatchet,
That can check the crimson streamlet;
Some one lives in yonder cottage,
That perchance can do thee service.'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Whips his courser to a gallop,
Dashes on along the highway;
Only drives a little distance,
On the middle of the highways,
To a cabin on the road-side,
Asks one standing on the threshold,
Questions all through open windows,
These the words the hero uses:
'Is there no one in this cabin,
That can know the pain I suffer,
That can heal this wound of hatchet,
That can check this crimson streamlet?'
112
On the floor a witch was lying,
Near the fire-place lay the beldame,
Thus she spake to Wainamoinen,
Through her rattling teeth she answered.
'There is no one in this cabin
That can know the pain thou feelest,
That can heal the wounds of hatchets,
That can check the crimson streamlet;
Some one lives in yonder cottage,
That perchance can do thee service.'
Wainamoinen, nothing daunted,
Whips his racer to a gallop,
Dashes on along the highway;
Only drives a little distance,
On the upper of the highways,
Gallops to a humble cottage,
Asks one standing near the penthouse,
Sitting on the penthouse-doorsill:
'Is there no one in this cottage,
That can know the pain I suffer,
That can heal this wound of hatchet,
That can check this crimson streamlet?'
Near the fireplace sat an old man,
On the hearthstone sat the gray-beard,
Thus he answered Wainamoinen:
'Greater things have been accomplished,
Much more wondrous things effected,
Through but three words of the master;
Through the telling of the causes,
Streams and oceans have been tempered,
River cataracts been lessened,
Bays been made of promontories,
Islands raised from deep sea-bottoms.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
762:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxviii
ILMARINEN'S FRUITLESS WOOING.
Ilmarinen, the magician,
The eternal metal-artist,
Lays aside the golden image,
Beauteous maid of magic metals;
Throws the harness on his courser,
Binds him to his sledge of birch-wood,
Seats himself upon the cross-bench,
Snaps the whip above the racer,
Thinking once again to journey
To the mansions of Pohyola,
There to woo a bride in honor,
Second daughter of the Northland.
On he journeyed, restless, northward,
Journeyed one day, then a second,
So the third from morn till evening,
When he reached a Northland-village
On the plains of Sariola.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Standing in the open court-yard,
Spied the hero, Ilmarinen,
Thus addressed the metal-worker:
'Tell me how my child is living,
How the Bride of Beauty prospers,
As a daughter to thy mother.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Head bent down and brow dejected,
Thus addressed the Northland hostess:
'O, thou dame of Sariola,
Do not ask me of thy daughter,
Since, alas I in Tuonela
Sleeps the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Sleeps in death the Bride, of Beauty,
Underneath the fragrant heather,
In the kingdom of Manala.
Come I for a second daughter,
For the fairest of thy virgins.
568
Beauteous hostess of Pohyola,
Give to me thy youngest maiden,
For my former wife's compartments,
For the chambers of her sister.'
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'Foolish was the Northland-hostess,
When she gave her fairest virgin,
In the bloom of youth and beauty
To the blacksmith of Wainola,
Only to be led to Mana,
Like a lambkin to the slaughter!
I shall never give my daughter,
Shall not give my youngest maiden
Bride of thine to be hereafter,
Life-companion at thy fireside.
Sooner would I give the fair one
To the cataract and whirlpool,
To the river of Manala,
To the waters of Tuoni!'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Drew away his head, disdainful,
Shook his sable locks in anger,
Entered to the inner court-room,
Where the maiden sat in waiting,
Spake these measures to the daughter:
'Come with me, thou bright-eyed maiden,
To the cottage where thy sister
Lived and lingered in contentment,
Baked for me the toothsome biscuit,
Brewed for me the beer of barley,
Kept my dwelling-place in order.'
On the floor a babe was lying,
Thus he sang to Ilmarinen:
'Uninvited, leave this mansion,
Go, thou stranger, from this dwelling;
Once before thou camest hither,
Only bringing pain and trouble,
Filling all our hearts with sorrow.
Fairest daughter of my mother,
Do not give this suitor welcome,
Look not on his eyes with pleasure,
569
Nor admire his form and features.
In his mouth are only wolf-teeth,
Cunning fox-claws in his mittens,
In his shoes art only bear-claws,
In his belt a hungry dagger;
Weapons these of blood and murder,
Only worn by the unworthy.'
Then the daughter spake as follows
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Follow thee this maid will never,
Never heed unworthy suitors;
Thou hast slain the Bride of Beauty,
Once the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Thou wouldst also slay her sister.
I deserve a better suitor,
Wish a truer, nobler husband,
Wish to ride in richer sledges,
Have a better home-protection;
Never will I sweep the cottage
And the coal-place of a blacksmith.'
Then the hero, Ilmarinen,
The eternal metal-artist,
Turned his head away, disdainful,
Shook his sable locks in anger,
Quickly seized the trembling maiden,
Held her in his grasp of iron,
Hastened from the court of Louhi
To his sledge upon the highway.
In his sleigh he seats the virgin,
Snugly wraps her in his far-robes,
Snaps his whip above the racer,
Gallops on the high-road homeward;
With one hand the reins be tightens,
With the other holds the maiden.
Speaks the virgin-daughter, weeping:
We have reached the lowland-berries,
Here the herbs of water-borders;
Leave me here to sink and perish
As a child of cold misfortune.
Wicked Ilmarinen, Iisten!
If thou dost not quickly free me,
I will break thy sledge to pieces,
570
Throw thy fur-robes to the north-winds.'
Ilmarinen makes this answer:
'When the blacksmith builds his snow-sledge,
All the parts are hooped with iron;
Therefore will the beauteous maiden
Never beat my sledge to fragments.'
Then the silver-tinselled daughter
Wept and wailed in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake again to Ilmarinen:
'If thou dost not quickly free me,
I shall change to ocean-salmon,
Be a whiting of the waters.'
'Thou wilt never thus escape me,
As a pike I'll fleetly follow.'
Then the maiden of Pohyola
Wept and wailed in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake again to Ilmarinen;
'If thou dost not quickly free me,
I shall hasten to the forest,
Mid the rocks become an ermine!'
'Thou wilt never thus escape me,
As a serpent I will follow.'
Then the beauty of the Northland,
Wailed and wept in bitter accents,
Wrung her hands in desperation,
Spake once more to Ilmarinen:
'Surely, if thou dost not free me,
As a lark I'll fly the ether,
Hide myself within the storm-clouds.'
'Neither wilt thou thus escape me,
As an eagle I will follow.'
They had gone but little distance,
When the courser shied and halted,
Frighted at some passing object;
And the maiden looked in wonder,
In the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
Who has run across our highway?'
''Tis the timid hare', he answered.
Thereupon the stolen maiden
571
Sobbed, and moaned, in deeps of sorrow,
Heavy-hearted, spake these measures:
'Woe is me, ill-fated virgin!
Happier far my life hereafter,
If the hare I could but follow
To his burrow in the woodlands!
Crook-leg's fur to me is finer
Than the robes of Ilmarinen.'
Ilmarinen, the magician,
Tossed his head in full resentment,
Galloped on the highway homeward,
Travelled but a little distance,
When again his courser halted,
Frighted at some passing stranger.
Quick the maiden looked and wondered,
In the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these measures to the blacksmith:
Who has crossed our snowy pathway?'
''Tis a fox', replied the minstrel.
Thereupon the beauteous virgin
Moaned again in depths of anguish,
Sang these accents, heavy-hearted:
'Woe is me, ill-fated maiden!
Happier far my life hereafter,
With the cunning fox to wander,
Than with this ill-mannered suitor;
Reynard's fur to me is finer
Than the robes of Ilmarinen.'
Thereupon the metal-worker
Shut his lips in sore displeasure,
Hastened on the highway homeward;
Travelled but a little distance,
When again his courser halted.
Quick the maiden looked in wonder,
in the snow beheld some foot-prints,
Spake these words to the magician:
Who again has crossed our pathway?'
''Tis the wolf', said Ilmarinen.
Thereupon the fated daughter
Fell again to bitter weeping,
And Intoned these words of sorrow:
'Woe is me, a hapless maiden!
572
Happier far my life hereafter,
Brighter far would be my future,
If these tracks I could but follow;
On the wolf the hair is finer
Than the furs of Ilmarinen,
Faithless suitor of the Northland.'
Then the minstrel of Wainola
Closed his lips again in anger,
Shook his sable locks, resentful,
Snapped the whip above the racer,
And the steed flew onward swiftly,
O'er the way to Kalevala,
To the village of the blacksmith.
Sad and weary from his journey,
Ilmarinen, home-returning,
Fell upon his couch in slumber,
And the maiden laughed derision.
In the morning, slowly waking,
Head confused, and locks dishevelled,
Spake the wizard, words as follow:
'Shall I set myself to singing
Magic songs and incantations?
Shall I now enchant this maiden
To a black-wolf on the mountains,
To a salmon of the ocean?
Shall not send her to the woodlands,
All the forest would be frighted;
Shall not send her to the waters,
All the fish would flee in terror;
This my sword shall drink her life-blood,
End her reign of scorn and hatred.'
Quick the sword feels his intention,
Quick divines his evil purpose,
Speaks these words to Ilmarinen:
'Was not born to drink the life-blood
Of a maiden pure and lovely,
Of a fair but helpless virgin.'
Thereupon the magic minstrel,
Filled with rage, began his singing;
Sang the very rocks asunder,
Till the distant hills re-echoed;
Sang the maiden to a sea-gull,
573
Croaking from the ocean-ledges,
Calling from the ocean-islands,
Screeching on the sandy sea-coast,
Flying to the winds opposing.
When his conjuring had ended,
Ilmarinen joined his snow-sledge,
Whipped his steed upon a gallop,
Hastened to his ancient smithy,
To his home in Kalevala.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Comes to meet him on the highway,
Speaks these words to the magician:
'Ilmarinen, worthy brother,
Wherefore comest heavy-hearted
From the dismal Sariola?
Does Pohyola live and prosper?
Spake the minstrel, Ilmarinen:
'Why should not Pohyola prosper?
There the Sampo grinds unceasing,
Noisy rocks the lid in colors;
Grinds one day the flour for eating,
Grinds the second flour for selling,
Grinds the third day flour for keeping;
Thus it is Pohyola prospers.
While the Sampo is in Northland,
There is plowing, there is sowing,
There is growth of every virtue,
There is welfare never-ending.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Ilmarinen, artist-brother,
Where then is the Northland-daughter,
Far renowned and beauteous maiden,
For whose hand thou hast been absent?
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'I have changed the hateful virgin
To a sea-gull on the ocean;
Now she calls above the waters,
Screeches from the ocean-islands;
On the rocks she calls and murmurs
Vainly calling for a suitor.'
574
~ Elias Lönnrot,
763:A Treatise On Poetry: Iv Natura
Pennsylvania, 1948-1949
The garden of Nature opens.
The grass at the threshold is green.
And an almond tree begins to bloom.
Sunt mihi Dei Acherontis propitii!
Valeat numen triplex Jehovae!
Ignis, aeris, aquae, terrae spiritus,
Salvete!—says the entering guest.
Ariel lives in the palace of an apple tree,
But will not appear, vibrating like a wasp’s wing,
And Mephistopheles, disguised as an abbot
Of the Dominicans or the Franciscans,
Will not descend from a mulberry bush
Onto a pentagram drawn in the black loam of the path.
But a rhododendron walks among the rocks
Shod in leathery leaves and ringing a pink bell.
A hummingbird, a child’s top in the air,
Hovers in one spot, the beating heart of motion.
Impaled on the nail of a black thorn, a grasshopper
Leaks brown fluid from its twitching snout.
And what can he do, the phantom-in-chief,
As he’s been called, more than a magician,
The Socrates of snails, as he’s been called,
Musician of pears, arbiter of orioles, man?
In sculptures and canvases our individuality
Manages to survive. In Nature it perishes.
Let him accompany the coffin of the woodsman
Pushed from a cliff by a mountain demon,
The he-goat with its jutting curl of horn.
Let him visit the graveyard of the whalers
Who drove spears into the flesh of leviathan
And looked for the secret in guts and blubber.
The thrashing subsided, quieted to waves.
Let him unroll the textbooks of alchemists
14
Who almost found the cipher, thus the scepter.
Then passed away without hands, eyes, or elixir.
Here there is sun. And whoever, as a child,
Believed he could break the repeatable pattern
Of things, if only he understood the pattern,
Is cast down, rots in the skin of others,
Looks with wonder at the colors of the butterfly,
Inexpressible wonder, formless, hostile to art.
To keep the oars from squeaking in their locks,
He binds them with a handkerchief. The dark
Had rushed east from the Rocky Mountains
And settled in the forests of the continent:
Sky full of embers reflected in a cloud,
Flight of herons, trees above a marsh,
The dry stalks in water, livid, black. My boat
Divides the aerial utopias of the mosquitoes
Which rebuild their glowing castles instantly.
A water lily sinks, fizzing, under the boat’s bow.
Now it is night only. The water is ash-gray.
Play, music, but inaudibly! I wait an hour
In the silence, senses tuned to a beaver’s lodge.
Then suddenly, a crease in the water, a beast’s
black moon, rounded, ploughing up quickly
from the pond-dark, from the bubbling methanes.
I am not immaterial and never will be.
My scent in the air, my animal smell,
Spreads, rainbow-like, scares the beaver:
A sudden splat.
I remained where I was
In the high, soft coffer of the night’s velvet,
Mastering what had come to my senses:
How the four-toed paws worked, how the hair
Shook off water in the muddy tunnel.
It does not know time, hasn’t heard of death,
Is submitted to me because I know I’ll die.
15
I remember everything. That wedding in Basel,
A touch to the strings of a viola and fruit
In silver bowls. As was the custom in Savoy,
An overturned cup for three pairs of lips,
And the wine spilled. The flames of the candles
Wavery and frail in a breeze from the Rhine.
Her fingers, bones shining through the skin,
Felt out the hooks and clasps of the silk
And the dress opened like a nutshell,
Fell from the turned graininess of the belly.
A chain for the neck rustled without epoch,
In pits where the arms of various creeds
Mingle with bird cries and the red hair of caesars.
Perhaps this is only my own love speaking
Beyond the seventh river. Grit of subjectivity,
Obsession, bar the way to it.
Until a window shutter, dogs in the cold garden,
The whistle of a train, an owl in the firs
Are spared the distortions of memory.
And the grass says: how it was I don’t know.
Splash of a beaver in the American night.
The memory grows larger than my life.
A tin plate, dropped on the irregular red bricks
Of a floor, rattles tinnily forever.
Belinda of the big foot, Julia, Thaïs,
The tufts of their sex shadowed by ribbon.
Peace to the princesses under the tamarisks.
Desert winds beat against their painted eyelids.
Before the body was wrapped in bandelettes,
Before wheat fell asleep in the tomb,
Before stone fell silent, and there was only pity.
Yesterday a snake crossed the road at dusk.
Crushed by a tire, it writhed on the asphalt.
16
We are both the snake and the wheel.
There are two dimensions. Here is the unattainable
Truth of being, here, at the edge of lasting
and not lasting. Where the parallel lines intersect,
Time lifted above time by time.
Before the butterfly and its color, he, numb,
Formless, feels his fear, he, unattainable.
For what is a butterfly without Julia and Thaïs?
And what is Julia without a butterfly’s down
In her eyes, her hair, the smooth grain of her belly?
The kingdom, you say. We do not belong to it,
And still, in the same instant, we belong.
For how long will a nonsensical Poland
Where poets write of their emotions as if
They had a contract of limited liability
Suffice? I want not poetry, but a new diction,
Because only it might allow us to express
A new tenderness and save us from a law
That is not our law, from necessity
Which is not ours, even if we take its name.
From broken armor, from eyes stricken
By the command of time and taken back
Into the jurisdiction of mold and fermentation,
We draw our hope. Yes, to gather in an image
The furriness of the beaver, the smell of rushes,
And the wrinkles of a hand holding a pitcher
From which wine trickles. Why cry out
That a sense of history destroys our substance
If it, precisely, is offered to our powers,
A muse of our gray-haired father, Herodotus,
As our arm and our instrument, though
It is not easy to use it, to strengthen it
So that, like a plumb with a pure gold center,
It will serve again to rescue human beings.
With such reflections I pushed a rowboat,
In the middle of the continent, through tangled stalks,
17
In my mind an image of the waves of two oceans
And the slow rocking of a guard-ship’s lantern.
Aware that at this moment I—and not only I—
Keep, as in a seed, the unnamed future.
And then a rhythmic appeal composed itself,
Alien to the moth with its whirring of silk:
O City, O Society, O Capital,
We have seen your steaming entrails.
You will no longer be what you have been.
Your songs no longer gratify our hearts.
Steel, cement, lime, law, ordinance,
We have worshipped you too long,
You were for us a goal and a defense,
Ours was your glory and your shame.
And where was the covenant broken?
Was it in the fires of war, the incandescent sky?
Or at twilight, as the towers fly past, when one looked
From the train across a desert of tracks
To a window out past the maneuvering locomotives
Where a girl examines her narrow, moody face
In a mirror and ties a ribbon to her hair
Pierced by the sparks of curling papers?
Those walls of yours are shadows of walls,
And your light disappeared forever.
Not the world's monument anymore, an oeuvre of your own
Stands beneath the sun in an altered space.
From stucco and mirrors, glass and paintings,
Tearing aside curtains of silver and cotton,
Comes man, naked and mortal,
Ready for truth, for speech, for wings.
18
Lament, Republic! Fall to your knees!
The loudspeaker’s spell is discontinued.
Listen! You can hear the clocks ticking.
Your death approaches by his hand.
An oar over my shoulder, I walked from the woods.
A porcupine scolded from the fork of a tree,
A horned owl, not changed by the century,
Not changed by place or time, looked down.
Bubo maximus, from the work of Linnaeus.
America for me has the pelt of a raccoon,
Its eyes are a raccoon’s black binoculars.
A chipmunk flickers in a litter of dry bark
Where ivy and vines tangle in the red soil
At the roots of an arcade of tulip trees.
America’s wings are the color of a cardinal,
Its beak is half-open and a mockingbird trills
From a leafy bush in the sweat-bath of the air.
Its line is the wavy body of a water moccasin
Crossing a river with a grass-like motion,
A rattlesnake, a rubble of dots and speckles,
Coiling under the bloom of a yucca plant.
America is for me the illustrated version
Of childhood tales about the heart of tanglewood,
Told in the evening to the spinning wheel’s hum.
And a violin, shivvying up a square dance,
Plays the fiddles of Lithuania or Flanders.
My dancing partner’s name is Birute Swenson.
She married a Swede, but was born in Kaunas.
Then from the night window a moth flies in
As big as the joined palms of the hands,
With a hue like the transparency of emeralds.
Why not establish a home in the neon heat
Of Nature? Is it not enough, the labor of autumn,
19
Of winter and spring and withering summer?
You will hear not one word spoken of the court
of Sigismund Augustus on the banks of the Delaware River.
The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys is not needed.
Herodotus will repose on his shelf, uncut.
And the rose only, a sexual symbol,
Symbol of love and superterrestrial beauty,
Will open a chasm deeper than your knowledge.
About it we find a song in a dream:
Inside the rose
Are houses of gold,
black isobars, streams of cold.
Dawn touches her finger to the edge of the Alps
And evening streams down to the bays of the sea.
If anyone dies inside the rose,
They carry him down the purple-red road
In a procession of clocks all wrapped in folds.
They light up the petals of grottoes with torches.
They bury him there where color begins,
At the source of the sighing,
Inside the rose.
Let names of months mean only what they mean.
Let the Aurora’s cannons be heard in none
Of them, or the tread of young rebels marching.
We might, at best, keep some kind of souvenir,
Preserved like a fan in a garret. Why not
Sit down at a rough country table and compose
An ode in the old manner, as in the old times
Chasing a beetle with the nib of our pen?
~ Czeslaw Milosz,
764:The Kalevala - Rune Xliv
BIRTH OF THE SECOND HARP.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Long reflecting, sang these measures:
'It is now the time befitting
To awaken joy and gladness,
Time for me to touch the harp-strings,
Time to sing the songs primeval,
In these spacious halls and mansions,
In these homes of Kalevala;
But, alas! my harp lies hidden,
Sunk upon the deep-sea's bottom,
To the salmon's hiding-places,
To the dwellings of the whiting,
To the people of Wellamo,
Where the Northland-pike assemble.
Nevermore will I regain it,
Ahto never will return it,
Joy and music gone forever!
'O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Forge for me a rake of iron,
Thickly set the teeth of copper,
Many fathoms long the handle;
Make a rake to search the waters,
Search the broad-sea to the bottom,
Rake the weeds and reeds together,
Rake them to the curving sea-shore,
That I may regain my treasure,
May regain my harp of fish-bow
From the whiting's place of resting,
From the caverns of the salmon,
From the castles of Wellamo.'
Thereupon young Ilmarinen,
The eternal metal-worker,
Forges well a rake of iron,
Teeth in length a hundred fathoms,
And a thousand long the handle,
Thickly sets the teeth of copper.
215
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Takes the rake of magic metals,
Travels but a little distance,
To the cylinders of oak-wood,
To the copper-banded rollers,
Where be finds two ships awaiting,
One was new, the other ancient.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Thus addressed the new-made vessel:
'Go, thou boat of master-magic,
Hasten to the willing waters,
Speed away upon the blue-sea,
And without the hand to move thee;
Let my will impel thee seaward.'
Quick the boat rolled to the billows
On the cylinders of oak-wood,
Quick descended to the waters,
Willingly obeyed his master.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Then began to rake the sea-beds,
Raked up all the water-flowers,
Bits of broken reeds and rushes,
Deep-sea shells and colored pebbles,
Did not find his harp of fish-bone,
Lost forever to Wainola!
Thereupon the ancient minstrel
Left the waters, homeward hastened,
Cap pulled clown upon his forehead,
Sang this song with sorrow laden:
'Nevermore shall I awaken
With my harp-strings, joy and gladness!
Nevermore will Wainamoinen
Charm the people of the Northland
With the harp of his creation!
Nevermore my songs will echo
O'er the hills of Kalevala!'
Thereupon the ancient singer
Went lamenting through the forest,
Wandered through the sighing pine-woods,
Heard the wailing of a birch-tree,
Heard a juniper complaining;
Drawing nearer, waits and listens,
216
Thus the birch-tree he addresses:
'Wherefore, brother, art thou weeping,
Merry birch enrobed in silver,
Silver-leaved and silver-tasselled?
Art thou shedding tears of sorrow,
Since thou art not led to battle,
Not enforced to war with wizards?
Wisely does the birch make answer:
'This the language of the many,
Others speak as thou, unjustly,
That I only live in pleasure,
That my silver leaves and tassels
Only whisper my rejoicings;
That I have no cares, no sorrows,
That I have no hours unhappy,
Knowing neither pain nor trouble.
I am weeping for my smallness,
Am lamenting for my weakness,
Have no sympathy, no pity,
Stand here motionless for ages,
Stand alone in fen and forest,
In these woodlands vast and joyless.
Others hope for coming summers,
For the beauties of the spring-time;
I, alas! a helpless birch-tree,
Dread the changing of the seasons,
I must give my bark to, others,
Lose my leaves and silken tassels.
Men come the Suomi children,
Peel my bark and drink my life-blood:
Wicked shepherds in the summer,
Come and steal my belt of silver,
Of my bark make berry-baskets,
Dishes make, and cups for drinking.
Oftentimes the Northland maidens
Cut my tender limbs for birch-brooms,'
Bind my twigs and silver tassels
Into brooms to sweep their cabins;
Often have the Northland heroes
Chopped me into chips for burning;
Three times in the summer season,
In the pleasant days of spring-time,
217
Foresters have ground their axes
On my silver trunk and branches,
Robbed me of my life for ages;
This my spring-time joy and pleasure,
This my happiness in summer,
And my winter days no better!
When I think of former troubles,
Sorrow settles on my visage,
And my face grows white with anguish;
Often do the winds of winter
And the hoar-frost bring me sadness,
Blast my tender leaves and tassels,
Bear my foliage to others,
Rob me of my silver raiment,
Leave me naked on the mountain,
Lone, and helpless, and disheartened!'
Spake the good, old Wainamoinen:
'Weep no longer, sacred birch-tree,
Mourn no more, my friend and brother,
Thou shalt have a better fortune;
I will turn thy grief to joyance,
Make thee laugh and sing with gladness.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Made a harp from sacred birch-wood,
Fashioned in the days of summer,
Beautiful the harp of magic,
By the master's hand created
On the fog-point in the Big-Sea,
On the island forest-covered,
Fashioned from the birch the archings,
And the frame-work from the aspen.
These the words of the magician:
'All the archings are completed,
And the frame is fitly finished;
Whence the hooks and pins for tuning,
That the harp may sing in concord?'
Near the way-side grew an oak-tree,
Skyward grew with equal branches,
On each twig an acorn growing,
Golden balls upon each acorn,
On each ball a singing cuckoo.
As each cuckoo's call resounded,
218
Five the notes of song that issued
From the songster's throat of joyance;
From each throat came liquid music,
Gold and silver for the master,
Flowing to the hills and hillocks,
To the silvery vales and mountains;
Thence he took the merry harp-pins,
That the harp might play in concord.
Spake again wise Wainamoinen:
'I the pins have well completed,
Still the harp is yet unfinished;
Now I need five strings for playing,
Where shall I procure the harp-strings?'
Then the ancient bard and minstrel
Journeyed through the fen and forest.
On a hillock sat a maiden,
Sat a virgin of the valley;
And the maiden was not weeping,
Joyful was the sylvan daughter,
Singing with the woodland songsters,
That the eventide might hasten,
In the hope that her beloved
Would the sooner sit beside her.
Wainamoinen, old and trusted,
Hastened, tripping to the virgin,
Asked her for her golden ringleta,
These the words of the magician.
'Give me, maiden, of thy tresses,
Give to me thy golden ringlets;
I will weave them into harp-strings,
To the joy of Wainamoinen,
To the pleasure of his people.'
Thereupon the forest-maiden
Gave the singer of her tresses,
Gave him of her golden ringlets,
And of these he made the harp-strings.
Sources of eternal pleasure
To the people of Wainola.
Thus the sacred harp is finished,
And the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Sits upon the rock of joyance,
Takes the harp within his fingers,
219
Turns the arch up, looking skyward;
With his knee the arch supporting,
Sets the strings in tuneful order,
Runs his fingers o'er the harp-strings,
And the notes of pleasure follow.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
Plays upon his harp of birch-wood.
Far away is heard the music,
Wide the harp of joy re-echoes;
Mountains dance and valleys listen,
Flinty rocks are tom asunder,
Stones are hurled upon the waters,
Pebbles swim upon the Big-Sea,
Pines and lindens laugh with pleasure,
Alders skip about the heather,
And the aspen sways in concord.
All the daughters of Wainola
Straightway leave their shining needles,
Hasten forward like the current,
Speed along like rapid rivers,
That they may enjoy and wonder.
Laugh the younger men and maidens,
Happy-hearted are the matrons
Flying swift to bear the playing,
To enjoy the common pleasure,
Hear the harp of Wainamoinen.
Aged men and bearded seniors,
Gray-haired mothers with their daughters
Stop in wonderment and listen.
Creeps the babe in full enjoyment
As he hears the magic singing,
Hears the harp of Wainamoinen.
All of Northland stops in wonder,
Speaks in unison these measures:
'Never have we heard such playing,
Never heard such strains of music,
Never since the earth was fashioned,
As the songs of this magician,
This sweet singer, Wainamoinen!'
Far and wide the sweet tones echo,
Ring throughout the seven hamlets,
220
O'er the seven islands echo;
Every creature of the Northland
Hastens forth to look and listen,
Listen to the songs of gladness,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
All the beasts that haunt the woodlands
Fall upon their knees and wonder
At the playing of the minstrel,
At his miracles of concord.
All the songsters of the forests
Perch upon the trembling branches,
Singing to the wondrous playing
Of the harp of Wainamoinen.
All the dwellers of the waters
Leave their beds, and eaves, and grottoes,
Swim against the shore and listen
To the playing of the minstrel,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
All the little things in nature,
Rise from earth, and fall from ether,
Come and listen to the music,
To the notes of the enchanter,
To the songs of the magician,
To the harp of Wainamoinen.
Plays the singer of the Northland,
Plays in miracles of sweetness,
Plays one day, and then a second,
Plays the third from morn till even;
Plays within the halls and cabins,
In the dwellings of his people,
Till the floors and ceilings echo,
Till resound the roofs of pine-wood,
Till the windows speak and tremble,
Till the portals echo joyance,
And the hearth-stones sing in pleasure.
As he journeys through the forest,
As he wanders through the woodlands,
Pine and sorb-tree bid him welcome,
Birch and willow bend obeisance,
Beech and aspen bow submission;
And the linden waves her branches
To the measure of his playing,
221
To the notes of the magician.
As the minstrel plays and wanders,
Sings upon the mead and heather,
Glen and hill his songs re-echo,
Ferns and flowers laugh in pleasure,
And the shrubs attune their voices
To the music of the harp-strings,
To the songs of Wainamoinen.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
765:The Kalevala - Rune Xxviii
THE MOTHER'S COUNSEL.
Ahti, hero of the Islands,
Wild magician, Lemminkainen,
Also known as Kaukomieli,
Hastened from the great carousal,
From the banquet-halls of Louhi,
From the ever-darksome Northland,
From the dismal Sariola.
Stormful strode he from the mansion,
Hastened like the smoke of battle,
From the court-yard of Pohyola,
Left his crimes and misdemeanors
In the halls of ancient Louhi.
Then he looked in all directions,
Seeking for his tethered courser,
Anxious looked in field and stable,
But he did not find his racer;
Found a black thing in the fallow,
Proved to be a clump of willows.
Who will well advise the hero,
Who will give him wise directions,
Guide the wizard out of trouble,
Give his hero-locks protection,
Keep his magic head from danger
From the warriors of Northland?
Noise is beard within the village,
And a din from other homesteads,
From the battle-hosts of Louhi,
Streaming from the doors and window,
Of the homesteads of Pohyola.
Thereupon young Lemminkainen,
Handsome Islander and hero,
Changing both his form and features,
Clad himself in other raiment,
Changing to another body,
Quick became a mighty eagle,
Soared aloft on wings of magic,
479
Tried to fly to highest heaven,
But the moonlight burned his temples,
And the sunshine singed his feathers.
Then entreating, Lemminkainen,
Island-hero, turned to Ukko,
This the prayer that Ahti uttered:
'Ukko, God of love and mercy,
Thou the Wisdom of the heavens,
Wise Director of the lightning,
Thou the Author of the thunder,
Thou the Guide of all the cloudlets,
Give to me thy cloak of vapor,
Throw a silver cloud around me,
That I may in its protection
Hasten to my native country,
To my mother's Island-dwelling,
Fly to her that waits my coming,
With a mother's grave forebodings.'
Farther, farther, Lemminkainen
Flew and soared on eagle-pinions,
Looked about him, backwards, forwards,
Spied a gray-hawk soaring near him,
In his eyes the fire of splendor,
Like the eyes of Pohyalanders,
Like the eyes of Pohya's spearmen,
And the gray-hawk thus addressed him:
'Ho! There! hero, Lemminkainen,
Art thou thinking of our combat
With the, hero-heads of Northland?'
Thus the Islander made answer,
These the words of Kaukomieli:
'O thou gray-hawk, bird of beauty,
Fly direct to Sariola,
Fly as fast as wings can bear thee;
When thou hast arrived in safety,
On the plains of darksome Northland,
Tell the archers and the spearmen,
They will never catch the eagle,
In his journey from Pohyola,
To his Island-borne and fortress.'
Then the Ahti-eagle hastened
Straightway to his mother's cottage,
480
In his face the look of trouble,
In his heart the pangs of sorrow.
Ahti's mother ran to meet him,
When she spied him in the pathway,
Walking toward her island-dwelling;
These the words the mother uttered:
'Of my sons thou art the bravest,
Art the strongest of my children;
Wherefore then comes thine annoyance,
On returning from Pohyola?
Wert thou worsted at the banquet,
At the feast and great carousal?
At thy cups, if thou wert injured,
Thou shalt here have better treatment
Thou shalt have the cup thy father
Brought me from the hero-castle.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Worthy mother, thou that nursed me,
If I had been maimed at drinking,
I the landlord would have worsted,
Would have slain a thousand heroes,
Would have taught them useful lessons.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Wherefore then art thou indignant,
Didst thou meet disgrace and insult,
Did they rob thee of thy courser?
Buy thou then a better courser
With the riches of thy mother,
With thy father's horded treasures.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Faithful mother of my being,
If my steed had been insulted,
If for him my heart was injured,
I the landlord would have punished,
Would have punished all the horsemen,
All of Pohya's strongest riders.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Tell me then thy dire misfortune,
What has happened to my hero,
On his journey to Pohyola?
Have the Northland maidens scorned thee,
Have the women ridiculed thee?
481
If the maidens scorned thy presence.
If the women gave derision,
There are others thou canst laugh at,
Thou canst scorn a thousand women.'
Said the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Honored mother, fond and faithful,
If the Northland dames had scorned me
Or the maidens laughed derision,
I the maidens would have punished,
Would have scorned a thousand women.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Wherefore then are thou indignant,
Thus annoyed, and heavy-hearted,
On returning from Pohyola?
Was thy feasting out of season,
Was the banquet-beer unworthy,
Were thy dreams of evil import
When asleep in darksome Northland?'
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
'Aged women may remember
What they dream on beds of trouble;
I have seen some wondrous visions,
Since I left my Island-cottage.
My beloved, helpful mother,
Fill my bag with good provisions,
Flour and salt in great abundance,
Farther must thy hero wander,
He must leave his home behind him,
Leave his pleasant Island-dwelling,
Journey from this home of ages;
Men are sharpening their broadswords,
Sharpening their spears and lances,
For the death of Lemminkainen.'
Then again the mother questioned,
Hurriedly she asked the reason:
'Why the men their swords were whetting,
Why their spears are being sharpened.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Therefore do they whet their broadswords,
Therefore sharpen they their lances:
It is for thy son's destruction,
482
At his heart are aimed their lances.
In the court-yard of Pohyola,
There arose a great contention,
Fierce the battle waged against me;
But I slew the Northland hero,
Killed the host of Sariola;
Quick to arms rose Louhi's people,
All the spears and swords of Northland
Were directed at thy hero;
All of Pohya turned against me,
Turned against a single foeman.'
This the answer of the mother:
'I had told thee this beforehand,
I had warned thee of this danger,
And forbidden thee to journey
To the hostile fields of Northland.
Here my hero could have lingered,
Passed his life in full contentment,
Lived forever with his mother,
With his mother for protection,
In the court-yard with his kindred;
Here no war would have arisen,
No contention would have followed.
Whither wilt thou go, my hero,
Whither will my loved one hasten,
To escape thy fierce pursuers,
To escape from thy misdoings,
From thy sins to bide in safety,
From thy crimes and misdemeanors,
That thy head be not endangered,
That thy body be not mangled,
That thy locks be not outrooted?'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Know I not a spot befitting,
Do not know a place of safety,
Where to hide from my pursuers,
That will give me sure protection
From the crimes by me committed.
Helpful mother of my being,
Where to flee wilt thou advise me?'
This the answer of the mother:
'I do not know where I can send thee;
483
Be a pine-tree on the mountain,
Or a juniper in lowlands?
Then misfortune may befall thee;
Often is the mountain pine-tree
Cut in splints for candle-lighters;
And the juniper is often
Peeled for fence-posts for the pastures.
Go a birch-tree to the valleys,
Or an elm-tree to the glenwood?
Even then may trouble find thee,
Misery may overtake thee;
Often is the lowland birch-tree
Cut to pieces in the ware-house;
Often is the elm-wood forest
Cleared away for other plantings.
Be a berry on the highlands,
Cranberry upon the heather,
Strawberry upon the mountains,
Blackberry along the fences?
Even there will trouble find thee,
There misfortune overtake thee,
For the berry-maids would pluck thee,
Silver-tinselled girls would get thee.
Be a pike then in the ocean,
Or a troutlet in the rivers?
Then would trouble overtake thee,
Would become thy life-companion;
Then the fisherman would catch thee,
Catch thee in his net of flax-thread,
Catch thee with his cruel fish-hook.
Be a wolf then in the forest,
Or a black-bear in the thickets?
Even then would trouble find thee,
And disaster cross thy pathway;
Sable hunters of the Northland
Have their spears and cross-bows ready
To destroy the wolf and black-bear.'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Know I well the worst of places,
Know where Death will surely follow,
Where misfortune's eye would find me;
Since thou gavest me existence,
484
Gavest nourishment in childhood,
Whither shall I flee for safety,
Whither hide from death and danger?
In my view is fell destruction,
Dire misfortune 'hovers o'er me;
On the morrow come the spearmen,
Countless warriors from Pohya,
Ahti's head their satisfaction.'
This the answer of the mother:
'I can name a goodly refuge,
Name a land of small dimensions,
Name a distant ocean-island,
Where my son may live in safety.
Thither archers never wander,
There thy head cannot be severed;
But an oath as strong as heaven,
Thou must swear before thy mother;
Thou wilt not for sixty summers
Join in war or deadly combat,
Even though thou wishest silver,
Wishest gold and silver treasures.'
Spake the grateful Lemminkainen:
'I will swear an oath of honor,
That I'll not in sixty summers
Draw my sword in the arena,
Test the warrior in battle;
I have wounds upon my shoulders,
On my breast two scars of broadsword,
Of my former battles, relies,
Relies of my last encounters,
On the battle-fields of Northland,
In the wars with men and heroes.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Go thou, take thy father's vessel,
Go and bide thyself in safety,
Travel far across nine oceans;
In the tenth, sail to the centre,
To the island, forest-covered,
To the cliffs above the waters,
Where thy father went before thee,
Where he hid from his pursuers,
In the times of summer conquests,
485
In the darksome days of battle;
Good the isle for thee to dwell in,
Goodly place to live and linger;
Hide one year, and then a second,
In the third return in safety
To thy mother's island dwelling,
To thy father's ancient mansion,
To my hero's place of resting.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
766:The Kalevala - Rune Xiii
LEMMINIKAINEN'S SECOND WOOING.
Spake the ancient Lemminkainen
To the hostess of Pohyola:
'Give to me thy lovely daughter,
Bring me now thy winsome maiden,
Bring the best of Lapland virgins,
Fairest virgin of the Northland.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Answered thus the wild magician:
'I shall never give my daughter,
Never give my fairest maiden,
Not the best one, nor the worst one,
Not the largest, nor the smallest;
Thou hast now one wife-companion,
Thou has taken hence one hostess,
Carried off the fair Kyllikki.'
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
To my home I took Kyllikki,
To my cottage on the island,
To my entry-gates and kindred;
Now I wish a better hostess,
Straightway bring thy fairest daughter,
Worthiest of all thy virgins,
Fairest maid with sable tresses.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Never will I give my daughter
To a hero false and worthless,
To a minstrel vain and evil;
Therefore, pray thou for my maiden,
Therefore, woo the sweet-faced flower,
When thou bringest me the wild-moose
From the Hisi fields and forests.'
Then the artful Lemminkainen
Deftly whittled out his javelins,
Quickly made his leathern bow-string,
And prepared his bow and arrows,
And soliloquized as follows:
152
'Now my javelins are made ready,
All my arrows too are ready,
And my oaken cross-bow bended,
But my snow-shoes are not builded,
Who will make me worthy snow-shoes?'
Lemminkainen, grave and thoughtful,
Long reflected, well considered,
Where the snow-shoes could be fashioned,
Who the artist that could make them;
Hastened to the Kauppi-smithy,
To the smithy of Lylikki,
Thus addressed the snow-shoe artist:
'O thou skilful Woyalander,
Kauppi, ablest smith of Lapland,
Make me quick two worthy snow-shoes,
Smooth them well and make them hardy,
That in Tapio the wild-moose,
Roaming through the Hisi-forests,
I may catch and bring to Louhi,
As a dowry for her daughter.'
Then Lylikki thus made answer,
Kauppi gave this prompt decision:
'Lemminkainen, reckless minstrel,
Thou wilt hunt in vain the wild-moose,
Thou wilt catch but pain and torture,
In the Hisi fens and forests.'
Little heeding, Lemminkainen
Spake these measures to Lylikki
'Make for me the worthy snow-shoes,
Quickly work and make them ready;
Go I will and catch the blue-moose
Where in Tapio it browses,
In the Hisi woods and snow-fields.'
Then Lylikki, snow-shoe-maker,
Ancient Kauppi, master artist,
Whittled in the fall his show-shoes,
Smoothed them in the winter evenings,
One day working on the runners,
All the next day making stick-rings,
Till at last the shoes were finished,
And the workmanship was perfect.
Then he fastened well the shoe-straps,
153
Smooth as adder's skin the woodwork,
Soft as fox-fur were the stick-rings;
Oiled he well his wondrous snow-shoes
With the tallow of the reindeer;
When he thus soliloquizes,
These the accents of Lylikki:
'Is there any youth in Lapland,
Any in this generation,
That can travel in these snow-shoes,
That can move the lower sections?'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen,
Full of hope, and life, and vigor:
Surely there is one in Lapland.
In this rising generation,
That can travel in these snow-shoes,
That the right and left can manage.'
To his back he tied the quiver,
Placed the bow upon his shoulder,
With both hands he grasped his snow-cane,
Speaking meanwhile words as follow:
'There is nothing in the woodlands,
Nothing in the world of Ukko,
Nothing underneath the heavens,
In the uplands, in the lowlands,
Nothing in the snow-fields running,
Not a fleet deer of the forest,
That could not be overtaken
With the snow-shoes of Lylikki,
With the strides of Lemminkainen.'
Wicked Hisi heard these measures,
Juntas listened to their echoes;
Straightway Hisi called the wild-moose,
Juutas fashioned soon a reindeer,
And the head was made of punk-wood,
Horns of naked willow branches,
Feet were furnished by the rushes,
And the legs, by reeds aquatic,
Veins were made of withered grasses,
Eyes, from daisies of the meadows,
Ears were formed of water-flowers,
And the skin of tawny fir-bark,
Out of sappy wood, the muscles,
154
Fair and fleet, the magic reindeer.
Juutas thus instructs the wild-moose,
These the words of wicked Hisi:
Flee away, thou moose of Juutas,
Flee away, thou Hisi-reindeer,
Like the winds, thou rapid courser,
To the snow-homes of the ranger,
To the ridges of the mountains,
To the snow-capped hills of Lapland,
That thy hunter may be worn out,
Thy pursuer be tormented,
Lemminkainen be exhausted.'
Thereupon the Hisi-reindeer,
Juutas-moose with branching antlers,
Fleetly ran through fen and forest,
Over Lapland's hills and valleys,
Through the open fields and court-yards,
Through the penthouse doors and gate-ways,
Turning over tubs of water,
Threw the kettles from the fire-pole,
And upset the dishes cooking.
Then arose a fearful uproar,
In the court-yards of Pohyola,
Lapland-dogs began their barking,
Lapland-children cried in terror,
Lapland-women roared with laughter,
And the Lapland-heroes shouted.
Fleetly followed Lemminkainen,
Followed fast, and followed faster,
Hastened on behind the wild-moose,
Over swamps and through the woodlands,
Over snow-fields vast and pathless,
Over high uprising mountains,
Fire out-shooting from his runners,
Smoke arising from his snow-cane:
Could not hear the wild-moose bounding,
Could not sight the flying fleet-foot;
Glided on through field and forest,
Glided over lakes and rivers,
Over lands beyond the smooth-sea,
Through the desert plains of Hisi,
Glided o'er the plains of Kalma,
155
Through the kingdom of Tuoni,
To the end of Kalma's empire,
Where the jaws of Death stand open,
Where the head of Kalma lowers,
Ready to devour the stranger,
To devour wild Lemminkainen;
But Tuoni cannot reach him,
Kalma cannot overtake him.
Distant woods are yet untraveled,
Far away a woodland corner
Stands unsearched by Kaukomieli,
In the North's extensive, borders,
In the realm of dreary Lapland.
Now the hero, on his snow-shoes,
Hastens to the distant woodlands,
There to hunt the moose of Piru.
As he nears the woodland corner,
There he bears a frightful uproar,
From the Northland's distant borders,
From the dreary fields of Lapland,
Hears the dogs as they are barking,
Hears the children loudly screaming,
Hears the laughter or the women,
Hears the shouting of the heroes.
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Hastens forward on his snow-shoes,
To the place where dogs are barking,
To the distant woods of Lapland.
When the reckless Kaukomieli
Had approached this Hisi corner,
Straightway he began to question:
'Why this laughter or the women,
Why the screaming of the children,
Why the shouting of the heroes,
Why this barking of the watch-dogs?
This reply was promptly given:
'This the reason for this uproar,
Women laughing, children screaming,
Heroes shouting, watch-dogs barking
Hisi's moose came running hither,
Hither came the Piru-Reindeer,
Hither came with hoofs of silver,
156
Through the open fields and court-yards,
Through the penthouse doors and gate-ways,
Turning over tubs or water,
Threw the kettles from the fire-pole,
And upset the dishes cooking.'
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Straightway summoned all his courage,
Pushed ahead his mighty snow-shoes,
Swift as adders in the stubble,
Levelled bushes in the marshes,
Like the swift and fiery serpents,
Spake these words of magic import,
Keeping balance with his snow-staff:
Come thou might of Lapland heroes,
Bring to me the moose of Juutas;
Come thou strength of Lapland-women,
And prepare the boiling caldron;
Come, thou might of Lapland children,
Bring together fire and fuel;
Come, thou strength of Lapland-kettles,
Help to boil the Hisi wild-moose.'
Then with mighty force and courage,
Lemminkainen hastened onward,
Striking backward, shooting forward;
With a long sweep of his snow-shoe,
Disappeared from view the hero;
With the second, shooting further,
Was the hunter out of hearing,
With the third the hero glided
On the shoulders of the wild-moose;
Took a pole of stoutest oak-wood,
Took some bark-strings from the willow,
Wherewithal to bind the moose-deer,
Bind him to his oaken hurdle.
To the moose he spake as follows:
'Here remain, thou moose of Juutas
Skip about, my bounding courser,
In my hurdle jump and frolic,
Captive from the fields of Piru,
From the Hisi glens and mountains.'
Then he stroked the captured wild-moose,
Patted him upon his forehead,
157
Spake again in measured accents:
'I would like awhile to linger,
I would love to rest a moment
In the cottage of my maiden,
With my virgin, young and lovely.'
Then the Hisi-moose grew angry,
Stamped his feet and shook his antlers,
Spake these words to Lemminkainen:
'Surely Lempo soon will got thee,
Shouldst thou sit beside the maiden,
Shouldst thou linger by the virgin.'
Now the wild-moose stamps and rushes,
Tears in two the bands of willow,
Breaks the oak-wood pole in pieces,
And upturns the hunter's hurdle,
Quickly leaping from his captor,
Bounds away with strength of freedom,
Over hills and over lowlands,
Over swamps and over snow-fields,
Over mountains clothed in heather,
That the eye may not behold him,
Nor the hero's ear detect him.
Thereupon the mighty hunter
Angry grows, and much disheartened,
Starts again the moose to capture,
Gliding off behind the courser.
With his might he plunges forward;
At the instep breaks his snow-shoe,
Breaks the runners into fragments,
On the mountings breaks his javelins,
In the centre breaks his snow-staff,
And the moose bounds on before him,
Through the Hisi-woods and snow-fields,
Out of reach of Lemminkainen.
Then the reckless Kaukomieli
Looked with bended head, ill-humored,
One by one upon the fragments,
Speaking words of ancient wisdom:
'Northland hunters, never, never,
Go defiant to thy forests,
In the Hisi vales and mountains,
There to hunt the moose of Juutas,
158
Like this senseless, reckless hero;
I have wrecked my magic snow-shoes,
Ruined too my useful snow-staff,
And my javelins I have broken,
While the wild-moose runs in safety
Through the Hisi fields and forests.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
767:The Kalevala - Rune Xlviii
CAPTURE OF THE FIRE-FISH.
Wainamoinen, the enchanter,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
Long reflected, well considered,
How to weave the net of flax-yarn,
Weave the fish-net of the fathers.
Spake the minstrel of Wainola:
'Who will plow the field and fallow,
Sow the flax, and spin the flax-threads,
That I may prepare the fish-net,
Wherewith I may catch the Fire-pike,
May secure the thing of evil?'
Soon they found a fertile island,
Found the fallow soil befitting,
On the border of the heather,
And between two stately oak-trees.
They prepared the soil for sowing.
Searching everywhere for flax-seed,
Found it in Tuoni's kingdom,
In the keeping of an insect.
Then they found a pile of ashes,
Where the fire had burned a vessel;
In the ashes sowed the seedlings
Near the Alue-lake and border,
In the rich and loamy fallow.
There the seed took root and flourished,
Quickly grew to great proportions,
In a single night in summer.
Thus the flax was sowed at evening,
Placed within the earth by moonlight;
Quick it grew, and quickly ripened,
Quick Wainola's heroes pulled it,
Quick they broke it on the hackles,
Hastened with it to the waters,
Dipped it in the lake and washed it;
Quickly brought it borne and dried it.
Quickly broke, and combed, and smoothed it,
265
Brushed it well at early morning,
Laid it into laps for spinning
Quick the maidens twirl the spindles,
Spin the flaxen threads for weaving,
In a single night in summer.
Quick the sisters wind and reel it,
Make it ready for the needle.
Brothers weave it into fish-nets,
And the fathers twist the cordage,
While the mothers knit the meshes,
Rapidly the mesh-stick circles;
Soon the fish-net is completed,
In a single night in summer.
As the magic net is finished,
And in length a hundred fathoms,
On the rim three hundred fathoms.
Rounded stones are fastened to it,
Joined thereto are seven float-boards.
Now the young men take the fish-net,
And the old men cheer them onward,
Wish them good-luck at their fishing.
Long they row and drag the flax-seine,
Here and there the net is lowered;
Now they drag it lengthwise, sidewise,
Drag it through the slimy reed-beds;
But they do not catch the Fire-pike,
Only smelts, and luckless red-fish,
Little fish of little value.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Let us go ourselves a-fishing,
Let us catch the fish of evil!'
To the fishing went the brothers,
Magic heroes of the Northland,
Pulled the fish-net through the waters,
Toward an island in the deep-sea
Then they turn and drag the fish-net
Toward a meadow jutting seaward;
Now they drag it toward Wainola,
Draw it lengthwise, sidewise, crosswise,
Catching fish of every species,
salmon, trout, and pike, and whiting,
266
Do not catch the evil Fire-fish.
Then the master, Wainamoinen,
Made additions to its borders,
Made it many fathoms wider,
And a hundred fathoms longer,
Then these words the hero uttered
'Famous blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Let us go again a-fishing,
Row again the magic fish-net,
Drag it well through all the waters,
That we may obtain the Fire-pike!'
Thereupon the Northland heroes
Go a second time a-fishing,
Drag their nets across the rivers,
Lakelets, seas, and bays, and inlets,
Catching fish of many species,
But the Fire-fish is not taken.
Wainamoinen, ancient singer,
Long reflecting, spake these measures:
'Dear Wellamo, water-hostess,
Ancient mother with the reed-breast,
Come, exchange thy water-raiment,
Change thy coat of reeds and rushes
For the garments I shall give thee,
Light sea-foam, thine inner vesture,
And thine outer, moss and sea-grass,
Fashioned by the wind's fair daughters,
Woven by the flood's sweet maidens;
I will give thee linen vestments
Spun from flax of softest fiber,
Woven by the Moon's white virgins,
Fashioned by the Sun's bright daughters
Fitting raiment for Wellamo!
'Ahto, king of all the waters,
Ruler of a thousand grottoes,
Take a pole of seven fathoms,
Search with this the deepest waters,
Rummage well the lowest bottoms;
Stir up all the reeds and sea-weeds,
Hither drive a school of gray-pike,
Drive them to our magic fish-net,
From the haunts in pike abounding,
267
From the caverns, and the trout-holes,
From the whirlpools of the deep-sea,
From the bottomless abysses,
Where the sunshine never enters,
Where the moonlight never visits,
And the sands are never troubled.'
Rose a pigmy from the waters,
From the floods a little hero,
Riding on a rolling billow,
And the pigmy spake these measures:
'Dost thou wish a worthy helper,
One to use the pole and frighten
Pike and salmon to thy fish-nets?'
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Answered thus the lake-born hero:
'Yea, we need a worthy helper,
One to hold the pole, and frighten
Pike and salmon to our fish-nets.'
Thereupon the water-pigmy
Cut a linden from the border,
Spake these words to Wainamoinen:
'Shall I scare with all my powers,
With the forces of my being,
As thou needest shall I scare them?'
Spake the minstrel, Wainamoinen:
'If thou scarest as is needed,
Thou wilt scare with all thy forces,
With the strength of thy dominions.'
Then began the pigmy-hero,
To affright the deep-sea-dwellers;
Drove the fish in countless numbers
To the net of the magicians.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Drew his net along the waters,
Drew it with his ropes of flax-thread,
Spake these words of magic import:
'Come ye fish of Northland waters
To the regions of my fish-net,
As my hundred meshes lower.'
Then the net was drawn and fastened,
Many were the gray-pike taken
By he master and magician.
268
Wainamoinen, happy-hearted,
Hastened to a neighboring island,
To a blue-point in the waters,
Near a red-bridge on the headland;
Landed there his draught of fishes,
Cast the pike upon the sea-shore,
And the Fire-pike was among them,
Cast the others to the waters.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'May I touch thee with my fingers,
Using not my gloves of iron,
Using not my blue-stone mittens?
This the Sun-child hears and answers:
'I should like to carve the Fire-fish,
I should like this pike to handle,
If I had the knife of good-luck.'
Quick a knife falls from the heavens,
From the clouds a magic fish-knife,
Silver-edged and golden-headed,
To the girdle of the Sun-child;
Quick he grasps the copper handle,
Quick the hero carves the Fire-pike,
Finds therein the tortured lake-trout;
Carves the lake-trout thus discovered.
Finds therein the fated whiting;
Carves the whiting, finds a blue-ball
In the third cave of his body.
He, the blue-ball quick unwinding,
Finds within a ball of scarlet;
Carefully removes the cover,
Finds the ball of fire within it,
Finds the flame from heaven fallen,
From the heights of the seventh heaven,
Through nine regions of the ether.
Wainamoinen long reflected
How to get the magic fire-ball
To Wainola's fireless hearth-stones,
To his cold and cheerless dwellings.
Quick he snatched the fire of heaven
From the fingers of the Sun-child.
Wainamoinen's beard it singes,
Burns the brow of Ilmarinen,
269
Burns the fingers of the blacksmith.
Rolling forth it hastens westward,
Hastens to the Alue shore-lines,
Burns the juniper and alder,
Burns the and heath and meadow,
Rises to the lofty linden,
Burns the firs upon the mountains;
Hastens onward, onward, onward,
Burns the islands of the Northland,
Burns the Sawa fields and forests,
Burns the dry lands of Karyala.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Hastens through the fields and fenlands,
Tracks the ranger to the glen-wood,
Finds the Fire-child in an elm-tree,
Sleeping in a bed of fungus.
Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
Wakes the child and speaks these measures:
'Wicked fire that God created,
Flame of Ukko from the heavens,
Thou hast gone in vain to sea-caves,
To the lakes without a reason;
Better go thou to my village,
To the hearth-stones of my people;
Hide thyself within my chimneys,
In mine ashes sleep and linger.
In the day-time I will use thee
To devour the blocks of birch-wood;
In the evening I will hide thee
Underneath the golden circle.'
Then he took the willing Panu,
Took the willing fire of Ukko,
Laid it in a box of tinder,
In the punk-wood of a birch-tree,
In a vessel forged from copper;
Carried it with care and pleasure
To the fog-point in the waters,
To the island forest covered.
Thus returned the fire to Northland,
To the chambers of Wainola,
To the hearths of Kalevala.
Ilmarinen, famous blacksmith,
270
Hastened to the deep-sea's margin,
Sat upon the rock of torture,
Feeling pain the flame had given,
Laved his wounds with briny water,
Thus to still the Fire-child's fury,
Thus to end his persecutions.
Long reflecting, Ilmarinen
Thus addressed the flame of Ukko:
'Evil Panu from the, heavens,
Wicked son of God from ether,
Tell me what has made thee angry,
Made thee burn my weary members,
Burn my beard, and face, and fingers,
Made me suffer death-land tortures?
Spake again young Ilmarinen:
'How can I wild Panu conquer,
How shall I control his conduct,
Make him end his evil doings?
Come, thou daughter from Pohyola,
Come, white virgin of the hoar-frost,
Come on shoes of ice from Lapland,
Icicles upon thy garments,
In one band a cup of white-frost,
In the other hand an ice-spoon;
Sprinkle snow upon my members,
Where the Fire-child has been resting,
Let the hoar-frost fall and settle.
'Should this prayer be unavailing,
Come, thou son of Sariola,
Come, thou child of Frost from Pohya,
Come, thou Long-man from the ice-plains,
Of the height of stately pine-trees,
Slender as the trunks of lindens,
On thy hands the gloves of Hoar-frost,
Cap of ice upon thy forehead,
On thy waist a white-frost girdle;
Bring the ice-dust from Pohyola,
From the cold and sunless village.
Rain is crystallized in Northland,
Ice in Pohya is abundant,
Lakes of ice and ice-bound rivers,
Frozen smooth, the sea of ether.
271
Bounds the hare in frosted fur-robe,
Climbs the bear in icy raiment,
Ambles o'er the snowy mountains.
Swans of frost descend the rivers,
Ducks of ice in countless numbers
Swim upon thy freezing waters,
Near the cataract and whirlpool.
Bring me frost upon thy snow-sledge,
Snow and ice in great abundance,
From the summit of the wild-top,
From the borders of the mountains.
With thine ice, and snow, and hoar-frost
Cover well mine injured members
Where wild Panu has been resting,
Where the child of Fire has lingered.
'Should this call be ineffective,
Ukko, God of love and mercy,
First and last of the creators,
From the east send forth a snow-cloud,
From the west despatch a second,
Join their edges well together,
Let there be no vacant places,
Let these clouds bring snow and
Lay the healing balm of Ukko
On my burning, tortured tissues,
Where wild Panu has been resting.'
Thus the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Stills the pains by fire engendered,
Stills the agonies and tortures
Brought him by the child of evil,
Brought him by the wicked Panu.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
768:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxv
KULLERVO'S EVIL DEEDS.
Kullerwionen, youthful wizard,
In his blue and scarlet stockings,
Henceforth lingered with his parents;
But he could not change his nature,
Could not gain a higher wisdom,
Could not win a better judgment;
As a child he was ill-nurtured,
Early rocked in stupid cradles,
By a nurse of many follies,
By a minister of evil.
To his work went Kullerwoinen,
Strove to make his labors worthy;
First, Kullervo went a-fishing,
Set his fishing-nets in ocean;
With his hands upon the row-locks,
Kullerwoinen spake as follows:
'Shall I pull with all my forces,
Pull with strength of youthful heroes,
Or with weakness of the aged?'
From the stern arose a gray-beard,
And he answered thus Kullervo:
'Pull with all thy youthful vigor;
Shouldst thou row with magic power,
Thou couldst not destroy this vessel,
Couldst not row this boat to fragments.'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Rowed with all his youthful vigor,
With the mighty force of magic,
Rowed the bindings from the vessel,
Ribs of juniper he shattered,
Rowed the aspen-oars to pieces.
When the aged sire, Kalervo,
Saw the work of Kullerwoinen,
He addressed his son as follows:
'Dost not understand the rowing;
Thou hast burst the bands asunder,
544
Bands of juniper and willow,
Rowed my aspen-boat to pieces;
To the fish-nets drive the salmon,
This, perchance, will suit thee better.'
Thereupon the son, Kullervo,
Hastened to his work as bidden,
Drove the salmon to the fish-nets,
Spake in innocence as follows:
'Shall I with my youthful vigor
Scare the salmon to the fish-nets,
Or with little magic vigor
Shall I drive them to their capture?
Spake the master of the fish-nets:
'That would be but work of women,
Shouldst thou use but little power
In the frighting of the salmon!'
Kullerwoinen does as bidden,
Scares the salmon with the forces
Of his mighty arms and shoulders,
With the strength of youth and magic,
Stirs the water thick with black-earth,
Beats the scare-net into pieces,
Into pulp he beats the salmon.
When the aged sire, Kalervo,
Saw the work of Kullerwoinen,
To his son these words he uttered:
'Dost not understand this labor,
For this work thou art not suited,
Canst not scare the perch and salmon
To the fish-nets of thy father;
Thou hast ruined all my fish-nets,
Torn my scare-net into tatters,
Beaten into pulp the whiting,
Torn my net-props into fragments,
Beaten into bits my wedges.
Leave the fishing to another;
See if thou canst pay the tribute,
Pay my yearly contribution;
See if thou canst better travel,
On the way show better judgment!'
Thereupon the son, Kullervo,
Hapless youth in purple vestments,
545
In his magic shoes of deer-skin,
In his locks of golden color,
Sallied forth to pay the taxes,
Pay the tribute for his people.
When the youth had paid the tribute,
Paid the yearly contribution,
He returned to join the snow-sledge,
Took his place upon the cross-bench,
Snapped his whip above the courser,
And began his journey homeward;
Rattled on along the highway,
Measured as he galloped onward
Wainamoinen's hills and valleys,
And his fields in cultivation.
Came a golden maid to meet him,
On her snow-shoes came a virgin,
O'er the hills of Wainamoinen,
O'er his cultivated lowlands.
Quick the wizard-son, Kullervo,
Checked the motion of his racer,
Thus addressed the charming maiden
'Come, sweet maiden, to my snow-sledge,
In my fur-robes rest and linger!'
As she ran, the maiden answered:
'Let the Death-maid sit beside thee,
Rest and linger in thy fur-robes!'
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Snapped his whip above the courser;
Fleet as wind he gallops homeward,
Dashes down along the highway;
With the roar of falling waters,
Gallops onward, onward, onward,
O'er the broad-back of the ocean,
O'er the icy plains of Lapland.
Comes a winsome maid to meet him,
Golden-haired, and wearing snow-shoes,
On the far outstretching ice-plains;
Quick the wizard checks his racer,
Charmingly accosts the maiden,
Chanting carefully these measures:
'Come, thou beauty, to my snow-sledge,
Hither come, and rest, and linger!
546
Tauntingly the maiden answered:
'Take Tuoni to thy snow-sledge,
At thy side let Manalainen
Sit with thee, and rest, and linger!'
Quick the wizard, Kullerwoinen,
Struck his fiery, prancing racer,
With the birch-whip of his father.
Like the lightning flew the fleet-foot,
Galloped on the highway homeward;
O'er the hills the snow-sledge bounded,
And the coming mountains trembled.
Kullerwoinen, wild magician,
Measures, on his journey homeward,
Northland's far-extending borders,
And the fertile plains of Pohya.
Comes a beauteous maid to meet him,
With a tin-pin on her bosom,
On the heather of Pohyola,
O'er the Pohya-hills and moorlands.
Quick the wizard son, Kullervo,
Holds the bridle of his courser,
Charmingly intones these measures:
'Come, fair maiden, to my snow-sledge,
In these fur-robes rest, and linger;
Eat with me the golden apples,
Eat the hazel-nut in joyance,
Drink with me the beer delicious,
Eat the dainties that I give thee.'
This the answer of the maiden
With the tin-pin on her bosom:
'I have scorn to give thy snow-sledge,
Scorn for thee, thou wicked wizard;
Cold is it beneath thy fur-robes,
And thy sledge is chill and cheerless.
Thereupon the youth, Kullervo,
Wicked wizard of the Northland,
Drew the maiden to his snow-sledge,
Drew her to a seat beside him,
Quickly in his furs enwrapped her;
And the tin-adorned made answer,
These the accents of the maiden:
'Loose me from thy magic power,
547
Let me leave at once thy presence,
Lest I speak in wicked accents,
Lest I say the prayer of evil;
Free me now as I command thee,
Or I'll tear thy sledge to pieces,
Throw these fur-robes to the north-winds.'
Straightway wicked Kullerwoinen,
Evil wizard and magician,
Opens all his treasure-boxes,
Shows the maiden gold and silver,
Shows her silken wraps of beauty,
Silken hose with golden borders,
Golden belts with silver buckles,
Jewelry that dims the vision,
Blunts the conscience of the virgin.
Silver leads one to destruction,
Gold entices from uprightness.
Kullerwoinen, wicked wizard,
Flatters lovingly the maiden,
One hand on the reins of leather,
One upon the maiden's shoulder;
Thus they journey through the evening,
Pass the night in merry-making.
When the day-star led the morning,
When the second day was dawning,
Then the maid addressed Kullervo,
Questioned thus the wicked wizard:
'Of what tribe art thou descended,
Of what race thy hero-father?
Tell thy lineage and kindred.`
This, Kullervo's truthful answer:
'Am not from a mighty nation,
Not the greatest, nor the smallest,
But my lineage is worthy:
Am Kalervo's son of folly,
Am a child of contradictions,
Hapless son of cold misfortune.
Tell me of thy race of heroes,
Tell thine origin and kindred.'
This the answer of the maiden:
'Came not from a race primeval,
Not the largest, nor the smallest,
548
But my lineage is worthy;
Am Kalervo's wretched daughter,
Am his long-lost child of error,
Am a maid of contradictions,
Hapless daughter of misfortune.
'When a child I lived in plenty
In the dwellings of my mother;
To the woods I went for berries,
Went for raspberries to uplands,
Gathered strawberries on mountains,
Gathered one day then a second;
But, alas! upon the third day,
Could not find the pathway homeward,
Forestward the highways led me,
All the footpaths, to the woodlands.
Long I sat in bitter weeping,
Wept one day and then a second,
Wept the third from morn till even.
Then I climbed a. lofty mountain,
There I called in wailing accents,
And the woodlands gave this answer,
Thus the distant hills re-echoed:
'Call no longer, foolish virgin,
All thy calls and tears are useless;
There is none to give thee answer,
Far away, thy home and people.'
'On the third and on the fourth days,
On the fifth, and sixth, and seventh,
Constantly I sought to perish;
But in vain were all my efforts,
Could not die upon the mountains.
If this wretched maid had perished,
In the summer of the third year,
She had fed earth's vegetation,
She had blossomed as a flower,
Knowing neither pain nor sorrow.'
Scarcely had the maiden spoken,
When she bounded from the snow-sledge,
Rushed upon the rolling river,
To the cataract's commotion,
To the fiery stream and whirlpool.
Thus Kullervo's lovely sister
549
Hastened to her own destruction,
To her death by fire and water,
Found her peace in Tuonela,
In the sacred stream of Mana.
Then the wicked Kullerwoinen
Fell to weeping, sorely troubled,
Wailed, and wept, and heavy-hearted,
Spake these words in bitter sorrow:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
I have slain my virgin-sister,
Shamed the daughter of my mother;
Woe to thee, my ancient father!
Woe to thee, my gray-haired mother!
Wherefore was I born and nurtured,
Why this hapless child's existence?
Better fate to Kullerwoinen,
Had he never seen the daylight,
Or, if born, had never thriven
In these mournful days of evil!
Death has failed to do his duty,
Sickness sinned in passing by me,
Should have slain me in the cradle,
When the seventh day had ended!'
Thereupon he slips the collar
Of his prancing royal racer,
Mounts the silver-headed fleet-foot,
Gallops like the lightning homeward;
Gallops only for a moment,
When he halts his foaming courser
At the cabin of his father.
In the court-yard stood the mother,
Thus the wicked son addressed her:
'Faithful mother, fond and tender,
Hadst thou slain me when an infant,
Smoked my life out in the chamber,
In a winding-sheet hadst thrown me
To the cataract and whirlpool,
In the fire hadst set my cradle,
After seven nights had ended,
Worthy would have been thy service.
Had the village-maidens asked thee:
'Where is now the little cradle,
550
Wherefore is the bath-room empty?'
This had been a worthy answer:
'I have burned the wizard's cradle,
Cast the infant to the fire-dogs;
In the bath-room corn is sprouting,
From the barley malt is brewing.''
Thereupon the aged mother
Asks her wizard-son these questions:
'What has happened to my hero,
What new fate has overcome thee?
Comest thou as from Tuoni,
From the castles of Manala?'
This, Kullervo's frank confession:
'Infamous the tale I bring thee,
My confession is dishonor:
On the way I met a maiden,
Met thy long-lost, wayward daughter,
Did not recognize my sister,
Fatal was the sin committed!
When the taxes had been settled,
When the tribute had been gathered,
Came a matchless maid to meet me,
Whom I witless led to sorrow,
This my mother's long-lost daughter.
When she saw in me her brother,
Quick she bounded from the snow-sledge,
Hastened to the roaring waters,
To the cataract's commotion,
To the fiery stream and whirlpool,
Hastened to her full destruction.
'Now, alas! must I determine,
Now must find a spot befitting,
Where thy sinful son may perish;
Tell me, all-forgiving mother,
Where to end my life of trouble;
Let me stop the black-wolf's howling,
Let me satisfy the hunger
Of the vicious bear of Northland;
Let the shark or hungry sea-dog
Be my dwelling-place hereafter!'
This the answer of the mother:
'Do not go to stop the howling
551
Of the hungry wolf of Northland;
Do not haste to still the black-bear
Growling in his forest-cavern;
Let not shark, nor vicious sea-dog
Be thy dwelling-place hereafter.
Spacious are the rooms of Suomi,
Limitless the Sawa-borders,
Large enough to hide transgression,
Man's misdeeds to hide for ages,
With his sins and evil actions.
Six long years man's sins lie hidden
In the border-land of Kalma,
Even nine for magic heroes,
Till the years bring consolation,
Till they quiet all his mourning.'
Kullerwoinen, wicked wizard,
Answers thus his grieving mother:
'I can never hide from sorrow,
Cannot flee from my misconduct;
To the jaws of death I hasten,
To the open courts of Kalma,
To the hunting-grounds of Pohya,
To the battle-fields of heroes.
Untamoinen still is living,
Unmolested roams the wicked,
Unavenged my father's grievance,
Unavenged my mother's tortures,
Unavenged the wrongs I suffer!'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
769:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxi
KULLERWOINEN SON OF EVIL.
In the ancient times a mother
Hatched and raised some swans and chickens,
Placed the chickens in the brushwood,
Placed her swans upon the river;
Came an eagle, hawk, and falcon,
Scattered all her swans and chickens,
One was carried to Karyala,
And a second into Ehstland,
Left a third at home in Pohya.
And the one to Ehstland taken
Soon became a thriving merchant;
He that journeyed to Karyala
Flourished and was called Kalervo;
He that hid away in Pohya
Took the name of Untamoinen,
Flourished to his father's sorrow,
To the heart-pain of his mother.
Untamoinen sets his fish-nets
In the waters of Kalervo;
Kullerwoinen sees the fish-nets,
Takes the fish home in his basket.
Then Untamo, evil-minded,
Angry grew and sighed for vengeance,
Clutched his fingers for the combat,
Bared his mighty arms for battle,
For the stealing of his salmon,
For the robbing of his fish-nets.
Long they battled, fierce the struggle,
Neither one could prove the victor;
Should one beat the other fiercely,
He himself was fiercely beaten.
Then arose a second trouble;
On the second and the third days,
Kalerwoinen sowed some barley
Near the barns of Untamoinen;
Untamoinen's sheep in hunger
499
Ate the crop of Kullerwoinen;
Kullerwoinen's dog in malice
Tore Untamo's sheep in pieces;
Then Untamo sorely threatened
To annihilate the people
Of his brother, Kalerwoinen,
To exterminate his tribe-folk,
To destroy the young and aged,
To out-root his race and kingdom;
Conjures men with broadswords girded,
For the war he fashions heroes,
Fashions youth with spears adjusted,
Bearing axes on their shoulders ,
Conjures thus a mighty army,
Hastens to begin a battle,
Bring a war upon his brother.
Kalerwoinen's wife in beauty
Sat beside her chamber-window,
Looking out along the highway,
Spake these words in wonder guessing:
'Do I see some smoke arising,
Or perchance a heavy storm-cloud,
Near the border of the forest,
Near the ending of the prairie?'
It was not some smoke arising,
Nor indeed a heavy storm-cloud,
It was Untamoinen's soldiers
Marching to the place of battle.
Warriors of Untamoinen
Came equipped with spears and arrows,
Killed the people of Kalervo,
Slew his tribe and all his kindred,
Burned to ashes many dwellings,
Levelled many courts and cabins,
Only, left Kalervo's daughter,
With her unborn child, survivors
Of the slaughter of Untamo;
And she led the hostile army
To her father's halls and mansion,
Swept the rooms and made them cheery,
Gave the heroes home-attentions.
Time had gone but little distance,
500
Ere a boy was born in magic
Of the virgin, Untamala,
Of a mother, trouble-laden,
Him the mother named Kullervo,
'Pearl of Combat,' said Untamo.
Then they laid the child of wonder,
Fatherless, the magic infant,
In the cradle of attention,
To be rocked, and fed, and guarded;
But he rocked himself at pleasure,
Rocked until his locks stood endwise;
Rocked one day, and then a second,
Rocked the third from morn till noontide;
But before the third day ended,
Kicks the boy with might of magic,
Forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards,
Kicks in miracles of power,
Bursts with might his swaddling garments
Creeping from beneath his blankets,
Knocks his cradle into fragments,
Tears to tatters all his raiment,
Seemed that he would grow a hero,
And his mother, Untamala,
Thought that be, when full of stature,
When he found his strength and reason,
Would become a great magician,
First among a thousand heroes.
When. three months the boy had thriven,
He began to speak as follows:
'When my form is full of stature,
When these arms grow strong and hardy,
Then will I avenge the murder
Of Kalervo and his people!'
Untamoinen bears the saying,
Speaks these words to those about him;
'To my tribe he brings destruction,
In him grows a new Kalervo!'
Then the heroes well considered,
And the women gave their counsel,
How to kill the magic infant,
That their tribe may live in safety.
It appeared the boy would prosper;
501
Finally, they all consenting,
He was placed within a basket,
And with willows firmly fastened,
Taken to the reeds and rushes,
Lowered to the deepest waters,
In his basket there to perish.
When three nights had circled over,
Messengers of Untamoinen
Went to see if be had perished
In his basket in the waters;
But the prodigy, was living,
Had not perished in the rushes;
He had left his willow-basket,
Sat in triumph on a billow,
In his hand a rod of copper,
On the rod a golden fish-line,
Fishing for the silver whiting,
Measuring the deeps beneath him;
In the sea was little water,
Scarcely would it fill three measures.
Untamoinen then reflected,
This the language of the wizard:
'Whither shall we take this wonder,
Lay this prodigy of evil,
That destruction may o'ertake him,
Where the boy will sink and perish?'
Then his messengers he ordered
To collect dried poles of brushwood,
Birch-trees with their hundred branches,
Pine-trees full of pitch and resin,
Ordered that a pyre be builded,
That the boy might be cremated,
That Kullervo thus might perish.
High they piled the and branches,
Dried limbs from the sacred birch-tree,
Branches from a hundred fir-trees,
Knots and branches full of resign;
Filled with bark a thousand sledges,
Seasoned oak, a hundred measures;
Piled the brushwood to the tree-tops,
Set the boy upon the summit,
Set on fire the pile of brushwood,
502
Burned one day, and then a second,
Burned the third from morn till evening.
When Untamo sent his heralds
To inspect the pyre and wizard,
There to learn if young Kullervo
Had been burned to dust and ashes,
There they saw the young boy sitting
On a pyramid of embers,
In his band a rod of copper,
Raking coals of fire about him,
To increase their heat and power;
Not a hair was burned nor injured,
Not a ringlet singed nor shrivelled.
Then Untamo, evil-humored,
Thus addressed his trusted heralds:
'Whither shall the boy be taken,
To what place this thing of evil,
That destruction may o'ertake him.
That the boy may sink and perish?'
Then they hung him to an oak-tree,
Crucified him in the branches,
That the wizard there might perish.
When three days and nights had ended,
Untamoinen spake as follows:
'It is time to send my heralds
To inspect the mighty oak-tree,
There to learn if young Kullervo
Lives or dies among the branches.'
Thereupon he sent his servants,
And the heralds brought this message:
'Young Kullervo has not perished,
Has not died among the branches
Of the oak-tree where we hung him.
In the oak he maketh pictures
With a wand between his fingers;
Pictures hang from all the branches,
Carved and painted by Kullervo;
And the heroes, thick as acorns,
With their swords and spears adjuste4
Fill the branches of the oak-tree,
Every leaf becomes a soldier.'
Who can help the grave Untamo
503
Kill the boy that threatens evil
To Untamo's tribe and country,
Since he will not die by water,
Nor by fire, nor crucifixion?
Finally it was decided
That his body was immortal,
Could not suffer death nor torture.
In despair grave Untamoinen
Thus addressed the boy, Kullervo:
'Wilt thou live a life becoming,
Always do my people honor,
Should I keep thee in my dwelling?
Shouldst thou render servant's duty,
Then thou wilt receive thy wages,
Reaping whatsoe'er thou sowest;
Thou canst wear the golden girdle,
Or endure the tongue of censure.'
When the boy had grown a little,
Had increased in strength and stature,
He was given occupation,
He was made to tend an infant,
Made to rock the infant's cradle.
These the words of Untamoinen:
'Often look upon the young child,
Feed him well and guard from danger,
Wash his linen in the river,
Give the infant good attention.'
Young Kullervo, wicked wizard,
Nurses one day then a second;
On the morning of the third day,
Gives the infant cruel treatment,
Blinds its eyes and breaks its fingers;
And when evening shadows gather,
Kills the young child while it slumbers,
Throws its body to the waters,
Breaks and burns the infant's cradle.
Untamoinen thus reflected:
'Never will this fell Kullervo
Be a worthy nurse for children,
Cannot rock a babe in safety;
Do not know how I can use him,
What employment I can give him!'
504
Then he told the young magician
He must fell the standing forest,
And Kullervo gave this answer:
'Only will I be a hero,
When I wield the magic hatchet;
I am young, and fair, and mighty,
Far more beautiful than others,
Have the skill of six magicians.'
Thereupon he sought the blacksmith,
This the order of Kullervo:
'Listen, O thou metal-artist,
Forge for me an axe of copper,
Forge the mighty axe of heroes,
Wherewith I may fell the forest,
Fell the birch, and oak, and aspen.'
This behest the blacksmith honors,
Forges him an axe of copper,
Wonderful the blade he forges.
Kullerwoinen grinds his hatchet,
Grinds his blade from morn till evening,
And the next day makes the handle;
Then he hastens to the forest,
To the upward-sloping mountain,
To the tallest of the birches,
To the mightiest of oak-trees;
There he swings his axe of copper,
Swings his blade with might of magic,
Cuts with sharpened edge the aspen,
With one blow he fells the oak-tree,
With a second blow, the linden;
Many trees have quickly fallen,
By the hatchet of Kullervo.
Then the wizard spake as follows:
'This the proper work of Lempo,
Let dire Hisi fell the forest!'
In the birch he sank his hatchet,
Made an uproar in the woodlands,
Called aloud in tones, of thunder,
Whistled to the distant mountains,
Till they echoed to his calling,
When Kullervo spake as follows:
'May the forest, in the circle
505
Where my voice rings, fall and perish,
In the earth be lost forever!
May no tree remain unlevelled,
May no saplings grow in spring-time,
Never while the moonlight glimmers,
Where Kullervo's voice has echoed,
Where the forest hears my calling;
Where the ground with seed is planted,
And the grain shall sprout and flourish,
May it never come to ripeness,
Mar the ears of corn be blasted!'
When the strong man, Untamoinen,
Went to look at early evening,
How Kullervo was progressing,
In his labors in the forest;
Little was the work accomplished,
Was not worthy of a here;
Untamoinen thus reflected:
'Young Kullervo is not fitted
For the work of clearing forests,
Wastes the best of all the timber,
To my lands he brings destruction;
I shall set him making fences.'
Then the youth began the building
Of a fence for Untamoinen;
Took the trunks of stately fir-trees,
Trimmed them with his blade for fence-posts,
Cut the tallest in the woodlands,
For the railing of his fences;
Made the smaller poles and cross-bars
From the longest of the lindens;
Made the fence without a pass-way,
Made no wicket in his fences,
And Kullervo spake these measures.
'He that does not rise as eagles,
Does not sail on wings through ether,
Cannot cross Kullervo's pickets,
Nor the fences he has builded.'
Untamoinen left his mansion
To inspect the young boy's labors,
View the fences of Kullervo;
Saw the fence without a pass-way,
506
Not a wicket in his fences;
From the earth the fence extended
To the highest clouds of heaven.
These the words of Untamoinen:
'For this work be is not fitted,
Useless is the fence thus builded;
Is so high that none can cross it,
And there is no passage through it:
He shall thresh the rye and barley.'
Young Kullervo, quick preparing
Made an oaken flail for threshing,
Threshed the rye to finest powder,
Threshed the barley into atoms,
And the straw to worthless fragments.
Untamoinen went at evening,
Went to see Kullervo's threshing,
View the work of Kullerwoinen;
Found the rye was ground to powder,
Grains of barley crushed to atoms,
And the straw to worthless rubbish.
Untamoinen then grew angry,
Spake these words in bitter accents:
'Kullerwoinen as a workman
Is a miserable failure;
Whatsoever work he touches
Is but ruined by his witchcraft;
I shall carry him to Ehstland,
In Karyala I shall sell him
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
There to swing the heavy hammer.'
Untamoinen sells Kullervo,
Trades him off in far Karyala,
To the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
To the master of the metals,
This the sum received in payment:
Seven worn and worthless sickles,
Three old caldrons worse than useless,
Three old scythes, and hoes, and axes,
Recompense, indeed, sufficient
For a boy that will not labor
For the good of his employer.
507
~ Elias Lönnrot,
770:The Kalevala - Rune Vii
WAINIOINEN'S RESCUE.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Swam through all the deep-sea waters,
Floating like a branch of aspen,
Like a withered twig of willow;
Swam six days in summer weather,
Swam six nights in golden moonlight;
Still before him rose the billows,
And behind him sky and ocean.
Two days more he swam undaunted,
Two long nights be struggled onward.
On the evening of the eighth day,
Wainamoinen grew disheartened,
Felt a very great discomfort,
For his feet had lost their toe-nails,
And his fingers dead and dying.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Sad and weary, spake as follows:
'Woe is me, my old life fated!
Woe is me, misfortune's offspring!
Fool was I when fortune, favored,
To forsake my home and kindred,
For a maiden fair and lovely,
Here beneath the starry heavens,
In this cruel waste of waters,
Days and nights to swim and wander,
Here to struggle with the storm-winds,
To be tossed by heaving billows,
In this broad sea's great expanses,
In this ocean vast and boundless.
'Cold my life and sad and dreary,
Painful too for me to linger
Evermore within these waters,
Thus to struggle for existence!
Cannot know how I can prosper,
How to find me food and shelter,
In these cold and lifeless waters,
97
In these days of dire misfortune.
Build I in the winds my dwelling?
It will find no sure foundation.
Build my home upon the billows?
Surely would the waves destroy it.'
Comes a bird from far Pohyola,
From the occident, an eagle,
Is not classed among the largest,
Nor belongs he to the smallest;
One wing touches on the waters,
While the other sweeps the heavens;
O'er the waves he wings his body,
Strikes his beak upon the sea-cliffs,
Flies about, then safely perches,
Looks before him, looks behind him,
There beholds brave Wainamoinen,
On the blue-back of the ocean,
And the eagle thus accosts him:
'Wherefore art thou, ancient hero,
Swimming in the deep-sea billows?
Thus the water-minstrel answered:
'I am ancient Wainamoinen,
Friend and fellow of the waters
I, the famous wisdom-singer;
Went to woo a Northland maiden,
Maiden from the dismal Darkland,
Quickly galloped on my journey,
Riding on the plain of ocean.
I arrived one morning early,
At the breaking of the day-dawn.
At the bay of Luotola,
Near Youkola's foaming river,
Where the evil Youkahainen
Slew my steed with bow and arrow,
Tried to slay me with his weapons.
On the waters fell I headlong,
Plunged beneath the salt-sea's surface,
From the saddle of the courser,
From my dappled steed of magic.
'Then arose a mighty storm-wind,
From the East and West a whirlwind,
Washed me seaward on the surges,
98
Seaward, seaward, further, further,
Where for many days I wandered,
Swam and rocked upon the billows,
Where as many nights I struggled,
In the dashing waves and sea-foam,
With the angry winds and waters.
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
Cannot solve this heavy problem,
How to live nor how to perish
In this cruel salt-sea water.
Build I in the winds my dwelling?
It will find no sure foundation.
Build my home upon the waters?
Surely will the waves destroy it.
Must I swim the sea forever,
Must I live, or must I perish?
What will happen if I perish,
If I sink below the billows,
Perish here from cold and hunger?'
Thus the bird of Ether answered
'Be not in the least disheartened,
Place thyself between my shoulders,
On my back be firmly seated,
I will lift thee from the waters,
Bear thee with my pinions upward,
Bear thee wheresoe'er thou willest.
Well do I the day remember
Where thou didst the eagle service,
When thou didst the birds a favor.
Thou didst leave the birch-tree standing,
When were cleared the Osmo-forests,
From the lands of Kalevala,
As a home for weary song-birds,
As a resting-place for eagles.'
Then arises Wainamoinen,
Lifts his head above the waters,
Boldly rises from the sea-waves,
Lifts his body from the billows,
Seats himself upon the eagle,
On the eagle's feathered shoulders.
Quick aloft the huge bird bears him,
Bears the ancient Wainamoinen,
99
Bears him on the path of zephyrs,
Floating on the vernal breezes,
To the distant shore of Northland,
To the dismal Sariola,
Where the eagle leaves his burden,
Flies away to join his fellows.
Wainamoinen, lone and weary,
Straightway fell to bitter weeping,
Wept and moaned in heavy accents,
On the border of the blue-sea.
On a cheerless promontory,
With a hundred wounds tormented,
Made by cruel winds and waters,
With his hair and beard dishevelled
By the surging of the billows.
Three long days he wept disheartened
Wept as many nights in anguish,
Did not know what way to journey,
Could not find a woodland foot-print,
That would point him to the highway,
To his home in Kalevala,
To his much-loved home and kindred.
Northland's young and slender maiden,
With complexion fair and lovely,
With the Sun had laid a wager,
With the Sun and Moon a wager,
Which should rise before the other,
On the morning of the morrow.
And the maiden rose in beauty,
Long before the Sun had risen,
Long before the Moon bad wakened,
From their beds beneath the ocean.
Ere the cock had crowed the day-break,
Ere the Sun had broken slumber
She had sheared six gentle lambkins,
Gathered from them six white fleeces,
Hence to make the rolls for spinning,
Hence to form the threads for weaving,
Hence to make the softest raiment,
Ere the morning dawn had broken,
Ere the sleeping Sun had risen.
When this task the maid had ended,
100
Then she scrubbed the birchen tables,
Sweeps the ground-floor of the stable,
With a broom of leaves and branches
From the birches of the Northland,
Scrapes the sweepings well together
On a shovel made of copper,
Carries them beyond the stable,
From the doorway to the meadow,
To the meadow's distant border,
Near the surges of the great-sea,
Listens there and looks about her,
Hears a wailing from the waters,
Hears a weeping from the sea-shore,
Hears a hero-voice lamenting.
Thereupon she hastens homeward,
Hastens to her mother's dwelling,
These the words the maiden utters:
'I have heard a wail from ocean,
Heard a weeping from the sea-coast,
On the shore some one lamenting.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Ancient, toothless dame of Northland,
Hastens from her door and court-yard,
Through the meadow to the sea-shore,
Listens well for sounds of weeping,
For the wail of one in sorrow;
Hears the voice of one in trouble,
Hears a hero-cry of anguish.
Thus the ancient Louhi answers:
'This is not the wail of children,
These are not the tears of women,
In this way weep bearded heroes;
This the hero-cry of anguish.'
Quick she pushed her boat to water,
To the floods her goodly vessel,
Straightway rows with lightning swiftness,
To the weeping Wainamoinen;
Gives the hero consolation,
Comfort gives she to the minstrel
Wailing in a grove of willows,
In his piteous condition,
Mid the alder-trees and aspens,
101
On the border of the salt-sea,
Visage trembling, locks dishevelled.
Ears, and eyes, and lips of sadness.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Thus addresses Wainamoinen:
'Tell me what has been thy folly,
That thou art in this condition.'
Old and truthful Wainamoinen
Lifts aloft his bead and answers:
'Well I know that it is folly
That has brought me all this trouble,
Brought me to this land of strangers,
To these regions unbefitting
Happy was I with my kindred,
In my distant home and country,
There my name was named in honor.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Thus replied to Wainamoinen:
'I would gain the information,
Should I be allowed to ask thee,
Who thou art of ancient heroes,
Who of all the host of heroes?
This is Wainamoinen's answer:
'Formerly my name was mentioned,
Often was I heard and honored,
As a minstrel and magician,
In the long and dreary winters,
Called the 'Singer of the Northland,
In the valleys of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala;
No one thought that such misfortune
Could befall wise Wainamoinen.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Thus replied in cheering accents
'Rise, O hero, from discomfort,
From thy bed among the willows;
Enter now upon the new-way,
Come with me to yonder dwelling,
There relate thy strange adventures,
Tell the tale of thy misfortunes.'
Now she takes the hapless hero,
Lifts him from his bed of sorrow,
102
In her boat she safely seats him,
And begins at once her rowing,
Rows with steady hand and mighty
To her home upon the sea-shore,
To the dwellings of Pohyola.
There she feeds the starving hero,
Rests the ancient Wainamoinen,
Gives him warmth, and food, and shelter,
And the hero soon recovers.
Then the hostess of Pohyola
Questioned thus the ancient singer:
'Wherefore didst thou, Wainamoinen,
Friend and fellow of the waters,
Weep in sad and bitter accents,
On the border of the ocean,
Mid the aspens and the willows?'
This is Wainamoinen's answer:
Had good reason for my weeping,
Cause enough for all my sorrow;
Long indeed had I been swimming,
Had been buffeting the billows,
In the far outstretching waters.
This the reason for my weeping;
I have lived in toil and torture,
Since I left my home and country,
Left my native land and kindred,
Came to this the land of strangers,
To these unfamiliar portals.
All thy trees have thorns to wound me,
All thy branches, spines to pierce me,
Even birches give me trouble,
And the alders bring discomfort,
My companions, winds and waters,
Only does the Sun seem friendly,
In this cold and cruel country,
Near these unfamiliar portals.'
Louhi thereupon made answer,
Weep no longer, Wainamoinen,
Grieve no more, thou friend of waters,
Good for thee, that thou shouldst linger
At our friendly homes and firesides;
Thou shalt live with us and welcome,
103
Thou shalt sit at all our tables,
Eat the salmon from our platters,
Eat the sweetest of our bacon,
Eat the whiting from our waters.'
Answers thus old Wainamoinen,
Grateful for the invitation:
'Never do I court strange tables,
Though the food be rare and toothsome;
One's own country is the dearest,
One's own table is the sweetest,
One's own home, the most attractive.
Grant, kind Ukko, God above me,
Thou Creator, full of mercy,
Grant that I again may visit
My beloved home and country.
Better dwell in one's own country,
There to drink Its healthful waters
From the simple cups of birch-wood,
Than in foreign lands to wander,
There to drink the rarest liquors
From the golden bowls of strangers.'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Thus replied to the magician:
'What reward wilt thou award me,
Should I take thee where thou willest,
To thy native land and kindred,
To thy much-loved home and fireside,
To the meadows of Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala?'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'What would be reward sufficient,
Shouldst thou take me to my people,
To my home and distant country,
To the borders of the Northland,
There to hear the cuckoo singing,
Hear the sacred cuckoo calling?
Shall I give thee golden treasures,
Fill thy cups with finest silver?'
This is Louhi's simple answer:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Only true and wise magician,
Never will I ask for riches,
104
Never ask for gold nor silver;
Gold is for the children's flowers,
Silver for the stallion's jewels.
Canst thou forge for me the Sampo,
Hammer me the lid in colors,
From the tips of white-swan feathers
From the milk of greatest virtue,
From a single grain of barley,
From the finest wool of lambkins?
'I will give thee too my daughter,
Will reward thee through the maiden,
Take thee to thy much-loved home-land,
To the borders of Wainola,
There to hear the cuckoo singing,
Hear the sacred cuckoo calling.'
Wainamoinen, much regretting,
Gave this answer to her question:
'Cannot forge for thee the Sampo,
Cannot make the lid in colors.
Take me to my distant country,
I will send thee Ilmarinen,
He will forge for thee the Sampo,
Hammer thee the lid in colors,
He may win thy lovely maiden;
Worthy smith is Ilmarinen,
In this art is first and master;
He, the one that forged the heavens.
Forged the air a hollow cover;
Nowhere see we hammer-traces,
Nowhere find a single tongs-mark.'
Thus replied the hostess, Louhi:
'Him alone I'll give my daughter,
Promise him my child in marriage,
Who for me will forge the Sampo,
Hammer me the lid in colors,
From the tips of white-swan feathers,
From the milk of greatest virtue,
From a single grain of barley,
From the finest wool of lambkins.'
Thereupon the hostess Louhi,
Harnessed quick a dappled courser,
Hitched him to her sledge of birch-wood,
105
Placed within it Wainamoinen,
Placed the hero on the cross-bench,
Made him ready for his journey;
Then addressed the ancient minstrel,
These the words that Louhi uttered:
'Do not raise thine eyes to heaven,
Look not upward on thy journey,
While thy steed is fresh and frisky,
While the day-star lights thy pathway,
Ere the evening star has risen;
If thine eyes be lifted upward,
While the day-star lights thy pathway,
Dire misfortune will befall thee,
Some sad fate will overtake thee.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Fleetly drove upon his journey,
Merrily he hastened homeward,
Hastened homeward, happy-hearted
From the ever-darksome Northland
From the dismal Sariola.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
771:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxix
WAINAMOINEN'S SAILING.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'O thou wonder-working brother,
Let us go to Sariola,
There to gain the magic Sampo,
There to see the lid in colors.'
Ilmarinen gave this answer:
'Hard indeed to seize the Sampo,
Neither can the lid be captured
From the never-pleasant Northland,
From the dismal Sariola.
Louhi took away the Sampo,
Carried off the lid in colors
To the stone-mount of Pohyola;
Hid it in the copper mountain,
Where nine locks secure the treasure.
Many young roots sprout around it,
Grow nine fathoms deep in sand-earth,
One great root beneath the mountain,
In the cataract a second,
And a third beneath the castle
Built upon the mount of ages.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Brother mine, and wonder-worker,
Let us go to Sariola,
That we may secure the Sampo;
Let us build a goodly vessel,
Bring the Sampo to Wainola,
Bring away the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain.
Where the miracle lies anchored.'
Ilmarinen thus made answer:
'By the land the way is safer,
Lempo travels on the ocean,
Ghastly Death upon his shoulder;
534
On the sea the waves will drift us,
And the storm-winds wreck our vessel;
Then our bands must do the rowing,
And our feet must steer us homeward.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Safe indeed by land to journey,
But the way is rough and trying,
Long the road and full of turnings;
Lovely is the ship on ocean,
Beautiful to ride the billows,
Journey easy o'er the waters,
Sailing in a trusty vessel;
Should the West-wind cross our pathway,
Will the South-wind drive us northward.
Be that as it may, my brother,
Since thou dost not love the water,
By the land then let us journey.
Forge me now the sword of battle,
Forge for me the mighty fire-sword,
That I may destroy the wild-beasts,
Frighten all the Northland people,
As we journey for the Sampo
To the cold and dismal village,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
The eternal forger-artist,
Laid the metals in the furnace,
In the fire laid steel and iron,
In the hot-coals, gold and silver,
Rightful measure of the metals;
Set the workmen at the furnace,
Lustily they plied the bellows.
Like the wax the iron melted,
Like the dough the hard steel softened,
Like the water ran the silver,
And the liquid gold flowed after.
Then the minstrel, Ilmarinen,
The eternal wonder-forger,
Looks within his magic furnace,
On the border of his oven,
There beholds the fire-sword forming,
535
Sees the blade with golden handle;
Takes the weapon from the furnace,
Lays it on his heavy anvil
For the falling of the hammer;
Forges well the blade of magic,
Well the heavy sword be tempers,
Ornaments the hero-weapon
With the finest gold and silver.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Comes to view the blade of conquest,
Lifts admiringly the fire-sword,
Then these words the hero utters:
'Does the weapon match the soldier,
Does the handle suit the bearer?
Yea, the blade and hilt are molded
To the wishes of the minstrel.'
On the sword-point gleams the moonlight,
On the blade the sun is shining,
On the hilt the bright stars twinkle,
On the edge a horse is neighing,
On the handle plays a kitten,
On the sheath a dog is barking.
Wainamoinen wields his fire-sword,
Tests it on the iron-mountain,
And these words the hero utters:
'With this broadsword I could quickly
Cleave in twain the mount of Pohya,
Cut the flinty rocks asunder.'
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Wherewith shall I guard from danger,
How protect myself from evil,
From the ills by land and water?
Shall I wear an iron armor,
Belt of steel around my body?
Stronger is a man in armor,
Safer in a mail of copper.'
Now the time has come to journey
To the never-pleasant Northland;
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
And his brother, Ilmarinen,
Hasten to the field and forest,
Searching for their fiery coursers,
536
In each shining belt a bridle,
With a harness on their shoulders.
In the woods they find a race;
In the glen a steed of battle,
Ready for his master's service.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
And the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Throw the harness on the courser,
Hitch him to the sledge of conquest,
Hasten on their journey Northward;
Drive along the broad-sea's margin
Till they bear some one lamenting
On the strand hear something wailing
Near the landing-place of vessels.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Speaks these words in wonder, guessing,
'This must be some maiden weeping,
Some fair daughter thus lamenting;
Let us journey somewhat nearer,
To discover whence this wailing.'
Drew they nearer, nearer, nearer,
Hoping thus to find a maiden
Weeping on the sandy sea-shore.
It was not a maiden weeping,
But a vessel, sad, and lonely,
Waiting on the shore and wailing.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Why art weeping, goodly vessel,
What the cause of thy lamenting?
Art thou mourning for thy row-locks,
Is thy rigging ill-adjusted?
Dost thou weep since thou art anchored
On the shore in times of trouble?'
Thus the war-ship spake in answer:
'To the waters would this vessel
Haste upon the well-tarred rollers,
As a happy maiden journeys
To the cottage of her husband.
I, alas! a goodly vessel,
Weep because I lie at anchor,
Weep and wail because no hero
Sets me free upon the waters,
537
Free to ride the rolling billows.
It was said when I was fashioned,
Often sung when I was building,
That this bark should be for battle,
Should become a mighty war-ship,
Carry in my hull great treasures,
Priceless goods across the ocean.
Never have I sailed to conquest,
Never have I carried booty;
Other vessels not as worthy
To the wars are ever sailing,
Sailing to the songs of battle.
Three times in the summer season
Come they home with treasures laden,
In their hulls bring gold and silver;
I, alas! a worthy vessel,
Many months have lain at anchor,
I, a war-ship well constructed,
Am decaying in the harbor,
Never having sailed to conquest;
Worms are gnawing at my vitals,
In my hull their dwelling-places,
And ill-omened birds of heaven
Build their nests within my rigging;
Frogs and lizards of the forest
Play about my oars and rudder;
Three times better for this vessel
Were he but a valley birch-tree,
Or an aspen on the heather,
With the squirrels in his branches,
And the dogs beneath them barking!'
Wainamoinen, old and faithfull
Thus addressed the ship at anchor:
'Weep no more, thou goodly vessel,
Man-of-war, no longer murmur;
Thou shalt sail to Sariola,
Sing the war-songs of the Northland,
Sail with us to deadly combat.
Wert thou built by the Creator,
Thou canst sail the roughest waters,
Sidewise journey o'er the ocean;
Dost not need the hand to touch thee,
538
Dost not need the foot to turn thee,
Needing nothing to propel thee.'
Thus the weeping boat made answer:
'Cannot sail without assistance,
Neither can my brother-vessels
Sail unaided o'er the waters,
Sail across the waves undriven.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Should I lead thee to the broad-sea,
Wilt thou journey north unaided,
Sail without the help of rowers,
Sail without the aid of south-winds,
Sail without the b elm to guide thee?
Thus the wailing ship replying:
Cannot sail without assistance,
Neither can my brother-vessels
Sail without the aid of rowers,
Sail without the help of south-winds,
Nor without the helm to guide them.'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Wilt thou run with aid of oarsmen
When the south-winds give assistance,
Guided by a skillful pilot?'
This the answer of the war-ship:
'Quickly can I course these waters,
When my oars are manned by rowers,
When my sails are filled with south-winds,
All my goodly brother-vessels
Sail the ocean with assistance,
When the master holds the rudder.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Left the racer on the sea-side,
Tied him to the sacred birch-tree,
Hung the harness on a willow,
Rolled the vessel to the waters,
Sang the ship upon the broad-sea,
Asked the boat this simple question:
'O thou vessel, well-appearing
From the mighty oak constructed,
Art thou strong to carry treasures
As in view thou art commanding?
Thus the goodly ship made answer:
539
'Strong am I to carry treasures,
In my hull a golden cargo;
I can bear a hundred oarsmen,
And of warriors a thousand.'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Then began his wondrous singing.
On one side the magic vessel,
Sang he youth with golden virtues,
Bearded youth with strength of heroes,
Sang them into mail of copper.
On the other side the vessel,
Sang he silver-tinselled maidens,
Girded them with belts of copper,
Golden rings upon their fingers.
Sings again the great magician,
Fills the magic ship with heroes,
Ancient heroes, brave and mighty;
Sings them into narrow limits,
Since the young men came before them.
At the helm himself be seated,
Near the last beam of the vessel,
Steered his goodly boat in joyance,
Thus addressed the willing war-ship:
'Glide upon the trackless waters,
Sail away, my ship of magic,
Sail across the waves before thee,
Speed thou like a dancing bubble,
Like a flower upon the billows!'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Set the young men to the rowing,
Let the maidens sit in waiting.
Eagerly the youthful heroes
Bend the oars and try the row-locks,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Set the maidens to the rowing,
Let the young men rest in waiting.
Eagerly the merry maidens
Bend the aspen-oars in rowing,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the master, Wainamoinen,
Set the old men to the rowing,
540
Let the youth remain in waiting.
Lustily the aged heroes
Bend and try the oars of aspen,
But the distance is not lessened.
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Grasped the oars with master-magic,
And the boat leaped o'er the surges,
Swiftly sped across the billows;
Far and wide the oars resounded,
Quickly was the distance lessened.
With a rush and roar of waters
Ilmarinen sped his vessel,
Benches, ribs, and row-locks creaking,
Oars of aspen far resounding;
Flap the sails like wings of moor-cocks,
And the prow dips like a white-swan;
In the rear it croaks like ravens,
Loud the oars and rigging rattle.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Sitting by the bending rudder,
Turns his magic vessel landward,
To a jutting promontory,
Where appears a Northland-village.
On the point stands Lemminkainen,
Kaukomieli, black magician,
Ahti, wizard of Wainola,
Wishing for the fish of Pohya,
Weeping for his fated dwelling,
For his perilous adventures,
Hard at work upon a vessel,
On the sail-yards of a fish-boat,
Near the hunger-point and island,
Near the village-home deserted.
Good the ears of the magician,
Good the wizard's eyes for seeing;
Casts his vision to the South-east,
Turns his eyes upon the sunset,
Sees afar a wondrous rainbow,
Farther on, a cloudlet hanging;
But the bow was a deception,
And the cloudlet a delusion;
'Tis a vessel swiftly sailing,
541
'Tis a war-ship flying northward,
O'er the blue-back of the broad-sea,
On the far-extending waters,
At the helm the master standing,
At the oars a mighty hero.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Do not know this wondrous vessel,
Not this well-constructed war-ship,
Coming from the distant Suomi,
Rowing for the hostile Pohya.'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Called aloud in tones of thunder
O'er the waters to the vessel;
Made the distant hills re-echo
With the music of his calling:
'Whence this vessel on the waters,
Whose the war-ship sailing hither?'
Spake the master of the vessel
To the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Who art thou from fen or forest,
Senseless wizard from the woodlands,
That thou dost not know this vessel,
Magic war-ship of Wainola?
Dost not know him at the rudder,
Nor the hero at the row-locks?'
Spake the wizard, Lemminkainen:
'Well I know the helm-director,
And I recognize the rower;
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
At the helm directs the vessel;
Ilmarinen does the rowing.
Whither is the vessel sailing,
Whither wandering, my heroes?
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'We are sailing to the Northland,
There to gain the magic Sampo,
There to get the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain.'
Spake the evil Lemminkainen:
'O, thou good, old Wainamoinen,
Take me with thee to Pohyola,
542
Make me third of magic heroes,
Since thou goest for the Sampo,
Goest for the lid in colors;
I shall prove a valiant soldier,
When thy wisdom calls for fighting;
I am skilled in arts of warfare!'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Gave assent to Ahti's wishes;
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Hastened to Wainola's war-ship,
Bringing floats of aspen-timber,
To the ships of Wainamoinen.
Thus the hero of the Northland
Speaks to reckless Lemminkainen:
'There is aspen on my vessel,
Aspen-floats in great abundance,
And the boat is heavy-laden.
Wherefore dost thou bring the aspen
To the vessel of Wainola?'
Lemminkainen gave this answer:
'Not through caution sinks a vessel,
Nor a hay-stack by its proppings;
Seas abound in hidden dangers,
Heavy storms arise and threaten
Fell destruction to the sailor
That would brave the angry billows.'
Spake the good, old Wainamoinen:
'Therefore is this warlike vessel
Built of trusty steel and copper,
Trimmed and bound in toughest iron,
That the winds may, not destroy it,
May not harm my ship of magic.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
772:The Kalevala - Rune Ii
WAINAMOINEN'S SOWING.
Then arose old Wainamoinen,
With his feet upon the island,
On the island washed by ocean,
Broad expanse devoid of verdure;
There remained be many summers,
There he lived as many winters,
On the island vast and vacant,
well considered, long reflected,
Who for him should sow the island,
Who for him the seeds should scatter;
Thought at last of Pellerwoinen,
First-born of the plains and prairies,
When a slender boy, called Sampsa,
Who should sow the vacant island,
Who the forest seeds should scatter.
Pellerwoinen, thus consenting,
Sows with diligence the island,
Seeds upon the lands he scatters,
Seeds in every swamp and lowland,
Forest seeds upon the loose earth,
On the firm soil sows the acorns,
Fir-trees sows he on the mountains,
Pine-trees also on the hill-tops,
Many shrubs in every valley,
Birches sows he in the marshes,
In the loose soil sows the alders,
In the lowlands sows the lindens,
In the moist earth sows the willow,
Mountain-ash in virgin places,
On the banks of streams the hawthorn,
Junipers in hilly regions;
This the work of Pellerwoinen,
Slender Sampsa, in his childhood.
Soon the fertile seeds were sprouting,
Soon the forest trees were growing,
Soon appeared the tops of fir-trees,
13
And the pines were far outspreading;
Birches rose from all the marshes,
In the loose soil grew the alders,
In the mellow soil the lindens;
Junipers were also growing,
Junipers with clustered berries,
Berries on the hawthorn branches.
Now the hero, Wainamoinen,
Stands aloft to look about him,
How the Sampsa-seeds are growing,
How the crop of Pellerwoinen;
Sees the young trees thickly spreading,
Sees the forest rise in beauty;
But the oak-tree has not sprouted,
Tree of heaven is not growing,
Still within the acorn sleeping,
Its own happiness enjoying.
Then he waited three nights longer,
And as many days he waited,
Waited till a week had vanished,
Then again the work examined;
But the oak-tree was not growing,
Had not left her acorn-dwelling.
Wainamoinen, ancient hero,
Spies four maidens in the distance,
Water-brides, he spies a fifth-one,
On the soft and sandy sea-shore,
In the dewy grass and flowers,
On a point extending seaward,
Near the forests of the island.
Some were mowing, some were raking,
Raking what was mown together,
In a windrow on the meadow.
From the ocean rose a giant,
Mighty Tursas, tall and hardy,
Pressed compactly all the grasses,
That the maidens had been raking,
When a fire within them kindles,
And the flames shot up to heaven,
Till the windrows burned to ashes,
Only ashes now remaining
Of the grasses raked together.
14
In the ashes of the windrows,
Tender leaves the giant places,
In the leaves he plants an acorn,
From the acorn, quickly sprouting,
Grows the oak-tree, tall and stately,
From the ground enriched by ashes,
Newly raked by water-maidens;
Spread the oak-tree's many branches,
Rounds itself a broad corona,
Raises it above the storm-clouds;
Far it stretches out its branches,
Stops the white-clouds in their courses,
With its branches hides the sunlight,
With its many leaves, the moonbeams,
And the starlight dies in heaven.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Thought awhile, and well considered,
How to kill the mighty oak-tree,
First created for his pleasure,
How to fell the tree majestic,
How to lop its hundred branches.
Sad the lives of man and hero,
Sad the homes of ocean-dwellers,
If the sun shines not upon them,
If the moonlight does not cheer them
Is there not some mighty hero,
Was there never born a giant,
That can fell the mighty oak-tree,
That can lop its hundred branches?
Wainamoinen, deeply thinking,
Spake these words soliloquizing:
'Kape, daughter of the Ether,
Ancient mother of my being,
Luonnotar, my nurse and helper,
Loan to me the water-forces,
Great the powers of the waters;
Loan to me the strength of oceans,
To upset this mighty oak-tree,
To uproot this tree of evil,
That again may shine the sunlight,
That the moon once more may glimmer.'
Straightway rose a form from oceans,
15
Rose a hero from the waters,
Nor belonged he to the largest,
Nor belonged he to the smallest,
Long was he as man's forefinger,
Taller than the hand of woman;
On his head a cap of copper,
Boots upon his feet were copper,
Gloves upon his hands were copper,
And its stripes were copper-colored,
Belt around him made of copper,
Hatchet in his belt was copper;
And the handle of his hatchet
Was as long as hand of woman,
Of a finger's breadth the blade was.
Then the trusty Wainamoinen
Thought awhile and well considered,
And his measures are as follow:
'Art thou, sir, divine or human?
Which of these thou only knowest;
Tell me what thy name and station.
Very like a man thou lookest,
Hast the bearing of a hero,
Though the length of man's first finger,
Scarce as tall as hoof of reindeer.'
Then again spake Wainamoinen
To the form from out the ocean:
'Verily I think thee human,
Of the race of pigmy-heroes,
Might as well be dead or dying,
Fit for nothing but to perish.'
Answered thus the pigmy-hero,
Spake the small one from the ocean
To the valiant Wainamoinen
'Truly am I god and hero,
From the tribes that rule the ocean;
Come I here to fell the oak-tree,
Lop its branches with my hatchet.'
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Answers thus the sea-born hero:
'Never hast thou force sufficient,
Not to thee has strength been given,
To uproot this mighty oak-tree,
16
To upset this thing of evil,
Nor to lop its hundred branches.'
Scarcely had he finished speaking,
Scarcely had he moved his eyelids,
Ere the pigmy full unfolding,
Quick becomes a mighty giant.
With one step he leaves the ocean,
Plants himself, a mighty hero,
On the forest-fields surrounding;
With his head the clouds he pierces,
To his knees his beard extending,
And his locks fall to his ankles;
Far apart appear his eyeballs,
Far apart his feet are stationed.
Farther still his mighty shoulders.
Now begins his axe to sharpen,
Quickly to an edge he whets it,
Using six hard blocks of sandstone,
And of softer whetstones, seven.
Straightway to the oak-tree turning,
Thither stalks the mighty giant,
In his raiment long and roomy,
Flapping in the winds of heaven;
With his second step he totters
On the land of darker color;
With his third stop firmly planted,
Reaches he the oak-tree's branches,
Strikes the trunk with sharpened hatchet,
With one mighty swing he strikes it,
With a second blow he cuts it;
As his blade descends the third time,
From his axe the sparks fly upward,
From the oak-tree fire outshooting;
Ere the axe descends a fourth time,
Yields the oak with hundred branches,
Shaking earth and heaven in falling.
Eastward far the trunk extending,
Far to westward flew the tree-tops,
To the South the leaves were scattered,
To the North its hundred branches.
Whosoe'er a branch has taken,
Has obtained eternal welfare;
17
Who secures himself a tree-top,
He has gained the master magic;
Who the foliage has gathered,
Has delight that never ceases.
Of the chips some had been scattered,
Scattered also many splinters,
On the blue back of the ocean,
Of the ocean smooth and mirrored,
Rocked there by the winds and waters,
Like a boat upon the billows;
Storm-winds blew them to the Northland,
Some the ocean currents carried.
Northland's fair and slender maiden,
Washing on the shore a head-dress,
Beating on the rocks her garments,
Rinsing there her silken raiment,
In the waters of Pohyola,
There beheld the chips and splinters,
Carried by the winds and waters.
In a bag the chips she gathered,
Took them to the ancient court-yard,
There to make enchanted arrows,
Arrows for the great magician,
There to shape them into weapons,
Weapons for the skilful archer,
Since the mighty oak has fallen,
Now has lost its hundred branches,
That the North may see the sunshine,
See the gentle gleam of moonlight,
That the clouds may keep their courses,
May extend the vault of heaven
Over every lake and river,
O'er the banks of every island.
Groves arose in varied beauty,
Beautifully grew the forests,
And again, the vines and flowers.
Birds again sang in the tree-tops,
Noisily the merry thrushes,
And the cuckoos in the birch-trees;
On the mountains grew the berries,
Golden flowers in the meadows,
And the herbs of many colors,
18
Many kinds of vegetation;
But the barley is not growing.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Goes away and well considers,
By the borders of the waters,
On the ocean's sandy margin,
Finds six seeds of golden barley,
Even seven ripened kernels,
On the shore of upper Northland,
In the sand upon the sea-shore,
Hides them in his trusty pouches,
Fashioned from the skin of squirrel,
Some were made from skin of marten;
Hastens forth the seeds to scatter,
Quickly sows the barley kernels,
On the brinks of Kalew-waters,
On the Osma-hills and lowlands.
Hark! the titmouse wildly crying,
From the aspen, words as follow:
'Osma's barley will not flourish,
Not the barley of Wainola,
If the soil be not made ready,
If the forest be not levelled,
And the branches burned to ashes.'
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Made himself an axe for chopping,
Then began to clear the forest,
Then began the trees to level,
Felled the trees of all descriptions,
Only left the birch-tree standing
For the birds a place of resting,
Where might sing the sweet-voiced cuckoo,
Sacred bird in sacred branches.
Down from heaven came the eagle,
Through the air be came a-flying,
That he might this thing consider;
And he spake the words that follow:
'Wherefore, ancient Wainamoinen,
Hast thou left the slender birch-tree,
Left the birch-tree only standing?'
Wainamoinen thus made answer:
'Therefore is the birch left standing,
19
That the birds may liest within it,
That the eagle there may rest him,
There may sing the sacred cuckoo.'
Spake the eagle, thus replying:
Good indeed, thy hero-judgment,
That the birch-tree thou hast left us,
Left the sacred birch-tree standing,
As a resting-place for eagles,
And for birds of every feather,
Even I may rest upon it.'
Quickly then this bird of heaven,
Kindled fire among the branches;
Soon the flames are fanned by north-winds,
And the east-winds lend their forces,
Burn the trees of all descriptions,
Burn them all to dust and ashes,
Only is the birch left standing.
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Brings his magic grains of barley,
Brings he forth his seven seed-grains,
Brings them from his trusty pouches,
Fashioned from the skin of squirrel,
Some were made from skin of marten.
Thence to sow his seeds he hastens,
Hastes the barley-grains to scatter,
Speaks unto himself these measures:
'I the seeds of life am sowing,
Sowing through my open fingers,
From the hand of my Creator,
In this soil enriched with ashes,
In this soil to sprout and flourish.
Ancient mother, thou that livest
Far below the earth and ocean,
Mother of the fields and forests,
Bring the rich soil to producing,
Bring the seed-grains to the sprouting,
That the barley well may flourish.
Never will the earth unaided,
Yield the ripe nutritious barley;
Never will her force be wanting,
If the givers give assistance,
If the givers grace the sowing,
20
Grace the daughters of creation.
Rise, O earth, from out thy slumber,
From the slumber-land of ages,
Let the barley-grains be sprouting,
Let the blades themselves be starting,
Let the verdant stalks be rising,
Let the ears themselves be growing,
And a hundredfold producing,
From my plowing and my sowing,
From my skilled and honest labor.
Ukko, thou O God, up yonder,
Thou O Father of the heavens,
Thou that livest high in Ether,
Curbest all the clouds of heaven,
Holdest in the air thy counsel,
Holdest in the clouds good counsel,
From the East dispatch a cloudlet,
From the North-east send a rain-cloud,
From the West another send us,
From the North-west, still another,
Quickly from the South a warm-cloud,
That the rain may fall from heaven,
That the clouds may drop their honey,
That the ears may fill and ripen,
That the barley-fields may rustle.'
Thereupon benignant Ukko,
Ukko, father of the heavens,
Held his counsel in the cloud-space,
Held good counsel in the Ether;
From the East, he sent a cloudlet,
From the North-east, sent a rain-cloud,
From the West another sent he,
From the North-west, still another,
Quickly from the South a warm-cloud;
Joined in seams the clouds together,
Sewed together all their edges,
Grasped the cloud, and hurled it earthward.
Quick the rain-cloud drops her honey,
Quick the rain-drops fall from heaven,
That the ears may quickly ripen,
That the barley crop may rustle.
Straightway grow the seeds of barley,
21
From the germ the blade unfolding,
Richly colored ears arising,
From the rich soil of the fallow,
From the work of Wainamoinen.
Here a few days pass unnoted
And as many nights fly over.
When the seventh day had journeyed,
On the morning of the eighth day,
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Went to view his crop of barley,
How his plowing, how his sowing,
How his labors were resulting;
Found his crop of barley growing,
Found the blades were triple-knotted,
And the ears he found six-sided.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Turned his face, and looked about him,
Lo! there comes a spring-time cuckoo,
Spying out the slender birch-tree,
Rests upon it, sweetly singing:
'Wherefore is the silver birch-tree
Left unharmed of all the forest? '
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Therefore I have left the birch-tree,
Left the birch-tree only growing,
Home for thee for joyful singing.
Call thou here, O sweet-voiced cuckoo,
Sing thou here from throat of velvet,
Sing thou here with voice of silver,
Sing the cuckoo's golden flute-notes;
Call at morning, call at evening,
Call within the hour of noontide,
For the better growth of forests,
For the ripening of the barley,
For the richness of, the Northland,
For the joy of Kalevala.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
773:The Kalevala - Rune Xxi
ILMARINEN'S WEDDING-FEAST.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Ancient dame of Sariola,
While at work within her dwelling,
Heard the whips crack on the fenlands,
Heard the rattle of the sledges;
To the northward turned her glances,
Turned her vision to the sunlight,
And her thoughts ran on as follow:
'Who are these in bright apparel,
On the banks of Pohya-waters,
Are they friends or hostile armies?'
Then the hostess of the Northland
Looked again and well considered,
Drew much nearer to examine,
Found they were not hostile armies,
Found that they were friends and suitors.
In the midst was Ilmarinen,
Son-in-law to ancient Louhi.
When the hostess of Pohyola
Saw the son-in-law approaching
She addressed the words that follow:
'I had thought the winds were raging,
That the piles of wood were falling,
Thought the pebbles in commotion,
Or perchance the ocean roaring;
Then I hastened nearer, nearer,
Drew still nearer and examined,
Found the winds were not in battle,
Found the piles of wood unshaken,
Found the ocean was not roaring,
Nor the pebbles in commotion,
Found my son-in-law was coming
With his heroes and attendants,
Heroes counted by the hundreds.
'Should you ask of me the question,
How I recognized the bridegroom
351
Mid the hosts of men and heroes,
I should answer, I should tell you:
'As the hazel-bush in copses,
As the oak-tree in the forest,
As the Moon among the planets;
Drives the groom a coal-black courser,
Running like the famished black-dog,
Flying like the hungry raven,
Graceful as the lark at morning,
Golden cuckoos, six in number,
Twitter on the birchen cross-bow;
There are seven bluebirds singing
On the racer's hame and collar.'
Noises hear they in the court-yard,
On the highway hear the sledges,
To the court comes Ilmarinen,
With his body-guard of heroes;
In the midst the chosen suitor,
Not too far in front of others,
Not too far behind his fellows.
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Hie ye hither, men and heroes,
Haste, ye watchers, to the stables,
There unhitch the suitor's stallion,
Lower well the racer's breast-plate,
There undo the straps and buckles,
Loosen well the shafts and traces,
And conduct the suitor hither,
Give my son-in-law good welcome!'
Ilmarinen turned his racer
Into Louhi's yard and stables,
And descended from his snow-sledge.
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Come, thou servant of my bidding,
Best of all my trusted servants,
Take at once the bridegroom's courser
From the shafts adorned with silver,
From the curving arch of willow,
Lift the harness trimmed in copper,
Tie the white-face to the manger,
Treat the suitor's steed with kindness,
Lead him carefully to shelter
352
By his soft and shining bridle,
By his halter tipped with silver;
Let him roll among the sand-hills,
On the bottoms soft and even,
On the borders of the snow-banks,
In the fields of milky color.
'Lead the hero's steed to water,
Lead him to the Pohya-fountains,
Where the living streams are flowing,
Sweet as milk of human kindness,
From the roots of silvery birches,
Underneath the shade of aspens.
'Feed the courser of the suitor,
On the sweetest corn and barley,
On the summer-wheat and clover,
In the caldron steeped in sweetness;
Feed him at the golden manger,
In the boxes lined with copper,
At my manger richly furnished,
In the warmest of the stables;
Tie him with a silk-like halter,
To the golden rings and staples,
To the hooks of purest silver,
Set in beams of birch and oak-wood;
Feed him on the hay the sweetest,
Feed him on the corn nutritious,
Give the best my barns can furnish.
'Curry well the suitor's courser
With the curry-comb of fish-bone,
Brush his hair with silken brushes,
Put his mane and tail in order,
Cover well with flannel blankets,
Blankets wrought in gold and silver,
Buckles forged from shining copper.
'Come, ye small lads of the village,
Lead the suitor to my chambers,
With your auburn locks uncovered,
From your hands remove your mittens,
See if ye can lead the hero
Through the door without his stooping,
Lifting not the upper cross-bar,
Lowering not the oaken threshold,
353
Moving not the birchen casings,
Great the hero who must enter.
'Ilmarinen is too stately,
Cannot enter through the portals,
Not the son-in-law and bridegroom,
Till the portals have been heightened;
Taller by a head the suitor
Than the door-ways of the mansion.'
Quick the servants of Pohyola
Tore away the upper cross-bar,
That his cap might not be lifted;
Made the oaken threshold lower
That the hero might not stumble;
Made the birch-wood portals wider,
Opened full the door of welcome,
Easy entrance for the suitor.
Speaks the hostess of the Northland
As the bridegroom freely passes
Through the doorway of her dwelling:
'Thanks are due to thee, O Ukko,
That my son-in-law has entered!
Let me now my halls examine;
Make the bridal chambers ready,
Finest linen on my tables,
Softest furs upon my benches,
Birchen flooring scrubbed to whiteness,
All my rooms in perfect order.'
Then the hostess of Pohyola
Visited her spacious dwelling,
Did not recognize her chambers;
Every room had been remodeled,
Changed by force of mighty magic;
All the halls were newly burnished,
Hedge-hog bones were used for ceilings,
Bones of reindeer for foundations,
Bones of wolverine for door-sills,
For the cross-bars bones of roebuck,
Apple-wood were all the rafters,
Alder-wood, the window-casings,
Scales of trout adorned the windows,
And the fires were set in flowers.
All the seats were made of silver,
354
All the floors of copper-tiling,
Gold-adorned were all the tables,
On the floor were silken mattings,
Every fire-place set in copper,
Every hearth-stone cut from marble,
On each shelf were colored sea-shells,
Kalew's tree was their protection.
To the court-room came the hero,
Chosen suitor from Wainola,
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'Send, O Ukko, health and pleasure
To this ancient home and dwelling,
To this mansion richly fashioned!'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Let thy coming be auspicious
To these halls of thee unworthy,
To the home of thine affianced,
To this dwelling lowly fashioned,
Mid the lindens and the aspens.
'Come, ye maidens that should serve me,
Come, ye fellows from the village,
Bring me fire upon the birch-bark,
Light the fagots of the fir-tree,
That I may behold the bridegroom,
Chosen suitor of my daughter,
Fairy Maiden of the Rainbow,
See the color of his eyeballs,
Whether they are blue or sable,
See if they are warm and faithful.'
Quick the young lads from the village
Brought the fire upon the birch-bark,
Brought it on the tips of pine-wood;
And the fire and smoke commingled
Roll and roar about the hero,
Blackening the suitor's visage,
And the hostess speaks as follows;
'Bring the fire upon a taper,
On the waxen tapers bring it!'
Then the maidens did as bidden,
Quickly brought the lighted tapers,
Made the suitor's eyeballs glisten,
Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy;
355
Made his eyes of sable color
Sparkle like the foam of waters,
Like the reed-grass on the margin,
Colored as the ocean jewels,
Iridescent as the rainbow.
'Come, ye fellows of the hamlet,
Lead my son-in-law and hero
To the highest seat at table,
To the seat of greatest honor,
With his back upon the blue-wall,
Looking on my bounteous tables,
Facing all the guests of Northland.'
Then the hostess of Pohyola
Served her guests in great abundance,
Richest drinks and rarest viands,
First of all she, served the bridegroom
On his platters, honeyed biscuit,
And the sweetest river salmon,
Seasoned butter, roasted bacon,
All the dainties of Pohyola.
Then the helpers served the others,
Filled the plates of all invited
With the varied food of Northland.
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Come, ye maidens from the village,
Hither bring the beer in pitchers,
In the urns with double handles,
To the many guests in-gathered,
Ere all others, serve the bridegroom.'
Thereupon the merry maidens
Brought the beer in silver pitchers
From the copper-banded vessels,
For the wedding-guests assembled;
And the beer, fermenting, sparkled
On the beard of Ilmarinen,
On the beards of many heroes.
When the guests had all partaken
Of the wondrous beer of barley,
Spake the beer in merry accents
Through the tongues of the magicians,
Through the tongue of many a hero,
Through the tongue of Wainamoinen,
356
Famed to be the sweetest singer
Of the Northland bards and minstrels,
These the words of the enchanter:
'O thou beer of honeyed flavor,
Let us not imbibe in silence,
Let some hero sing thy praises,
Sing thy worth in golden measures;
Let the hostess start the singing,
Let the bridegroom sound thy virtues!
Have our songs thus quickly vanished,
Have our joyful tongues grown silent?
Evil then has been the brewing,
Then the beer must be unworthy,
That it does not cheer the singer,
Does not move the merry minstrel,
That the golden guests are joyless,
And the cuckoo is not singing.
Never will these benches echo
Till the bench-guests chant thy virtues;
Nor the floor resound thy praises
Till the floor-guests sing in concord;
Nor the windows join the chorus
Till the window-guests have spoken;
All the tables will keep silence
Till the heroes toast thy virtues;
Little singing from the chimney
Till the chimney-guests have chanted.'
On the floor a child was sitting,
Thus the little boy made answer:
'I am small and young in singing,
Have perchance but little wisdom;
Be that as it may, my seniors,
Since the elder minstrels sing not,
Nor the heroes chant their legends,
Nor the hostess lead the singing,
I will sing my simple stories,
Sing my little store of knowledge,
To the pleasure of the evening,
To the joy of the invited.'
Near the fire reclined an old man,
And the gray-beard thus made answer:
'Not the time for children's singing,
357
Children's wisdom is too ready,
Children's songs are filled with trifles,
Filled with shrewd and vain deceptions,
Maiden-songs are full of follies;
Leave the songs and incantations
To the ancient wizard-singers;
Leave the tales of times primeval
To the minstrel of Wainola,
To the hero of the Northland,
To the, ancient Wainamoinen.'
Thereupon Osmoinen answered:
'Are there not some sweeter singers
In this honored congregation,
That will clasp their hands together,
Sing the ancient songs unbroken,
Thus begin the incantations,
Make these ancient halls re-echo
For the pleasure of the evening,
For the joy of the in-gathered?'
From the hearth-stone spake, the gray-beard
'Not a singer of Pohyola,
Not a minstrel, nor magician,
That was better skilled in chanting
Legends of the days departed,
Than was I when I was singing,
In my years of vain ambition;
Then I chanted tales of heroes,
On the blue back of the waters,
Sang the ballads of my people,
In the vales and on the mountains,
Through the verdant fields and forests;
Sweet my voice and skilled my singing,
All my songs were highly lauded,
Rippled like the quiet rivers,
Easy-flowing like the waters,
Easy-gliding as the snow-shoes,
Like the ship upon the ocean.
'Woe is me, my days are ended,
Would not recognize my singing,
All its sweetness gone to others,
Flows no more like rippling waters,
Makes no more the hills re-echo!
358
Now my songs are full of discord,
Like the rake upon the stubble,
Like the sledge upon the gravel,
Like the boat upon the sea-shore!'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Spake these words in magic measures:
'Since no other bard appeareth
That will clasp my hand in singing,
I will sing some simple legends,
Sing my, garnered store of wisdom,
Make these magic halls re-echo
With my tales of ancient story,
Since a bard I was created,
Born an orator and singer;
Do not ask the ways of others,
Follow not the paths of strangers.'
Wainamoinen, famous minstrel,
Song's eternal, wise supporter,
Then began the songs of pleasure,
Made the halls resound with joyance,
Filled the rooms with wondrous singing;
Sang the ancient bard-magician
All the oldest wisdom-sayings,
Did not fail in voice nor legends,
All the wisest thoughts remembered.
Thus the ancient Wainamoinen
Sang the joy of all assembled,
To the pleasure of the evening,
To the merriment of maidens,
To the happiness of heroes;
All the guests were stilled in wonder
At the magic of his singing,
At the songs of the magician.
Spake again wise Wainamoinen,
When his wonder-tales had ended:
'l have little worth or power,
Am a bard of little value,
Little consequence my singing,
Mine abilities as nothing,
If but Ukko, my Creator,
Should intone his wisdom-sayings,
Sing the source of good and evil,
359
Sing the origin of matter,
Sing the legends of omniscience,
Sing his songs in full perfection.
God could sing the floods to honey,
Sing the sands to ruddy berries,
Sing the pebbles into barley,
Sing to beer the running waters,
Sing to salt the rocks of ocean,
Into corn-fields sing the forests,
Into gold the forest-fruitage,
Sing to bread the hills and mountains,
Sing to eggs the rounded sandstones;
He could touch the springs of magic,
He could turn the keys of nature,
And produce within thy pastures,
Hurdles filled with sheep and reindeer,
Stables filled with fleet-foot stallions,
Kine in every field and fallow;
Sing a fur-robe for the bridegroom,
For the bride a coat of ermine,
For the hostess, shoes of silver,
For the hero, mail of copper.
'Grant O Ukko, my Creator,
God of love, and truth, and justice,
Grant thy blessing on our feasting,
Bless this company assembled,
For the good of Sariola,
For the happiness of Northland!
May this bread and beer bring joyance,
May they come in rich abundance,
May they carry full contentment
To the people of Pohyola,
To the cabin and the mansion;
May the hours we spend in singing,
In the morning, in the evening,
Fill our hearts with joy and gladness!
Hear us in our supplications,
Grant to us thy needed blessings,
Send enjoyment, health, and comfort,
To the people here assembled,
To the host and to the hostess,
To the bride and to the bridegroom,
360
To the sons upon the waters,
To the daughters at their weavings,
To the hunters on the mountains,
To the shepherds in the fenlands,
That our lives may end in honor,
That we may recall with pleasure
Ilmarinen's magic marriage
To the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Snow-white virgin of the Northland.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
774: THE

(on:

THE SEVEN SEALS

YES AND AMEN SONG)

1

If I am a soothsayer and full of that soothsaying spirit
which wanders on a high ridge between two seas, wandering like a heavy cloud between past and future, an
enemy of all sultry plains and all that is weary and can
neither die nor live-in its dark bosom prepared for
lightning and the redemptive flash, pregnant with lightning bolts that say Yes and laugh Yes, soothsaying
lightning bolts-blessed is he who is thus pregnant!
And verily, long must he hang on the mountains like a
dark cloud who shall one day kindle the light of the
future: Oh, how should I not lust after eternity and
after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity!
2

If ever my wrath burst tombs, moved boundary
stones, and rolled old tablets, broken, into steep depths;
if ever my mockery blew moldy words into the wind,
and I came as a broom to the cross-marked spiders and
as a sweeping gust to old musty tomb chambers; if ever
I sat jubilating where old gods lie buried, world-blessing, world-loving, beside the monuments of old worldslanders-for I love even churches and tombs of gods,
once the sky gazes through their broken roofs with its
229
pure eyes, and like grass and red poppies, I love to sit
on broken churches: Oh, how should I not lust after
eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of
recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity!
3

If ever one breath came to me of the creative breath
and of that heavenly need that constrains even accidents
to dance star-dances; if I ever laughed the laughter of
creative lightning which is followed obediently but
grumblingly by the long thunder of the deed; if I ever
played dice with gods at the gods' table, the earth, till
the earth quaked and burst and snorted up floods of
fire-for the earth is a table for gods and trembles with
creative new words and gods' throws: Oh, how should
I not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of
rings, the ring of recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity!
4

If ever I drank full drafts from that foaming spice and blend-mug in which all things are well blended; if
my hand ever poured the farthest to the nearest, and
fire to spirit, and joy to pain, and the most wicked to
the most gracious; if I myself am a grain of that redeeming salt which makes all things blend well in the
blend-mug-for there is a salt that unites good with
evil; and even the greatest evil is worthy of being used
230
as spice for the last foaming over: Oh, how should I
not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings,
the ring or recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity!
5

If I am fond of the sea and of all that is of the sea's
kind, and fondest when it angrily contradicts me; if that
delight in searching which drives the sails toward the
undiscovered is in me, if a seafarer's delight is in my
delight; if ever my jubilation cried, "The coast has
vanished, now the last chain has fallen from me; the
boundless roars around me, far out glisten space and
time; be of good cheer, old heart!" Oh, how should I
not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings,
the ring of recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity!
6
If my virtue is a dancer's virtue and I have often
jumped with both feet into golden-emerald delight; if
my sarcasm is a laughing sarcasm, at home under rose
slopes and hedges of lilies-for in laughter all that is
evil comes together, but is pronounced -holy and absolved by its own bliss; and if this is my alpha and
omega, that all that is heavy and grave should become
light; all that is body, dancer; all that is spirit, bird and verily, that is my alpha and omega: Oh, how should
231
I not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of
rings, the fing of recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity
7
If ever I spread tranquil skies over myself and soared
on my own wings into my own skies; if I swam playfully in the deep light-distances, and the bird-wisdom
of my freedom came-but bird-wisdom speaks thus:
"Behold, there is no above, no below Throw yourself
around, out, back, you who are lightly Sing! Speak no
morel Are not all words made for the grave and heavy?
Are not all words lies to those who are light? Single
Speak no morel" Oh, how should I not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence?
Never yet have I found the woman from whom I
wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love:
for I love you, 0 eternity.
For I love you, 0 eternity

Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
Fourth and Last Part
Alas, where in the world has there been more
folly than among the pitying? And what in the
world has caused more suffering than the folly of
the pitying? Woe to all who love without having
a height that is above their pityl
232
Thus spoke the devil to me once: "God too has
his hell: that is his love of man." And most recently I heard him say this: "God is dead; God
died of his pity for man." (Zarathustra, II, p. go)
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

Part Four was originally intended as an intermezzo, not
as the end of the book. The very appearance of a collection
of sayings is abandoned: Part Four forms a whole, and
as such represents a new stylistic experiment-as well as
a number of widely different stylistic experiments, held
together by a unity of plot and a pervasive sense of
humor.
1.

The Honey Sacrifice: Prologue. The "queer fish" are not

long in coming: the first of them appears in the next chapter.
2. The Cry of Distress: Beginning of the story that continues to the end of the book. The soothsayer of Part Two
reappears, and Zarathustra leaves in search of the higher
man. Now that he has overcome his nausea, his final
trial is: pity.
3. Conversation with the Kings: The first of seven encounters in each of which Zarathustra meets men who have
accepted some part of his teaching without, however,
embodying the type he envisages. Their revolting and tiresome flatteries might be charged to their general inadequacy. But Zarathustra's own personality, as it emerges
in chapter after chapter, poses a more serious problem. At
least in part, this is clearly due to the author's deliberate
malice: he does not want to be a "new idol": "I do not
want to be a saint, rather even a buffoon. Perhaps I am a
buffoon. And nevertheless, or rather not nevertheless-for
there has never been anybody more mendacious than
saints-truth speaks out of me" (Ecce Homo). Earlier in
the same work he says of Shakespeare: "What must a
man have suffered to have found it that necessary to be
a buffoon!" In these pages Nietzsche would resemble the
233
dramatist rather than the hagiographer, and a Shakespearean fool rather than the founder of a new cult.
4. The Leech: Encounter with "the conscientious in spirit."
5. The Magician: In the magician some of Nietzsche's
own features blend with some of Wagner's as conceived
by Nietzsche. The poem appears again in a manuscript of
a888, which bears the title "Dionysus Dithyrambs" and
the motto: "These are the songs of Zarathustra which he
sang to himself to endure his ultimate loneliness." In this
later context, the poem is entitled "Ariadne's Lament,"
and a new conclusion has been added by Nietzsche:
(Lightning.
beauty.)

Dionysus becomes

DIONYSUS:

visible in emerald

Be clever, Ariadnel

You have small ears, you have my ears:
Put a clever word into them
Must one not first hate each other
if one is to love each other?
I am your labyrinth.
The song is not reducible to a single level of meaning. The
outcry is (1) Nietzsche's own; and the unnamable, terrible
thought near the beginning is surely that of the eternal
recurrence; it is (2) projected onto Wagner, who is here
imagined as feeling desperately forsaken after Nietzsche
left him (note especially the penultimate stanza); it is
(3) wishfully projected onto Cosima Wagner-Nietzsche's
Ariadne (see my Nietzsche, i, 11)-who is here imagined as desiring and possessed by Nietzsche-Dionysus.
Part Four is all but made up of similar projections. All the
characters are caricatures of Nietzsche. And like the magician, he too would lie if he said: "'I did all this only as a
game.' There was seriousness in it too."
6. Retired: Encounter with the last pope. Reflections on
the death and inadequacies of God.
7. The Ugliest Man: The murderer of God. The sentence
beginning "Has not all success . . ." reads in German:
234
War nicht aller Erfolg fisher bei den Gut-Verfolgten? Und
wer gut verfolgt, lernt leicht folgen:-ist er doch einmalhinterherl
8. The Voluntary Beggar: A sermon on a mount-about
cows.
9. The Shadow: An allusion to Nietzsche's earlier work,
The Wanderer and His Shadow (188o).
10. At Noon: A charming intermezzo.
:i. The Welcome: Zarathustra rejects his guests, though
together they form a kind of higher man compared to their
contemporaries. He repudiates these men of great longing
and nausea as well as all those who enjoy his diatribes and
denunciations and desire recognition and consideration
for being out of tune with their time. What Nietzsche
envisages is the creator for whom all negation is merely
incidental to his great affirmation: joyous spirits, "laughing
lions."
12. The Last Supper: One of the persistent themes of Part
Four reaches its culmination in this chapter: Nietzsche not
only satirizes the Gospels, and all hagiography generally,
but he also makes fun of and laughs at himself.
13. On the Higher Man: A summary comparable to "On
Old and New Tablets" in Part Three. Section 5 epitomizes
Nietzsche's praise of "evir"-too briefly to be clear apart
from the rest of his work-and the conclusion should be
noted. The opening paragraph of section 7 takes up the
same theme: Nietzsche opposes sublimation to both license
and what he elsewhere calls "castratism." A fine epigram
is mounted in the center of section 9. The mellow moderation of the last lines of section 15 is not usually associated
with Nietzsche. And the chapter ends with a praise of
laughter.
14. The Song of Melancholy: In the 3888 manuscript of
the "Dionysus Dithyrambs" this is the first poem and it
bears the title "Only Fooll Only Poetl" The two introductory sections of this chapter help to dissociate Nietzsche
from the poem, while the subsquent references to this song
show that he considered it far more depressing than it
235
appears in its context. Though his solitude sometimes
flattered him, "On every parable you ride to every truth"
("The Return Home"), he also knew moments when he
said to himself, "I am ashamed that I must still be a poet"
("On Old and New Tablets"). Although Zarathustra's
buffooneries are certainly intended as such by the author,
the thought that he might be "only" a fool, "only" a poet
"climbing around on mendacious word bridges," made
Nietzsche feel more than despondent. Soon it led him to
abandon further attempts to ride on parables in favor of
some of the most supple prose in German literature.
15. On Science: Only the origin of science is considered.
The attempt to account for it in terms of fear goes back to
the period of The Dawn (188i), in which Nietzsche tried
to see how far he could reduce different phenomena to
fear and power. Zarathustra suggests that courage is crucial
-that is, the will to power over fear.
i6. Among Daughters of the Wilderness: Zarathustra, about
to slip out of his cave for the second time because he cannot stand the bad smell of the "higher men," is called
back by his shadow, who has nowhere among men smelled
better air-except once. In the following song Nietzsche's
buffoonery reaches its climax. But though it can and should
be read as thoroughly delightful nonsense, it is not entirely
void of personal significance. Wilste means "desert" or
"wilderness," and wdist can also mean wild and dissolute;
and the "flimsy little fan-, flutter-, and tinsel-skirts" seem
to have been suggested by the brothel to which a porter
in Cologne once took the young Nietzsche, who had asked
to be shown to a hotel. (He ran away, shocked; cf. my
Nietzsche, 3, I.) Certainly the poem is full of sexual
fantasies. But the double meaning of "date" is not present
in the original.
17. The Awakening: The titles of this and the following
chapter might well be reversed; for it is this chapter that
culminates in the ass festival, Nietzsche's version of the
Black Mass. But "the awakening' here does not refer to the
moment when an angry Moses holds his people accountable
236
for their worship of the golden calf, but to the moment
when "they have learned to laugh at themselves." In this
art, incidentally, none of the great philosophers excelled
the author of Part Four of Zarathustra.
i8. The Ass Festival: Five of the participants try to justify
themselves. The pope satirizes Catholicism (Luther was
last made fun of at the end of the song in Chapter i6),
while the conscientious in spirit develops a new theology
-and suggests that Zarathustra himself is pretty close to
being an ass.
19. The Drunken Song: Nietzsche's great hymn to joy invites comparison with Schiller's-minus Beethoven's music.
That they use different German words is the smallest difference. Schiller writes:
Suffer bravely, myriadsl
Suffer for the better world
Up above the firmament
A great God will give rewards.
Nietzsche wants the eternity of this life with all its agonies
-and seeing that it flees, its eternal recurrence. As it is expressed in sections 9, io, and 3i, the conception of the
eternal recurrence is certainly meaningful; but its formulation as a doctrine depended on Nietzsche's mistaken belief
that science compels us to accept the hypothesis of the
eternal recurrence of the same events at gigantic intervals.
(See "On the Vision and the Riddle" and "The Convalescent," both in Part Three, and, for a detailed discussion,
my Nietzsche, 11, II.)
20. The Sign: In "The Welcome," Zarathustra repudiated
the "higher men" in favor of "laughing lions." Now a lion
turns up and laughs, literally. And in place of the single
dove in the New Testament, traditionally understood as a
symbol of the Holy Ghost, we are presented with a whole
flock. Both the lion and the doves were mentioned before
("On Old and New Tablets," section 3) as the signs for
which Zarathustra must wait, and now afford Nietzsche an
237
opportunity to preserve his curious blend of myth, irony,
and hymn to the very end.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, THE SEVEN SEALS OR THE YES AND AMEN SONG
,
775:The Kalevala - Rune Xlix
RESTORATION OF THE SUN AND MOON.
Thus has Fire returned to Northland
But the gold Moon is not shining,
Neither gleams the silver sunlight
In the chambers of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala.
On the crops the white-frost settled,
And the cattle died of hunger,
Even birds grew sick and perished.
Men and maidens, faint and famished,
Perished in the cold and darkness,
From the absence of the sunshine,
From the absence of the moonlight.
Knew the pike his holes and hollows,
And the eagle knew his highway,
Knew the winds the times for sailing;
But the wise men of the Northland
Could not know the dawn of morning,
On the fog-point in the ocean,
On the islands forest-covered.
Young and aged talked and wondered,
Well reflected, long debated,
How to live without the moonlight,
Live without the silver sunshine,
In the cold and cheerless Northland,
In the homes of Kalevala.
Long conjectured all the maidens,
Orphans asked the wise for counsel.
Spake a maid to Ilmarinen,
Running to the blacksmith's furnace:
'Rise, O artist, from thy slumbers,
Hasten from thy couch unworthy;
Forge from gold the Moon for Northland,
Forge anew the Sun from silver
Cannot live without the moonlight,
Nor without the silver sunshine!'
From his couch arose the artist,
223
From his couch of stone, the blacksmith,
And began his work of forging,
Forging Sun and Moon for Northland.
Came the ancient Wainamoinen,
In the doorway sat and lingered,
Spake, these Words to Ilmarinen:
'Blacksmith, my beloved brother,
Thou the only metal-worker,
Tell me why thy magic hammer
Falls so heavy on thine anvil?'
Spake the youthful Ilmarinen:
'Moon of gold and Sun of silver,
I am forging for Wainola;
I shall swing them into ether,
Plant them in the starry heavens.'
Spake the wise, old Wainamoinen:
'Senseless blacksmith of the ages,
Vainly dost thou swing thy hammer,
Vainly rings thy mighty anvil;
Silver will not gleam as sunshine,
Not of gold is born the moonlight!'
Ilmarinen, little heeding,
Ceases not to ply his hammer,
Sun and Moon the artist forges,
Wings the Moon of Magic upward,
Hurls it to the pine-tree branches;
Does not shine without her master.
Then the silver Sun he stations
In an elm-tree on the mountain.
From his forehead drip the sweat-drops,
Perspiration from his fingers,
Through his labors at the anvil
While the Sun and Moon were forging;
But the Sun shone not at morning
From his station in the elm-tree;
And the Moon shone not at evening
From the pine-tree's topmost branches.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Let the Fates be now consulted,
And the oracles examined;
Only thus may we discover
Where the Sun and Moon lie hidden.'
224
Thereupon old Wainamoinen,
Only wise and true magician,
Cut three chips from trunks of alder,
Laid the chips in magic order,
Touched and turned them with his fingers,
Spake these words of master-magic:
'Of my Maker seek I knowledge,
Ask in hope and faith the answer
From the great magician, Ukko:
Tongue of alder, tell me truly,
Symbol of the great Creator,
Where the Sun and Moon are sleeping;
For the Moon shines not in season,
Nor appears the Sun at midday,
From their stations in the sky-vault.
Speak the truth, O magic alder,
Speak not words of man, nor hero,
Hither bring but truthful measures.
Let us form a sacred compact:
If thou speakest me a falsehood,
I will hurl thee to Manala,
Let the nether fires consume thee,
That thine evil signs may perish.'
Thereupon the alder answered,
Spake these words of truthful import:
'Verily the Sun lies hidden
And the golden Moon is sleeping
In the stone-berg of Pohyola,
In the copper-bearing mountain.'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'I shall go at once to Northland,
To the cold and dark Pohyola,
Bring the Sun and Moon to gladden
All Wainola's fields and forests.'
Forth he hastens on his journey,
To the dismal Sariola,
To the Northland cold and dreary;
Travels one day, then a second,
So the third from morn till evening,
When appear the gates of Pohya,
With her snow-clad hills and mountains.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
225
At the river of Pohyola,
Loudly calls the ferry-maiden:
Bring a boat, O Pohya-daughter,
Bring a strong and trusty vessel,
Row me o'er these chilling waters,
O'er this rough and rapid river! '
But the Ferry-maiden heard not,
Did not listen to his calling.
Thereupon old Wainamoinen,
Laid a pile of well-dried brush-wood,
Knots and needles of the fir-tree,
Made a fire beside the river,
Sent the black smoke into heaven
Curling to the home of Ukko.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Hastened to her chamber window,
Looked upon the bay and river,
Spake these words to her attendants:
'Why the fire across the river
Where the current meets the deep-sea,
Smaller than the fires of foemen,
Larger than the flames of hunters?'
Thereupon a Pohyalander
Hastened from the court of Louhi
That the cause he might discover,'
Bring the sought-for information
To the hostess of Pohyola;
Saw upon the river-border
Some great hero from Wainola.
Wainamoinen saw the stranger,
Called again in tones of thunder:
'Bring a skiff; thou son of Northland,
For the minstrel, Wainamoinen!
Thus the Pohyalander answered:
'Here no skiffs are lying idle,
Row thyself across the waters,
Use thine arms, and feet, and fingers,
To propel thee o'er the river,
O'er the sacred stream of Pohya.'
Wainamoinen, long reflecting,
Bravely thus soliloquizes:
'I will change my form and features,
226
Will assume a second body,
Neither man, nor ancient minstrel,
Master of the Northland waters!'
Then the singer, Wainamoinen,
Leaped, a pike, upon the waters,
Quickly swam the rapid river,
Gained the frigid Pohya-border.
There his native form resuming,
Walked he as a mighty hero,
On the dismal isle of Louhi,
Spake the wicked sons of Northland:
Come thou to Pohyola's court-room.'
To Pohyola's, court he hastened.
Spake again the sons of evil:
Come thou to the halls of Louhi!'
To Pohyola's halls he hastened.
On the latch he laid his fingers,
Set his foot within the fore-hall,
Hastened to the inner chamber,
Underneath the painted rafters,
Where the Northland-heroes gather.
There he found the Pohya-masters
Girded with their swords of battle,
With their spears and battle-axes,
With their fatal bows and arrows,
For the death of Wainamoinen,
Ancient bard, Suwantolainen.
Thus they asked the hero-stranger.
'Magic swimmer of the Northland,
Son of evil, what the message
That thou bringest from thy people,
What thy mission to Pohyola?'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Thus addressed the hosts of Louhi:
'For the Sun I come to Northland,
Come to seek the Moon in Pohya;
Tell me where the Sun lies hidden,
Where the golden Moon is sleeping.'
Spake the evil sons of Pohya:
'Both the Sun and Moon are hidden
In the rock of many colors,
In the copper-bearing mountain,
227
In a cavern iron-banded,
In the stone-berg of Pohyola,
Nevermore to gain their freedom,
Nevermore to shine in Northland!'
Spake the hero, Wainamoinen:
'If the Sun be not uncovered,
If the Moon leave not her dungeon,
I will challenge all Pohyola
To the test of spear or broadsword,
Let us now our weapons measure!'
Quick the hero of Wainola
Drew his mighty sword of magic;
On its border shone the moonlight,
On its hilt the Sun was shining,
On its back, a neighing stallion,
On its face a cat was mewing,
Beautiful his magic weapon.
Quick the hero-swords are tested,
And the blades are rightly measured
Wainamoinen's sword is longest
By a single grain of barley,
By a blade of straw, the widest.
To the court-yard rushed the heroes,
Hastened to the deadly combat,
On the plains of Sariola.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Strikes one blow, and then a second,
Strikes a third time, cuts and conquers.
As the house-maids slice the turnips,
As they lop the heads of cabbage,
As the stalks of flax are broken,
So the heads of Louhi's heroes
Fall before the magic broadsword
Of the ancient Wainamoinen.
Then victor from Wainola,
Ancient bard and great magician,
Went to find the Sun in slumber,
And the golden Moon discover,
In, the copper-bearing Mountains,
In the cavern iron-banded,
In the stone-berg of Pohyola.
He had gone but little distance,
228
When he found a sea-green island;
On the island stood a birch-tree,
Near the birch-tree stood a pillar
Carved in stone of many colors;
In the pillar, nine large portals
Bolted in a hundred places;
In the rock he found a crevice
Sending forth a gleam of sunlight.
Quick he drew his mighty broadsword,
From the pillar struck three colors,
From the magic of his weapon;
And the pillar fell asunder,
Three the number of the fragments.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Through the crevice looked and wondered.
In the center of the pillar,
From a scarlet-colored basin,
Noxious serpents beer were drinking,
And the adders eating spices.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Therefore has Pohyola's hostess
Little drink to give to strangers,
Since her beer is drank by serpents,
And her spices given to adders.'
Quick he draws his magic fire-blade,
Cuts the vipers green in pieces,
Lops the heads off all the adders,
Speaks these words of master-magic:
Thus, hereafter, let the serpent
Drink the famous beer of barley,
Feed upon the Northland-spices!'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
The eternal wizard-singer,
Sought to open wide the portals
With the hands and words of magic;
But his hands had lost their cunning,
And his magic gone to others.
Thereupon the ancient minstrel
Quick returning, heavy-hearted,
To his native halls and hamlets,
Thus addressed his brother-heroes:
'Woman, he without his weapons,
229
With no implements, a weakling!
Sun and Moon have I discovered,
But I could not force the Portals
Leading to their rocky cavern
In the copper bearing mountain.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Why was I not taken with thee
To become, thy war-companion?
Would have been of goodly service,
Would have drawn the bolts or broken,
All the portals to the cavern,
Where the Sun and Moon lie hidden
In the copper-bearing mountain!'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Thus replied to Lemminkainen:
'Empty Words will break no portals,
Draw no bolts of any moment;
Locks and bolts are never broken.
With the words of little wisdom!
Greater means than thou commandest
Must be used to free the sunshine,
Free the moonlight from her dungeon.'
Wainamoinen, not discouraged,
Hastened to the, forge and smithy,
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'O thou famous metal-artist,
Forge for me a magic trident,
Forge from steel a dozen stout-rings,
Master-keys, a goodly number,
Iron bars and heavy hammers,
That the Sun we may uncover
In the copper-bearing mountain,
In the stone-berg of Pohyola.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
The eternal metal-worker,
Forged the needs of Wainamoinen,
Forged for him the magic trident,
Forged from steel a dozen stout-rings,
Master-keys a goodly number,
Iron bars and heavy hammers,
Not the largest, nor the smallest,
230
Forged them of the right dimensions.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Northland's old and toothless wizard,
Fastened wings upon her shoulders,
As an eagle, sailed the heavens,
Over field, and fen, and forest,
Over Pohya's many, waters,
To the hamlets of Wainola,
To the forge of Ilmarinen.
Quick the famous metal-worker
Went to see if winds were blowing;
Found the winds at peace and silent,
Found an eagle, sable-colored,
Perched upon his window-casement.
Spake the artist, Ilmarinen:
'Magic bird, whom art thou seeking,
Why art sitting at my window?'
This the answer of the eagle:
'Art thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
The eternal iron-forger,
Master of the magic metals,
Northland's wonder-working artist?'
Ilmarinen gave this answer:
'There is nothing here of wonder,
Since I forged the dome of heaven,
Forged the earth a concave cover!'
Spake again the magic eagle:
Why this ringing of thine anvil,
Why this knocking of thy hammer,
Tell me what thy hands are forging?'
This the answer of the blacksmith:
''Tis a collar I am forging
For the neck of wicked Louhi,
Toothless witch of Sariola,
Stealer of the silver sunshine,
Stealer of the golden moonlight;
With this collar I shall bind her
To the iron-rock of Ehstland!'
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Saw misfortune fast approaching,
Saw destruction flying over,
Saw the signs of bad-luck lower;
231
Quickly winged her way through ether
To her native halls and chambers,
To the darksome Sariola,
There unlocked the massive portals
Where the Sun and Moon were hidden,
In the rock of many colors,
In the cavern iron-banded,
In the copper-bearing mountain.
Then again the wicked Louhi
Changed her withered form and features,
And became a dove of good-luck;
Straightway winged the starry heavens,
Over field, and fen, and forest,
To the meadows of Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala,
To the forge of Ilmarinen.
This the question of the blacksmith
'Wherefore comest, dove of good-luck,
What the tidings that thou bringest?'
Thus the magic bird made answer:
'Wherefore come I to thy smithy?
Come to bring the joyful tidings
That the Sun has left his cavern,
Left the rock of many colors,
Left the stone-berg of Pohyola;
That the Moon no more is hidden
In the copper-bearing mountains,
In the caverns iron-banded.'
Straightway hastened Ilmarinen
To the threshold of his smithy,
Quickly scanned the far horizon,
Saw again the silver sunshine,
Saw once more the golden moonlight,
Bringing peace, and joy, and plenty,
To the homes of Kalevala.
Thereupon the blacksmith hastened
To his brother, Wainamoinen,
Spake these words to the magician:
'O thou ancient bard and minstrel,
The eternal wizard-singer
See, the Sun again is shining,
And the golden Moon is beaming
232
From their long-neglected places,
From their stations in the sky-vault!'
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Straightway hastened to the court-yard,
Looked upon the far horizon,
Saw once more the silver sunshine,
Saw again the golden moonlight,
Bringing peace, and joy, and plenty,
To the people of the Northland,
And the minstrel spake these measures:
'Greetings to thee, Sun of fortune,
Greetings to thee, Moon of good-luck,
Welcome sunshine, welcome moonlight,
Golden is the dawn of morning!
Free art thou, O Sun of silver,
Free again, O Moon beloved,
As the sacred cuckoo's singing,
As the ring-dove's liquid cooings.
'Rise, thou silver Sun, each Morning,
Source of light and life hereafter,
Bring us, daily, joyful greetings,
Fill our homes with peace and plenty,
That our sowing, fishing, hunting,
May be prospered by thy coming.
Travel on thy daily journey,
Let the Moon be ever with thee;
Glide along thy way rejoicing,
End thy journeyings in slumber;
Rest at evening in the ocean,
When the daily cares have ended,
To the good of all thy people,
To the pleasure Of Wainoloa,
To the joy of Kalevala!'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
776:The Kalevala - Rune Xvi
WAINAMOINEN'S BOAT-BUILDING.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
For his boat was working lumber,
Working long upon his vessel,
On a fog-point jutting seaward,
On an island, forest-covered;
But the lumber failed the master,
Beams were wanting for his vessel,
Beams and scantling, ribs and flooring.
Who will find for him the lumber,
Who procure the timber needed
For the boat of Wainamoinen,
For the bottom of his vessel?
Pellerwoinen of the prairies,
Sampsa, slender-grown and ancient,
He will seek the needful timber,
He procure the beams of oak-wood
For the boat of Wainamoinen,
For the bottom of his vessel.
Soon he starts upon his journey
To the eastern fields and forests,
Hunts throughout the Northland mountain
To a second mountain wanders,
To a third he hastens, searching,
Golden axe upon his shoulder,
In his hand a copper hatchet.
Comes an aspen-tree to meet him
Of the height of seven fathoms.
Sampsa takes his axe of copper,
Starts to fell the stately aspen,
But the aspen quickly halting,
Speaks these words to Pellerwoinen:
'Tell me, hero, what thou wishest,
What the service thou art needing?'
Sampsa Pellerwoinen answers:
'This indeed, the needed service
291
That I ask of thee, O aspen:
Need thy lumber for a vessel,
For the boat of Wainamoinen,
Wisest of the wisdom-singers.'
Quick and wisely speaks the aspen,
Thus its hundred branches answer:
'All the boats that have been fashioned
From my wood have proved but failures;
Such a vessel floats a distance,
Then it sinks upon the bottom
Of the waters it should travel.
All my trunk is filled with hollows,
Three times in the summer seasons
Worms devour my stem and branches,
Feed upon my heart and tissues.'
Pellerwoinen leaves the aspen,
Hunts again through all the forest,
Wanders through the woods of Northland,
Where a pine-tree comes to meet him,
Of the height of fourteen fathoms.
With his axe he chops the pine-tree,
Strikes it with his axe of copper,
As he asks the pine this question:
'Will thy trunk give worthy timber
For the boat of Wainamoinen,
Wisest of the wisdom-singers?'
Loudly does the pine-tree answer:
'All the ships that have been fashioned
From my body are unworthy;
I am full of imperfections,
Cannot give thee needed timber
Wherewithal to build thy vessel;
Ravens live within ray branches,
Build their nests and hatch their younglings
Three times in my trunk in summer.'
Sampsa leaves the lofty pine-tree,
Wanders onward, onward, onward,
To the woods of gladsome summer,
Where an oak-tree comes to meet him,
In circumference, three fathoms,
And the oak he thus addresses:
'Ancient oak-tree, will thy body
292
Furnish wood to build a vessel,
Build a boat for Wainamoinen,
Master-boat for the magician,
Wisest of the wisdom-singers?'
Thus the oak replies to Sampsa:
'I for thee will gladly furnish
Wood to build the hero's vessel;
I am tall, and sound, and hardy,
Have no flaws within my body;
Three times in the months of summer,
In the warmest of the seasons,
Does the sun dwell in my tree-top,
On my trunk the moonlight glimmers,
In my branches sings the cuckoo,
In my top her nestlings slumber.'
Now the ancient Pellerwoinen
Takes the hatchet from his shoulder,
Takes his axe with copper handle,
Chops the body of the oak-tree;
Well he knows the art of chopping.
Soon he fells the tree majestic,
Fells the mighty forest-monarch,
With his magic axe and power.
From the stems he lops the branches,
Splits the trunk in many pieces,
Fashions lumber for the bottom,
Countless boards, and ribs, and braces,
For the singer's magic vessel,
For the boat of the magician.
Wainamoinen, old and skilful,
The eternal wonder-worker,
Builds his vessel with enchantment,
Builds his boat by art of magic,
From the timber of the oak-tree,
From its posts, and planks, and flooring.
Sings a song, and joins the frame-work;
Sings a second, sets the siding;
Sings a third time, sets the row-locks;
Fashions oars, and ribs, and rudder,
Joins the sides and ribs together.
When the ribs were firmly fastened,
When the sides were tightly jointed,
293
Then alas! three words were wanting,
Lost the words of master-magic,
How to fasten in the ledges,
How the stern should be completed,
How complete the boat's forecastle.
Then the ancient Wainamoinen,
Wise and wonderful enchanter,
Heavy-hearted spake as follows:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
Never will this magic vessel
Pass in safety o'er the water,
Never ride the rough sea-billows.'
Then he thought and long considered,
Where to find these words of magic,
Find the lost-words of the Master:
'From the brains of countless swallows,
From the heads of swans in dying,
From the plumage of the gray-duck?'
For these words the hero searches,
Kills of swans a goodly number,
Kills a flock of fattened gray-duck,
Kills of swallows countless numbers,
Cannot find the words of magic,
Not the lost-words of the Master.
Wainamoinen, wisdom-singer,
Still reflected and debated:
'I perchance may find the lost-words
On the tongue of summer-reindeer,
In the mouth of the white squirrel.'
Now again he hunts the lost-words,
Hastes to find the magic sayings,
Kills a countless host of reindeer,
Kills a rafterful of squirrels,
Finds of words a goodly number,
But they are of little value,
Cannot find the magic lost-word.
Long he thought and well considered:
'I can find of words a hundred
In the dwellings of Tuoni,
In the Manala fields and castles.'
Wainamoinen quickly journeys
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
294
There to find the ancient wisdom,
There to learn the secret doctrine;
Hastens on through fen and forest,
Over meads and over marshes,
Through the ever-rising woodlands,
Journeys one week through the brambles,
And a second through the hazels,
Through the junipers the third week,
When appear Tuoni's islands,
And the Manala fields and castles.
Wainamoinen, brave and ancient,
Calls aloud in tones of thunder,
To the Tuonela deeps and dungeons,
And to Manala's magic castle:
'Bring a boat, Tuoni's daughter,
Bring a ferry-boat, O maiden,
That may bear me o'er this channel,
O'er this black and fatal river.'
Quick the daughter of Tuoni,
Magic maid of little stature,
Tiny virgin of Manala,
Tiny washer of the linen,
Tiny cleaner of the dresses,
At the river of Tuoni,
In Manala's ancient castles,
Speaks these words to Wainamoinen,
Gives this answer to his calling:
'Straightway will I bring the row-boat,
When the reasons thou hast given
Why thou comest to Manala
In a hale and active body.'
Wainamoinen, old and artful.,
Gives this answer to the maiden:
'I was brought here by Tuoni,
Mana raised me from the coffin.'
Speaks the maiden of Manala:
'This a tale of wretched liars;
Had Tuoni brought thee hither,
Mana raised thee from the coffin,
Then Tuoni would be with thee,
Manalainen too would lead thee,
With Tuoni's hat upon thee,
295
On thy hands, the gloves of Mana;
Tell the truth now, Wainamoinen,
What has brought thee to Manala?'
Wainamoinen, artful hero,
Gives this answer, still finessing:
'Iron brought me to Manala,
To the kingdom of Tuoni.'
Speaks the virgin of the death-land,
Mana's wise and tiny daughter:
'Well I know that this is falsehood,
Had the iron brought thee hither,
Brought thee to Tuoni's kingdom,
Blood would trickle from thy vesture,
And the blood-drops, scarlet-colored.
Speak the truth now, Wainamoinen,
This the third time that I ask thee.'
Wainamoinen, little heeding,
Still finesses to the daughter:
'Water brought me to Manala,
To the kingdom of Tuoui.'
This the tiny maiden's answer:
'Well I know thou speakest falsely;
If the waters of Manala,
If the cataract and whirlpool,
Or the waves had brought thee hither,
From thy robes the drops would trickle,
Water drip from all thy raiment.
Tell the truth and I will serve thee,
What has brought thee to Manala?'
Then the wilful Wainamoinen
Told this falsehood to the maiden:
'Fire has brought me to Manala,
To the kingdom of Tuoni.'
Spake again Tuoni's daughter:
'Well I know the voice of falsehood.
If the fire had brought thee hither,
Brought thee to Tuoni's empire,
Singed would be thy locks and eyebrows,
And thy beard be crisped and tangled.
O, thou foolish Wainamoinen,
If I row thee o'er the ferry,
Thou must speak the truth in answer,
296
This the last time I will ask thee;
Make an end of thy deception.
What has brought thee to Manala,
Still unharmed by pain or sickness,
Still untouched by Death's dark angel
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'At the first I spake, not truly,
Now I give thee rightful answer:
I a boat with ancient wisdom,
Fashioned with my powers of magic,
Sang one day and then a second,
Sang the third day until evening,
When I broke the magic main-spring,
Broke my magic sledge in pieces,
Of my song the fleetest runners;
Then I come to Mana's kingdom,
Came to borrow here a hatchet,
Thus to mend my sledge of magic,
Thus to join the parts together.
Send the boat now quickly over,
Send me, quick, Tuoni's row-boat,
Help me cross this fatal river,
Cross the channel of Manala.'
Spake the daughter of Tuoni,
Mana's maiden thus replying:
'Thou art sure a stupid fellow,
Foresight wanting, judgment lacking,
Having neither wit nor wisdom,
Coming here without a reason,
Coming to Tuoni's empire;
Better far if thou shouldst journey
To thy distant home and kindred;
Man they that visit Mana,
Few return from Maria's kingdom.'
Spake the good old Wainamoinen:
'Women old retreat from danger,
Not a man of any courage,
Not the weakest of the heroes.
Bring thy boat, Tuoni's daughter,
Tiny maiden of Manala,
Come and row me o'er the ferry.'
Mana's daughter does as bidden,
297
Brings her boat to Wainamoinen,
Quickly rows him through the channel,
O'er the black and fatal river,
To the kingdom of Manala,
Speaks these words to the magician:
'Woe to thee! O Wainamoinen!
Wonderful indeed, thy magic,
Since thou comest to Manala,
Comest neither dead nor dying.'
Tuonetar, the death-land hostess,
Ancient hostess of Tuoni,
Brings him pitchers filled with strong-beer,
Fills her massive golden goblets,
Speaks these measures to the stranger:
'Drink, thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Drink the beer of king Tuoni!'
Wainamoinen, wise and cautious,
Carefully inspects the liquor,
Looks a long time in the pitchers,
Sees the spawning of the black-frogs,
Sees the young of poison-serpents,
Lizards, worms, and writhing adders,
Thus addresses Tuonetar:
'Have not come with this intention,
Have not come to drink thy poisons,
Drink the beer of Tuonela;
Those that drink Tuoni's liquors,
Those that sip the cups of Mana,
Court the Devil and destruction,
End their lives in want and ruin.'
Tuonetar makes this answer:
'Ancient minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Tell me what has brought thee hither,
Brought thee to the, realm of Mana,
To the courts of Tuonela,
Ere Tuoni sent his angels
To thy home in Kalevala,
There to cut thy magic life-thread.'
Spake the singer, Wainamoinen:
'I was building me a vessel,
At my craft was working, singing,
Needed three words of the Master,
298
How to fasten in the ledges,
How the stern should be completed,
How complete the boat's forecastle.
This the reason of my coming
To the empire of Tuoni,
To the castles of Manala:
Came to learn these magic sayings,
Learn the lost-words of the Master.'
Spake the hostess, Tuonetar:
'Mana never gives these sayings,
Canst not learn them from Tuoni,
Not the lost-words of the Master;
Thou shalt never leave this kingdom,
Never in thy magic life-time,
Never go to Kalevala,
To Wainola's peaceful meadows.
To thy distant home and country.'
Quick the hostess, Tuonetar,
Waves her magic wand of slumber
O'er the head of Wainamoinen,
Puts to rest the wisdom-hero,
Lays him on the couch of Mana,
In the robes of living heroes,
Deep the sleep that settles o'er him.
In Manala lived a woman,
In the kingdom of Tuoni,
Evil witch and toothless wizard,
Spinner of the threads of iron,
Moulder of the bands of copper,
Weaver of a hundred fish-nets,
Of a thousand nets of copper,
Spinning in the days of summer,
Weaving in the winter evenings,
Seated on a rock in water.
In the kingdom of Tuoni
Lived a man, a wicked wizard,
Three the fingers of the hero,
Spinner he of iron meshes,
Maker too of nets of copper,
Countless were his nets of metal,
Moulded on a rock in water,
Through the many days of summer.
299
Mana's son with crooked fingers,
Iron-pointed, copper fingers,
Pulls of nets, at least a thousand,
Through the river of Tuoni,
Sets them lengthwise, sets them crosswise,
In the fatal, darksome river,
That the sleeping Wainamomen,
Friend and brother of the waters,
May not leave the isle of Mana,
Never in the course of ages,
Never leave the death-land castles,
Never while the moonlight glimmers
On the empire of Tuoni.
Wainamoinen, wise and wary,
Rising from his couch of slumber,
Speaks these words as he is waking:
'Is there not some mischief brewing,
Am I not at last in danger,
In the chambers of Tuoni,
In the Manala home and household?'
Quick he changes his complexion,
Changes too his form and feature,
Slips into another body;
Like a serpent in a circle,
Rolls black-dyed upon the waters;
Like a snake among the willows,
Crawls he like a worm of magic,
Like an adder through the grasses,
Through the coal-black stream of death-land,
Through a thousand nets of copper
Interlaced with threads of iron,
From the kingdom of Tuoni,
From the castles of Manala.
Mana's son, the wicked wizard,
With his iron-pointed fingers,
In the early morning hastens
To his thousand nets of copper,
Set within the Tuoni river,
Finds therein a countless number
Of the death-stream fish and serpents;
Does not find old Wainamoinen,
Wainamoinen, wise and wary,
300
Friend and fellow of the waters.
When the wonder-working hero
Had escaped from Tuonela,
Spake he thus in supplication:
'Gratitude to thee, O Ukko,
Do I bring for thy protection!
Never suffer other heroes,
Of thy heroes not the wisest,
To transgress the laws of nature;
Never let another singer,
While he lives within the body,
Cross the river of Tuoni,
As thou lovest thy creations.
Many heroes cross the channel,
Cross the fatal stream of Mana,
Few return to tell the story,
Few return from Tuonela,
From Manala's courts and castles.'
Wainamoinen calls his people,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Speaks these words of ancient wisdom,
To the young men, to the maidens,
To the rising generation:
'Every child of Northland, listen:
If thou wishest joy eternal,
Never disobey thy parents,
Never evil treat the guiltless,
Never wrong the feeble-minded,
Never harm thy weakest fellow,
Never stain thy lips with falsehood,
Never cheat thy trusting neighbor,
Never injure thy companion,
Lest thou surely payest penance
In the kingdom of Tuoni,
In the prison of Manala;
There, the home of all the wicked,
There the couch of the unworthy,
There the chambers of the guilty.
Underneath Manala's fire-rock
Are their ever-flaming couches,
For their pillows hissing serpents,
Vipers green their writhing covers,
301
For their drink the blood of adders,
For their food the pangs of hunger,
Pain and agony their solace;
If thou wishest joy eternal,
Shun the kingdom of Tuoui!'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
777:The Kalevala - Rune Xxxii
KULLERVO AS A SHEPHERD.
Kullerwoinen, wizard-servant
Of the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Purchased slave from Untamoinen,
Magic son with sky-blue stockings.,
With a head of golden ringlets,
In his shoes of marten-leather,
Waiting little, asked the blacksmith,
Asked the host for work at morning,
In the evening asked the hostess,
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
'Give me work at early morning,
In the evening, occupation,
Labor worthy of thy servant.'
Then the wife of Ilmarinen,
Once the Maiden of the Rainbow,
Thinking long, and long debating,
How to give the youth employment,
How the purchased slave could labor;
Finally a shepherd made him,
Made him keeper of her pastures;
But the over-scornful hostess,
Baked a biscuit for the herdsman,
Baked a loaf of wondrous thickness,
Baked the lower-half of oat-meal,
And the upper-half of barley,
Baked a flint-stone in the centre,
Poured around it liquid butter,
Then she gave it to the shepherd,
Food to still the herdsman's hunger;
Thus she gave the youth instructions:
'Do not eat the bread in hunger,
Till the herd is in the woodlands!'
Then the wife of Ilmarinen
Sent her cattle to the pasture,
Thus addressing Kullerwoinen:
'Drive the cows to yonder bowers,
509
To the birch-trees and the aspens,
That they there may feed and fatten,
Fill themselves with milk and butter,
In the open forest-pastures,
On the distant hills and mountains,
In the glens among the birch-trees,
In the lowlands with the aspens,
In the golden pine-tree forests,
In the thickets silver-laden.
'Guard them, thou O kind Creator,
Shield them, omnipresent Ukko,
Shelter them from every danger,
And protect them from all evil,
That they may not want, nor wander
From the paths of peace and plenty.
As at home Thou didst protect them
In the shelters and the hurdles,
Guard them now beneath the heavens,
Shelter them in woodland pastures,
That the herds may live and prosper
To 'the joy of Northland's hostess,
And against the will of Lempo.
'If my herdsman prove unworthy,
If the shepherd-maids seem evil,
Let the pastures be their shepherds,
Let the alders guard the cattle,
Make the birch-tree their protector,
Let the willow drive them homeward,
Ere the hostess go to seek them,
Ere the milkmaids wait and worry.
Should the birch-tree not protect them,
Nor the aspen lend assistance,
Nor the linden be their keeper,
Nor the willow drive them homeward,
Wilt thou give them better herdsmen,
Let Creation's beauteous daughters
Be their kindly shepherdesses.
Thou hast many lovely maidens,
Many hundreds that obey thee,
In the Ether's spacious circles,
Beauteous daughters of creation.
'Summer-daughter, magic maiden,
510
Southern mother of the woodlands,
Pine-tree daughter, Kateyatar,
Pihlayatar, of the aspen,
Alder-maiden, Tapio's daughter,
Daughter of the glen, Millikki,
And the mountain-maid, Tellervo,
Of my herds be ye protectors,
Keep them from the evil-minded,
Keep them safe in days of summer,
In the times of fragrant flowers,
While the tender leaves are whispering,
While the Earth is verdure-laden.
'Summer-daughter, charming maiden,
Southern mother of the woodlands,
Spread abroad thy robes of safety,
Spread thine apron o'er the forest,
Let it cover all my cattle,
And protect the unprotected,
That no evil winds may harm them,
May not suffer from the storm-clouds.
Guard my flocks from every danger,
Keep them from the hands of wild-beasts,
From the swamps with sinking pathways,
From the springs that bubble trouble,
From the swiftly running waters,
From the bottom of the whirlpool,
That they may not find misfortune,
May not wander to destruction,
In the marshes sink and perish,
Though against God's best intentions,
Though against the will of Ukko.
'From a distance bring a bugle,
Bring a shepherd's horn from heaven,
Bring the honey-flute of Ukko,
Play the music of creation,
Blow the pipes of the magician,
Play the flowers on the highlands,
Charm the hills, and dales, and mount
Charm the borders of the forest,
Fill the forest-trees with honey,
Fill with spice the fountain-borders.
'For my herds give food and shelter,
511
Feed them all on honeyed pastures,
Give them drink at honeyed fountains
Feed them on thy golden grasses,
On the leaves of silver saplings,
From the springs of life and beauty,
From the crystal-waters flowing,
From the waterfalls of Rutya,
From the uplands green and golden,
From the glens enriched in silver.
Dig thou also golden fountains
On the four sides of the willow,
That the cows may drink in sweetness,
And their udders swell with honey,
That their milk may flow in streamlets;
Let the milk be caught in vessels,
Let the cow's gift be not wasted,
Be not given to Manala.
'Many are the sons of evil,
That to Mana take their milkings,
Give their milk to evil-doers,
Waste it in Tuoni's empire;
Few there are, and they the worthy,
That can get the milk from Mana;
Never did my ancient mother
Ask for counsel in the village,
Never in the courts for wisdom;
She obtained her milk from Mana,
Took the sour-milk from the dealers,
Sweet-milk from the greater distance,
From the kingdom of Manala,
From Tuoni's fields and pastures;
Brought it in the dusk of evening,
Through the by-ways in the darkness,
That the wicked should not know it,
That it should not find destruction.
'This the language of my mother,
And these words I also echo:
Whither does the cow's gift wander,
Whither has the milk departed?
Has it gone to feed the strangers,
Banished to the distant village,
Gone to feed the hamlet-lover,
512
Or perchance to feed the forest,
Disappeared within the woodlands,
Scattered o'er the hills and mountains,
Mingled with the lakes and rivers?
It shall never go to Mana,
Never go to feed the stranger,
Never to the village-lover;
Neither shall it feed the forest,
Nor be lost upon the mountains,
Neither sprinkled in the woodlands,
Nor be mingled with the waters;
It is needed for our tables,
Worthy food for all our children.'
Summer-daughter, maid of beauty,
Southern daughter of Creation,
Give Suotikki tender fodder,
To Watikki, give pure water,
To Hermikki milk abundant,
Fresh provisions to Tuorikki,
From Mairikki let the milk flow,
Fresh milk from my cows in plenty,
Coming from the tips of grasses,
From the tender herbs and leaflets,
From the meadows rich in honey,
From the mother of the forest,
From the meadows sweetly dripping,
From the berry-laden branches,
From the heath of flower-maidens,
From the verdure. maiden bowers,
From the clouds of milk-providers,
From the virgin of the heavens,
That the milk may flow abundant
From the cows that I have given
To the keeping of Kullervo.
'Rise thou virgin of the valley,
From the springs arise in beauty,
Rise thou maiden of the fountain,
Beautiful, arise in ether,
Take the waters from the cloudlets,
And my roaming herds besprinkle,
That my cows may drink and flourish,
May be ready for the coming
513
Of the shepherdess of evening.
'O Millikki, forest-hostess,
Mother of the herds at pasture,
Send the tallest of thy servants,
Send the best of thine assistants,
That my herds may well be guarded,
Through the pleasant days of summer,
Given us by our Creator.
'Beauteous virgin of the woodlands,
Tapio's most charming daughter,
Fair Tellervo, forest-maiden,
Softly clad in silken raiment,
Beautiful in golden ringlets,
Do thou give my herds protection,
In the Metsola dominions,
On the hills of Tapiola;
Shield them with thy hands of beauty,
Stroke them gently with thy fingers,
Give to them a golden lustre,
Make them shine like fins of salmon,
Grow them robes as soft as ermine.
'When the evening star brings darkness,
When appears the hour of twilight,
Send my lowing cattle homeward,
Milk within their vessels coursing,
Water on their backs in lakelets.
When the Sun has set in ocean,
When the evening-bird is singing,
Thus address my herds of cattle:
'Ye that carry horns, now hasten
To the sheds of Ilmarinen;
Ye enriched in milk go homeward,
To the hostess now in waiting,
Home, the better place for sleeping,
Forest-beds are full of danger;
When the evening comes in darkness,
Straightway journey to the milkmaids
Building fires to light the pathway
On the turf enriched in honey,
In the pastures berry-laden!
'Thou, O Tapio's son, Nyrikki,
Forest-son, enrobed in purple,
514
Cut the fir-trees on the mountains,
Cut the pines with cones of beauty,
Lay them o'er the streams for bridges,
Cover well the sloughs of quicksand,
In the swamps and in the lowlands,
That my herd may pass in safety,
On their long and dismal journey,
To the clouds of smoke may hasten,
Where the milkmaids wait their coming.
If the cows heed not this order,
Do not hasten home at evening,
Then, O service-berry maiden,
Cut a birch-rod from the glenwood,
From the juniper, a whip-stick,
Near to Tapio's spacious mansion,
Standing on the ash-tree mountain,
Drive my wayward, ]owing cattle,
Into Metsola's wide milk-yards,
When the evening-star is rising.
'Thou, O Otso, forest-apple,
Woodland bear, with honeyed fingers,
Let us make a lasting treaty,
Make a vow for future ages,
That thou wilt not kill my cattle,
Wilt not eat my milk-providers;
That I will not send my hunters
To destroy thee and thy kindred,
Never in the days of summer,
The Creator's warmest season.
'Dost thou hear the tones of cow-bells,
Hear the calling of the bugles,
Ride thyself within the meadow,
Sink upon the turf in slumber,
Bury both thine ears in clover,
Crouch within some alder-thicket
Climb between the mossy ledges,
Visit thou some rocky cavern,
Flee away to other mountains,
Till thou canst not hear the cow-bells,
Nor the calling of the herdsmen.
'Listen, Otso of the woodlands,
Sacred bear with honeyed fingers,
515
To approach the herd of cattle
Thou thyself art not forbidden,
But thy tongue, and teeth, and fingers,
Must not touch my herd in summer,
Must not harm my harmless creatures.
Go around the scented meadows,
Amble through the milky pastures,
From the tones of bells and shepherds.
should the herd be on the mountain,
Go thou quickly to the marshes;
Should my cattle browse the lowlands,
Sleep thou then within the thicket;
Should they feed upon the uplands,
Thou must hasten to the valley;
Should the herd graze at the bottom,
Thou must feed upon the summit.
'Wander like the golden cuckoo,
Like the dove of silver brightness,
Like a little fish in ocean;
Ride thy claws within thy hair-foot,
Shut thy wicked teeth in darkness,
That my herd may not be frightened,
May not think themselves in danger.
Leave my cows in peace and plenty,
Let them journey home in order,
Through the vales and mountain by-ways,
Over plains and through the forest,
Harming not my harmless creatures.
'Call to mind our former pledges,
At the river of Tuoni,
Near the waterfall and whirlpool,
In the ears of our Creator.
Thrice to Otso was it granted,
In the circuit of the summer,
To approach the land of cow-bells,
Where the herdsmen's voices echo;
But to thee it was not granted,
Otso never had permission
To attempt a wicked action,
To begin a work of evil.
Should the blinding thing of malice
Come upon thee in thy roamings,
516
Should thy bloody teeth feel hunger,
Throw thy malice to the mountains,
And thy hunger to the pine-trees,
Sink thy teeth within the aspens,
In the dead limbs of the birches,
Prune the dry stalks from the willows.
Should thy hunger still impel thee,
Go thou to the berry-mountain,
Eat the fungus of the forest,
Feed thy hunger on the ant-hills,
Eat the red roots of the bear-tree,
Metsola's rich cakes of honey,
Not the grass my herd would feed on.
Or if Metsola's rich honey
Should ferment before the eating,
On the hills of golden color,
On the mountains filled with silver,
There is other food for hunger,
Other drink for thirsting Otso,
Everlasting will the food be,
And the drink be never wanting.
'Let us now agree in honor,
And conclude a lasting treaty
That our lives may end in pleasure,
May be, merry in the summer,
Both enjoy the woods in common,
Though our food must be distinctive
Shouldst thou still desire to fight me,
Let our contests be in winter,
Let our wars be, on the snow-fields.
Swamps will thaw in days of summer,
Warm, the water in the rivers.
Therefore shouldst thou break this treaty,
Shouldst thou come where golden cattle
Roam these woodland hills and valleys,
We will slay thee with our cross-bows;
Should our arrow-men be absent,
We have here some archer-women,
And among them is the hostess,
That can use the fatal weapon,
That can bring thee to destruction,
Thus will end the days of trouble
517
That thou bringest to our people,
And against the will of Ukko.
'Ukko, ruler in the heavens,
Lend an ear to my entreaty,
Metamorphose all my cattle,
Through the mighty force of magic,
Into stumps and stones convert them,
If the enemy should wander,
Near my herd in days of summer.
'If I had been born an Otso,
I would never stride and amble
At the feet of aged women;
Elsewhere there are hills and valleys,
Farther on are honey-pastures,
Where the lazy bear may wander,
Where the indolent may linger;
Sneak away to yonder mountain,
That thy tender flesh may lessen,
In the blue-glen's deep recesses,
In the bear-dens of the forest,
Thou canst move through fields of acorns,
Through the sand and ocean-pebbles,
There for thee is tracked a pathway,
Through the woodlands on the sea-coast,
To the Northland's farthest limits,
To the dismal plains of Lapland,
There 'tis well for thee to lumber,
There to live will be a pleasure.
Shoeless there to walk in summer,
Stockingless in days of autumn,
On the blue-back of the mountain,
Through the swamps and fertile lowlands.
'If thou canst not journey thither,
Canst not find the Lapland-highway,
Hasten on a little distance,
In the bear-path leading northward.
To the grove of Tuonela,
To the honey-plains of Kalma,
Swamps there are in which to wander,
Heaths in which to roam at pleasure,
There are Kiryos, there are Karyos,
And of beasts a countless number,
518
With their fetters strong as iron,
Fattening within the forest.
Be ye gracious, groves and mountains,
Full of grace, ye darksome thickets,
Peace and, plenty to my cattle,
Through the pleasant days of summer,
The Creator's warmest season.
'Knippana, O King of forests,
Thou the gray-beard of the woodlands,
Watch thy dogs in fen and fallow,
Lay a sponge within one nostril,
And an acorn in the other,
That they may not scent my cattle;
Tie their eyes with silken fillets,
That they may not see my herdlings,
May not see my cattle grazing.
'Should all this seem inefficient,
Drive away thy barking children,
Let them run to other forests,
Let them hunt in other marshes,
From these verdant strips of meadow,
From these far outstretching borders,
Hide thy dogs within thy caverns,
Firmly tie thy yelping children,
Tie them with thy golden fetters,
With thy chains adorned with silver,
That they may not do me damage,'
May not do a deed of mischief.
Should all this prove inefficient,
Thou, O Ukko, King of heaven.
Wise director, full of mercy,
Hear the golden words I utter,
Hear a voice that breathes affection,
From the alder make a muzzle,
For each dog, within the kennel;
Should the alder prove too feeble,
Cast a band of purest copper;
Should the copper prove a failure,
Forge a band of ductile iron;
Should the iron snap asunder,
In each nose a small-ring fasten,
Made of molten gold and silver,
519
Chain thy dogs in forest-caverns,
That my herd may not be injured.
Then the wife of Ilmarinen,
Life-companion of the blacksmith,
Opened all her yards and stables,
Led her herd across the meadow,
Placed them in the herdman's keeping,
In the care of Kullerwoinen.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
778:The Kalevala - Rune Xlii
CAPTURE OF THE SAMPO.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
With the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
With the reckless son of Lempo,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
On the sea's smooth plain departed,
On the far-extending waters,
To the village, cold and dreary,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
Where the heroes fall and perish.
Ilmarinen led the rowers
On one side the magic war-ship,
And the reckless Lemminkainen
Led the rowers on the other.
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Laid his hand upon the rudder,
Steered his vessel o'er the waters,
Through the foam and angry billows
To Pohyola's place of landing,
To the cylinders of copper,
Where the war-ships lie at anchor.
When they had arrived at Pohya,
When their journey they had ended,
On the land they rolled their vessel,
On the copper-banded rollers,
Straightway journeyed to the village,
Hastened to the halls and hamlets
Of the dismal Sariola.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Thus addressed the stranger-heroes:
Magic heroes of Wainola,
What the tidings ye are bringing
To the people of my village?'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel.
Gave this answer to the hostess:
'All the hosts of Kalevala
Are inquiring for the Sampo,
192
Asking for the lid in colors;
Hither have these heroes journeyed
To divide the priceless treasure.
Thus the hostess spake in answer:
'No one would divide a partridge,
Nor a squirrel, with three heroes;
Wonderful the magic Sampo,
Plenty does it bring to Northland;
And the colored lid re-echoes
From the copper-bearing mountains,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
To the joy of its possessors.'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Thus addressed the ancient Louhi:
'If thou wilt not share the Sampo,
Give to us an equal portion,
We will take it to Wainola,
With its lid of many colors,
Take by force the hope of Pohya.'
Thereupon the Northland hostess
Angry grew and sighed for vengeance;
Called her people into council,
Called the hosts of Sariola,
Heroes with their trusted broadswords,
To destroy old Wainamoinen
With his people of the Northland.
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Hastened to his harp of fish-bone,
And began his magic playing;
All of Pohya stopped and listened,
Every warrior was silenced
By the notes of the magician;
Peaceful-minded grew the soldiers,
All the maidens danced with pleasure,
While the heroes fell to weeping,
And the young men looked in wonder.
Wainamoinen plays unceasing,
Plays the maidens into slumber,
Plays to sleep the young and aged,
All of Northland sleeps and listens.
Wise and wondrous Wainamoinen,
The eternal bard and singer,
193
Searches in his pouch of leather,
Draws therefrom his slumber-arrows,
Locks the eyelids of the sleepers,
Of the heroes of Pohyola,
Sings and charms to deeper slumber
All the warriors of the Northland.
Then the heroes of Wainola
Hasten to obtain the Sampo,
To procure the lid in colors
From the copper-bearing mountains.
From behind nine locks of copper,
In the stone-berg of Pohyola.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Then began his wondrous singing,
Sang in gentle tones of magic,
At the entrance to the mountain,
At the border of the stronghold;
Trembled all the rocky portals,
And the iron-banded pillars
Fell and crumbled at his singing.
Ilmarinen, magic blacksmith,
Well anointed all the hinges,
All the bars and locks anointed,
And the bolts flew back by magic,
All the gates unlocked in silence,
Opened for the great magician.
Spake the minstrel Wainamoinen:
'O thou daring Lemminkainen,
Friend of mine in times of trouble,
Enter thou within the mountain,
Bring away the wondrous Sampo,
Bring away the lid in colors!'
Quick the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Ever ready for a venture,
Hastens to the mountain-caverns,
There to find the famous Sampo,
There to get the lid in colors;
Strides along with conscious footsteps,
Thus himself he vainly praises:
'Great am I and full of glory,
Wonder-hero, son of Ukko,
194
I will bring away the Sampo,
Turn about the lid in colors,
Turn it on its magic hinges!'
Lemminkainen finds the wonder,
Finds the Sampo in the mountain,
Labors long with strength heroic,
Tugs with might and main to turn it;
Motionless remains the treasure,
Deeper sinks the lid in colors,
For the roots have grown about it,
Grown nine fathoms deep in sand-earth.
Lived a mighty ox in Northland,
Powerful in bone and sinew,
Beautiful in form and color,
Horns the length of seven fathoms,
Mouth and eyes of wondrous beauty.
Lemminkainen, reckless hero,
Harnesses the ox in pasture,
Takes the master-plow of Pohya,
Plows the roots about the Sampo,
Plows around the lid in colors,
And the sacred Sampo loosens,
Falls the colored lid in silence.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Brings the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Brings the daring Lemminkainen,
Lastly brings the magic Sampo,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From the copper-bearing mountain,
Hides it in his waiting vessel,
In the war-ship of Wainola.
Wainamoinen called his people,
Called his crew of men and maidens,
Called together all his heroes,
Rolled his vessel to the water,
Into billowy deeps and dangers.
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Whither shall we take the Sampo,
Whither take the lid in colors,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From this evil spot of Northland?'
Wainamoinen, wise and faithful,
195
Gave this answer to the question:
'Thither shall we take the Sampo,
Thither take the lid in colors,
To the fog-point on the waters,
To the island forest-covered;
There the treasure may be hidden,
May remain in peace for ages,
Free from trouble, free from danger,
Where the sword will not molest it.'
Then the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Joyful, left the Pohya borders,
Homeward sailed, and happy-hearted,
Spake these measures on departing:
'Turn, O man-of-war, from Pohya,
Turn thy back upon the strangers,
Turn thou to my distant country!
Rock, O winds, my magic vessel,
Homeward drive my ship, O billows,
Lend the rowers your assistance,
Give the oarsmen easy labor,
On this vast expanse of waters!
Give me of thine oars, O Ahto,
Lend thine aid, O King of sea-waves,
Guide as with thy helm in safety,
Lay thy hand upon the rudder,
And direct our war-ship homeward;
Let the hooks of metal rattle
O'er the surging of the billows,
On the white-capped waves' commotion.'
Then the master, Wainamoinen,
Guided home his willing vessel;
And the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
With the lively Lemminkainen,
Led the mighty host of rowers,
And the war-ship glided homeward
O'er the sea's unruffled surface,
O'er the mighty waste of waters.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Once before I rode these billows,
There were viands for the heroes,
There was singing for the maidens;
But to-day I hear no singing,
196
Hear no songs upon the vessel,
Hear no music on the waters.'
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Answered thus wild Lemminkainen:
'Let none sing upon the blue-sea,
On the waters, no rejoicing;
Singing would prolong our journey,
Songs disturb the host of rowers;
Soon will die the silver sunlight,
Darkness soon will overtake us,
On this evil waste of waters,
On this blue-sea, smooth and level.'
These the words of Lemminkainen:
'Time will fly on equal pinions
Whether we have songs or silence;
Soon will disappear the daylight,
And the night as quickly follow,
Whether we be sad or joyous.'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
O'er the blue backs of the billows,
Steered one day, and then a second,
Steered the third from morn till even,
When the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Once again addressed the master:
'Why wilt thou, O famous minstrel,
Sing no longer for thy people,
Since the Sampo thou hast captured,
Captured too the lid in colors?'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
''Tis not well to sing too early!
Time enough for songs of joyance
When we see our home-land mansions,
When our journeyings have ended!'
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'At the helm, if I were sitting,
I would sing at morn and evening,
Though my voice has little sweetness;
Since thy songs are not forthcoming
Listen to my wondrous singing!'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Raised his voice above the waters,
197
O'er the sea his song resounded;
But his measures were discordant,
And his notes were harsh and frightful.
Sang the wizard, Lemminkainen,
Screeched the reckless Kaukomieli,
Till the mighty war-ship trembled;
Far and wide was heard his singing,
Heard his songs upon the waters,
Heard within the seventh village,
Heard beyond the seven oceans.
Sat a crane within the rushes,
On a hillock clothed in verdure,
And the crane his toes was counting;
Suddenly he heard the singing
Of the wizard, Lemminkainen;
And the bird was justly frightened
At the songs of the magician.
Then with horrid voice, and screeching,
Flew the crane across the broad-sea
To the lakes of Sariola,
O'er Pohyola's hills and hamlets,
Screeching, screaming, over Northland,
Till the people of the darkness
Were awakened from their slumbers.
Louhi hastens to her hurdles,
Hastens to her droves of cattle,
Hastens also to her garners,
Counts her herds, inspects her store-house;
Undisturbed she finds her treasures.
Quick she journeys to the entrance
To the copper-bearing mountain,
Speaks these words as she approaches:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated,
Woe to Louhi, broken-hearted!
Here the tracks of the destroyers,
All my locks and bolts are broken
By the hands of cruel strangers!
Broken are my iron hinges,
Open stand the mountain-portals
Leading to the Northland-treasure.
Has Pohyola lost her Sampo?'
Then she hastened to the chambers
198
Where the Sampo had been grinding;
But she found the chambers empty,
Lid and Sampo gone to others,
From the stone-berg of Pohyola,
From behind nine locks of copper,
In the copper-bearing mountain.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Angry grew and cried for vengeance;
As she found her fame departing,
Found her-strength fast disappearing,
Thus addressed the sea-fog virgin:
'Daughter of the morning-vapors,
Sift thy fogs from distant cloud-land,
Sift the thick air from the heavens,
Sift thy vapors from the ether,
On the blue-back of the broad-sea,
On the far extending waters,
That the ancient Wainamoinen,
Friend of ocean-wave and billow,
May not baffle his pursuers!
'Should this prayer prove unavailing,
Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Raise thy head above the billows,
And destroy Wainola's heroes,
Sink them to thy deep sea-castles,
There devour them at thy pleasure;
Bring thou back the golden Sampo
To the people of Pohyola!
'Should these words be ineffective,
Ukko, mightiest of rulers,
Golden king beyond the welkin,
Sitting on a throne of silver,
Fill thy skies with heavy storm-clouds,
Call thy fleetest winds about thee,
Send them o'er the seven broad-seas,
There to find the fleeing vessel,
That the ancient Wainamoinen
May not baffle his pursuers!'
Quick the virgin of the vapors
Breathed a fog upon the waters,
Made it settle on the war-ship
Of the, heroes of the Northland,
199
Held the minstrel, Wainamoinen,
Anchored in the fog and darkness;
Bound him one day, then a second,
Then a third till dawn of morning,
In the middle of the blue-sea,
Whence he could not flee in safety
From the wrath of his pursuers.
When the third night had departed,
Resting in the sea, and helpless,
Wainamoinen spake as follows,
'Not a man of strength and courage,
Not the weakest of the heroes,
Who upon the sea will suffer,
Sink and perish in the vapors,
Perish in the fog and darkness!'
With his sword he smote the billows,
From his magic blade flowed honey;
Quick the vapor breaks, and rises,
Leaves the waters clear for rowing;
Far extend the sky and waters,
Large the ring of the horizon,
And the troubled sea enlarges.
Time had journeyed little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
When they heard a mighty roaring,
Heard a roaring and a rushing
Near the border of the vessel,
Where the foam was shooting skyward
O'er the boat of Wainamoinen.
Straightway youthful Ilmarinen
Sank in gravest apprehension,
From his cheeks the blood departed;
Pulled his cap down o'er his forehead,
Shook and trembled with emotion.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Casts his eyes upon the waters
Near the broad rim of his war-ship;
There perceives an ocean-wonder
With his head above the sea-foam.
Wainamoinen, brave and mighty,
Seizes quick the water-monster,
Lifts him by his ears and questions:
200
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Why art rising from the blue-sea?
Wherefore dost thou leave thy castle,
Show thyself to mighty heroes,
To the heroes of Wainola?'
Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Ocean monster, manifested
Neither pleasure, nor displeasure,
Was not in the least affrighted,
Did not give the hero answer.
Whereupon the ancient minstrel,
Asked the second time the monster,
Urgently inquired a third time:
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Why art rising from the waters,
Wherefore dost thou leave the blue-sea?
Iku-Turso gave this answer:
For this cause I left my castle
Underneath the rolling billows:
Came I here with the intention
To destroy the Kalew-heroes,
And return the magic Sampo
To the people of Pohyola.
If thou wilt restore my freedom,
Spare my life, from pain and sorrow,
I will quick retrace my journey,
Nevermore to show my visage
To the people of Wainola,
Never while the moonlight glimmers
On the hills of Kalevala!'
Then the singer, Wainamoinen,
Freed the monster, Iku-Turso,
Sent him to his deep sea-castles,
Spake these words to him departing:
'Iku-Turso, son of Old-age,
Nevermore arise from ocean,
Nevermore let Northland-heroes
See thy face above the waters I
Nevermore has Iku-Turso
Risen to the ocean-level;
Never since have Northland sailors
Seen the head of this sea-monster.
201
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Onward rowed his goodly vessel,
Journeyed but a little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
When the King of all creators,
Mighty Ukko of the heavens,
Made the winds blow full of power,
Made the storms arise in fury,
Made them rage upon the waters.
From the west the winds came roaring,
From the north-east came in anger,
Winds came howling from the south-west,
Came the winds from all directions,
In their fury, rolling, roaring,
Tearing branches from the lindens,
Hurling needles from the pine-trees,
Blowing flowers from the heather,
Grasses blowing from the meadow,
Tearing up the very bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea.
Roared the winds and lashed the waters
Till the waves were white with fury;
Tossed the war-ship high in ether,
Tossed away the harp of fish-bone,
Magic harp of Wainamoinen,
To the joy of King Wellamo,
To the pleasure of his people,
To the happiness of Ahto,
Ahto, rising from his caverns,
On the floods beheld his people
Carry off the harp of magic
To their home below the billows.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Heavy-hearted, spake these measures:
'I have lost what I created,
I have lost the harp of joyance;
Now my strength has gone to others,
All my pleasure too departed,
All my hope and comfort vanished!
Nevermore the harp of fish-bone
Will enchant the hosts of Suomi!'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
202
Sorrow-laden, spake as follows:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
Would that I had never journeyed
On these waters filled with dangers,
On the rolling waste before me,
In this war-ship false and feeble.
Winds and storms have I encountered,
Wretched days of toil and trouble,
I have witnessed in the Northland;
Never have I met such dangers
On the land, nor on the ocean,
Never in my hero life-time!'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Spake and these the words he uttered:
'Weep no more, my goodly comrades,
In my bark let no one murmur;
Weeping cannot mend disaster,
Tears can never still misfortune,
Mourning cannot save from evil.
'Sea, command thy warring forces,
Bid thy children cease their fury!
Ahto, still thy surging billows!
Sink, Wellamo, to thy slumber,
That our boat may move in safety.
Rise, ye storm-winds, to your kingdoms,
Lift your heads above the waters,
To the regions of your kindred,
To your people and dominions;
Cut the trees within the forest,
Bend the lindens of the valley,
Let our vessel sail in safety!'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen,
Handsome wizard, Kaukomieli,
Spake these words in supplication:
'Come, O eagle, Turyalander,
Bring three feathers from thy pinions,
Three, O raven, three, O eagle,
To protect this bark from evil!'
All the heroes of Wainola
Call their forces to the rescue,
And repair the sinking vessel.
By the aid of master-magic,
203
Wainamoinen saved his war-ship,
Saved his people from destruction,
Well repaired his ship to battle
With the roughest seas of Northland;
Steers his mighty boat in safety
Through the perils of the whirlpool,
Through the watery deeps and dangers.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
779:The Kalevala - Rune Xii
KYLLIKKI'S BROKEN VOW.
Lemminkainen, artful husband,
Reckless hero, Kaukomieli,
Constantly beside his young wife.,
Passed his life in sweet contentment,
And the years rolled swiftly onward;
Ahti thought not of the battles,
Nor Kyllikki of the dances.
Once upon a time it happened
That the hero, Lemminkainen,
Went upon the lake a-fishing,
Was not home at early evening,
As the cruel night descended;
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the dance of merry maidens.
Who will tell the evil story,
Who will bear the information
To the husband, Lemminkainen?
Ahti's sister tells the story,
And the sister's name, Ainikki.
Soon she spreads the cruel tidings,
Straightway gives the information,
Of Kyllikki's perjured honor,
These the words Ainikki utters:
'Ahti, my beloved brother,
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the hall of many strangers,
To the plays and village dances,
With the young men and the maidens,
With the maids of braided tresses,
To the halls of joy and pleasure.'
Lemminkainen, much dejected,
Broken-hearted, flushed with anger,
Spake these words in measured accents:
'Mother dear, my gray-haired mother,
Wilt thou straightway wash my linen
In the blood of poison-serpents,
139
In the black blood of the adder?
I must hasten to the combat,
To the camp-fires of the Northland,
To the battle-fields of Lapland;
To the village went Kyllikki,
To the play of merry maidens,
To the games and village dances,
With the maids of braided tresses.'
Straightway speaks the wife, Kyllikki:
'My beloved husband, Ahti,
Do not go to war, I pray thee.
In the evening I lay sleeping,
Slumbering I saw in dream-land
Fire upshooting from the chimney,
Flames arising, mounting skyward,
From the windows of this dwelling,
From the summits of these rafters,
Piercing through our upper chambers,
Roaring like the fall of waters,
Leaping from the floor and ceiling,
Darting from the halls and doorways.'
But the doubting Lemminkainen
Makes this answer to Kyllikki:
'I discredit dreams or women,
Have no faith in vows of maidens!
Faithful mother of my being,
Hither bring my mail of copper;
Strong desire is stirring in me
For the cup of deadly combat,
For the mead of martial conquest.'
This the pleading mother's answer:
'Lemminkainen, son beloved,
Do not go to war I pray thee;
We have foaming beer abundant,
In our vessels beer of barley,
Held in casks by oaken spigots;
Drink this beer of peace and pleasure,
Let us drink of it together.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'I shall taste no more the viands,
In the home of false Kyllikki;
Rather would I drink the water
140
From the painted tips of birch-oars;
Sweeter far to me the water,
Than the beverage of dishonor,
At my mother's home and fireside!
'Hither bring my martial doublet,
Bring me now the sword of battle,
Bring my father's sword of honor;
I must go to upper Northland,
To the battle-fields of Lapland,
There to win me gold and silver.'
This the anxious mother's answer:
'My beloved Kaukomieli,
We have gold in great abundance,
Gold and silver in the store-room;
Recently upon the uplands,
In the early hours of morning,
Toiled the workmen in the corn-fields,
Plowed the meadows filled with serpents,
When the plowshare raised the cover
From a chest of gold and silver,
Countless was the gold uncovered,
Hid beneath the grassy meadow;
This the treasure I have brought thee,
Take the countless gold in welcome.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Do not wish thy household silver,
From the wars I'll earn my silver;
Gold and silver from the combat
Are to me of greater value
Than the wealth thou hast discovered.
Bring me now my heavy armor,
Bring me too my spear and broadsword;
To the Northland I must hasten,
To the bloody wars of Lapland,
Thither does my pride impel me,
Thitherward my heart is turning.
'I have heard a tale of Lapland,
Some believe the wondrous story,
That a maid in Pimentola
Lives that does not care for suitors,
Does not care for bearded heroes.'
This the aged mother's answer:
141
'Warlike Athi, son beloved,
In thy home thou hast Kyllikki,
Fairest wife of all the islands;
Strange to see two wives abiding
In the home of but one husband.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'To the village runs Kyllikki;
Let her run to village dances,
Let her sleep in other dwellings,
With the village youth find pleasure,
With the maids of braided tresses.'
Seeks the mother to detain him,
Thus the anxious mother answers:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
Ignorant of Pohya-witchcraft,
To the distant homes of Northland
Till thou hast the art of magic,
Till thou hast some little wisdom
Do not go to fields of battle,
To the fires of Northland's children,
To the slaughter-fields of Lapland,
Till of magic thou art master.
There the Lapland maids will charm thee,
Turyalanders will bewitch thee,
Sing thy visage into charcoal,
Head and shoulders to the furnace,
Into ashes sing thy fore-arm,
Into fire direct thy footsteps.'
Spake the warlike Lemminkainen:
Wizards often have bewitched me,
And the fascinating serpents;
Lapland wizards, three in number,
On an eve in time of summer,
Sitting on a rock at twilight,
Not a garment to protect them,
Once bewitched me with their magic;
This much they have taken from me,
This the sum of all my losses:
What the hatchet gains from flint-stone,
What the auger bores from granite,
What the heel chips from the iceberg,
And what death purloins from tomb-stones.
142
'Horribly the wizards threatened,
Tried to sink me with their magic,
In the water of the marshes,
In the mud and treacherous quicksand,
To my chin in mire and water;
But I too was born a hero,
Born a hero and magician,
Was not troubled by their magic.
'Straightway I began my singing,
Sang the archers with their arrows,
Sang the spearmen with their weapons,
Sang the swordsmen with their poniards,
Sang the singers with their singing,
The enchanters with their magic,
To the rapids of the rivers,
To the highest fall of waters,
To the all-devouring whirlpool,
To the deepest depths of ocean,
Where the wizards still are sleeping,
Sleeping till the grass shoots upward
Through the beards and wrinkled faces,
Through the locks of the enchanters,
As they sleep beneath the billows.'
Still entreats the anxious mother,
Still beseeches Lemminkainen,
Trying to restrain the hero,
While Kyllikki begs forgiveness;
This the language of the mother:
'Do not go, my son beloved,
To the villages of Northland,
Nor to Lapland's frigid borders;
Dire misfortune will befall thee,
Star of evil settle o'er thee,
Lemminkainen's end, destruction.
'Couldst thou speak in tongues a hundred,
I could not believe thee able,
Through the magic of thy singing,
To enchant the sons of Lapland
To the bottom of the ocean,
Dost not know the Tury-language,
Canst but speak the tongue of Suomi,
Canst not win by witless magic.'
143
Lemminkainen, reckless hero,
Also known as Kaukomieli,
Stood beside his mother, combing
Out his sable locks and musing,
Brushing down his beard, debating,
Steadfast still in his decision,
Quickly hurls his brush in anger,
Hurls it to the wall opposing,
Gives his mother final answer,
These the words that Ahti uses:
'Dire misfortune will befall me,
Some sad fate will overtake me,
Evil come to Lemminkainen,
When the blood flows from that hair-brush,
When blood oozes from those bristles.'
Thus the warlike Lemminkainen
Goes to never-pleasant Lapland,
Heeding not his mother's warning,
Heeding not her prohibition.
Thus the hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick equips himself for warfare,
On his head a copper helmet,
On his shoulders caps of copper,
On his body iron armor,
Steel, the belt around his body;
As he girds himself for battle,
Ahti thus soliloquizing:
'Strong the hero in his armor,
Strong indeed in copper helmet,
Powerful in mail of iron,
Stronger far than any hero
On the dismal shores of Lapland,
Need not fear their wise enchanters,
Need not fear their strongest foemen,
Need not fear a war with wizards.'
Grasped he then the sword of battle,
Firmly grasped the heavy broadsword
That Tuoni had been grinding,
That the gods had brightly burnished,
Thrust it in the leathern scabbard,
Tied the scabbard to his armor.
How do heroes guard from danger,
144
Where protect themselves from evil?
Heroes guard their homes and firesides,
Guard their doors, and roofs, and windows,
Guard the posts that bold the torch-lights,
Guard the highways to the court-yard,
Guard the ends of all the gate-ways.
Heroes guard themselves from women,
Carefully from merry maidens;
If in this their strength be wanting,
Easy fall the heroes, victims
To the snares of the enchanters.
Furthermore are heroes watchful
Of the tribes of warlike giants,
Where the highway doubly branches,
On the borders of the blue-rock,
On the marshes filled with evil,
Near the mighty fall of waters,
Near the circling of the whirlpool,
Near the fiery springs and rapids.
Spake the stout-heart, Lemminkainen:
'Rise ye heroes of the broadsword,
Ye, the earth's eternal heroes,
From the deeps, ye sickle-bearers,
From the brooks, ye crossbow-shooters,
Come, thou forest, with thine archers,
Come, ye thickets, with your armies,
Mountain spirits, with your powers,
Come, fell Hisi, with thy horrors,
Water-mother, with thy dangers,
Come, Wellamo, with thy mermaids,
Come, ye maidens from the valleys,
Come, ye nymphs from winding rivers,
Be protection to this hero,
Be his day-and-night companions,
Body-guard to Lemminkainen,
Thus to blunt the spears of wizards,
Thus to dull their pointed arrows,
That the spears of the enchanters,
That the arrows of the archers,
That the weapons of the foemen,
May not harm this bearded hero.
'Should this force be insufficient,
145
I can call on other powers,
I can call the gods above me,
Call the great god of the heavens,
Him who gives the clouds their courses,
Him who rules through boundless ether,
Who directs the march of storm-winds.
'Ukko, thou O God above me,
Thou the father of creation,
Thou that speakest through the thunder,
Thou whose weapon is the lightning,
Thou whose voice is borne by ether,
Grant me now thy mighty fire-sword,
Give me here thy burning arrows,
Lightning arrows for my quiver,
Thus protect me from all danger,
Guard me from the wiles of witches,
Guide my feet from every evil,
Help me conquer the enchanters,
Help me drive them from the Northland;
Those that stand in front of battle,
Those that fill the ranks behind me,
Those around me, those above me,
Those beneath me, help me banish,.
With their knives, and swords, and cross-bows,
With their spears of keenest temper,
With their tongues of evil magic;
Help me drive these Lapland wizards
To the deepest depths of ocean,
There to wrestle with Wellamo.'
Then the reckless Lemminkainen
Whistled loudly for his stallion,
Called the racer from the hurdles,
Called his brown steed from the pasture,
Threw the harness on the courser,
Hitched the fleet-foot to the snow-sledge,
Leaped upon the highest cross-bench,
Cracked his whip above the racer,
And the steed flies onward swiftly,
Bounds the sleigh upon its journey,
And the golden plain re-echoes;
Travels one day, then a second,
Travels all the next day northward,
146
Till the third day evening brings him
To a sorry Northland village,
On the dismal shores of Lapland.
Here the hero, Lemminkainen,
Drove along the lowest highway,
Through the streets along the border,
To a court-yard in the hamlet,
Asked one standing in the doorway:
'Is there one within this dwelling,
That can loose my stallion's breastplate,
That can lift his heavy collar,
That these shafts can rightly lower?'
On the floor a babe was playing,
And the young child gave this answer:
'There is no one in this dwelling
That can loose thy stallion's breastplate,
That can lift his heavy collar,
That the shafts can rightly lower.'
Lemminkainen, not discouraged,
Whips his racer to a gallop,
Rushes forward through the village,
On the middle of the highways,
To the court-yard in the centre,
Asks one standing in the threshold,
Leaning on the penthouse door-posts:
'Is there any one here dwelling
That can slip my stallion's bridle,
That can loose his leathern breast-straps,
That can tend my royal racer?'
From the fire-place spake a wizard,
From her bench the witch made answer:
'Thou canst find one in this dwelling,
That can slip thy courser's bridle,
That can loose his heavy breastplate,
That can tend thy royal racer.
There are here a thousand heroes
That can make thee hasten homeward,
That can give thee fleet-foot stallions,
That can chase thee to thy country,
Reckless rascal and magician,
To thy home and fellow minstrels,
To the uplands of thy father,
147
To the cabins of thy mother,
To the work-bench of thy brother,
To the dairy or thy sister,
Ere the evening star has risen,
Ere the sun retires to slumber.'
Lemminkainen, little fearing,
Gives this answer to the wizard:
'I should slay thee for thy pertness,
That thy clatter might be silenced.'
Then he whipped his fiery charger,
And the steed flew onward swiftly,
On the upper of the highways,
To the court-yard on the summit.
When the reckless Lemminkainen
Had approached the upper court-yard,
Uttered he the words that follow:
'O thou Hisi, stuff this watch-dog,
Lempo, stuff his throat and nostrils,
Close the mouth of this wild barker,
Bridle well the vicious canine,
That the watcher may be silent
While the hero passes by him.'
Then he stepped within the court-room,
With his whip he struck the flooring,
From the floor arose a vapor,
In the fog appeared a pigmy,
Who unhitched the royal racer,
From his back removed the harness,
Gave the weary steed attention.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Carefully advanced and listened.
No one saw the strange magician,
No one heard his cautious footsteps;
Heard he songs within the dwelling,
Through the moss-stuffed chinks heard voices.
Through the walls he beard them singing,
Through the doors the peals of laughter.
Then he spied within the court-rooms,
Lurking slyly in the hall-ways,
Found the court-rooms filled with singers,
By the walls were players seated,
Near the doors the wise men hovered,
148
Skilful ones upon the benches,
Near the fires the wicked wizards;
All were singing songs of Lapland,
Singing songs of evil Hisi.
Now the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Changes both his form and stature,
Passes through the inner door-ways,
Enters he the spacious court-hall,
And these words the hero utters:
'Fine the singing quickly ending,
Good the song that quickly ceases;
Better far to keep thy wisdom
Than to sing it on the house-tops.'
Comes the hostess of Pohyola,
Fleetly rushing through the door-way,
To the centre of the court-room,
And addresses thus the stranger:
Formerly a dog lay watching,
Was a cur of iron-color,
Fond of flesh, a bone-devourer,
Loved to lick the blood of strangers.
Who then art thou of the heroes,
Who of all the host of heroes,
That thou art within my court-rooms,
That thou comest to my dwelling,
Was not seen without my portals,
Was not scented by my watch-dogs?
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'Do not think that I come hither
Having neither wit nor wisdom,
Having neither art nor power,
Wanting in ancestral knowledge,
Lacking prudence of the fathers,
That thy watch-dogs may devour me.
'My devoted mother washed me,
When a frail and tender baby,
Three times in the nights of summer,
Nine times in the nights of autumn,
That upon my journeys northward
I might sing the ancient wisdom,
Thus protect myself from danger;
When at home I sing as wisely
149
As the minstrels of thy hamlet.'
Then the singer, Lemminkainen,
Ancient hero, Kaukomieli,
Quick began his incantations,
Straightway sang the songs of witchcraft,
From his fur-robe darts the lightning,
Flames outshooting from his eye-balls,
From the magic of his singing
From his wonderful enchantment.
Sang the very best of singers
To the very worst of minstrels,
Filled their mouths with dust and ashes,
Piled the rocks upon their shoulders,
Stilled the best of Lapland witches,
Stilled the sorcerers and wizards.
Then he banished all their heroes,
Banished all their proudest minstrels,
This one hither, that one thither,
To the lowlands poor in verdure,
To the unproductive uplands,
To the oceans wanting whiting,
To the waterfalls of Rutya,
To the whirlpool hot and flaming,
To the waters decked with sea-foam,
Into fires and boiling waters,
Into everlasting torment.
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Sang the foemen with their broadswords?
Sang the heroes with their weapons,
Sang the eldest, sang the youngest,
Sang the middle-aged, enchanted;
Only one he left his senses,
He a poor, defenseless shepherd,
Old and sightless, halt and wretched,
And the old man's name was Nasshut.
Spake the miserable shepherd:
'Thou hast old and young enchanted,
Thou hast banished all our heroes,
Why hast spared this wretched shepherd?'
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
'Therefore have I not bewitched thee:
Thou art old, and blind, and wretched
150
Feeble-minded thou, and harmless,
Loathsome now without my magic.
Thou didst, in thy better life-time,
When a shepherd filled with malice,
Ruin all thy mother's berries,
Make thy sister, too unworthy,
Ruin all thy brother's cattle,
Drive to death thy father's stallions,
Through the marshes, o'er the meadows,
Through the lowlands, o'er the mountains,
Heeding not thy mother's counsel.'
Thereupon the wretched Nasshut,
Angry grew and swore for vengeance,
Straightway limping through the door-way,
Hobbled on beyond the court-yard,
O'er the meadow-lands and pastures,
To the river of the death-land,
To the holy stream and whirlpool,
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
To the islands of Manala;
Waited there for Kaukomieli,
Listened long for Lemminkainen,
Thinking he must pass this river
On his journey to his country,
On. the highway to the islands,
From the upper shores of Pohya,
From the dreary Sariola.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
780:The Kalevala - Rune X
ILMARINEN FORGES THE SAMPO.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Takes his steed of copper color,
Hitches quick his fleet-foot courser,
Puts his racer to the snow-sledge,
Straightway springs upon the cross-seat,
Snaps his whip adorned with jewels.
Like the winds the steed flies onward,
Like a lightning flash, the racer
Makes the snow-sledge creak and rattle,
Makes the highway quickly vanish,
Dashes on through fen and forest,
Over hills and through the valleys,
Over marshes, over mountains,
Over fertile plains and meadows;
Journeys one day, then a second,
So a third from morn till evening,
Till the third day evening brings him
To the endless bridge of Osmo,
To the Osmo-fields and pastures,
To the plains of Kalevala;
When the hero spake as follows:
'May the wolves devour the dreamer,
Eat the Laplander for dinner,
May disease destroy the braggart,
Him who said that I should never
See again my much-loved home-land,
Nevermore behold my kindred,
Never during all my life-time,
Never while the sunshine brightens,
Never while the moonlight glimmers
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala.'
Then began old Wainamoinen,
Ancient bard and famous singer,
To renew his incantations;
Sang aloft a wondrous pine-tree,
114
Till it pierced the clouds in growing
With its golden top and branches,
Till it touched the very heavens,
Spread its branches in the ether,
In the ever-shining sunlight.
Now he sings again enchanting,
Sings the Moon to shine forever
In the fir-tree's emerald branches;
In its top he sings the Great Bear.
Then be quickly journeys homeward,
Hastens to his golden portals,
Head awry and visage wrinkled,
Crooked cap upon his forehead,
Since as ransom he had promised
Ilmarinen, magic artist,
Thus to save his life from torture
On the distant fields of Northland
In the dismal Sariola.
When his stallion he had halted
On the Osmo-field and meadow,
Quickly rising in his snow-sledge,
The magician heard one knocking,
Breaking coal within the smithy,
Beating with a heavy hammer.
Wainamoinen, famous minstrel,
Entering the smithy straightway,
Found the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Knocking with his copper hammer.
Ilmarinen spake as follows:
'Welcome, brother Wainamoinen,
Old and worthy Wainamoinen!
Why so long hast thou been absent,
Where hast thou so long been hiding?'
Wainamoinen then made answer,
These the words of the magician:
'Long indeed have I been living,
Many dreary days have wandered,
Many cheerless nights have lingered,
Floating on the cruel ocean,
Weeping in the fens and woodlands
Of the never-pleasant Northland,
In the dismal Sariola;
115
With the Laplanders I've wandered,
With the people filled with witchcraft.'
Promptly answers Ilmarinen,
These the words the blacksmith uses:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Famous and eternal singer,
Tell me of thy journey northward,
Of thy wanderings in Lapland,
Of thy dismal journey homeward.'
Spake the minstrel, Wainamoinen:
'I have much to tell thee, brother,
Listen to my wondrous story:
In the Northland lives a virgin,
In a village there, a maiden,
That will not accept a lover,
That a hero's hand refuses,
That a wizard's heart disdaineth;
All of Northland sings her praises,
Sings her worth and magic beauty,
Fairest maiden of Pohyola,
Daughter of the earth and ocean.
From her temples beams the moonlight,
From her breast, the gleam of sunshine,
From her forehead shines the rainbow,
On her neck, the seven starlets,
And the Great Bear from her shoulder.
'Ilmarinen, worthy brother,
Thou the only skilful blacksmith,
Go and see her wondrous beauty,
See her gold and silver garments,
See her robed in finest raiment,
See her sitting on the rainbow,
Walking on the clouds of purple.
Forge for her the magic Sampo,
Forge the lid in many colors,
Thy reward shall be the virgin,
Thou shalt win this bride of beauty;
Go and bring the lovely maiden
To thy home in Kalevala.'
Spake the brother, Ilmarinen:
O thou cunning Wainamoinen,
Thou hast promised me already
116
To the ever-darksome Northland,
Thy devoted head to ransom,
Thus to rescue thee from trouble.
I shall never visit Northland,
Shall not go to see thy maiden,
Do not love the Bride of Beauty;
Never while the moonlight glimmers,
Shall I go to dreary Pohya,
To the plains of Sariola,
Where the people eat each other,
Sink their heroes in the ocean,
Not for all the maids of Lapland.'
Spake the brother, Wainamoinen:
'I can tell thee greater wonders,
Listen to my wondrous story:
I have seen the fir-tree blossom,
Seen its flowers with emerald branches,
On the Osmo-fields and woodlands;
In its top, there shines the moonlight,
And the Bear lives in its branches.'
Ilmarinen thus made answer:
'I cannot believe thy story,
Cannot trust thy tale of wonder,
Till I see the blooming fir-tree,
With its many emerald branches,
With its Bear and golden moonlight.'
This is Wainamoinen's answer:
'Wilt thou not believe my story?
Come with me and I will show thee
If my lips speak fact or fiction.'
Quick they journey to discover,
Haste to view the wondrous fir-tree;
Wainamoinen leads the journey,
Ilmarinen closely follows.
As they near the Osmo-borders,
Ilmarinen hastens forward
That be may behold the wonder,
Spies the Bear Within the fir-top,
Sitting on its emerald branches,
Spies the gleam of golden moonlight.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen,
These the words the singer uttered:
117
Climb this tree, dear Ilmarinen,
And bring down the golden moonbeams,
Bring the Moon and Bear down with thee
From the fir-tree's lofty branches.'
Ilmarinen, full consenting,
Straightway climbed the golden fir-tree,
High upon the bow of heaven,
Thence to bring the golden moonbeams,
Thence to bring the Bear of heaven,
From the fir-tree's topmost branches.
Thereupon the blooming fir-tree
Spake these words to Ilmarinen:
'O thou senseless, thoughtless hero,
Thou hast neither wit nor instinct;
Thou dost climb my golden branches,
Like a thing of little judgment,
Thus to get my pictured moonbeams,
Take away my silver starlight,
Steal my Bear and blooming branches.'
Quick as thought old Wainamoinen
Sang again in magic accents,
Sang a storm-wind in the heavens,
Sang the wild winds into fury,
And the singer spake as follows:
`Take, O storm-wind, take the forgeman,
Carry him within thy vessel,
Quickly hence, and land the hero
On the ever-darksome Northland,
On the dismal Sariola.'
Now the storm-wind quickly darkens,
Quickly piles the air together,
Makes of air a sailing vessel,
Takes the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Fleetly from the fir-tree branches,
Toward the never-pleasant Northland,
Toward the dismal Sariola.
Through the air sailed Ilmarinen,
Fast and far the hero travelled,
Sweeping onward, sailing northward,
Riding in the track of storm-winds,
O'er the Moon, beneath the sunshine,
On the broad back of the Great Bear,
118
Till he neared Pohyola's woodlands,
Neared the homes of Sariola,
And alighted undiscovered,
Was Dot noticed by the hunters,
Was not scented by the watch-dogs.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Ancient, toothless dame of Northland,
Standing in the open court-yard,
Thus addresses Ilmarinen,
As she spies the hero-stranger:
'Who art thou of ancient heroes,
Who of all the host of heroes,
Coming here upon the storm-wind,
O'er the sledge-path of the ether,
Scented not by Pohya's watch-dogs?
This is Ilmarinen's answer:
'I have surely not come hither
To be barked at by the watch-dogs,
At these unfamiliar portals,
At the gates of Sariola.'
Thereupon the Northland hostess
Asks again the hero-stranger:
'Hast thou ever been acquainted
With the blacksmith of Wainola,
With the hero, Ilmarinen,
With the skilful smith and artist?
Long I've waited for his coming,
Long this one has been expected,
On the borders of the Northland,
Here to forge for me the Sampo.'
Spake the hero, Ilmarinen:
'Well indeed am I acquainted
With the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
I myself am Ilmarinen,
I, the skilful smith and artist.'
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Toothless dame of Sariola,
Straightway rushes to her dwelling,
These the words that Louhi utters:
'Come, thou youngest of my daughters,
Come, thou fairest of my maidens,
Dress thyself in finest raiment,
119
Deck thy hair with rarest jewels,
Pearls upon thy swelling bosom,
On thy neck, a golden necklace,
Bind thy head with silken ribbons,
Make thy cheeks look fresh and ruddy,
And thy visage fair and winsome,
Since the artist, Ilmarinen,
Hither comes from Kalevala,
Here to forge for us the Sampo,
Hammer us the lid in colors.'
Now the daughter of the Northland,
Honored by the land and water,
Straightway takes her choicest raiment,
Takes her dresses rich in beauty,
Finest of her silken wardrobe,
Now adjusts her silken fillet,
On her brow a band of copper,
Round her waist a golden girdle,
Round her neck a pearly necklace,
Shining gold upon her bosom,
In her hair the threads of silver.
From her dressing-room she hastens,
To the hall she bastes and listens,
Full of beauty, full of joyance,
Ears erect and eyes bright-beaming,
Ruddy cheeks and charming visage,
Waiting for the hero-stranger.
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Leads the hero, Ilmarinen,
To her dwelling-rooms in Northland,
To her home in Sariola,
Seats him at her well-filled table,
Gives to him the finest viands,
Gives him every needed comfort,
Then addresses him as follows:
'O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Master of the forge and smithy,
Canst thou forge for me the Sampo,
Hammer me the lid in colors,
From the tips of white-swan feathers,
From the milk of greatest virtue,
From a single grain of barley,
120
From the finest wool of lambkins?
Thou shalt have my fairest daughter,
Recompense for this thy service.'
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'I will forge for thee the Sampo,
Hammer thee the lid in colors,
From the tips of white-swan feathers,
From the milk of greatest virtue,
From a single grain of barley,
From the finest wool of lambkins?
Since I forged the arch of heaven,
Forged the air a concave cover,
Ere the earth had a beginning.'
Thereupon the magic blacksmith
Went to forge the wondrous Sampo,
Went to find a blacksmith's workshop,
Went to find the tools to work with;
But he found no place for forging,
Found no smithy, found no bellows,
Found no chimney, found no anvil,
Found no tongs, and found no hammer.
Then the-artist, Ilmarinen.
Spake these words, soliloquizing:
'Only women grow discouraged,
Only knaves leave work unfinished,
Not the devils, nor the heroes,
Nor the Gods of greater knowledge.'
Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Sought a place to build a smithy,
Sought a place to plant a bellows,
On the borders of the Northland,
On the Pohya-hills and meadows;
Searched one day, and then a second;
Ere the evening of the third day,
Came a rock within his vision,
Came a stone with rainbow-colors.
There the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Set at work to build his smithy,
Built a fire and raised a chimney;
On the next day laid his bellows,
On the third day built his furnace,
And began to forge the Sampo.
121
The eternal magic artist,
Ancient blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
First of all the iron-workers,
Mixed together certain metals,
Put the mixture in the caldron,
Laid it deep within the furnace,
Called the hirelings to the forging.
Skilfully they work the bellows,
Tend the fire and add the fuel,
Three most lovely days of summer,
Three short nights of bright midsummer,
Till the rocks begin to blossom,
In the foot-prints of the workmen,
From the magic heat and furnace.
On the first day, Ilmarinen
Downward bent and well examined,
On the bottom of his furnace,
Thus to see what might be forming
From the magic fire and metals.
From the fire arose a cross-bow,
'With the brightness of the moonbeams,
Golden bow with tips of silver;
On the shaft was shining copper,
And the bow was strong and wondrous,
But alas! it was ill-natured,
Asking for a hero daily,
Two the heads it asked on feast-days.
Ilmarinen, skilful artist,
Was not pleased with this creation,
Broke the bow in many pieces,
Threw them back within the furnace,
Kept the workmen at the bellows,
Tried to forge the magic Sampo.
On the second day, the blacksmith
Downward bent and well examined,
On the bottom of the furnace;
From the fire, a skiff of metals,
Came a boat of purple color,
All the ribs were colored golden,
And the oars were forged from copper;
Thus the skiff was full of beauty,
But alas! a thing of evil;
122
Forth it rushes into trouble,
Hastens into every quarrel,
Hastes without a provocation
Into every evil combat.
Ilmarinen, metal artist,
Is not pleased with this creation,
Breaks the skiff in many fragments,
Throws them back within the furnace,
Keeps the workmen at the bellows,
Thus to forge the magic Sampo.
On the third day, Ilmarinen,
First of all the metal-workers,
Downward bent and well examined,
On the bottom of the furnace;
There be saw a heifer rising,
Golden were the horns of Kimmo,
On her head the Bear of heaven,
On her brow a disc of sunshine,
Beautiful the cow of magic;
But alas! she is ill-tempered,
Rushes headlong through the forest,
Rushes through the swamps and meadows,
Wasting all her milk in running.
Ilmarinen, the magician.
Is not pleased with this creation,
Cuts the magic cow in pieces,
Throws them in the fiery furnace,
Sets the workmen at the bellows,
Thus to forge the magic Sampo.
On the fourth day, Ilmarinen
Downward bent and well examined,
To the bottom of the furnace;
There beheld a plow in beauty
Rising from the fire of metals,
Golden was the point and plowshare,
And the beam was forged from copper,
And the handles, molten silver,
Beautiful the plow and wondrous;
But alas! it is ill-mannered,
Plows up fields of corn and barley,
Furrows through the richest meadows.
Ilmarinen, metal artist,
123
Is not pleased with this creation,
Quickly breaks the plow in pieces,
Throws them back within the furnace,
Lets the winds attend the bellows,
Lets the storm-winds fire the metals.
Fiercely vie the winds of heaven,
East-wind rushing, West-wind roaring,
South-wind crying, North-wind howling,
Blow one day and then a second,
Blow the third from morn till even,
When the fire leaps through the windows,
Through the door the sparks fly upward,
Clouds of smoke arise to heaven;
With the clouds the black smoke mingles,
As the storm-winds ply the bellows.
On the third night Ilmarinen,
Bending low to view his metals,
On the bottom of the furnace,
Sees the magic Sampo rising,
Sees the lid in many colors.
Quick the artist of Wainola
Forges with the tongs and anvil,
Knocking with a heavy hammer,
Forges skilfully the Sampo;
On one side the flour is grinding,
On another salt is making,
On a third is money forging,
And the lid is many-colored.
Well the Sampo grinds when finished,
To and fro the lid in rocking,
Grinds one measure at the day-break,
Grinds a measure fit for eating,
Grinds a second for the market,
Grinds a third one for the store-house.
Joyfully the dame of Northland,
Louhi, hostess of Pohyola,
Takes away the magic Sampo,
To the hills of Sariola,
To the copper-bearing mountains,
Puts nine locks upon the wonder,
Makes three strong roots creep around it;
In the earth they grow nine fathoms,
124
One large root beneath the mountain,
One beneath the sandy sea-bed,
One beneath the mountain-dwelling.
Modestly pleads Ilmarinen
For the maiden's willing answer,
These the words of the magician:
'Wilt thou come with me, fair maiden,
Be my wife and queen forever?
I have forged for thee the Sampo,
Forged the lid in many colors.'
Northland's fair and lovely daughter
Answers thus the metal-worker:
'Who will in the coming spring-time,
Who will in the second summer,
Guide the cuckoo's song and echo?
Who will listen to his calling,
Who will sing with him in autumn,
Should I go to distant regions,
Should this cheery maiden vanish
From the fields of Sariola,
From Pohyola's fens and forests,
Where the cuckoo sings and echoes?
Should I leave my father's dwelling,
Should my mother's berry vanish,
Should these mountains lose their cherry,
Then the cuckoo too would vanish,
All the birds would leave the forest,
Leave the summit of the mountain,
Leave my native fields and woodlands,
Never shall I, in my life-time,
Say farewell to maiden freedom,
Nor to summer cares and labors,
Lest the harvest be ungarnered,
Lest the berries be ungathered,
Lest the song-birds leave the forest,
Lest the mermaids leave the waters,
Lest I sing with them no longer.'
Ilmarinen, the magician,
The eternal metal-forger,
Cap awry and head dejected,
Disappointed, heavy-hearted,
Empty-handed, well considers,
125
How to reach his distant country,
Reach his much-loved home and kinded,
Gain the meadows of Wainola,
From the never-pleasant Northland,
From the darksome Sariola.
Louhi thus addressed the suitor:
'O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Why art thou so heavy-hearted,
Why thy visage so dejected?
Hast thou in thy mind to journey
From the vales and hills of Pohya,
To the meadows of Wainola,
To thy home in Kalevala?
This is Ilmarinen's answer:
'Thitherward my mind is tending,
To my home-land let me journey,
With my kindred let me linger,
Be at rest in mine own country.'
Straightway Louhi, dame of Northland,
Gave the hero every comfort,
Gave him food and rarest viands,
Placed him in a boat of copper,
In a copper-banded vessel,
Called the winds to his assistance,
Made the North-wind guide him homeward.
Thus the skilful Ilmarinen
Travels toward his native country,
On the blue back of the waters,
Travels one day, then a second,
Till the third day evening brings him
To Wainola's peaceful meadows,
To his home in Kalevala.
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Thus addresses Ilmarinen:
'O my brother, metal-artist,
Thou eternal wonder-worker,
Didst thou forge the magic Sampo,
Forge the lid in many colors?'
Spake the brother, Ilmarinen,
These the words the master uttered:
'Yea, I forged the magic Sampo,
Forged the lid in many colors;
126
To and fro the lid in rocking
Grinds one measure at the day-dawn,
Grinds a measure fit for eating,
Grinds a second for the market,
Grinds a third one for the store-house.
Louhi has the wondrous Sampo,
I have not the Bride of Beauty.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
781:The Ghost - Book I
With eager search to dart the soul,
Curiously vain, from pole to pole,
And from the planets' wandering spheres
To extort the number of our years,
And whether all those years shall flow
Serenely smooth, and free from woe,
Or rude misfortune shall deform
Our life with one continual storm;
Or if the scene shall motley be.
Alternate joy and misery,
Is a desire which, more or less.
All men must feel, though few confess.
Hence, every place and every age
Affords subsistence to the sage,
Who, free from this world and its cares,
Holds an acquaintance with the stars,
From whom he gains intelligence
Of things to come some ages hence,
Which unto friends, at easy rates.
He readily communicates.
At its first rise, which all agree on,
This noble science was Chaldean;
That ancient people, as they fed
Their flocks upon the mountain's head,
Gazed on the stars, observed their motions,
And suck'd in astrologic notions,
Which they so eagerly pursue,
As folks are apt whate'er is new,
That things below at random rove,
Whilst they're consulting things above;
And when they now so poor were grown,
That they'd no houses of their own,
They made bold with their friends the stars,
And prudently made use of theirs.
To Egypt from Chaldee it travell'd,
And Fate at Memphis was unravell'd:
The exotic science soon struck root,
And flourish'd into high repute.
Each learned priest, oh strange to tell!
177
Could circles make, and cast a spell;
Could read and write, and taught the nation
The holy art of divination.
Nobles themselves, for at that time
Knowledge in nobles was no crime,
Could talk as learned as the priest,
And prophesy as much, at least.
Hence all the fortune-telling crew,
Whose crafty skill mars Nature's hue,
Who, in vile tatters, with smirch'd face,
Run up and down from place to place,
To gratify their friends' desires,
From Bampfield Carew, to Moll Squires,
Are rightly term'd Egyptians all;
Whom we, mistaking, Gypsies call.
The Grecian sages borrow'd this,
As they did other sciences,
From fertile Egypt, though the loan
They had not honesty to own.
Dodona's oaks, inspired by Jove,
A learned and prophetic grove,
Turn'd vegetable necromancers,
And to all comers gave their answers.
At Delphos, to Apollo dear,
All men the voice of Fate might hear;
Each subtle priest on three-legg'd stool,
To take in wise men, play'd the fool.
A mystery, so made for gain,
E'en now in fashion must remain;
Enthusiasts never will let drop
What brings such business to their shop;
And that great saint we Whitefield call,
Keeps up the humbug spiritual.
Among the Romans, not a bird
Without a prophecy was heard;
Fortunes of empires often hung
On the magician magpie's tongue,
And every crow was to the state
A sure interpreter of Fate.
Prophets, embodied in a college
(Time out of mind your seat of knowledge;
For genius never fruit can bear
178
Unless it first is planted there,
And solid learning never falls
Without the verge of college walls)
Infallible accounts would keep
When it was best to watch or sleep,
To eat or drink, to go or stay,
And when to fight or run away;
When matters were for action ripe,
By looking at a double tripe;
When emperors would live or die,
They in an ass's skull could spy;
When generals would their station keep,
Or turn their backs, in hearts of sheep.
In matters, whether small or great,
In private families or state
As amongst us, the holy seer
Officiously would interfere;
With pious arts and reverend skill
Would bend lay bigots to his will;
Would help or injure foes or friends,
Just as it served his private ends.
Whether in honest way of trade
Traps for virginity were laid;
Or if, to make their party great,
Designs were form'd against the state,
Regardless of the common weal,
By interest led, which they call zeal,
Into the scale was always thrown
The will of Heaven to back their own.
England--a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise
And tower above the common size;
England, a fortune-telling host,
As numerous as the stars, could boast,-Matrons, who toss the cup, and see
The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea,
Who, versed in every modest lore,
Can a lost maidenhead restore,
Or, if their pupils rather choose it,
Can show the readiest way to lose it;
Gypsies, who every ill can cure,
179
Except the ill of being poor,
Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell,
Who can in hen-roost set a spell,
Prepared by arts, to them best known,
To catch all feet except their own,
Who, as to fortune, can unlock it
As easily as pick a pocket;
Scotchmen, who, in their country's right,
Possess the gift of second-sight,
Who (when their barren heaths they quit,
Sure argument of prudent wit,
Which reputation to maintain,
They never venture back again)
By lies prophetic heap up riches,
And boast the luxury of breeches.
Amongst the rest, in former years,
Campbell (illustrious name!) appears,
Great hero of futurity,
Who, blind, could every thing foresee,
Who, dumb, could every thing foretell,
Who, Fate with equity to sell,
Always dealt out the will of Heaven
According to what price was given.
Of Scottish race, in Highlands born,
Possess'd with native pride and scorn,
He hither came, by custom led,
To curse the hands which gave him bread.
With want of truth, and want of sense,
Amply made up by impudence
(A succedaneum, which we find
In common use with all mankind);
Caress'd and favour'd too by those
Whose heart with patriot feelings glows,
Who foolishly, where'er dispersed,
Still place their native country first;
(For Englishmen alone have sense
To give a stranger preference,
Whilst modest merit of their own
Is left in poverty to groan)
Campbell foretold just what he would,
And left the stars to make it good,
On whom he had impress'd such awe,
180
His dictates current pass'd for law;
Submissive, all his empire own'd;
No star durst smile, when Campbell frown'd.
This sage deceased,--for all must die,
And Campbell's no more safe than I,
No more than I can guard the heart,
When Death shall hurl the fatal dart,-Succeeded, ripe in art and years,
Another favourite of the spheres;
Another and another came,
Of equal skill, and equal fame;
As white each wand, as black each gown,
As long each beard, as wise each frown,
In every thing so like, you'd swear
Campbell himself was sitting there:
To all the happy art was known,
To tell our fortunes, make their own.
Seated in garret,--for, you know,
The nearer to the stars we go
The greater we esteem his art,-Fools, curious, flock'd from every part;
The rich, the poor, the maid, the married,
And those who could not walk, were carried.
The butler, hanging down his head,
By chambermaid, or cookmaid led,
Inquires, if from his friend the Moon
He has advice of pilfer'd spoon.
The court-bred woman of condition,
(Who, to approve her disposition
As much superior as her birth
To those composed of common earth,
With double spirit must engage
In every folly of the age)
The honourable arts would buy,
To pack the cards, and cog a die.
The hero--who, for brawn and face,
May claim right honourable place
Amongst the chiefs of Butcher-row:
Who might, some thirty years ago,
If we may be allow'd to guess
At his employment by his dress,
Put medicines off from cart or stage,
181
The grand Toscano of the age;
Or might about the country go
High-steward of a puppet-show,-Steward and stewardship most meet,
For all know puppets never eat:
Who would be thought (though, save the mark!
That point is something in the dark)
The man of honour, one like those
Renown'd in story, who loved blows
Better than victuals, and would fight,
Merely for sport, from morn to night:
Who treads like Mavors firm, whose tongue
Is with the triple thunder hung,
Who cries to Fear, 'Stand off--aloof,'
And talks as he were cannon-proof;
Would be deem'd ready, when you list,
With sword and pistol, stick and fist,
Careless of points, balls, bruises, knocks,
At once to fence, fire, cudgel, box,
But at the same time bears about,
Within himself, some touch of doubt,
Of prudent doubt, which hints--that fame
Is nothing but an empty name;
That life is rightly understood
By all to be a real good;
That, even in a hero's heart,
Discretion is the better part;
That this same honour may be won,
And yet no kind of danger run-Like Drugger comes, that magic powers
May ascertain his lucky hours;
For at some hours the fickle dame,
Whom Fortune properly we name,
Who ne'er considers wrong or right,
When wanted most, plays least in sight,
And, like a modern court-bred jilt,
Leaves her chief favourites in a tilt.
Some hours there are, when from the heart
Courage into some other part,
No matter wherefore, makes retreat,
And Fear usurps the vacant seat;
Whence, planet-struck, we often find
182
Stuarts and Sackvilles of mankind.
Farther, he'd know (and by his art
A conjurer can that impart)
Whether politer it is reckon'd
To have, or not to have, a second;
To drag the friends in, or alone
To make the danger all their own;
Whether repletion is not bad,
And fighters with full stomachs mad;
Whether, before he seeks the plain,
It were not well to breathe a vein;
Whether a gentle salivation,
Consistently with reputation,
Might not of precious use be found,
Not to prevent, indeed, a wound,
But to prevent the consequence
Which oftentimes arises thence,
Those fevers, which the patient urge on
To gates of death, by help of surgeon;
Whether a wind at east or west
Is for green wounds accounted best;
Whether (was he to choose) his mouth
Should point towards the north or south;
Whether more safely he might use,
On these occasions, pumps or shoes;
Whether it better is to fight
By sunshine or by candlelight;
Or, lest a candle should appear
Too mean to shine in such a sphere,
For who could of a candle tell
To light a hero into hell;
And, lest the sun should partial rise
To dazzle one or t'other's eyes,
Or one or t'other's brains to scorch,
Might not Dame Luna hold a torch?
These points with dignity discuss'd,
And gravely fix'd,--a task which must
Require no little time and pains,
To make our hearts friends with our brains,-The man of war would next engage
The kind assistance of the sage,
Some previous method to direct,
183
Which should make these of none effect.
Could he not, from the mystic school
Of Art, produce some sacred rule,
By which a knowledge might be got
Whether men valiant were, or not;
So he that challenges might write
Only to those who would not fight?
Or could he not some way dispense
By help of which (without offence
To Honour, whose nice nature's such
She scarce endures the slightest touch)
When he, for want of t'other rule,
Mistakes his man, and, like a fool,
With some vain fighting blade gets in,
He fairly may get out again?
Or should some demon lay a scheme
To drive him to the last extreme,
So that he must confess his fears,
In mercy to his nose and ears,
And like a prudent recreant knight,
Rather do anything than fight,
Could he not some expedient buy
To keep his shame from public eye?
For well he held,--and, men review,
Nine in ten hold the maxim too,-That honour's like a maidenhead,
Which, if in private brought to bed,
Is none the worse, but walks the town,
Ne'er lost, until the loss be known.
The parson, too, (for now and then
Parsons are just like other men,
And here and there a grave divine
Has passions such as yours and mine)
Burning with holy lust to know
When Fate preferment will bestow,
'Fraid of detection, not of sin,
With circumspection sneaking in
To conjurer, as he does to whore,
Through some bye-alley or back-door,
With the same caution orthodox
Consults the stars, and gets a pox.
The citizen, in fraud grown old,
184
Who knows no deity but gold,
Worn out, and gasping now for breath,
A medicine wants to keep off death;
Would know, if that he cannot have,
What coins are current in the grave;
If, when the stocks (which, by his power,
Would rise or fall in half an hour;
For, though unthought of and unseen,
He work'd the springs behind the screen)
By his directions came about,
And rose to par, he should sell out;
Whether he safely might, or no,
Replace it in the funds below?
By all address'd, believed, and paid,
Many pursued the thriving trade,
And, great in reputation grown,
Successive held the magic throne.
Favour'd by every darling passion,
The love of novelty and fashion,
Ambition, avarice, lust, and pride,
Riches pour'd in on every side.
But when the prudent laws thought fit
To curb this insolence of wit;
When senates wisely had provided,
Decreed, enacted, and decided,
That no such vile and upstart elves
Should have more knowledge than themselves;
When fines and penalties were laid
To stop the progress of the trade,
And stars no longer could dispense,
With honour, further influence;
And wizards (which must be confess'd
Was of more force than all the rest)
No certain way to tell had got
Which were informers, and which not;
Affrighted sages were, perforce,
Obliged to steer some other course.
By various ways, these sons of Chance
Their fortunes labour'd to advance,
Well knowing, by unerring rules,
Knaves starve not in the land of fools.
Some, with high titles and degrees,
185
Which wise men borrow when they please,
Without or trouble, or expense,
Physicians instantly commence,
And proudly boast an Equal skill
With those who claim the right to kill.
Others about the country roam,
(For not one thought of going home)
With pistol and adopted leg,
Prepared at once to rob or beg.
Some, the more subtle of their race,
(Who felt some touch of coward grace,
Who Tyburn to avoid had wit,
But never fear'd deserving it)
Came to their brother Smollett's aid,
And carried on the critic trade.
Attach'd to letters and the Muse,
Some verses wrote, and some wrote news;
Those each revolving month are seen,
The heroes of a magazine;
These, every morning, great appear
In Ledger, or in Gazetteer,
Spreading the falsehoods of the day,
By turns for Faden and for Say.
Like Swiss, their force is always laid
On that side where they best are paid:
Hence mighty prodigies arise,
And daily monsters strike our eyes;
Wonders, to propagate the trade,
More strange than ever Baker made,
Are hawk'd about from street to street,
And fools believe, whilst liars eat.
Now armies in the air engage,
To fright a superstitious age;
Now comets through the ether range,
In governments portending change;
Now rivers to the ocean fly
So quick, they leave their channels dry;
Now monstrous whales on Lambeth shore
Drink the Thames dry, and thirst for more;
And every now and then appears
An Irish savage, numbering years
More than those happy sages could
186
Who drew their breath before the flood;
Now, to the wonder of all people,
A church is left without a steeple;
A steeple now is left in lurch,
And mourns departure of the church,
Which, borne on wings of mighty wind,
Removed a furlong off we find;
Now, wrath on cattle to discharge,
Hailstones as deadly fall, and large,
As those which were on Egypt sent,
At once their crime and punishment;
Or those which, as the prophet writes,
Fell on the necks of Amorites,
When, struck with wonder and amaze,
The sun, suspended, stay'd to gaze,
And, from her duty longer kept,
In Ajalon his sister slept.
But if such things no more engage
The taste of a politer age,
To help them out in time of need
Another Tofts must rabbits breed:
Each pregnant female trembling hears,
And, overcome with spleen and fears,
Consults her faithful glass no more,
But, madly bounding o'er the floor,
Feels hairs all o'er her body grow,
By Fancy turn'd into a doe.
Now, to promote their private ends,
Nature her usual course suspends,
And varies from the stated plan
Observed e'er since the world began.
Bodies--which foolishly we thought,
By Custom's servile maxims taught,
Needed a regular supply,
And without nourishment must die-With craving appetites, and sense
Of hunger easily dispense,
And, pliant to their wondrous skill,
Are taught, like watches, to stand still,
Uninjured, for a month or more,
Then go on as they did before.
The novel takes, the tale succeeds,
187
Amply supplies its author's needs,
And Betty Canning is at least,
With Gascoyne's help, a six months' feast.
Whilst, in contempt of all our pains,
The tyrant Superstition reigns
Imperious in the heart of man,
And warps his thoughts from Nature's plan;
Whilst fond Credulity, who ne'er
The weight of wholesome doubts could bear,
To Reason and herself unjust,
Takes all things blindly upon trust;
Whilst Curiosity, whose rage
No mercy shows to sex or age,
Must be indulged at the expense
Of judgment, truth, and common sense,
Impostures cannot but prevail;
And when old miracles grow stale,
Jugglers will still the art pursue,
And entertain the world with new.
For them, obedient to their will,
And trembling at their mighty skill,
Sad spirits, summon'd from the tomb,
Glide, glaring ghastly, through the gloom;
In all the usual pomp of storms,
In horrid customary forms,
A wolf, a bear, a horse, an ape,
As Fear and Fancy give them shape,
Tormented with despair and pain,
They roar, they yell, and clank the chain.
Folly and Guilt (for Guilt, howe'er
The face of Courage it may wear,
Is still a coward at the heart)
At fear-created phantoms start.
The priest--that very word implies
That he's both innocent and wise-Yet fears to travel in the dark,
Unless escorted by his clerk.
But let not every bungler deem
Too lightly of so deep a scheme;
For reputation of the art,
Each ghost must act a proper part,
Observe Decorum's needful grace,
188
And keep the laws of Time and Place;
Must change, with happy variation,
His manners with his situation;
What in the country might pass down,
Would be impertinent in town.
No spirit of discretion here
Can think of breeding awe and fear;
'Twill serve the purpose more by half
To make the congregation laugh.
We want no ensigns of surprise,
Locks stiff with gore, and saucer eyes;
Give us an entertaining sprite,
Gentle, familiar, and polite,
One who appears in such a form
As might an holy hermit warm,
Or who on former schemes refines,
And only talks by sounds and signs,
Who will not to the eye appear,
But pays her visits to the ear,
And knocks so gently, 't would not fright
A lady in the darkest night.
Such is our Fanny, whose good-will,
Which cannot in the grave lie still,
Brings her on earth to entertain
Her friends and lovers in Cock-lane.
~ Charles Churchill,
782:The Kalevala - Rune Xlvi
OTSO THE HONEY-EATER.
Came the tidings to Pohyola,
To the village of the Northland,
That Wainola had recovered
From her troubles and misfortunes,
From her sicknesses and sorrows.
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Toothless dame of Sariola,
Envy-laden, spake these measures:
'Know I other means of trouble,
I have many more resources;
I will drive the bear before me,
From the heather and the mountain,
Drive him from the fen and forest,
Drive great Otso from the glen-wood
On the cattle of Wainola,
On the flocks of Kalevala.'
Thereupon the Northland hostess
Drove the hungry bear of Pohya
From his cavern to the meadows,
To Wainola's plains and pastures.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
To his brother spake as follows:
'O thou blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Forge a spear from magic metals,
Forge a lancet triple-pointed,
Forge the handle out of copper,
That I may destroy great Otso,
Slay the mighty bear of Northland,
That he may not eat my horses,
Nor destroy my herds of cattle,
Nor the flocks upon my pastures.'
Thereupon the skillful blacksmith
Forged a spear from magic metals,
Forged a lancet triple-pointed,
Not the longest, nor the shortest,
Forged the spear in wondrous beauty.
242
On one side a bear was sitting,
Sat a wolf upon the other,
On the blade an elk lay sleeping,
On the shaft a colt was running,
Near the hilt a roebuck bounding.
Snows had fallen from the heavens,
Made the flocks as white as ermine
Or the hare, in days of winter,
And the minstrel sang these measures:
'My desire impels me onward
To the Metsola-dominions,
To the homes of forest-maidens,
To the courts of the white virgins;
I will hasten to the forest,
Labor with the woodland-forces.
'Ruler of the Tapio-forests,
Make of me a conquering hero,
Help me clear these boundless woodlands.
O Mielikki, forest-hostess,
Tapio's wife, thou fair Tellervo,
Call thy dogs and well enchain them,
Set in readiness thy hunters,
Let them wait within their kennels.
'Otso, thou O Forest-apple,
Bear of honey-paws and fur-robes,
Learn that Wainamoinen follows,
That the singer comes to meet thee;
Hide thy claws within thy mittens,
Let thy teeth remain in darkness,
That they may not harm the minstrel,
May be powerless in battle.
Mighty Otso, much beloved,
Honey-eater of the mountains,
Settle on the rocks in slumber,
On the turf and in thy caverns;
Let the aspen wave above thee,
Let the merry birch-tree rustle
O'er thy head for thy protection.
Rest in peace, thou much-loved Otso,
Turn about within thy thickets,
Like the partridge at her brooding,
In the spring-time like the wild-goose.'
243
When the ancient Wainamoinen
Heard his dog bark in the forest,
Heard his hunter's call and echo,
He addressed the words that follow:
'Thought it was the cuckoo calling,
Thought the pretty bird was singing;
It was not the sacred cuckoo,
Not the liquid notes of songsters,
'Twas my dog that called and murmured,
'Twas the echo of my hunter
At the cavern-doors of Otso,
On the border of the woodlands.'
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Finds the mighty bear in waiting,
Lifts in joy the golden covers,
Well inspects his shining fur-robes;
Lifts his honey-paws in wonder,
Then addresses his Creator:
'Be thou praised, O mighty Ukko,
As thou givest me great Otso,
Givest me the Forest-apple,
Thanks be paid to thee unending.'
To the bear he spake these measures:
'Otso, thou my well beloved,
Honey-eater of the woodlands,
Let not anger swell thy bosom;
I have not the force to slay thee,
Willingly thy life thou givest
As a sacrifice to Northland.
Thou hast from the tree descended,
Glided from the aspen branches,
Slippery the trunks in autumn,
In the fog-days, smooth the branches.
Golden friend of fen and forest,
In thy fur-robes rich and beauteous,
Pride of woodlands, famous Light-foot,
Leave thy cold and cheerless dwelling,
Leave thy home within the alders,
Leave thy couch among the willows,
Hasten in thy purple stockings,
Hasten from thy walks restricted,
Come among the haunts of heroes,
244
Join thy friends in Kalevala.
We shall never treat thee evil,
Thou shalt dwell in peace and plenty,
Thou shalt feed on milk and honey,
Honey is the food of strangers.
Haste away from this thy covert,
From the couch of the unworthy,
To a couch beneath the rafters
Of Wainola's ancient dwellings.
Haste thee onward o'er the snow-plain,
As a leaflet in the autumn;
Skip beneath these birchen branches,
As a squirrel in the summer,
As a cuckoo in the spring-time.'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
O'er the snow-fields hastened homeward,
Singing o'er the hills and mountains,
With his guest, the ancient Otso,
With his friend, the, famous Light-foot,
With the Honey-paw of Northland.
Far away was heard the singing,
Heard the playing of the hunter,
Heard the songs of Wainamoinen;
All the people heard and wondered,
Men and maidens, young and aged,
From their cabins spake as follows:
'Hear the echoes from the woodlands,
Hear the bugle from the forest,
Hear the flute-notes of the songsters,
Hear the pipes of forest-maidens!'
Wainamoinen, old and trusty,
Soon appears within the court-yard.
Rush the people from their cabins,
And the heroes ask these questions:
'Has a mine of gold been opened,
Hast thou found a vein of silver,
Precious jewels in thy pathway?
Does the forest yield her treasures,
Give to thee the Honey-eater?
Does the hostess of the woodlands,
Give to thee the lynx and adder,
245
Since thou comest home rejoicing,
Playing, singing, on thy snow-shoes?'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Gave this answer to his people:
'For his songs I caught the adder,
Caught the serpent for his wisdom;
Therefore do I come rejoicing,
Singing, playing, on my snow-shoes.
Not the mountain lynx, nor serpent,
Comes, however, to our dwellings;
The Illustrious is coming,
Pride and beauty of the forest,
'Tis the Master comes among us,
Covered with his friendly fur-robe.
Welcome, Otso, welcome, Light-foot,
Welcome, Loved-one from the glenwood!
If the mountain guest is welcome,
Open wide the gates of entry;
If the bear is thought unworthy,
Bar the doors against the stranger.'
This the answer of the tribe-folk:
'We salute thee, mighty Otso,
Honey-paw, we bid thee welcome,
Welcome to our courts and cabins,
Welcome, Light-foot, to our tables
Decorated for thy coming!
We have wished for thee for ages,
Waiting since the days of childhood,
For the notes of Tapio's bugle,
For the singing of the wood-nymphs,
For the coming of dear Otso,
For the forest gold and silver,
Waiting for the year of plenty,
Longing for it as for summer,
As the shoe waits for the snow-fields,
As the sledge for beaten highways,
As the, maiden for her suitor,
And the wife her husband's coming;
Sat at evening by the windows,
At the gates have, sat at morning,
Sat for ages at the portals,
Near the granaries in winter, Vanished,
246
Till the snow-fields warmed and
Till the sails unfurled in joyance,
Till the earth grew green and blossomed,
Thinking all the while as follows:
'Where is our beloved Otso,
Why delays our forest-treasure?
Has he gone to distant Ehstland,
To the upper glens of Suomi?'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Whither shall I lead the stranger,
Whither take the golden Light-foot?
Shall I lead him to the garner,
To the house of straw conduct him?'
This the answer of his tribe-folk:
'To the dining-hall lead Otso,
Greatest hero of the Northland.
Famous Light-foot, Forest-apple,
Pride and glory of the woodlands,
Have no fear before these maidens,
Fear not curly-headed virgins,
Clad in silver-tinselled raiment
Maidens hasten to their chambers
When dear Otso joins their number,
When the hero comes among them.'
This the prayer of Wainamoinen:
'Grant, O Ukko, peace and plenty
Underneath these painted rafters,
In this ornamented dweling;
Thanks be paid to gracious Ukko!'
Spake again the ancient minstrel:
'Whither shall we lead dear Otso,
'Whither take the fur-clad stranger?
This the answer of his people:
'Hither let the fur-robed Light-foot
Be saluted on his coming;
Let the Honey-paw be welcomed
To the hearth-stone of the penthouse,
Welcomed to the boiling caldrons,
That we may admire his fur-robe,
May behold his cloak with joyance.
Have no care, thou much-loved Otso,
Let not anger swell thy bosom
247
As thy coat we view with pleasure;
We thy fur shall never injure,
Shall not make it into garments
To protect unworthy people.'
Thereupon wise Wainamoinen
Pulled the sacred robe from Otso,
Spread it in the open court-yard,
Cut the, members into fragments,
Laid them in the heating caldrons,
In the copper-bottomed vesselsO'er the fire the crane was hanging,
On the crane were hooks of copper,
On the hooks the broiling-vessels
Filled with bear-steak for the feasting,
Seasoned with the salt of Dwina,
From the Saxon-land imported,
From the distant Dwina-waters,
From the salt-sea brought in shallops.
Ready is the feast of Otso;
From the fire are swung the kettles
On the crane of polished iron;
In the centers of the tables
Is the bear displayed in dishes,
Golden dishes, decorated;
Of the fir-tree and the linden
Were the tables newly fashioned;
Drinking cups were forged from copper,
Knives of gold and spoons of silver;
Filled the vessels to their borders
With the choicest bits of Light-foot,
Fragments of the Forest-apple.
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen
'Ancient one with bosom golden,
Potent voice in Tapio's councils
Metsola's most lovely hostess,
Hostess of the glen and forest,
Hero-son of Tapiola,
Stalwart youth in cap of scarlet,
Tapio's most beauteous virgin,
Fair Tellervo of the woodlands,
Metsola with all her people,
Come, and welcome, to the feasting,
248
To the marriage-feast of Otso!
All sufficient, the provisions,
Food to eat and drink abundant,
Plenty for the hosts assembled,
Plenty more to give the village.'
This the question of the people:
'Tell us of the birth of Otso!
Was be born within a manger,
Was he nurtured in the bath-room
Was his origin ignoble?'
This is Wainamoinen's answer:
'Otso was not born a beggar,
Was not born among the rushes,
Was not cradled in a manger;
Honey-paw was born in ether,
In the regions of the Moon-land,
On the shoulders of Otava,
With the daughters of creation.
'Through the ether walked a maiden,
On the red rims of the cloudlets,
On the border of the heavens,
In her stockings purple-tinted,
In her golden-colored sandals.
In her hand she held a wool-box,
With a hair-box on her shoulder;
Threw the wool upon the ocean,
And the hair upon the rivers;
These are rocked by winds and waters,
Water-currents bear them onward,
Bear them to the sandy sea-shore,
Land them near the Woods of honey,
On an island forest-covered.
'Fair Mielikki, woodland hostess,
Tapio's most cunning daughter,
Took the fragments from the sea-side,
Took the white wool from the waters,
Sewed the hair and wool together,
Laid the bundle in her basket,
Basket made from bark of birch-wood,
Bound with cords the magic bundle;
With the chains of gold she bound it
To the pine-tree's topmost branches.
249
There she rocked the thing of magic,
Rocked to life the tender baby,
Mid the blossoms of the pine-tree,
On the fir-top set with needles;
Thus the young bear well was nurtured,
Thus was sacred Otso cradled
On the honey-tree of Northland,
In the middle of the forest.
'Sacred Otso grew and flourished,
Quickly grew with graceful movements,
Short of feet, with crooked ankles,
Wide of mouth and broad of forehead,
Short his nose, his fur-robe velvet;
But his claws were not well fashioned,
Neither were his teeth implanted.
Fair Mielikki, forest hostess,
Spake these words in meditation:
'Claws I should be pleased to give him,
And with teeth endow the wonder,
Would be not abuse the favor.'
'Swore the bear a promise sacred,
On his knees before Mielikki,
Hostess of the glen and forest,
And before omniscient Ukko,
First and last of all creators,
That he would not harm the worthy,
Never do a deed of evil.
Then Mielikki, woodland hostess,
Wisest maid of Tapiola,
Sought for teeth and claws to give him,
From the stoutest mountain-ashes,
From the juniper and oak tree,
From the dry knots of the alder.
Teeth and claws of these were worthless,
Would not render goodly service.
'Grew a fir-tree on the mountain,
Grew a stately pine in Northland,
And the fir had silver branches,
Bearing golden cones abundant;
These the sylvan maiden gathered,
Teeth and claws of these she fashioned
In the jaws and feet of Otso,
250
Set them for the best of uses.
Then she freed her new-made creature,
Let the Light-foot walk and wander,
Let him lumber through the marshes,
Let him amble through the forest,
Roll upon the plains and pastures;
Taught him how to walk a hero,
How to move with graceful motion,
How to live in ease and pleasure,
How to rest in full contentment,
In the moors and in the marshes,
On the borders of the woodlands;
How unshod to walk in summer,
Stockingless to run in autumn;
How to rest and sleep in winter
In the clumps of alder-bushes
Underneath the sheltering fir-tree,
Underneath the pine's protection,
Wrapped securely in his fur-robes,
With the juniper and willow.
This the origin of Otso,
Honey-eater of the Northlands,
Whence the sacred booty cometh.
Thus again the people questioned:
Why became the woods so gracious,
Why so generous and friendly?
Why is Tapio so humored,
That he gave his dearest treasure,
Gave to thee his Forest-apple,
Honey-eater of his kingdom?
Was he startled with thine arrows,
Frightened with the spear and broadsword?'
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Gave this answer to the question:
'Filled with kindness was the forest,
Glen and woodland full of greetings,
Tapio showing greatest favor.
Fair Mielikki, forest hostess,
Metsola's bewitching daughter,
Beauteous woodland maid, Tellervo,
Gladly led me on my journey,
Smoothed my pathway through the glen-wood.
251
Marked the trees upon the, mountains,
Pointing me to Otso's caverns,
To the Great Bear's golden island.
'When my journeyings had ended,
When the bear had been discovered,
Had no need to launch my javelins,
Did not need to aim the arrow;
Otso tumbled in his vaulting,
Lost his balance in his cradle,
In the fir-tree where he slumbered;
Tore his breast upon the branches,
Freely gave his life to others.
'Mighty Otso, my beloved,
Thou my golden friend and hero,
Take thy fur-cap from thy forehead,
Lay aside thy teeth forever,
Hide thy fingers in the darkness,
Close thy mouth and still thine anger,
While thy sacred skull is breaking.
'Now I take the eyes of Otso,
Lest he lose the sense of seeing,
Lest their former powers shall weaken;
Though I take not all his members,
Not alone must these be taken.
'Now I take the ears of Otso,
Lest he lose the sense of 'hearing,
Lest their former powers shall weaken;
Though I take not all his members,
Not alone must these be taken.
'Now I take the nose of Otso,
Lest he lose the sense of smelling,
Lest its former powers shall weaken;
Though I take not all his members,
Not alone must this be taken.
'Now I take the tongue of Otso,
Lest he lose the sense of tasting
Lest its former powers shall weaken;
Though I take not all his members,
Not alone must this be taken.
'Now I take the brain of Otso,
Lest he lose the means of thinking,
Lest his consciousness should fail him,
252
Lest his former instincts weaken;
Though I take not all his members,
Not alone must this be taken.
'I will reckon him a hero,
That will count the teeth of Light-foot,
That will loosen Otso's fingers
From their settings firmly fastened.'
None he finds with strength sufficient
To perform the task demanded.
Therefore ancient Wainamoinen
Counts the teeth of sacred Otso;
Loosens all the claws of Light-foot,
With his fingers strong as copper,
Slips them from their firm foundations,
Speaking to the bear these measures:
'Otso, thou my Honey-eater,
Thou my Fur-ball of the woodlands,
Onward, onward, must thou journey
From thy low and lonely dwelling,
To the court-rooms of the village.
Go, my treasure, through the pathway
Near the herds of swine and cattle,
To the hill-tops forest covered,
To the high and rising mountains,
To the spruce-trees filled with needles,
To the branches of the pine-tree;
There remain, my Forest-apple,
Linger there in lasting slumber,
Where the silver bells are ringing,
To the pleasure of the shepherd.'
Thus beginning, and thus ending,
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Hastened from his emptied tables,
And the children thus addressed him:
'Whither hast thou led thy booty,
Where hast left thy Forest-apple,
Sacred Otso of the woodlands?
Hast thou left him on the iceberg,
Buried him upon the snow-field?
Hast thou sunk him in the quicksand,
Laid him low beneath the heather?'
Wainamoinen spake in answer:
253
'Have not left him on the iceberg,
Have not buried him in snow-fields;
There the dogs would soon devour him,
Birds of prey would feast upon him;
Have not hidden him in Swamp-land,
Have not buried him in heather;
There the worms would live upon him,
Insects feed upon his body.
Thither I have taken Otso,
To the summit of the Gold-hill,
To the copper-bearing mountain,
Laid him in his silken cradle
In the summit of a pine-tree,
Where the winds and sacred branches
Rock him to his lasting slumber,
To the pleasure of the hunter,
To the joy of man and hero.
To the east his lips are pointing,
While his eyes are northward looking;
But dear Otso looks not upward,
For the fierceness of the storm-winds
Would destroy his sense of vision.'
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Touched again his harp of joyance,
Sang again his songs enchanting,
To the pleasure of the evening,
To the joy of morn arising.
Spake the singer of Wainola:
'Light for me a torch of pine-wood,
For the darkness is appearing,
That my playing may be joyous
And my wisdom-songs find welcome.'
Then the ancient sage and singer,
Wise and worthy Wainamoinen,
Sweetly sang and played, and chanted,
Through the long and dreary evening,
Ending thus his incantation:
'Grant, O Ukko, my Creator,
That the people of Wainola
May enjoy another banquet
In the company of Light-foot;
Grant that we may long remember
254
Kalevala's feast with Otso!
'Grant, O Ukko, my Creator,
That the signs may guide our footsteps,
That the notches in the pine-tree
May direct my faithful people
To the bear-dens of the woodlands;
That great Tapio's sacred bugle
May resound through glen and forest;
That the wood-nymph's call may echo,
May be heard in field and hamlet,
To the joy of all that listen!
Let great Tapio's horn for ages
Ring throughout the fen and forest,
Through the hills and dales of Northland
O'er the meadows and the mountains,
To awaken song and gladness
In the forests of Wainola,
On the snowy plains of Suomi,
On the meads of Kalevala,
For the coming generations.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
783:The Kalevala - Rune Xvii
WAINAMOINEN FINDS THE LOST-WORD.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Did not learn the words of magic
In Tuoni's gloomy regions,
In the kingdom of Manala.
Thereupon he long debated,
Well considered, long reflected,
Where to find the magic sayings;
When a shepherd came to meet him,
Speaking thus to Wainamoinen:
'Thou canst find of words a hundred,
Find a thousand wisdom-sayings,
In the mouth of wise Wipunen,
In the body of the hero;
To the spot I know the foot-path,
To his tomb the magic highway,
Trodden by a host of heroes;
Long the distance thou must travel,
On the sharpened points of needles;
Then a long way thou must journey
On the edges of the broadswords;
Thirdly thou must travel farther
On the edges of the hatchets.'
Wainamoinen, old and trustful,
Well considered all these journeys,
Travelled to the forge and smithy,
Thus addressed the metal-worker:
'Ilmarinen, worthy blacksmith,
Make a shoe for me of iron,
Forge me gloves of burnished copper,
Mold a staff of strongest metal,
Lay the steel upon the inside,
Forge within the might of magic;
I am going on a journey
To procure the magic sayings,
Find the lost-words of the Master,
From the mouth of the magician,
303
From the tongue of wise Wipunen.'
Spake the artist, Ilmarinen:
'Long ago died wise Wipunen,
Disappeared these many ages,
Lays no more his snares of copper,
Sets no longer traps of iron,
Cannot learn from him the wisdom,
Cannot find in him the lost-words.'
Wainamoinen, old and hopeful,
Little heeding, not discouraged,
In his metal shoes and armor,
Hastens forward on his journey,
Runs the first day fleetly onward,
On the sharpened points of needles;
'Wearily he strides the second,
On the edges of the broadswords
Swings himself the third day forward,
On the edges of the hatchets.
Wise Wipunen, wisdom-singer,
Ancient bard, and great magician,
With his magic songs lay yonder,
Stretched beside him, lay his sayings,
On his shoulder grew the aspen,
On each temple grew the birch-tree,
On his mighty chin the alder,
From his beard grew willow-bushes,
From his mouth the dark green fir-tree,
And the oak-tree from his forehead.
Wainamoinen, coming closer,
Draws his sword, lays bare his hatchet
From his magic leathern scabbard,
Fells the aspen from his shoulder,
Fells the birch-tree from his temples,
From his chin he fells the alder,
From his beard, the branching willows,
From his mouth the dark-green fir-tree,
Fells the oak-tree from his forehead.
Now he thrusts his staff of iron
Through the mouth of wise Wipunen,
Pries his mighty jaws asunder,
Speaks these words of master-magic:
'Rise, thou master of magicians,
304
From the sleep of Tuonela,
From thine everlasting slumber!'
Wise Wipunen, ancient singer,
Quickly wakens from his sleeping,
Keenly feels the pangs of torture,
From the cruel staff of iron;
Bites with mighty force the metal,
Bites in twain the softer iron,
Cannot bite the steel asunder,
Opens wide his mouth in anguish.
Wainamoinen of Wainola,
In his iron-shoes and armor,
Careless walking, headlong stumbles
In the spacious mouth and fauces
Of the magic bard, Wipunen.
Wise Wipunen, full of song-charms,
Opens wide his mouth and swallows
Wainamoinen and his magic,
Shoes, and staff, and iron armor.
Then outspeaks the wise Wipunen:
'Many things before I've eaten,
Dined on goat, and sheep, and reindeer,
Bear, and ox, and wolf, and wild-boar,
Never in my recollection,
Have I tasted sweeter morsels!'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Now I see the evil symbols,
See misfortune hanging o'er me,
In the darksome Hisi-hurdles,
In the catacombs of Kalma.'
Wainamoinen long considered
How to live and how to prosper,
How to conquer this condition.
In his belt he wore a poniard,
With a handle hewn from birch-wood,
From the handle builds a vessel,
Builds a boat through magic science;
In this vessel rows he swiftly
Through the entrails of the hero,
Rows through every gland and vessel
Of the wisest of magicians.
Old Wipunen, master-singer,
305
Barely feels the hero's presence,
Gives no heed to Wainamoinen.
Then the artist of Wainola
Straightway sets himself to forging,
Sets at work to hammer metals;
Makes a smithy from his armor,
Of his sleeves he makes the bellows,
Makes the air-valve from his fur-coat,
From his stockings, makes the muzzle,
Uses knees instead of anvil,
Makes a hammer of his fore-arm;
Like the storm-wind roars the bellows,
Like the thunder rings the anvil;
Forges one day, then a second,
Forges till the third day closes,
In the body of Wipunen,
In the sorcerer's abdomen.
Old Wipunen, full of magic,
Speaks these words in wonder, guessing:
'Who art thou of ancient heroes,
Who of all the host of heroes?
Many heroes I have eaten,
And of men a countless number,
Have not eaten such as thou art;
Smoke arises from my nostrils,
From my mouth the fire is streaming,
In my throat are iron-clinkers.
'Go, thou monster, hence to wander,
Flee this place, thou plague of Northland,
Ere I go to seek thy mother,
Tell the ancient dame thy mischief;
She shall bear thine evil conduct,
Great the burden she shall carry;
Great a mother's pain and anguish,
When her child runs wild and lawless;
Cannot comprehend the meaning,
Nor this mystery unravel,
Why thou camest here, O monster,
Camest here to give me torture.
Art thou Hisi sent from heaven,
Some calamity from Ukko?
Art, perchance, some new creation,
306
Ordered here to do me evil?
If thou art some evil genius,
Some calamity from Ukko,
Sent to me by my Creator,
Then am I resigned to suffer
God does not forsake the worthy,
Does not ruin those that trust him,
Never are the good forsaken.
If by man thou wert created,
If some hero sent thee hither,
I shall learn thy race of evil,
Shall destroy thy wicked tribe-folk.
'Thence arose the violation,
Thence arose the first destruction,
Thence came all the evil-doings:
From the neighborhood of wizards,
From the homes of the magicians,
From the eaves of vicious spirits,
From the haunts of fortune-tellers,
From the cabins of the witches,
From the castles of Tuoni,
From the bottom of Manala,
From the ground with envy swollen,
From Ingratitude's dominions,
From the rocky shoals and quicksands,
From the marshes filled with danger,
From the cataract's commotion,
From the bear-caves in the mountains,
From the wolves within the thickets,
From the roarings of the pine-tree,
From the burrows of the fox-dog,
From the woodlands of the reindeer,
From the eaves and Hisi-hurdles,
From the battles of the giants,
From uncultivated pastures,
From the billows of the oceans,
From the streams of boiling waters,
From the waterfalls of Rutya,
From the limits of the storm-clouds,
From the pathways of the thunders,
From the flashings of the lightnings,
From the distant plains of Pohya,
307
From the fatal stream and whirlpool,
From the birthplace of Tuoni.
'Art thou coming from these places?
Hast thou, evil, hastened hither,
To the heart of sinless hero,
To devour my guiltless body,
To destroy this wisdom-singer?
Get thee hence, thou dog of Lempo,
Leave, thou monster from Manala,
Flee from mine immortal body,
Leave my liver, thing of evil,
In my body cease thy forging,
Cease this torture of my vitals,
Let me rest in peace and slumber.
'Should I want in means efficient,
Should I lack the magic power
To outroot thine evil genius,
I shall call a better hero,
Call upon a higher power,
To remove this dire misfortune,
To annihilate this monster.
I shall call the will of woman,
From the fields, the old-time heroes?
Mounted heroes from the sand-hills,
Thus to rescue me from danger,
From these pains and ceaseless tortures.
'If this force prove inefficient,
Should not drive thee from my body,
Come, thou forest, with thy heroes,
Come, ye junipers and pine-trees,
With your messengers of power,
Come, ye mountains, with your wood-nymphs,
Come, ye lakes, with all your mermaids,
Come, ye hundred ocean-spearmen,
Come, torment this son of Hisi,
Come and kill this evil monster.
'If this call is inefficient,
Does not drive thee from my vitals,
Rise, thou ancient water-mother,
With thy blue-cap from the ocean,
From the seas, the lakes, the rivers,
Bring protection to thy hero,
308
Comfort bring and full assistance,
That I guiltless may not suffer,
May not perish prematurely.
'Shouldst thou brave this invocation,
Kapè, daughter of Creation,
Come, thou beauteous, golden maiden,
Oldest of the race of women,
Come and witness my misfortunes,
Come and turn away this evil,
Come, remove this biting torment,
Take away this plague of Piru.
'If this call be disregarded,
If thou wilt not leave me guiltless,
Ukko, on the arch of heaven,
In the thunder-cloud dominions,
Come thou quickly, thou art needed,
Come, protect thy tortured hero,
Drive away this magic demon,
Banish ever his enchantment,
With his sword and flaming furnace,
With his fire-enkindling bellows.
'Go, thou demon, hence to wander,
Flee, thou plague of Northland heroes;
Never come again for shelter,
Nevermore build thou thy dwelling
In the body of Wipunen;
Take at once thy habitation
To the regions of thy kindred,
To thy distant fields and firesides;
When thy journey thou hast ended,
Gained the borders of thy country,
Gained the meads of thy Creator,
Give a signal of thy coming,
Rumble like the peals of thunder,
Glisten like the gleam of lightning,
Knock upon the outer portals,
Enter through the open windows,
Glide about the many chambers,
Seize the host and seize the hostess,
Knock their evil beads together,
Wring their necks and hurl their bodies
To the black-dogs of the forest.
309
'Should this prove of little value,
Hover like the bird of battle,
O'er the dwellings of the master,
Scare the horses from the mangers,
From the troughs affright the cattle,
Twist their tails, and horns, and forelocks,
Hurl their carcasses to Lempo.
'If some scourge the winds have sent me,
Sent me on the air of spring-tide,
Brought me by the frosts of winter,
Quickly journey whence thou camest,
On the air-path of the heavens,
Perching not upon some aspen,
Resting not upon the birch-tree;
Fly away to copper mountains,
That the copper-winds may nurse thee,
Waves of ether, thy protection.
'Didst those come from high Jumala,
From the hems of ragged snow-clouds,
Quick ascend beyond the cloud-space,
Quickly journey whence thou camest,
To the snow-clouds, crystal-sprinkled,
To the twinkling stars of heaven
There thy fire may burn forever,
There may flash thy forked lightnings,
In the Sun's undying furnace.
'Wert thou sent here by the spring-floods,
Driven here by river-torrents?
Quickly journey whence thou camest,
Quickly hasten to the waters,
To the borders of the rivers,
To the ancient water-mountain,
That the floods again may rock thee,
And thy water-mother nurse thee.
'Didst thou come from Kalma's kingdom,
From the castles of the death-land?
Haste thou back to thine own country,
To the Kalma-halls and castles,
To the fields with envy swollen,
Where contending armies perish.
'Art thou from the Hisi-woodlands,
From ravines in Lempo's forest,
310
From the thickets of the pine-wood,
From the dwellings of the fir-glen?
Quick retrace thine evil footsteps
To the dwellings of thy master,
To the thickets of thy kindred;
There thou mayest dwell at pleasure,
Till thy house decays about thee,
Till thy walls shall mould and crumble.
Evil genius, thee I banish,
Got thee hence, thou horrid monster,
To the caverns of the white-bear,
To the deep abysm of serpents,
To the vales, and swamps, and fenlands,
To the ever-silent waters,
To the hot-springs of the mountains,
To the dead-seas of the Northland,
To the lifeless lakes and rivers,
To the sacred stream and whirlpool.
'Shouldst thou find no place of resting,
I will banish thee still farther,
To the Northland's distant borders,
To the broad expanse of Lapland,
To the ever-lifeless deserts,
To the unproductive prairies,
Sunless, moonless, starless, lifeless,
In the dark abyss of Northland;
This for thee, a place befitting,
Pitch thy tents and feast forever
On the dead plains of Pohyola.
'Shouldst thou find no means of living,
I will banish thee still farther,
To the cataract of Rutya,
To the fire-emitting whirlpool,
Where the firs are ever falling,
To the windfalls of the forest;
Swim hereafter in the waters
Of the fire-emitting whirlpool,
Whirl thou ever in the current
Of the cataract's commotion,
In its foam and boiling waters.
Should this place be unbefitting,
I will drive thee farther onward,
311
To Tuoni's coal-black river,
To the endless stream of Mana,
Where thou shalt forever linger;
Thou canst never leave Manala,
Should I not thy head deliver,
Should I never pay thy ransom;
Thou canst never safely journey
Through nine brother-rams abutting,
Through nine brother-bulls opposing
Through nine brother-stallions thwarting,
Thou canst not re-cross Death-river
Thickly set with iron netting,
Interlaced with threads of copper.
'Shouldst thou ask for steeds for saddle,
Shouldst thou need a fleet-foot courser,
I will give thee worthy racers,
I will give thee saddle-horses;
Evil Hisi has a charger,
Crimson mane, and tail, and foretop,
Fire emitting from his nostrils,
As he prances through his pastures;
Hoofs are made of strongest iron,
Legs are made of steel and copper,
Quickly scales the highest mountains,
Darts like lightning through the valleys,
When a skilful master rides him.
'Should this steed be insufficient,
I will give thee Lempo's snow-shoes,
Give thee Hisi's shoes of elm-wood,
Give to thee the staff of Piru,
That with these thou mayest journey
Into Hisi's courts and castles,
To the woods and fields of Juutas;
If the rocks should rise before thee,
Dash the flinty rocks in pieces,
Hurl the fragments to the heavens;
If the branches cross thy pathway,
Make them turn aside in greeting;
If some mighty hero hail thee,
Hurl him headlong to the woodlands.
'Hasten hence, thou thing of evil,
Heinous monster, leave my body,
312
Ere the breaking of the morning
Ere the Sun awakes from slumber,
Ere the sinning of the cuckoo;
Haste away, thou plague of Northland,
Haste along the track of' moonbeams,
Wander hence, forever wander,
To the darksome fields or Pohya.
'If at once thou dost not leave me,
I will send the eagle's talons,
Send to thee the beaks of vultures,
To devour thine evil body,
Hurl thy skeleton to Hisi.
Much more quickly cruel Lempo
Left my vitals when commanded,
When I called the aid of Ukko,
Called the help of my Creator.
Flee, thou motherless offendant,
Flee, thou fiend of Sariola,
Flee, thou hound without a master,
Ere the morning sun arises,
Ere the Moon withdraws to slumber!'
Wainamoinen, ancient hero,
Speaks at last to old Wipunen:
'Satisfied am I to linger
In these old and spacious caverns,
Pleasant here my home and dwelling;
For my meat I have thy tissues,
Have thy heart, and spleen, and liver,
For my drink the blood of ages,
Goodly home for Wainamoinen.
'I shall set my forge and bellows
Deeper, deeper in thy vitals;
I shall swing my heavy hammer,
Swing it with a greater power
On thy heart, and lungs, and liver;
I shall never, never leave thee
Till I learn thine incantations,
Learn thy many wisdom-sayings,
Learn the lost-words of the Master;
Never must these words be bidden,
Earth must never lose this wisdom,
Though the wisdom-singers perish.'
313
Old Wipunen, wise magician,
Ancient prophet, filled with power,
Opens fall his store of knowledge,
Lifts the covers from his cases,
Filled with old-time incantations,
Filled with songs of times primeval,
Filled with ancient wit and wisdom;
Sings the very oldest folk-songs,
Sings the origin of witchcraft,
Sings of Earth and its beginning
Sings the first of all creations,
Sings the source of good and evil
Sung alas! by youth no longer,
Only sung in part by heroes
In these days of sin and sorrow.
Evil days our land befallen.
Sings the orders of enchantment.
How, upon the will of Ukko,
By command of the Creator,
How the air was first divided,
How the water came from ether,
How the earth arose from water,
How from earth came vegetation,
Fish, and fowl, and man, and hero.
Sings again the wise Wipunen,
How the Moon was first created,
How the Sun was set in heaven,
Whence the colors of the rainbow,
Whence the ether's crystal pillars,
How the skies with stars were sprinkled.
Then again sings wise Wipunen,
Sings in miracles of concord,
Sings in magic tones of wisdom,
Never was there heard such singing;
Songs he sings in countless numbers,
Swift his notes as tongues of serpents,
All the distant hills re-echo;
Sings one day, and then a second,
Sings a third from dawn till evening,
Sings from evening till the morning;
Listen all the stars of heaven,
And the Moon stands still and listens
314
Fall the waves upon the deep-sea,
In the bay the tides cease rising,
Stop the rivers in their courses,
Stops the waterfall of Rutya,
Even Jordan ceases flowing,
And the Wuoksen stops and listens.
When the ancient Wainamoinen
Well had learned the magic sayings,
Learned the ancient songs and legends,
Learned the words of ancient wisdom,
Learned the lost-words of the Master,
Well had learned the secret doctrine,
He prepared to leave the body
Of the wisdom-bard, Wipunen,
Leave the bosom of the master,
Leave the wonderful enchanter.
Spake the hero, Wainamoinen:
'O, thou Antero Wipunen,
Open wide thy mouth and fauces,
I have found the magic lost-words,
I will leave thee now forever,
Leave thee and thy wondrous singing,
Will return to Kalevala,
To Wainola's fields and firesides.'
Thus Wipunen spake in answer:
'Many are the things I've eaten,
Eaten bear, and elk, and reindeer,
Eaten ox, and wolf, and wild-boar,
Eaten man, and eaten hero,
Never, never have I eaten
Such a thing as Wainamoinen;
Thou hast found what thou desirest,
Found the three words of the Master;
Go in peace, and ne'er returning,
Take my blessing on thy going.'
Thereupon the bard Wipunen
Opens wide his mouth, and wider;
And the good, old Wainamoinen
Straightway leaves the wise enchanter,
Leaves Wipunen's great abdomen;
From the mouth he glides and journeys
O'er the hills and vales of Northland,
315
Swift as red-deer or the forest,
Swift as yellow-breasted marten,
To the firesides of Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala.
Straightway hastes he to the smithy
Of his brother, Ilmarinen,
Thus the iron-artist greets him:
Hast thou found the long-lost wisdom,
Hast thou heard the secret doctrine,
Hast thou learned the master magic,
How to fasten in the ledges,
How the stern should be completed,
How complete the ship's forecastle?
Wainamoinen thus made answer:
'I have learned of words a hundred,
Learned a thousand incantations,
Hidden deep for many ages,
Learned the words of ancient wisdom,
Found the keys of secret doctrine,
Found the lost-words of the Master.'
Wainamoinen, magic-builder,
Straightway journeys to his vessel,
To the spot of magic labor,
Quickly fastens in the ledges,
Firmly binds the stern together
And completes the boat's forecastle.
Thus the ancient Wainamoinen
Built the boat with magic only,
And with magic launched his vessel,
Using not the hand to touch it,
Using not the foot to move it,
Using not the knee to turn it,
Using nothing to propel it.
Thus the third task was completed,
For the hostess of Pohyola,
Dowry for the Maid of Beauty
Sitting on the arch of heaven,
On the bow of many colors.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
784:The Kalevala - Rune Ix
ORIGIN OF IRON.
Wainamoinen, thus encouraged,
Quickly rises in his snow-sledge,
Asking no one for assistance,
Straightway hastens to the cottage,
Takes a seat within the dwelling.
Come two maids with silver pitchers,
Bringing also golden goblets;
Dip they up a very little,
But the very smallest measure
Of the blood of the magician,
From the wounds of Wainamoinen.
From the fire-place calls the old man,
Thus the gray-beard asks the minstrel:
'Tell me who thou art of heroes,
Who of all the great magicians?
Lo! thy blood fills seven sea-boats,
Eight of largest birchen vessels,
Flowing from some hero's veinlets,
From the wounds of some magician.
Other matters I would ask thee;
Sing the cause of this thy trouble,
Sing to me the source of metals,
Sing the origin of iron,
How at first it was created.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Made this answer to the gray-beard:
'Know I well the source of metals,
Know the origin of iron;
f can tell bow steel is fashioned.
Of the mothers air is oldest,
Water is the oldest brother,
And the fire is second brother,
And the youngest brother, iron;
Ukko is the first creator.
Ukko, maker of the heavens,
Cut apart the air and water,
54
Ere was born the metal, iron.
Ukko, maker of the heavens,
Firmly rubbed his hands together,
Firmly pressed them on his knee-cap,
Then arose three lovely maidens,
Three most beautiful of daughters;
These were mothers of the iron,
And of steel of bright-blue color.
Tremblingly they walked the heavens,
Walked the clouds with silver linings,
With their bosoms overflowing
With the milk of future iron,
Flowing on and flowing ever,
From the bright rims of the cloudlets
To the earth, the valleys filling,
To the slumber-calling waters.
'Ukko's eldest daughter sprinkled
Black milk over river channels
And the second daughter sprinkled
White milk over hills and mountains,
While the youngest daughter sprinkled
Red milk over seas and oceans.
Whero the black milk had been sprinked,
Grew the dark and ductile iron;
Where the white milk had been sprinkled.
Grew the iron, lighter-colored;
Where the red milk had been sprinkled,
Grew the red and brittle iron.
'After Time had gone a distance,
Iron hastened Fire to visit,
His beloved elder brother,
Thus to know his brother better.
Straightway Fire began his roarings,
Labored to consume his brother,
His beloved younger brother.
Straightway Iron sees his danger,
Saves himself by fleetly fleeing,
From the fiery flame's advances,
Fleeing hither, fleeing thither,
Fleeing still and taking shelter
In the swamps and in the valleys,
In the springs that loudly bubble,
55
By the rivers winding seaward,
On the broad backs of the marshes,
Where the swans their nests have builded,
Where the wild geese hatch their goslings.
'Thus is iron in the swamp-lands,
Stretching by the water-courses,
Hidden well for many ages,
Hidden in the birchen forests,
But he could not hide forever
From the searchings of his brother;
Here and there the fire has caught him,
Caught and brought him to his furnace,
That the spears, and swords, and axes,
Might be forged and duly hammered.
In the swamps ran blackened waters,
From the heath the bears came ambling,
And the wolves ran through the marshes.
Iron then made his appearance,
Where the feet of wolves had trodden,
Where the paws of bears had trampled.
'Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Came to earth to work the metal;
He was born upon the Coal-mount,
Skilled and nurtured in the coal-fields;
In one hand, a copper hammer,
In the other, tongs of iron;
In the night was born the blacksmith,
In the morn he built his smithy,
Sought with care a favored hillock,
Where the winds might fill his bellows;
Found a hillock in the swamp-lands,
Where the iron hid abundant;
There he built his smelting furnace,
There he laid his leathern bellows,
Hastened where the wolves had travelled,
Followed where the bears had trampled,
Found the iron's young formations,
In the wolf-tracks of the marshes,
In the foot-prints of the gray-bear.
'Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
'Thus addressed the sleeping iron:
Thou most useful of the metals,
56
Thou art sleeping in the marshes,
Thou art hid in low conditions,
Where the wolf treads in the swamp-lands,
Where the bear sleeps in the thickets.
Hast thou thought and well considered,
What would be thy future station,
Should I place thee in the furnace,
Thus to make thee free and useful?'
'Then was Iron sorely frightened,
Much distressed and filled with horror,
When of Fire he heard the mention,
Mention of his fell destroyer.
'Then again speaks Ilmarinen,
Thus the smith addresses Iron:
'Be not frightened, useful metal,
Surely Fire will not consume thee,
Will not burn his youngest brother,
Will not harm his nearest kindred.
Come thou to my room and furnace,
Where the fire is freely burning,
Thou wilt live, and grow, and prosper,
Wilt become the swords of heroes,
Buckles for the belts of women.'
'Ere arose the star of evening,
Iron ore had left the marshes,
From the water-beds had risen,
Had been carried to the furnace,
In the fire the smith had laid it,
Laid it in his smelting furnace.
Ilmarinen starts the bellows,
Gives three motions of the handle,
And the iron flows in streamlets
From the forge of the magician,
Soon becomes like baker's leaven,
Soft as dough for bread of barley.
Then out-screamed the metal, Iron:
'Wondrous blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Take, O take me from thy furnace,
From this fire and cruel torture.'
'Ilmarinen thus made answer:
'I will take thee from my furnace,
'Thou art but a little frightened,
57
Thou shalt be a mighty power,
Thou shalt slay the best of heroes,
Thou shalt wound thy dearest brother.'
'Straightway Iron made this promise,
Vowed and swore in strongest accents,
By the furnace, by the anvil,
By the tongs, and by the hammer,
These the words he vowed and uttered:
'Many trees that I shall injure,
Shall devour the hearts of mountains,
Shall not slay my nearest kindred,
Shall not kill the best of heroes,
Shall not wound my dearest brother;
Better live in civil freedom,
Happier would be my life-time,
Should I serve my fellow-beings,
Serve as tools for their convenience,
Than as implements of warfare,
Slay my friends and nearest. kindred,
Wound the children of my mother.'
'Now the master, Ilmarinen,
The renowned and skilful blacksmith,
From the fire removes the iron,
Places it upon the anvil,
Hammers well until it softens,
Hammers many fine utensils,
Hammers spears, and swords, and axes,
Hammers knives, and forks, and hatchets,
Hammers tools of all descriptions.
'Many things the blacksmith needed,
Many things he could not fashion,
Could not make the tongue of iron,
Could not hammer steel from iron,
Could not make the iron harden.
Well considered Ilmarinen,
Deeply thought and long reflected.
Then he gathered birchen ashes,
Steeped the ashes in the water,
Made a lye to harden iron,
Thus to form the steel most needful.
With his tongue he tests the mixture,
Weighs it long and well considers,
58
And the blacksmith speaks as follows:
'All this labor is for nothing,
Will not fashion steel from iron,
Will not make the soft ore harden.'
'Now a bee flies from the meadow,
Blue-wing coming from the flowers,
Flies about, then safely settles
Near the furnace of the smithy.
''Thus the smith the bee addresses,
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'Little bee, thou tiny birdling,
Bring me honey on thy winglets,
On thy tongue, I pray thee, bring me
Sweetness from the fragrant meadows,
From the little cups of flowers,
From the tips of seven petals,
That we thus may aid the water
To produce the steel from iron.'
'Evil Hisi's bird, the hornet,
Heard these words of Ilmarinen,
Looking from the cottage gable,
Flying to the bark of birch-trees,
While the iron bars were heating
While the steel was being tempered;
Swiftly flew the stinging hornet,
Scattered all the Hisi horrors,
Brought the blessing of the serpent,
Brought the venom of the adder,
Brought the poison of the spider,
Brought the stings of all the insects,
Mixed them with the ore and water,
While the steel was being, tempered.
'Ilmarinen, skilful blacksmith,
First of all the iron-workers,
Thought the bee had surely brought him
Honey from the fragrant meadows,
From the little cups of flowers,
From the tips of seven petals,
And he spake the words that follow:
'Welcome, welcome, is thy coming,
Honeyed sweetness from the flowers
Thou hast brought to aid the water,
59
Thus to form the steel from iron!'
'Ilmarinen, ancient blacksmith,
Dipped the iron into water,
Water mixed with many poisons,
Thought it but the wild bee's honey;
Thus he formed the steel from iron.
When he plunged it into water,
Water mixed with many poisons,
When be placed it in the furnace,
Angry grew the hardened iron,
Broke the vow that he had taken,
Ate his words like dogs and devils,
Mercilessly cut his brother,
Madly raged against his kindred,
Caused the blood to flow in streamlets
From the wounds of man and hero.
This, the origin of iron,
And of steel of light blue color.'
From the hearth arose the gray-beard,
Shook his heavy looks and answered:
'Now I know the source of iron,
Whence the steel and whence its evils;
Curses on thee, cruel iron,
Curses on the steel thou givest,
Curses on thee, tongue of evil,
Cursed be thy life forever!
Once thou wert of little value,
Having neither form nor beauty,
Neither strength nor great importance,
When in form of milk thou rested,
When for ages thou wert hidden
In the breasts of God's three daughters,
Hidden in their heaving bosoms,
On the borders of the cloudlets,
In the blue vault of the heavens.
'Thou wert once of little value,
Having neither form nor beauty,
Neither strength nor great importance,
When like water thou wert resting
On the broad back of the marshes,
On the steep declines of mountains,
When thou wert but formless matter,
60
Only dust of rusty color.
'Surely thou wert void of greatness,
Having neither strength nor beauty,
When the moose was trampling on thee,
When the roebuck trod upon thee,
When the tracks of wolves were in thee,
And the bear-paws scratched thy body.
Surely thou hadst little value
When the skilful Ilmarinen,
First of all the iron-workers,
Brought thee from the blackened swamp-lands,
Took thee to his ancient smithy,
Placed thee in his fiery furnace.
Truly thou hadst little vigor,
Little strength, and little danger,
When thou in the fire wert hissing,
Rolling forth like seething water,
From the furnace of the smithy,
When thou gavest oath the strongest,
By the furnace, by the anvil,
By the tongs, and by the hammer,
By the dwelling of the blacksmith,
By the fire within the furnace.
'Now forsooth thou hast grown mighty,
Thou canst rage in wildest fury;
Thou hast broken all thy pledges,
All thy solemn vows hast broken,
Like the dogs thou shamest honor,
Shamest both thyself and kindred,
Tainted all with breath of evil.
Tell who drove thee to this mischief,
Tell who taught thee all thy malice,
Tell who gavest thee thine evil!
Did thy father, or thy mother,
Did the eldest of thy brothers,
Did the youngest of thy sisters,
Did the worst of all thy kindred
Give to thee thine evil nature?
Not thy father, nor thy mother,
Not the eldest of thy brothers,
Not the youngest of thy sisters,
Not the worst of all thy kindred,
61
But thyself hast done this mischief,
Thou the cause of all our trouble.
Come and view thine evil doings,
And amend this flood of damage,
Ere I tell thy gray-haired mother,
Ere I tell thine aged father.
Great indeed a mother's anguish,
Great indeed a father's sorrow,
When a son does something evil,
When a child runs wild and lawless.
'Crimson streamlet, cease thy flowing
From the wounds of Wainamoinen;
Blood of ages, stop thy coursing
From the veins of the magician;
Stand like heaven's crystal pillars,
Stand like columns in the ocean,
Stand like birch-trees in the forest,
Like the tall reeds in the marshes,
Like the high-rocks on the sea-coast,
Stand by power of mighty magic!
'Should perforce thy will impel thee,
Flow thou on thine endless circuit,
Through the veins of Wainamoinen,
Through the bones, and through the muscles,
Through the lungs, and heart, and liver,
Of the mighty sage and singer;
Better be the food of heroes,
Than to waste thy strength and virtue
On the meadows and the woodlands,
And be lost in dust and ashes.
Flow forever in thy circle;
Thou must cease this crimson out-flow;
Stain no more the grass and flowers,
Stain no more these golden hill-tops,
Pride and beauty of our heroes.
In the veins of the magician,
In the heart of Wainamoinen,
Is thy rightful home and storehouse.
Thither now withdraw thy forces,
Thither hasten, swiftly flowing;
Flow no more as crimson currents,
Fill no longer crimson lakelets,
62
Must not rush like brooks in spring-tide,
Nor meander like the rivers.
'Cease thy flow, by word of magic,
Cease as did the falls of Tyrya,
As the rivers of Tuoni,
When the sky withheld her rain-drops,
When the sea gave up her waters,
In the famine of the seasons,
In the years of fire and torture.
If thou heedest not this order,
I shall offer other measures,
Know I well of other forces;
I shall call the Hisi irons,
In them I shall boil and roast thee,
Thus to check thy crimson flowing,
Thus to save the wounded hero.
'If these means be inefficient,
Should these measures prove unworthy,
I shall call omniscient Ukko,
Mightiest of the creators,
Stronger than all ancient heroes,
Wiser than the world-magicians;
He will check the crimson out-flow,
He will heal this wound of hatchet.
'Ukko, God of love and mercy,
God and Master Of the heavens,
Come thou hither, thou art needed,
Come thou quickly I beseech thee,
Lend thy hand to aid thy children,
Touch this wound with healing fingers,
Stop this hero's streaming life-blood,
Bind this wound with tender leaflets,
Mingle with them healing flowers,
Thus to check this crimson current,
Thus to save this great magician,
Save the life of Wainamoinen.'
Thus at last the blood-stream ended,
As the magic words were spoken.
Then the gray-beard, much rejoicing,
Sent his young son to the smithy,
There to make a healing balsam,
From the herbs of tender fibre,
63
From the healing plants and flowers,
From the stalks secreting honey,
From the roots, and leaves, and blossoms.
On the way he meets an oak-tree,
And the oak the son addresses:
'Hast thou honey in thy branches,
Does thy sap run full of sweetness?'
Thus the oak-tree wisely answers:
'Yea, but last night dripped the honey
Down upon my spreading branches,
And the clouds their fragrance sifted,
Sifted honey on my leaflets,
From their home within the heavens.'
Then the son takes oak-wood splinters,
Takes the youngest oak-tree branches,
Gathers many healing grasses,
Gathers many herbs and flowers,
Rarest herbs that grow in Northland,
Places them within the furnace
In a kettle made of copper;
Lets them steep and boil together,
Bits of bark chipped from the oak-tree,
Many herbs of healing virtues;
Steeps them one day, then a second,
Three long days of summer weather,
Days and nights in quick succession;
Then he tries his magic balsam,
Looks to see if it is ready,
If his remedy is finished;
But the balsam is unworthy.
Then he added other grasses,
Herbs of every healing virtue,
That were brought from distant nations,
Many hundred leagues from Northland,
Gathered by the wisest minstrels,
Thither brought by nine enchanters.
Three days more be steeped the balsam,
Three nights more the fire be tended,
Nine the days and nights be watched it,
Then again be tried the ointment,
Viewed it carefully and tested,
Found at last that it was ready,
64
Found the magic balm was finished.
Near by stood a branching birch-tree.
On the border of the meadow,
Wickedly it had been broken,
Broken down by evil Hisi;
Quick he takes his balm of healing,
And anoints the broken branches,
Rubs the balsam in the fractures,
Thus addresses then the birch-tree:
'With this balsam I anoint thee,
With this salve thy wounds I cover,
Cover well thine injured places;
Now the birch-tree shall recover,
Grow more beautiful than ever.'
True, the birch-tree soon recovered,
Grew more beautiful than ever,
Grew more uniform its branches,
And its bole more strong and stately.
Thus it was be tried the balsam,
Thus the magic salve he tested,
Touched with it the splintered sandstone,
Touched the broken blocks of granite,
Touched the fissures in the mountains,
And the broken parts united,
All the fragments grew together.
Then the young boy quick returning
With the balsam he had finished,
To the gray-beard gave the ointment,
And the boy these measures uttered
'Here I bring the balm of healing,
Wonderful the salve I bring thee;
It will join the broken granite,
Make the fragments grow together,
Heat the fissures in the mountains,
And restore the injured birch-tree.'
With his tongue the old man tested,
Tested thus the magic balsam,
Found the remedy effective,
Found the balm had magic virtues;
Then anointed he the minstrel,
Touched the wounds of Wainamoinen,
Touched them with his magic balsam,
65
With the balm of many virtues;
Speaking words of ancient wisdom,
These the words the gray-beard uttered:
'Do not walk in thine own virtue,
Do not work in thine own power,
Walk in strength of thy Creator;
Do not speak in thine own wisdom,
Speak with tongue of mighty Ukko.
In my mouth, if there be sweetness,
It has come from my Creator;
If my bands are filled with beauty,
All the beauty comes from Ukko.'
When the wounds had been anointed,
When the magic salve had touched them,
Straightway ancient Wainamoinen
Suffered fearful pain and anguish,
Sank upon the floor in torment,
Turning one way, then another,
Sought for rest and found it nowhere,
Till his pain the gray-beard banished,
Banished by the aid of magic,
Drove away his killing torment
To the court of all our trouble,
To the highest hill of torture,
To the distant rocks and ledges,
To the evil-bearing mountains,
To the realm of wicked Hisi.
Then be took some silken fabric,
Quick he tore the silk asunder,
Making equal strips for wrapping,
Tied the ends with silken ribbons,
Making thus a healing bandage;
Then he wrapped with skilful fingers
Wainamoinen's knee and ankle,
Wrapped the wounds of the magician,
And this prayer the gray-beard uttered
'Ukko's fabric is the bandage,
Ukko's science is the surgeon,
These have served the wounded hero,
Wrapped the wounds of the magician.
Look upon us, God of mercy,
Come and guard us, kind Creator,
66
And protect us from all evil!
Guide our feet lest they may stumble,
Guard our lives from every danger,
From the wicked wilds of Hisi.'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Felt the mighty aid of magic,
Felt the help of gracious Ukko,
Straightway stronger grew in body,
Straightway were the wounds united,
Quick the fearful pain departed.
Strong and hardy grew the hero,
Straightway walked in perfect freedom,
Turned his knee in all directions,
Knowing neither pain nor trouble.
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Raised his eyes to high Jumala,
Looked with gratitude to heaven,
Looked on high, in joy and gladness,
Then addressed omniscient Ukko,
This the prayer the minstrel uttered:
'O be praised, thou God of mercy,
Let me praise thee, my Creator,
Since thou gavest me assistance,
And vouchsafed me thy protection,
Healed my wounds and stilled mine anguish,
Banished all my pain and trouble,
Caused by Iron and by Hisi.
O, ye people of Wainola,
People of this generation,
And the folk of future ages,
Fashion not in emulation,
River boat, nor ocean shallop,
Boasting of its fine appearance,
God alone can work completion,
Give to cause its perfect ending,
Never hand of man can find it,
Never can the hero give it,
Ukko is the only Master.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
785:The Kalevala - Rune L
MARIATTA--WAINAMOINEN'S DEPARTURE.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Grew to maidenhood in Northland,
In the cabin of her father,
In the chambers of her mother,
Golden ringlets, silver girdles,
Worn against the keys paternal,
Glittering upon her bosom;
Wore away the father's threshold
With the long robes of her garments;
Wore away the painted rafters
With her beauteous silken ribbons;
Wore away the gilded pillars
With the touching of her fingers;
Wore away the birchen flooring
With the tramping of her fur-shoes.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Magic maid of little stature,
Guarded well her sacred virtue,
Her sincerity and honor,
Fed upon the dainty whiting,
On the inner bark of birch-wood,
On the tender flesh of lambkins.
When she hastened in the evening
To her milking in the hurdles,
Spake in innocence as follows:
'Never will the snow-white virgin
Milk the kine of one unworthy!'
When she journeyed over snow-fields,
On the seat beside her father,
Spake in purity as follows:
'Not behind a steed unworthy
Will I ever ride the snow-sledge!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Lived a virgin with her mother,
As a maiden highly honored,
Lived in innocence and beauty,
68
Daily drove her flocks to pasture,
Walking with the gentle lambkins.
When the lambkins climbed the mountains,
When they gamboled on the hill-tops,
Stepped the virgin to the meadow,
Skipping through a grove of lindens,
At the calling of the cuckoo,
To the songster's golden measures.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Looked about, intently listened,
Sat upon the berry-meadow
Sat awhile, and meditated
On a hillock by the forest,
And soliloquized as follows:
'Call to me, thou golden cuckoo,
Sing, thou sacred bird of Northland,
Sing, thou silver breasted songster,
Speak, thou strawberry of Ehstland,
Tell bow long must I unmarried,
As a shepherdess neglected,
Wander o'er these bills and mountains,
Through these flowery fens and fallows.
Tell me, cuckoo of the woodlands,
Sing to me how many summers
I must live without a husband,
As a shepherdess neglected!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Lived a shepherd-maid for ages,
As a virgin with her mother.
Wretched are the lives of shepherds,
Lives of maidens still more wretched,
Guarding flocks upon the mountains;
Serpents creep in bog and stubble,
On the greensward dart the lizards;
But it was no serpent singing,
Nor a sacred lizard calling,
It was but the mountain-berry
Calling to the lonely maiden:
'Come, O virgin, come and pluck me,
Come and take me to thy bosom,
Take me, tinsel-breasted virgin,
Take me, maiden, copper-belted,
69
Ere the slimy snail devours me,
Ere the black-worm feeds upon me.
Hundreds pass my way unmindful,
Thousands come within my hearing,
Berry-maidens swarm about me,
Children come in countless numbers,
None of these has come to gather,
Come to pluck this ruddy berry.'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Listened to its gentle pleading,
Ran to pick the berry, calling,
With her fair and dainty fingers,.
Saw it smiling near the meadow,
Like a cranberry in feature,
Like a strawberry in flavor;
But be Virgin, Mariatta,
Could not pluck the woodland-stranger,
Thereupon she cut a charm-stick,
Downward pressed upon the berry,
When it rose as if by magic,
Rose above her shoes of ermine,
Then above her copper girdle,
Darted upward to her bosom,
Leaped upon the maiden's shoulder,
On her dimpled chin it rested,
On her lips it perched a moment,
Hastened to her tongue expectant
To and fro it rocked and lingered,
Thence it hastened on its journey,
Settled in the maiden's bosom.
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus became a bride impregnate,
Wedded to the mountain-berry;
Lingered in her room at morning,
Sat at midday in the darkness,
Hastened to her couch at evening.
Thus the watchful mother wonders:
'What has happened to our Mary,
To our virgin, Mariatta,
That she throws aside her girdle,
Shyly slips through hall and chamber,
Lingers in her room at morning,
70
Hastens to her couch at evening,
Sits at midday in the darkness?'
On the floor a babe was playing,
And the young child thus made answer:
'This has happened to our Mary,
To our virgin, Mariatta,
This misfortune to the maiden:
She has lingered by the meadows,
Played too long among the lambkins,
Tasted of the mountain-berry.'
Long the virgin watched and waited,
Anxiously the days she counted,
Waiting for the dawn of trouble.
Finally she asked her mother,
These the words of Mariatta:
'Faithful mother, fond and tender,
Mother whom I love and cherish,
Make for me a place befitting,
Where my troubles may be lessened,
And my heavy burdens lightened.'
This the answer of the mother:
'Woe to thee, thou Hisi-maiden,
Since thou art a bride unworthy,
Wedded only to dishonor!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus replied in truthful measures:
'I am not a maid of Hisi,
I am not a bride unworthy,
Am not wedded to dishonor;
As a shepherdess I wandered
With the lambkins to the glen-wood,
Wandered to the berry-mountain,
Where the strawberry had ripened;
Quick as thought I plucked the berry,
On my tongue I gently laid it,
To and fro it rocked and lingered,
Settled in my heaving bosom.
This the source of all my trouble,
Only cause of my dishonor!'
As the mother was relentless,
Asked the maiden of her father,
This the virgin-mother's pleading:
71
O my father, full of pity,
Source of both my good and evil,
Build for me a place befitting,
Where my troubles may be lessened,
And my heavy burdens lightened.'
This the answer of the father,
Of the father unforgiving:
'Go, thou evil child of Hisi,
Go, thou child of sin and sorrow,
Wedded only to dishonor,
To the Great Bear's rocky chamber,
To the stone-cave of the growler,
There to lessen all thy troubles,
There to cast thy heavy burdens!'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Thus made answer to her father:
'I am not a child of Hisi,
I am not a bride unworthy,
Am not wedded to dishonor;
I shall bear a noble hero,
I shall bear a son immortal,
Who will rule among the mighty,
Rule the ancient Wainamoinen.'
Thereupon the virgin-mother
Wandered hither, wandered thither,
Seeking for a place befitting,
Seeking for a worthy birth-place
For her unborn son and hero;
Finally these words she uttered
'Piltti, thou my youngest maiden,
Trustiest of all my servants,
Seek a place within the village,
Ask it of the brook of Sara,
For the troubled Mariatta,
Child of sorrow and misfortune.'
Thereupon the little maiden,
Piltti, spake these words in answer:
'Whom shall I entreat for succor,
Who will lend me his assistance?
These the words of Mariatta:
'Go and ask it of Ruotus,
Where the reed-brook pours her waters.'
72
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Ever hopeful, ever willing,
Hastened to obey her mistress,
Needing not her exhortation;
Hastened like the rapid river,
Like the flying smoke of battle
To the cabin of Ruotus.
When she walked the hill-tops tottered,
When she ran the mountains trembled;
Shore-reeds danced upon the pasture,
Sandstones skipped about the heather
As the maiden, Piltti, hastened
To the dwelling of Ruotus.
At his table in his cabin
Sat Ruotus, eating, drinking,
In his simple coat of linen.
With his elbows on the table
Spake the wizard in amazement:
'Why hast thou, a maid of evil,
Come to see me in my cavern,
What the message thou art bringing?
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Gave this answer to the wizard:
'Seek I for a spot befitting,
Seek I for a worthy birth-place,
For an unborn child and hero;
Seek it near the Sara-streamlet,
Where the reed-brook pours her waters.
Came the wife of old Ruotus,
Walking with her arms akimbo,
Thus addressed the maiden, Piltti:
'Who is she that asks assistance,
Who the maiden thus dishonored,
What her name, and who her kindred?'
'I have come for Mariatta,
For the worthy virgin-mother.'
Spake the wife of old Ruotus,
Evil-minded, cruel-hearted:
'Occupied are all our chambers,
All our bath-rooms near the reed-brook;
in the mount of fire are couches,
is a stable in the forest,
73
For the flaming horse of Hisi;
In the stable is a manger
Fitting birth-place for the hero
From the wife of cold misfortune,
Worthy couch for Mariatta!'
Thereupon the servant, Piltti,
Hastened to her anxious mistress,
Spake these measures, much regretting.
'There is not a place befitting,
on the silver brook of Sara.
Spake the wife of old Ruotus:
'Occupied are all the chambers,
All the bath-rooms near the reed-brook;
In the mount of fire are couches,
Is a stable, in the forest,
For the flaming horse of Hisi;
In the stable is a manger,
Fitting birth-place for the hero
From the wife of cold misfortune,
Worthy couch for Mariatta.''
Thereupon the hapless maiden,
Mariatta, virgin-mother,
Fell to bitter tears and murmurs,
Spake these words in depths of sorrow:
'I, alas! must go an outcast,
Wander as a wretched hireling,
Like a servant in dishonor,
Hasten to the burning mountain,
To the stable in the forest,
Make my bed within a manger,
Near the flaming steed of Hisi!'
Quick the hapless virgin-mother,
Outcast from her father's dwelling,
Gathered up her flowing raiment,
Grasped a broom of birchen branches,
Hastened forth in pain and sorrow
To the stable in the woodlands,
On the heights of Tapio's mountains,
Spake these words in supplication:
'Come, I pray thee, my Creator,
Only friend in times of trouble,
Come to me and bring protection
74
To thy child, the virgin-mother,
To the maiden, Mariatta,
In this hour of sore affliction.
Come to me, benignant Ukko,
Come, thou only hope and refuge,
Lest thy guiltless child should perish,
Die the death of the unworthy!'
When the virgin, Mariatta,
Had arrived within the stable
Of the flaming horse of Hisi,
She addressed the steed as follows:
'Breathe, O sympathizing fire-horse,
Breathe on me, the virgin-mother,
Let thy heated breath give moisture,
Let thy pleasant warmth surround me,
Like the vapor of the morning;
Let this pure and helpless maiden
Find a refuge in thy manger!'
Thereupon the horse, in pity,
Breathed the moisture of his nostrils
On the body of the virgin,
Wrapped her in a cloud of vapor,
Gave her warmth and needed comforts,
Gave his aid to the afflicted,
To the virgin, Mariatta.
There the babe was born and cradled
Cradled in a woodland-manger,
Of the virgin, Mariatta,
Pure as pearly dews of morning,
Holy as the stars in heaven.
There the mother rocks her infant,
In his swaddling clothes she wraps him,
Lays him in her robes of linen;
Carefully the babe she nurtures,
Well she guards her much-beloved,
Guards her golden child of beauty,
Her beloved gem of silver.
But alas! the child has vanished,
Vanished while the mother slumbered.
Mariatta, lone and wretched,
Fell to weeping, broken-hearted,
Hastened off to seek her infant.
75
Everywhere the mother sought him,
Sought her golden child of beauty,
Her beloved gem of silver;
Sought him underneath the millstone,
In the sledge she sought him vainly,
Underneath the sieve she sought him,
Underneath the willow-basket,
Touched the trees, the grass she parted,
Long she sought her golden infant,
Sought him on the fir-tree-mountain,
In the vale, and hill, and heather;
Looks within the clumps of flowers,
Well examines every thicket,
Lifts the juniper and willow,
Lifts the branches of the alder.
Lo! a star has come to meet her,
And the star she thus beseeches-.
'O, thou guiding-star of Northland,
Star of hope, by God created,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?'
Thus the star of Northland answers:
'If I knew, I would not tell thee;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Set me here to watch at evening,
In the cold to shine forever,
Here to twinkle in the darkness.'
Comes the golden Moon to meet her,
And the Moon she thus beseeches:
'Golden Moon, by Ukko fashioned,
Hope and joy of Kalevala,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?
Speaks the golden Moon in answer:
'If I knew I would not tell thee;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Here to wander in the darkness,
All alone at eve to wander
On my cold and cheerless journey,
Sleeping only in the daylight,
76
Shining for the good of others.'
Thereupon the virgin-mother
Falls again to bitter weeping,
Hastens on through fen and forest,
Seeking for her babe departed.
Comes the silver Sun to meet her,
And the Sun she thus addresses:
'Silver Sun by Ukko fashioned,
Source of light and life to Northland,
Dost thou know and wilt thou tell me
Where my darling child has wandered,
Where my holy babe lies hidden?'
Wisely does the Sun make answer:
'Well I know thy babe's dominions,
Where thy holy child is sleeping,
Where Wainola's light lies hidden;
'Tis thy child that me created,
Made me king of earth and ether,
Made the Moon and Stars attend me,
Set me here to shine at midday,
Makes me shine in silver raiment,
Lets me sleep and rest at evening;
Yonder is thy golden infant,
There thy holy babe lies sleeping,
Hidden to his belt in water,
Hidden in the reeds and rushes.'
Mariatta, child of beauty,
Virgin-mother of the Northland,
Straightway seeks her babe in Swamp-land,
Finds him in the reeds and rushes;
Takes the young child on her bosom
To the dwelling of her father.
There the infant grew in beauty,
Gathered strength, and light, and wisdom,
All of Suomi saw and wondered.
No one knew what name to give him;
When the mother named him, Flower,
Others named him, Son-of-Sorrow.
When the virgin, Mariatta,
Sought the priesthood to baptize him,
Came an old man, Wirokannas,
With a cup of holy water,
77
Bringing to the babe his blessing;
And the gray-beard spake as follows:
'I shall not baptize a wizard,
Shall not bless a black-magician
With the drops of holy water;
Let the young child be examined,
Let us know that he is worthy,
Lest he prove the son of witchcraft.'
Thereupon old Wirokannas
Called the ancient Wainamoinen,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
To inspect the infant-wonder,
To report him good or evil.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful,
Carefully the child examined,
Gave this answer to his people:
'Since the child is but an outcast,
Born and cradled in a manger,
Since the berry is his father;
Let him lie upon the heather,
Let him sleep among the rushes,
Let him live upon the mountains;
Take the young child to the marshes,
Dash his head against the birch-tree.'
Then the child of Mariatta,
Only two weeks old, made answer:
'O, thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Son of Folly and Injustice,
Senseless hero of the Northland,
Falsely hast thou rendered judgment.
In thy years, for greater follies,
Greater sins and misdemeanors,
Thou wert not unjustly punished.
In thy former years of trouble,
When thou gavest thine own brother,
For thy selfish life a ransom,
Thus to save thee from destruction,
Then thou wert not sent to Swamp-land
To be murdered for thy follies.
In thy former years of sorrow,
When the beauteous Aino perished
In the deep and boundless blue-sea,
78
To escape thy persecutions,
Then thou wert not evil-treated,
Wert not banished by thy people.'
Thereupon old Wirokannas,
Of the wilderness the ruler,
Touched the child with holy water,
Crave the wonder-babe his blessing,
Gave him rights of royal heirship,
Free to live and grow a hero,
To become a mighty ruler,
King and Master of Karyala.
As the years passed Wainamoinen
Recognized his waning powers,
Empty-handed, heavy-hearted,
Sang his farewell song to Northland,
To the people of Wainola;
Sang himself a boat of copper,
Beautiful his bark of magic;
At the helm sat the magician,
Sat the ancient wisdom-singer.
Westward, westward, sailed the hero
O'er the blue-back of the waters,
Singing as he left Wainola,
This his plaintive song and echo:
'Suns may rise and set in Suomi,
Rise and set for generations,
When the North will learn my teachings,
Will recall my wisdom-sayings,
Hungry for the true religion.
Then will Suomi need my coming,
Watch for me at dawn of morning,
That I may bring back the Sampo,
Bring anew the harp of joyance,
Bring again the golden moonlight,
Bring again the silver sunshine,
Peace and plenty to the Northland.'
Thus the ancient Wainamoinen,
In his copper-banded vessel,
Left his tribe in Kalevala,
Sailing o'er the rolling billows,
Sailing through the azure vapors,
Sailing through the dusk of evening,
79
Sailing to the fiery sunset,
To the higher-landed regions,
To the lower verge of heaven;
Quickly gained the far horizon,
Gained the purple-colored harbor.
There his bark be firmly anchored,
Rested in his boat of copper;
But be left his harp of magic,
Left his songs and wisdom-sayings,
To the lasting joy of Suomi.
EPILOGUE.
Now I end my measured singing,
Bid my weary tongue keep silence,
Leave my songs to other singers.
Horses have their times of resting
After many hours of labor;
Even sickles will grow weary
When they have been long at reaping;
Waters seek a quiet haven
After running long in rivers;
Fire subsides and sinks in slumber
At the dawning of the morning
Therefore I should end my singing,
As my song is growing weary,
For the pleasure of the evening,
For the joy of morn arising.
Often I have heard it chanted,
Often heard the words repeated:
'Worthy cataracts and rivers
Never empty all their waters.'
Thus the wise and worthy singer
Sings not all his garnered wisdom;
Better leave unsung some sayings
Than to sing them out of season.
Thus beginning, and thus ending,
Do I roll up all my legends,
Roll them in a ball for safety,
In my memory arrange them,
In their narrow place of resting,
Lest the songs escape unheeded,
While the lock is still unopened,
While the teeth remain unparted,
80
And the weary tongue is silent.
Why should I sing other legends,
Chant them in the glen and forest,
Sing them on the hill and heather?
Cold and still my golden mother
Lies beneath the meadow, sleeping,
Hears my ancient songs no longer,
Cannot listen to my singing;
Only will the forest listen,
Sacred birches, sighing pine-trees,
Junipers endowed with kindness,
Alder-trees that love to bear me,
With the aspens and the willows.
When my loving mother left me,
Young was I, and low of stature;
Like the cuckoo of the forest,
Like the thrush upon the heather,
Like the lark I learned to twitter,
Learned to sing my simple measures,
Guided by a second mother,
Stern and cold, without affection;
Drove me helpless from my chamber
To the wind-side of her dwelling,
To the north-side of her cottage,
Where the chilling winds in mercy
Carried off the unprotected.
As a lark I learned to wander,
Wander as a lonely song-bird,
Through the forests and the fenlands
Quietly o'er hill and heather;
Walked in pain about the marshes,
Learned the songs of winds and waters,
Learned the music of the ocean,
And the echoes of the woodlands.
Many men that live to murmur,
Many women live to censure,
Many speak with evil motives;
Many they with wretched voices
Curse me for my wretched singing,
Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom,
Call my ancient songs unworthy,
Blame the songs and curse the singer.
81
Be not thus, my worthy people,
Blame me not for singing badly,
Unpretending as a minstrel.
I have never had the teaching,
Never lived with ancient heroes,
Never learned the tongues of strangers,
Never claimed to know much wisdom.
Others have had language-masters,
Nature was my only teacher,
Woods and waters my instructors.
Homeless, friendless, lone, and needy,
Save in childhood with my mother,
When beneath her painted rafters,
Where she twirled the flying spindle,
By the work-bench of my brother,
By the window of my sister,
In. the cabin of my father,
In my early days of childhood.
Be this as it may, my people,
This may point the way to others,
To the singers better gifted,
For the good of future ages,
For the coming generations,
For the rising folk of Suomi.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
786:The Kalevala - Rune Xxix
THE ISLE OF REFUGE.
Lemminkainen, full of joyance,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli,
Took provisions in abundance,
Fish and butter, bread and bacon,
Hastened to the Isle of Refuge,
Sailed away across the oceans,
Spake these measures on departing:
'Fare thee well, mine Island-dwelling,
I must sail to other borders,
To an island more protective,
Till the second summer passes;
Let the serpents keep the island,
Lynxes rest within the glen-wood,
Let the blue-moose roam the mountains,
Let the wild-geese cat the barley.
Fare thee well, my helpful mother!
When the warriors of the Northland,
From the dismal Sariola,
Come with swords, and spears, and cross-bows,
Asking for my head in vengeance,
Say that I have long departed,
Left my mother's Island-dwelling,
When the barley had been garnered.'
Then he launched his boat of copper,
Threw the vessel to the waters,
From the iron-banded rollers,
From the cylinders of oak-wood,
On the masts the sails he hoisted,
Spread the magic sails of linen,
In the stern the hero settled
And prepared to sail his vessel,
One hand resting on the rudder.
Then the sailor spake as follows,
These the words of Lemminkainen:
'Blow, ye winds, and drive me onward,
Blow ye steady, winds of heaven,
409
Toward the island in the ocean,
That my bark may fly in safety
To my father's place of refuge,
To the far and nameless island!'
Soon the winds arose as bidden,
Rocked the vessel o'er the billows,
O'er the blue-back of the waters,
O'er the vast expanse of ocean;
Blew two months and blew unceasing,
Blew a third month toward the island,
Toward his father's Isle of Refuge.
Sat some maidens on the seaside,
On the sandy beach of ocean,
Turned about in all directions,
Looking out upon the billows;
One was waiting for her brother,
And a second for her father,
And a third one, anxious, waited
For the, coming of her suitor;
There they spied young Lemminkainen,
There perceived the hero's vessel
Sailing o'er the bounding billows;
It was like a hanging cloudlet,
Hanging twixt the earth and heaven.
Thus the island-maidens wondered,
Thus they spake to one another:
'What this stranger on the ocean,
What is this upon the waters?
Art thou one of our sea-vessels?
Wert thou builded on this island?
Sail thou straightway to the harbor,
To the island-point of landing
That thy tribe may be discovered.'
Onward did the waves propel it,
Rocked his vessel o'er the billows,
Drove it to the magic island,
Safely landed Lemminkainen
On the sandy shore and harbor.
Spake he thus when he had landed,
These the words that Ahti uttered:
'Is there room upon this island,
Is there space within this harbor,
410
Where my bark may lie at anchor,
Where the sun may dry my vessel?'
This the answer of the virgins,
Dwellers on the Isle of Refuge:
'There is room within this harbor,
On this island, space abundant,
Where thy bark may lie at anchor,
Where the sun may dry thy vessel;
Lying ready are the rollers,
Cylinders adorned with copper;
If thou hadst a hundred vessels,
Shouldst thou come with boats a thousand,
We would give them room in welcome.'
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Rolled his vessel in the harbor,
On the cylinders of copper,
Spake these words when he had ended:
'Is there room upon this island,
Or a spot within these forests,
Where a hero may be hidden
From the coming din of battle,
From the play of spears and arrows?
Thus replied the Island-maidens:
'There are places on this island,
On these plains a spot befitting
Where to hide thyself in safety,
Hero-son of little valor.
Here are many, many castles,
Many courts upon this island;
Though there come a thousand heroes,
Though a thousand spearmen. follow,
Thou canst hide thyself in safety.'
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Is there room upon this island,
Where the birch-tree grows abundant,
Where this son may fell the forest,
And may cultivate the fallow? '
Answered thus the Island-maidens:
'There is not a spot befitting,
Not a place upon the island,
Where to rest thy wearied members,
Not the smallest patch of birch-wood,
411
Thou canst bring to cultivation.
All our fields have been divided,
All these woods have been apportioned,
Fields and forests have their owners.'
Lemminkainen asked this question,
These the words of Kaukomieli:
'Is there room upon this island,
Worthy spot in field or forest,
Where to Sing my songs of magic,
Chant my gathered store of wisdom,
Sing mine ancient songs and legends?'
Answered thus the Island-maidens:
'There is room upon this island,
Worthy place in these dominions,
Thou canst sing thy garnered wisdom,
Thou canst chant thine ancient legends,
Legends of the times primeval,
In the forest, in the castle,
On the island-plains and pastures.'
Then began the reckless minstrel
To intone his wizard-sayings;
Sang he alders to the waysides,
Sang the oaks upon the mountains,
On the oak-trees sang be branches,
On each branch he sang an acorn,
On the acorns, golden rollers,
On each roller, sang a cuckoo;
Then began the cuckoos, calling,
Gold from every throat came streaming,
Copper fell from every feather,
And each wing emitted silver,
Filled the isle with precious metals.
Sang again young Lemminkainen,
Conjured on, and sang, and chanted,
Sang to precious stones the sea-sands,
Sang the stones to pearls resplendent,
Robed the groves in iridescence,
Sang the island full of flowers,
Many-colored as the rainbow.
Sang again the magic minstrel,
In the court a well he conjured,
On the well a golden cover,
412
On the lid a silver dipper,
That the boys might drink the water,
That the maids might lave their eyelids.
On the plains he conjured lakelets,
Sang the duck upon the waters,
Golden-cheeked and silver-headed,
Sang the feet from shining copper;
And the Island-maidens wondered,
Stood entranced at Ahti's wisdom,
At the songs of Lemminkainen,
At the hero's magic power.
Spake the singer, Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'I would sing a wondrous legend,
Sing in miracles of sweetness,
If within some hall or chamber,
I were seated at the table.
If I sing not in the castle,
In some spot by walls surrounded
Then I sing my songs to zephyrs,
Fling them to the fields and forests.'
Answered thus the Island-maidens:
'On this isle are castle-chambers,
Halls for use of magic singers,
Courts complete for chanting legends,
Where thy singing will be welcome,
Where thy songs will not be scattered
To the forests of the island,
Nor thy wisdom lost in ether.'
Straightway Lemminkainen journeyed
With the maidens to the castle;
There he sang and conjured pitchers
On the borders of the tables,
Sang and conjured golden goblets
Foaming with the beer of barley;
Sang he many well-filled vessels,
Bowls of honey-drink abundant,
Sweetest butter, toothsome biscuit,
Bacon, fish, and veal, and venison,
All the dainties of the Northland,
Wherewithal to still his hunger.
But the proud-heart, Lemminkainen,
413
Was not ready for the banquet,
Did not yet begin his feasting,
Waited for a knife of silver,
For a knife of golden handle;
Quick he sang the precious metals,
Sang a blade from purest silver,
To the blade a golden handle,
Straightway then began his feasting,
Quenched his thirst and stilled his hunger,
Charmed the maidens on the island.
Then the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Roamed throughout the island-hamlets,
To the joy of all the virgins,
All the maids of braided tresses;
Wheresoe'er he turned his footsteps,
There appeared a maid to greet him;
When his hand was kindly offered,
There his band was kindly taken;
When he wandered out at evening,
Even in the darksome places,
There the maidens bade him welcome;
There was not an island-village
Where there were not seven castles,
In each castle seven daughters,
And the daughters stood in waiting,
Gave the hero joyful greetings,
Only one of all the maidens
Whom he did not greet with pleasure.
Thus the merry Lemminkainen
Spent three summers in the ocean,
Spent a merry time in refuge,
In the hamlets on the island,
To the pleasure of the maidens,
To the joy of all the daughters;
Only one was left neglected,
She a poor and graceless spinster,
On the isle's remotest border,
In the smallest of the hamlets.
'Then he thought about his journey
O'er the ocean to his mother,
To the cottage of his father.
There appeared the slighted spinster,
414
To the Northland son departing,
Spake these words to Lemminkainen:
'O, thou handsome Kaukomieli,
Wisdom-bard, and magic singer,
Since this maiden thou hast slighted,
May the winds destroy thy vessel,
Dash thy bark to countless fragments
On the ocean-rocks and ledges!'
Lemminkainen's thoughts were homeward,
Did not heed the maiden's murmurs,
Did not rise before the dawning
Of the morning on the island,
To the pleasure of the maiden
Of the much-neglected hamlet.
Finally at close of evening,
He resolved to leave the island,
He resolved to waken early,
Long before the dawn of morning;
Long before the time appointed,
He arose that he might wander
Through the hamlets of the island,
Bid adieu to all the maidens,
On the morn of his departure.
As he wandered hither, thither,
Walking through the village path-ways
To the last of all the hamlets;
Saw he none of all the castle-,
Where three dwellings were not standing;
Saw he none of all the dwellings
Where three heroes were not watching;
Saw he none of all the heroes,
Who was not engaged in grinding
Swords, and spears, and battle-axes,
For the death of Lemminkainen.
And these words the hero uttered:
'Now alas! the Sun arises
From his couch within the ocean,
On the frailest of the heroes,
On the saddest child of Northland;
On my neck the cloak of Lempo
Might protect me from all evil,
Though a hundred foes assail me,
415
Though a thousand archers follow.'
Then he left the maids ungreeted,
Left his longing for the daughters
Of the nameless Isle of Refuge,
With his farewell-words unspoken,
Hastened toward the island-harbor,
Toward his magic bark at anchor;
But he found it burned to ashes,
Sweet revenge had fired his vessel,
Lighted by the slighted spinster.
Then he saw the dawn of evil,
Saw misfortune hanging over,
Saw destruction round about him.
Straightway he began rebuilding
Him a magic sailing-vessel,
New and wondrous, full of beauty;
But the hero needed timber,
Boards, and planks, and beams, and braces,
Found the smallest bit of lumber,
Found of boards but seven fragments,
Of a spool he found three pieces,
Found six pieces of the distaff;
With these fragments builds his vessel,
Builds a ship of magic virtue,
Builds the bark with secret knowledge,
Through the will of the magician;
Strikes one blow, and builds the first part,
Strikes a second, builds the centre,
Strikes a third with wondrous power,
And the vessel is completed.
Thereupon the ship he launches,
Sings the vessel to the ocean,
And these words the hero utters:
'Like a bubble swim these waters,
Like a flower ride the billows;
Loan me of thy magic feathers,
Three, O eagle, four, O raven,
For protection to my vessel,
Lest it flounder in the ocean!'
Now the sailor, Lemminkainen,
Seats himself upon the bottom
Of the vessel he has builded,
416
Hastens on his journey homeward,
Head depressed and evil-humored,
Cap awry upon his forehead,
Mind dejected, heavy-hearted,
That he could not dwell forever
In the castles of the daughters
Of the nameless Isle of Refuge.
Spake the minstrel, Lemminkainen,
Handsome hero, Kaukomieli:
'Leave I must this merry island,
Leave her many joys and pleasures,
Leave her maids with braided tresses,
Leave her dances and her daughters,
To the joys of other heroes;
But I take this comfort with me:
All the maidens on the island,
Save the spinster who was slighted,
Will bemoan my loss for ages,
Will regret my quick departure;
They will miss me at the dances,
In the halls of mirth and joyance,
In the homes of merry maidens,
On my father's Isle of Refuge.'
Wept the maidens on the island,
Long lamenting, loudly calling
To the hero sailing homeward:
'Whither goest, Lemminkainen,
Why depart, thou best of heroes?
Dost thou leave from inattention,
Is there here a dearth of maidens,
Have our greetings been unworthy?'
Sang the magic Lemminkainen
To the maids as he was sailing,
This in answer to their calling:
'Leaving not for want of pleasure,
Do not go from dearth of women
Beautiful the island-maidens,
Countless as the sands their virtues.
This the reason of my going,
I am longing for my home-land,
Longing for my mother's cabins,
For the strawberries of Northland,
417
For the raspberries of Kalew,
For the maidens of my childhood,
For the children of my mother.'
Then the merry Lemminkainen
Bade farewell to all the island;
Winds arose and drove his vessel
On the blue-back of the ocean,
O'er the far-extending waters,
Toward the island of his mother.
On the shore were grouped the daughters
Of the magic Isle of Refuge,
On the rocks sat the forsaken,
Weeping stood the island-maidens,
Golden daughters, loud-lamenting.
Weep the maidens of the island
While the sail-yards greet their vision,
While the copper-beltings glisten;
Do not weep to lose the sail-yards,
Nor to lose the copper-beltings;
Weep they for the loss of Ahti,
For the fleeing Kaukomieli
Guiding the departing vessel.
Also weeps young Lemminkainen,
Sorely weeps, and loud-lamenting,
Weeps while he can see the island,
While the island hill-tops glisten;
Does not mourn the island-mountains,
Weeps he only for the maidens,
Left upon the Isle of Refuge.
Thereupon sailed Kaukomieli
On the blue-back of the ocean;
Sailed one day, and then a second,
But, alas! upon the third day,
There arose a mighty storm-wind,
And the sky was black with fury.
Blew the black winds from the north-west,
From the south-east came the whirlwind,
Tore away the ship's forecastle,
Tore away the vessel's rudder,
Dashed the wooden hull to pieces.
Thereupon wild Lemminkainen
Headlong fell upon the waters;
418
With his head he did the steering,
With his hands and feet, the rowing;
Swam whole days and nights unceasing,
Swam with hope and strength united,
Till at last appeared a cloudlet,
Growing cloudlet to the westward,
Changing to a promontory,
Into land within the ocean.
Swiftly to the shore swam Ahti,
Hastened to a magic castle,
Found therein a hostess baking,
And her daughters kneading barley,
And these words the hero uttered:
'O, thou hostess, filled with kindness,
Couldst thou know my pangs of hunger,
Couldst thou guess my name and station,
Thou wouldst hasten to the storehouse,
Bring me beer and foaming liquor,
Bring the best of thy provisions,
Bring me fish, and veal, and bacon,
Butter, bread, and honeyed biscuits,
Set for me a wholesome dinner,
Wherewithal to still my hunger,
Quench the thirst of Lemminkainen.
Days and nights have I been swimming,
Buffeting the waves of ocean,
Seemed as if the wind protected,
And the billows gave me shelter,'
Then the hostess, filled with kindness,
Hastened to the mountain storehouse,
Cut some butter, veal, and bacon,
Bread, and fish, and honeyed biscuit,
Brought the best of her provisions,
Brought the mead and beer of barley,
Set for him a toothsome dinner,
Wherewithal to still his hunger,
Quench the thirst of Lemminkainen.
When the hero's feast had ended,
Straightway was a magic vessel
Given by the kindly hostess
To the weary Kaukomieli,
Bark of beauty, new and hardy,
419
Wherewithal to aid the stranger
In his journey to his home-land,
To the cottage of his mother.
Quickly sailed wild Lemminkainen
On the blue-back of the ocean;
Sailed he days and nights unceasing,
Till at last he reached the borders
Of his own loved home and country;
There beheld he scenes familiar,
Saw the islands, capes, and rivers,
Saw his former shipping-stations,
Saw he many ancient landmarks,
Saw the mountains with their fir-trees,
Saw the pine-trees on the hill-tops,
Saw the willows in the lowlands;
Did not see his father's cottage,
Nor the dwellings of his mother.
Where a mansion once had risen,
There the alder-trees were growing,
Shrubs were growing on the homestead,
Junipers within the court-yard.
Spake the reckless Lemminkainen:
'In this glen I played and wandered,
On these stones I rocked for ages,
On this lawn I rolled and tumbled,
Frolicked on these woodland-borders,
When a child of little stature.
Where then is my mother's dwelling,
Where the castles of my father?
Fire, I fear, has found the hamlet,
And the winds dispersed the ashes.'
Then he fell to bitter weeping,
Wept one day and then a second,
Wept the third day without ceasing;
Did not mourn the ancient homestead,
Nor the dwellings of his father;
Wept he for his darling mother,
Wept he for the dear departed,
For the loved ones of the island.
Then he saw the bird of heaven,
Saw an eagle flying near him,
And he asked the bird this question:
420
'Mighty eagle, bird majestic,
Grant to me the information,
Where my mother may have wandered,
Whither I may go and find her!'
But the eagle knew but little,
Only knew that Ahti's people
Long ago together perished;
And the raven also answered
That his people had been scattered
By the, swords, and spears, and arrows,
Of his enemies from Pohya.
Spake the hero, Lemminkainen:
'Faithful mother, dear departed,
Thou who nursed me in my childhood,
Art thou dead and turned to ashes,
Didst thou perish for my follies,
O'er thy head are willows weeping,
Junipers above thy body,
Alders watching o'er thy slumbers?
This my punishment for evil,
This the recompense of folly!
Fool was I, a son unworthy,
That I measured swords in Northland
With the landlord of Pohyola,
To my tribe came fell destruction,
And the death of my dear mother,
Through my crimes and misdemeanors.'
Then the ministrel [sic] looked about him,
Anxious, looked in all directions,
And beheld some gentle foot-prints,
Saw a pathway lightly trodden
Where the heather had been beaten.
Quick as thought the path he followed,
Through the meadows, through the brambles,
O'er the hills, and through the valleys,
To a forest, vast and cheerless;
Travelled far and travelled farther,
Still a greater distance travelled,
To a dense and hidden glenwood,
In the middle of the island;
Found therein a sheltered cabin,
Found a small and darksome dwelling
421
Built between the rocky ledges,
In the midst of triple pine-trees;
And within he spied his mother,
Found his gray-haired mother weeping.
Lemminkainen loud rejoices,
Cries in tones of joyful greetings,
These the words that Ahti utters:
'Faithful mother, well-beloved,
Thou that gavest me existence,
Happy I, that thou art living,
That thou hast not yet departed
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
To the islands of the blessed,
I had thought that thou hadst perished,
Hadst been murdered by my foemen,
Hadst been slain with bows and arrows.
Heavy are mine eyes from weeping,
And my checks are white with sorrow,
Since I thought my mother slaughtered
For the sins I had committed!'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Long, indeed, hast thou been absent,
Long, my son, hast thou been living
In thy father's Isle of Refuge,
Roaming on the secret island,
Living at the doors of strangers,
Living in a nameless country,
Refuge from the Northland foemen.'
Spake the, hero, Lemminkainen:
'Charming is that spot for living,
Beautiful the magic island,
Rainbow-colored was the forest,
Blue the glimmer of the meadows,
Silvered were, the pine-tree branches,
Golden were the heather-blossoms;
All the woodlands dripped with honey,
Eggs in every rock and crevice,
Honey flowed from birch and sorb-tree,
Milk in streams from fir and aspen,
Beer-foam dripping from the willows,
Charming there to live and linger,
All their edibles delicious.
422
This their only source of trouble:
Great the fear for all the maidens,
All the heroes filled with envy,
Feared the coming of the stranger;
Thought that all the island-maidens,
Thought that all the wives and daughters,
All the good, and all the evil,
Gave thy son too much attention;
Thought the stranger, Lemminkainen,
Saw the Island-maids too often;
Yet the virgins I avoided,
Shunned the good and shunned the evil,
Shunned the host of charming daughters,
As the black-wolf shuns the sheep-fold,
As the hawk neglects the chickens.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
787:The Kalevala - Rune Iii
WAINAMOINEN AND YOUKAHAINEN.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel,
Passed his years in full contentment,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Singing ever wondrous legends,
Songs of ancient wit and wisdom,
Chanting one day, then a second,
Singing in the dusk of evening,
Singing till the dawn of morning,
Now the tales of old-time heroes,
Tales of ages long forgotten,
Now the legends of creation,
Once familiar to the children,
By our children sung no longer,
Sung in part by many heroes,
In these mournful days of evil,
Evil days our race befallen.
Far and wide the story travelled,
Far away men spread the knowledge
Of the chanting of the hero,
Of the song of Wainamoinen;
To the South were heard the echoes,
All of Northland heard the story.
Far away in dismal Northland,
Lived the singer, Youkahainen,
Lapland's young and reckless minstrel,
Once upon a time when feasting,
Dining with his friends and fellows,
Came upon his ears the story
That there lived a sweeter singer,
On the meadows of Wainola,
On the plains of Kalevala,
Better skilled in chanting legends,
Better skilled than Youkahainen,
Better than the one that taught him.
Straightway then the bard grew angry,
23
Envy rose within his bosom,
Envy of this Wainamoinen,
Famed to be a sweeter singer;
Hastes he angry to his mother,
To his mother, full of wisdom,
Vows that he will southward hasten,
Hie him southward and betake him
To the dwellings of Wainola,
To the cabins of the Northland,
There as bard to vie in battle,
With the famous Wainamoinen.
'Nay,' replies the anxious father,
'Do not go to Kalevala.'
'Nay,' replies the fearful mother,
'Go not hence to Wainamoinen,
There with him to offer battle;
He will charm thee with his singing
Will bewitch thee in his anger,
He will drive thee back dishonored,
Sink thee in the fatal snow-drift,
Turn to ice thy pliant fingers,
Turn to ice thy feet and ankles.'
These the words of Youkahainen:
Good the judgement of a father,
Better still, a mother's counsel,
Best of all one's own decision.
I will go and face the minstrel,
Challenge him to sing in contest,
Challenge him as bard to battle,
Sing to him my sweet-toned measures,
Chant to him my oldest legends,
Chant to him my garnered wisdom,
That this best of boasted singers,
That this famous bard of Suomi,
Shall be worsted in the contest,
Shall become a hapless minstrel;
By my songs shall I transform him,
That his feet shall be as flint-stone,
And as oak his nether raiment;
And this famous, best of singers,
Thus bewitched, shall carry ever,
In his heart a stony burden,
24
On his shoulder bow of marble,
On his hand a flint-stone gauntlet,
On his brow a stony visor.'
Then the wizard, Youkahainen,
Heeding not advice paternal,
Heeding not his mother's counsel,
Leads his courser from his stable,
Fire outstreaming from his nostrils,
From his hoofs, the sparks outshooting,
Hitches to his sledge, the fleet-foot,
To his golden sledge, the courser,
Mounts impetuous his snow-sledge,
Leaps upon the hindmost cross-bench,
Strikes his courser with his birch-whip,
With his birch-whip, pearl-enamelled.
Instantly the prancing racer
Springs away upon his journey;
On he, restless, plunges northward,
All day long be onward gallops,
All the next day, onward, onward,
So the third from morn till evening,
Till the third day twilight brings him
To the meadows of Wainola,
To the plains of Kalevala.
As it happened, Wainamoinen,
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Rode that sunset on the highway,
Silently for pleasure driving
Down Wainola's peaceful meadows,
O'er the plains of Kalevala.
Youkahainen, young and fiery,
Urging still his foaming courser,
Dashes down upon the singer,
Does not turn aside in meeting,
Meeting thus in full collision;
Shafts are driven tight together,
Hames and collars wedged and tangled,
Tangled are the reins and traces.
Thus perforce they make a stand-still,
Thus remain and well consider;
Water drips from hame and collar,
Vapors rise from both their horses.
25
Speaks the minstrel, Wainamoinen:
'Who art thou, and whence? Thou comest
Driving like a stupid stripling,
Wainamoinen and Youkahainen.
Careless, dashing down upon me.
Thou hast ruined shafts and traces;
And the collar of my racer
Thou hast shattered into ruin,
And my golden sleigh is broken,
Box and runners dashed to pieces.'
Youkahainen then make answer,
Spake at last the words that follow:
'I am youthful Youkahainen,
But make answer first, who thou art,
Whence thou comest, where thou goest,
From what lowly tribe descended?'
Wainamolinen, wise and ancient,
Answered thus the youthful minstrel:
'If thou art but Youkahainen,
Thou shouldst give me all the highway;
I am many years thy senior.'
Then the boastful Youkahainen
Spake again to Wainamoinen:
'Young or ancient, little matter,
Little consequence the age is;
He that higher stands in wisdom,
He whose knowledge is the greater,
He that is the sweeter singer,
He alone shall keep the highway,
And the other take the roadside.
Art thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Famous sorcerer and minstrel?
Let us then begin our singing,
Let us sing our ancient legends,
Let us chant our garnered wisdom,
That the one may hear the other,
That the one may judge the other,
In a war of wizard sayings.'
Wainamoinen, wise and ancient,
Thus replied in modest accents:
'What I know is very little,
Hardly is it worth the singing,
26
Neither is my singing wondrous:
All my days I have resided
In the cold and dreary Northland,
In a desert land enchanted,
In my cottage home for ayes;
All the songs that I have gathered,
Are the cuckoo's simple measures,
Some of these I may remember;
But since thou perforce demandest,
I accept thy boastful challenge.
Tell me now, my golden youngster,
What thou knowest more than others,
Open now thy store of wisdom.'
Thus made answer Youkahainen,
Lapland's young and fiery minstrel:
'Know I many bits of learning
This I know in perfect clearness:
Every roof must have a chimney,
Every fire-place have a hearth-stone;
Lives of seal are free and merry,
Merry is the life of walrus,
Feeding on incautious salmon,
Daily eating perch and whiting;
Whitings live in quiet shallows,
Salmon love the level bottoms;
Spawns the pike in coldest weather,
And defies the storms of winter.
Slowly perches swim in Autumn,
Wry-backed, hunting deeper water,
Spawn in shallows in the summer,
Bounding on the shore of ocean.
Should this wisdom seem too little,
I can tell thee other matters,
Sing thee other wizard sayings:
All the Northmen plow with reindeer,
Mother-horses plow the Southland,
Inner Lapland plows with oxen;
All the trees on Pisa-mountain,
Know I well in all their grandeur;
On the Horna-rock are fir-trees,
Fir-trees growing tall and slender;
Slender grow the trees on mountains.
27
Three, the water-falls in number,
Three in number, inland oceans,
Three in number, lofty mountains,
Shooting to the vault of heaven.
Hallapyora's near to Yaemen,
Katrakoski in Karyala;
Imatra, the falling water,
Tumbles, roaring, into Wuoksi.'
Then the ancient Wainimoinen:
'Women's tales and children's wisdom
Do not please a bearded hero,
Hero, old enough for wedlock;
Tell the story of creation,
Tell me of the world's beginning,
Tell me of the creatures in it,
And philosophize a little.'
Then the youthful Youkahainen
Thus replied to Wainamoinen:
'Know I well the titmouse-fountains,
Pretty birdling is the titmouse;
And the viper, green, a serpent;
Whitings live in brackish waters;
Perches swim in every river;
Iron rusts, and rusting weakens;
Bitter is the taste of umber;
Boiling water is malicious;
Fire is ever full of danger;
First physician, the Creator;
Remedy the oldest, water;
Magic is the child of sea-foam;
God the first and best adviser;
Waters gush from every mountain;
Fire descended first from heaven;
Iron from the rust was fashioned;
Copper from the rocks created;
Marshes are of lands the oldest;
First of all the trees, the willow;
Fir-trees were the first of houses;
Hollowed stones the first of kettles.'
Now the ancient Wainamoinen
Thus addresses Youkahainen:
'Canst thou give me now some wisdom,
28
Is this nonsense all thou knowest?'
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'I can tell thee still a trifle,
Tell thee of the times primeval,
When I plowed the salt-sea's bosom,
When I raked the sea-girt islands,
When I dug the salmon-grottoes,
Hollowed out the deepest caverns,
When I all the lakes created,
When I heaped the mountains round them,
When I piled the rocks about them.
I was present as a hero,
Sixth of wise and ancient heroes,
Seventh of all primeval heroes,
When the heavens were created,
When were formed the ether-spaces,
When the sky was crystal-pillared,
When was arched the beauteous rainbow,
When the Moon was placed in orbit,
When the silver Sun was planted,
When the Bear was firmly stationed,
And with stars the heavens were sprinkled.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Thou art surely prince of liars,
Lord of all the host of liars;
Never wert thou in existence,
Surely wert thou never present,
When was plowed the salt-sea's bosom,
When were raked the sea-girt islands,
When were dug the salmon-grottoes,
When were hollowed out the caverns,
When the lakes were all created,
When were heaped the mountains round them,
When the rocks were piled about them.
Thou wert never seen or heard of
When the earth was first created,
When were made the ether-spaces,
When the air was crystal-pillared,
When the Moon was placed in orbit,
When the silver Sun was planted,
When the Bear was firmly stationed,
When the skies with stars were sprinkled.'
29
Then in anger Youkahainen
Answered ancient Wainamoinen:
'Then, sir, since I fail in wisdom,
With the sword I offer battle;
Come thou, famous bard and minstrel,
Thou the ancient wonder-singer,
Let us try our strength with broadswords,
let our blades be fully tested.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Not thy sword and not thy wisdom,
Not thy prudence, nor thy cunning,
Do I fear a single moment.
Let who may accept thy challenge,
Not with thee, a puny braggart,
Not with one so vain and paltry,
Will I ever measure broadswords.'
Then the youthful Youkahainen,
Mouth awry and visage sneering,
Shook his golden locks and answered:
'Whoso fears his blade to measure,
Fears to test his strength at broadswords,
Into wild-boar of the forest,
Swine at heart and swine in visage,
Singing I will thus transform him;
I will hurl such hero-cowards,
This one hither, that one thither,
Stamp him in the mire and bedding,
In the rubbish of the stable.'
Angry then grew Wainamoinen,
Wrathful waxed, and fiercely frowning,
Self-composed he broke his silence,
And began his wondrous singing.
Sang he not the tales of childhood,
Children's nonsense, wit of women,
Sang he rather bearded heroes,
That the children never heard of,
That the boys and maidens knew not
Known but half by bride and bridegroom,
Known in part by many heroes,
In these mournful days of evil,
Evil times our race befallen.
Grandly sang wise Wainamoinen,
30
Till the copper-bearing mountains,
And the flinty rocks and ledges
Heard his magic tones and trembled;
Mountain cliffs were torn to pieces,
All the ocean heaved and tumbled;
And the distant hills re-echoed.
Lo! the boastful Youkahainen
Is transfixed in silent wonder,
And his sledge with golden trimmings
Floats like brushwood on the billows;
Sings his braces into reed-grass,
Sings his reins to twigs of willow,
And to shrubs his golden cross-bench.
Lo! his birch-whip, pearl-enameled,
Floats a reed upon the border;
Lo! his steed with golden forehead,
Stands a statue on the waters;
Hames and traces are as fir-boughs,
And his collar, straw and sea-grass.
Still the minstrel sings enchantment,
Sings his sword with golden handle,
Sings it into gleam of lightning,
Hangs it in the sky above him;
Sings his cross-bow, gaily painted,
To a rainbow o'er the ocean;
Sings his quick and feathered arrows
Into hawks and screaming eagles;
Sings his dog with bended muzzle,
Into block of stone beside him;
Sings his cap from off his forehead,
Sings it into wreaths of vapor;
From his hands he sings his gauntlets
Into rushes on the waters;
Sings his vesture, purple-colored,
Into white clouds in the heavens;
Sings his girdle, set with jewels,
Into twinkling stars around him;
And alas! for Youkahainen,
Sings him into deeps of quick-sand;
Ever deeper, deeper, deeper,
In his torture, sinks the wizard,
To his belt in mud and water.
31
Now it was that Youkahainen
Comprehended but too clearly
What his folly, what the end was,
Of the journey he had ventured,
Vainly he had undertaken
For the glory of a contest
With the grand, old Wainamoinen.
When at last young Youkahainen,
Pohyola's old and sorry stripling,
Strives his best to move his right foot,
But alas! the foot obeys not;
When he strives to move his left foot,
Lo! he finds it turned to flint-stone.
Thereupon sad Youkahainen,
In the deeps of desperation,
And in earnest supplication,
Thus addresses Wainamoinen:
'O thou wise and worthy minstrel,
Thou the only true, magician,
Cease I pray thee thine enchantment,.
Only turn away thy magic,
Let me leave this slough of horror,
Loose me from this stony prison,
Free me from this killing torment,
I will pay a golden ransom.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'What the ransom thou wilt give me
If I cease from mine enchantment,
If I turn away my magic,
Lift thee from thy slough of horror,
Loose thee from thy stony prison,
Free thee from thy killing torment?'
Answered youthful Youkahainen:
'Have at home two magic cross-bows,
Pair of bows of wondrous power,
One so light a child can bend it,
Only strength can bend the other,
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Do not wish thy magic cross-bows,
Have a few of such already,
Thine to me are worse than useless
32
I have bows in great abundance,
Bows on every nail and rafter,
Bows that laugh at all the hunters,
Bows that go themselves a-hunting.'
Then the ancient Wainamoinen
Sang alas! poor Youkahainen
Deeper into mud and water,
Deeper in the slough of torment.
Youkahainen thus made answer:
'Have at home two magic shallops,
Beautiful the boats and wondrous;
One rides light upon the ocean,
One is made for heavy burdens;
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Do not wish thy magic shallops,
Have enough of such already;
All my bays are full of shallops,
All my shores are lined with shallops,
Some before the winds are sailors,
Some were built to sail against them.'
Still the Wainola bard and minstrel
Sings again poor Youkahainen
Deeper, deeper into torment,
Into quicksand to his girdle,
Till the Lapland bard in anguish
Speaks again to Wainamoinen:
'Have at home two magic stallions,
One a racer, fleet as lightning,
One was born for heavy burdens;
Take of these the one that pleases.'
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'Neither do I wish thy stallions,
Do not need thy hawk-limbed stallions,
Have enough of these already;
Magic stallions swarm my stables,
Eating corn at every manger,
Broad of back to hold the water,
Water on each croup in lakelets.'
Still the bard of Kalevala
Sings the hapless Lapland minstrel
Deeper, deeper into torment,
33
To his shoulders into water.
Spake again young Youkahainen:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Thou the only true magician,
Cease I pray thee thine enchantment,
Only turn away thy magic,
I will give thee gold abundant,
Countless stores of shining silver;
From the wars my father brought it,
Brought it from the hard-fought battles.'
Spake the wise, old Wainamoinen:
'For thy gold I have no longing,
Neither do I wish thy silver,
Have enough of each already;
Gold abundant fills my chambers,
On each nail hang bags of silver,
Gold that glitters in the sunshine,
Silver shining in the moonlight.'
Sank the braggart, Youkahainen,
Deeper in his slough of torment,
To his chin in mud and water,
Ever praying, thus beseeching:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Greatest of the old magicians,
Lift me from this pit of horror,
From this prison-house of torture;
I will give thee all my corn-fields,
Give thee all my corn in garners,
Thus my hapless life to ransom,
Thus to gain eternal freedom.'
Wainamoinen thus made answer:
'Take thy corn to other markets,
Give thy garners to the needy;
I have corn in great abundance,
Fields have I in every quarter,
Corn in all my fields is growing;
One's own fields are always richer,
One's own grain is much the sweeter.'
Lapland's young and reckless minstrel,
Sorrow-laden, thus enchanted,
Deeper sinks in mud and water,
Fear-enchained and full of anguish,
34
In the mire, his beard bedrabbled,
Mouth once boastful filled with sea-weed,
In the grass his teeth entangled,
Youkahainen thus beseeches:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Wisest of the wisdom-singers,
Cease at last thine incantations,
Only turn away thy magic,
And my former life restore me,
Lift me from this stifling torment,
Free mine eyes from sand and water,
I will give thee sister, Aino,
Fairest daughter of my mother,
Bride of thine to be forever,
Bride of thine to do thy pleasure,
Sweep the rooms within thy cottage,
Keep thy dwelling-place in order,
Rinse for thee the golden platters,
Spread thy couch with finest linens,
For thy bed, weave golden covers,
Bake for thee the honey-biscuit.'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Finds at last the wished-for ransom,
Lapland's young and fairest daughter,
Sister dear of Youkahainen;
Happy he, that he has won him,
In his age a beauteous maiden,
Bride of his to be forever,
Pride and joy of Kalevala.
Now the happy Wainamoinen,
Sits upon the rock of gladness,
Joyful on the rock of music,
Sings a little, sings and ceases,
Sings again, and sings a third time,
Thus to break the spell of magic,
Thus to lessen the enchantment,
Thus the potent charm to banish.
As the magic spell is broken,
Youkahainen, sad, but wiser,
Drags his feet from out the quicksand,
Lifts his beard from out the water,
From the rocks leads forth his courser,
35
Brings his sledge back from the rushes,
Calls his whip back from the ocean,
Sets his golden sledge in order,
Throws himself upon the cross-bench,
Snaps his whip and hies him homeward,
Hastens homeward, heavy-hearted,
Sad indeed to meet his mother,
Aino's mother, gray and aged.
Careless thus be hastens homeward,
Nears his home with noise and bustle,
Reckless drives against the pent-house,
Breaks the shafts against the portals,
Breaks his handsome sledge in pieces.
Then his mother, quickly guessing,
Would have chided him for rashness,
But the father interrupted:
'Wherefore dost thou break thy snow-sledge,
Wherefore dash thy thills in fragments,
Wherefore comest home so strangely,
Why this rude and wild behavior?'
Now alas! poor Youkahainen,
Cap awry upon his forehead,
Falls to weeping, broken-hearted,
Head depressed and mind dejected,
Eyes and lips expressing sadness,
Answers not his anxious father.
Then the mother quickly asked him,
Sought to find his cause for sorrow:
'Tell me, first-born, why thou weepest,
Why thou weepest, heavy-hearted,
Why thy mind is so dejected,
Why thine eyes express such sadness.'
Youkahainen then made answer:
'Golden mother, ever faithful,
Cause there is to me sufficient,
Cause enough in what has happened,
Bitter cause for this my sorrow,
Cause for bitter tears and murmurs:
All my days will pass unhappy,
Since, O mother of my being,
I have promised beauteous Aino,
Aino, thy beloved daughter,
36
Aino, my devoted sister,
To decrepit Wainamoinen,
Bride to be to him forever,
Roof above him, prop beneath him,
Fair companion at his fire-side.'
Joyful then arose the mother,
Clapped her hands in glee together,
Thus addressing Youkahainen:
'Weep no more, my son beloved,
Thou hast naught to cause thy weeping,
Hast no reason for thy sorrow,
Often I this hope have cherished;
Many years have I been praying
That this mighty bard and hero,
Wise and valiant Wainamoinen,
Spouse should be to beauteous Aino,
Son-in-law to me, her mother.'
But the fair and lovely maiden,
Sister dear of Youkahainen,
Straightway fell to bitter weeping,
On the threshold wept and lingered,
Wept all day and all the night long,
Wept a second, then a third day,
Wept because a bitter sorrow
On her youthful heart had fallen.
Then the gray-haired mother asked her:
'Why this weeping, lovely Aino?
Thou hast found a noble suitor,
Thou wilt rule his spacious dwelling,
At his window sit and rest thee,
Rinse betimes his golden platters,
Walk a queen within his dwelling.'
Thus replied the tearful Aino:
'Mother dear, and all-forgiving,
Cause enough for this my sorrow,
Cause enough for bitter weeping:
I must loose my sunny tresses,
Tresses beautiful and golden,
Cannot deck my hair with jewels,
Cannot bind my head with ribbons,
All to be hereafter hidden
Underneath the linen bonnet
37
That the wife. must wear forever;
Weep at morning, weep at evening,
Weep alas! for waning beauty,
Childhood vanished, youth departed,
Silver sunshine, golden moonlight,
Hope and pleasure of my childhood,
Taken from me now forever,
And so soon to be forgotten
At the tool-bench of my brother,
At the window of my sister,
In the cottage of my father.'
Spake again the gray-haired mother
To her wailing daughter Aino:
'Cease thy sorrow, foolish maiden,
By thy tears thou art ungrateful,
Reason none for thy repining,
Not the slightest cause for weeping;
Everywhere the silver sunshine
Falls as bright on other households;
Not alone the moonlight glimmers
Through thy father's open windows,
On the work-bench of thy brother;
Flowers bloom in every meadow,
Berries grow on every mountain;
Thou canst go thyself and find them,
All the day long go and find them;
Not alone thy brother's meadows
Grow the beauteous vines and flowers;
Not alone thy father's mountains
Yield the ripe, nutritious berries;
Flowers bloom in other meadows,
Berries grow on other mountains,
There as here, my lovely Aino.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
788:The Kalevala - Rune Xxv
WAINAMOINEN'S WEDDING-SONGS.
At the home of Ilmarinen
Long had they been watching, waiting,
For the coming of the blacksmith,
With his bride from Sariola.
Weary were the eyes of watchers,
Waiting from the father's portals,
Looking from the mother's windows;
Weary were the young knees standing
At the gates of the magician;
Weary grew the feet of children,
Tramping to the walls and watching;
Worn and torn, the shoes of heroes,
Running on the shore to meet him.
Now at last upon a morning
Of a lovely day in winter,
Heard they from the woods the rumble
Of a snow-sledge swiftly bounding.
Lakko, hostess of Wainola,
She the lovely Kalew-daughter,
Spake these words in great excitement:
''Tis the sledge of the magician,
Comes at last the metal-worker
From the dismal Sariola,
By his side the Bride of Beauty!
Welcome, welcome, to this hamlet,
Welcome to thy mother's hearth-stone,
To the dwelling of thy father,
By thine ancestors erected!'
Straightway came great Ilmarinen
To his cottage drove the blacksmith,
To the fireside of his father,
To his mother's ancient dwelling.
Hazel-birds were sweetly singing
On the newly-bended collar;
Sweetly called the sacred cuckoos
From the summit of the break-board;
424
Merry, jumped the graceful squirrel
On the oaken shafts and cross-bar.
Lakko, Kalew's fairest hostess,
Beauteous daughter of Wainola,
Spake these words of hearty welcome:
'For the new moon hopes the village,
For the sun, the happy maidens,
For the boat, the swelling water;
I have not the moon expected,
For the sun have not been waiting,
I have waited for my hero,
Waited for the Bride of Beauty;
Watched at morning, watched at evening,
Did not know but some misfortune,
Some sad fate had overtaken
Bride and bridegroom on their journey;
Thought the maiden growing weary,
Weary of my son's attentions,
Since he faithfully had promised
To return to Kalevala,
Ere his foot-prints had departed
From the snow-fields of his father.
Every morn I looked and listened,
Constantly I thought and wondered
When his sledge would rumble homeward,
When it would return triumphant
To his home, renowned and ancient.
Had a blind and beggared straw-horse
Hobbled to these shores awaiting,
With a sledge of but two pieces,
Well the steed would have been lauded,
Had it brought my son beloved,
Had it brought the Bride of Beauty.
Thus I waited long, impatient,
Looking out from morn till even,
Watching with my head extended,
With my tresses streaming southward,
With my eyelids widely opened,
Waiting for my son's returning
To this modest home of heroes,
To this narrow place of resting.
Finally am I rewarded,
425
For the sledge has come triumphant,
Bringing home my son and hero,
By his side the Rainbow maiden,
Red her cheeks, her visage winsome,
Pride and joy of Sariola.
'Wizard-bridegroom of Wainola,
Take thy-courser to the stable,
Lead him to the well-filled manger,
To the best of grain and clover;
Give to us thy friendly greetings,
Greetings send to all thy people.
When thy greetings thou hast ended,
Then relate what has befallen
To our hero in his absence.
Hast thou gone without adventure
To the dark fields of Pohyola,
Searching for the Maid of Beauty?
Didst thou scale the hostile ramparts,
Didst thou take the virgin's mansion,
Passing o'er her mother's threshold,
Visiting the halls of Louhi?
'But I know without the asking,
See the answer to my question:
Comest from the North a victor,
On thy journey well contented;
Thou hast brought the Northland daughter,
Thou hast razed the hostile portals,
Thou hast stormed the forts of Louhi,
Stormed the mighty walls opposing,
On thy journey to Pohyola,
To the village of the father.
In thy care the bride is sitting,
In thine arms, the Rainbow-maiden,
At thy side, the pride of Northland,
Mated to the highly-gifted.
Who has told the cruel story,
Who the worst of news has scattered,
That thy suit was unsuccessful,
That in vain thy steed had journeyed?
Not in vain has been thy wooing,
Not in vain thy steed has travelled
To the dismal homes of Lapland;
426
He has journeyed heavy laden,
Shaken mane, and tail, and forelock,
Dripping foam from lips and nostrils,
Through the bringing of the maiden,
With the burden of the husband.
'Come, thou beauty, from the snow-sledge,
Come, descend thou from the cross-bench,
Do not linger for assistance,
Do not tarry to be carried;
If too young the one that lifts thee,
If too proud the one in waiting,
Rise thou, graceful, like a young bird,
Hither glide along the pathway,
On the tan-bark scarlet- colored,
That the herds of kine have evened,
That the gentle lambs have trodden,
Smoothened by the tails of horses.
Haste thou here with gentle footsteps,
Through the pathway smooth and tidy,
On the tiles of even surface,
On thy second father's court-yard,
To thy second mother's dwelling,
To thy brother's place of resting,
To thy sister's silent chambers.
Place thy foot within these portals,
Step across this waiting threshold,
Enter thou these halls of joyance,
Underneath these painted rafters,
Underneath this roof of ages.
During all the winter evenings,
Through the summer gone forever,
Sang the tiling made of ivory,
Wishing thou wouldst walk upon it;
Often sang the golden ceiling,
Hoping thou wouldst walk beneath it,
And the windows often whistled,
Asking thee to sit beside them;
Even on this merry morning,
Even on the recent evening,
Sat the aged at their windows,
On the sea-shore ran the children,
Near the walls the maidens waited,
427
Ran the boys upon the highway,
There to watch the young bride's coming,
Coming with her hero-husband.
'Hail, ye courtiers of Wainola,
With the heroes of the fathers,
Hail to thee, Wainola's hamlet,
Hail, ye halls with heroes peopled,
Hail, ye rooms with all your inmates,
Hail to thee, sweet golden moonlight,
Hail to thee, benignant Ukko,
Hail companions of the bridegroom!
Never has there been in Northland
Such a wedding-train of honor,
Never such a bride of beauty.
'Bridegroom, thou beloved hero,
Now untie the scarlet ribbons,
And remove the silken muffler,
Let us see the honey-maiden,
See the Daughter of the Rainbow.
Seven years hast thou been wooing,
Hast thou brought the maid affianced,
Wainamoinen's Wedding-Songs.
Hast thou sought a sweeter cuckoo,
Sought one fairer than the moonlight,
Sought a mermaid from the ocean?
But I know without the asking,
See the answer to my question:
Thou hast brought the sweet-voiced cuckoo,
Thou hast found the swan of beauty
Plucked the sweetest flower of Northland,
Culled the fairest of the jewels,
Gathered Pohya's sweetest berry!'
Sat a babe upon the matting,
And the young child spake as follows:
'Brother, what is this thou bringest,
Aspen-log or trunk of willow,
Slender as the mountain-linden?
Bridegroom, well dost thou remember,
Thou hast hoped it all thy life-time,
Hoped to bring the Maid of Beauty,
Thou a thousand times hast said it,
Better far than any other,
428
Not one like the croaking raven,
Nor the magpie from the border,
Nor the scarecrow from the corn-fields,
Nor the vulture from the desert.
What has this one done of credit,
In the summer that has ended?
Where the gloves that she has knitted,
Where the mittens she has woven?
Thou hast brought her empty-handed,
Not a gift she brings thy father;
In thy chests the nice are nesting,
Long-tails feeding on thy vestments,
And thy bride, cannot repair them.'
Lakko hostess of Wainola,
She the faithful Kalew-daughter,
Hears the young child's speech in wonder,
Speaks these words of disapproval:
Silly prattler, cease thy talking,
Thou Last spoken in dishonor;
Let all others be astonished,
Reap thy malice on thy kindred,
must not harm the Bride of Beauty,
Rainbow-daughter of the Northland.
False indeed is this thy Prattle,
All thy words are full or evil,
Fallen from thy tongue of mischief
From the lips of one unworthy.
Excellent the hero 's young bride,
Best of all in Sariola,
Like the, strawberry in summer,
Like the daisy from the meadow,
Like the cuckoo from the forest,
Like the bluebird from the aspen,
Like the redbreast from the heather,
Like the martin. from the linden;
Never couldst thou find in Ehstland
Such a virgin as this daughter,
Such a graceful beauteous maiden,
With such dignity of Carriage,
With such arms of pearly whiteness,
With. a neck so fair and lovely.
Neither is she empty-handed,
429
She has brought us furs abundant,
Brought us many silken garments,
Richest weavings of Pohyola.
Many beauteous things the maiden,
With the spindle has accomplished,
Spun and woven with her fingers
Dresses of the finest texture
She in winter has upfolded,
Bleached them in the days of spring-time,
Dried them at the hour of noon-day,
For our couches finest linen,
For our heads the softest pillows,
For our comfort woollen blankets,
For our necks the silken ribbons.'
To the bride speaks gracious Lakko:
'Goodly wife, thou Maid of Beauty,
Highly wert thou praised as daughter,
In thy father's distant country;
Here thou shalt be praised forever
By the kindred of thy husband;
Thou shalt never suffer sorrow,
Never give thy heart to grieving;
In the swamps thou wert not nurtured,
Wert not fed beside the brooklets;
Thou wert born 'neath stars auspicious,
Nurtured from the richest garners,
Thou wert taken to the brewing
Of the sweetest beer in Northland.
'Beauteous bride from Sariola,
Shouldst thou see me bringing hither
Casks of corn, or wheat, or barley;
Bringing rye in great abundance,
They belong to this thy household;
Good the plowing of thy husband.
Good his sowing and his reaping.
'Bride of Beauty from the Northland,
Thou wilt learn this home to manage,
Learn to labor with thy kindred;
Good the home for thee to dwell in,
Good enough for bride and daughter.
At thy hand will rest the milk-pail,
And the churn awaits thine order;
430
It is well here for the maiden,
Happy will the young bride labor,
Easy are the resting-benches;
Here the host is like thy father,
Like thy mother is the hostess,
All the sons are like thy brothers,
Like thy sisters are the daughters.
'Shouldst thou ever have a longing
For the whiting of the ocean,
For thy, father's Northland salmon,
For thy brother's hazel-chickens,
Ask them only of thy husband,
Let thy hero-husband bring them.
There is not in all of Northland,
Not a creature of the forest,
Not a bird beneath the ether,
Not a fish within the waters,
Not the largest, nor the smallests
That thy husband cannot capture.
It is well here for the maiden,
Here the bride may live in freedom,
Need not turn the heavy millstone,
Need not move the iron pestle;
Here the wheat is ground by water,
For the rye, the swifter current,
While the billows wash the vessels
And the surging waters rinse them.
Thou hast here a lovely village,
Finest spot in all of Northland,
In the lowlands sweet the verdure,
in the uplands, fields of beauty,
With the lake-shore near the hamlet,
Near thy home the running water,
Where the goslings swim and frolic,
Water-birds disport in numbers.'
Thereupon the bride and bridegroom
Were refreshed with richest viands,
Given food and drink abundant,
Fed on choicest bits of reindeer,
On the sweetest loaves of barley,
On the best of wheaten biscuits,
On the richest beer of Northland.
431
Many things were on the table,
Many dainties of Wainola,
In the bowls of scarlet color,
In the platters deftly painted,
Many cakes with honey sweetened,
To each guest was butter given,
Many bits of trout and whiting,
Larger salmon carved in slices,
With the knives of molten silver,
Rimmed with gold the silver handles,
Beer of barley ceaseless flowing,
Honey-drink that was not purchased,
In the cellar flows profusely,
Beer for all, the tongues to quicken,
Mead and beer the minds to freshen.
Who is there to lead the singing,
Lead the songs of Kalevala?
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
The eternal, wise enchanter,
Quick begins his incantations,
Straightway sings the songs that follow.
'Golden brethren, dearest kindred,
Ye, my loved ones, wise and worthy
Ye companions, highly-gifted,
Listen to my simple sayings:
Rarely stand the geese together,
Sisters do not mate each other,
Not together stand the brothers,
Nor the children of one mother,
In the countries of the Northland.
'Shall we now begin the singing,
Sing the songs of old tradition?
Singers can but sing their wisdom,
And the cuckoo call the spring-time,
And the goddess of the heavens
Only dyes the earth in beauty;
So the goddesses of weaving
Can but weave from dawn till twilight,
Ever sing the youth of Lapland
In their straw-shoes full of gladness,
When the coarse-meat of the roebuck,
Or of blue-moose they have eaten.
432
Wherefore should I not be singing,
And the children not be chanting
Of the biscuits of Wainola,
Of the bread of Kalew-waters?
Even Sing the lads of Lapland
In their straw-shoes filled with joyance,
Drinking but a cup of water,
Eating but the bitter tan-bark.
Wherefore should I not be singing,
And the children not be chanting
Of the beer of Kalevala,
Brewed from barley in perfection,
Dressed in quaint and homely costume,
As they sit beside their hearth-stones.
Wherefore should I not be singing,
And the children too be chanting
Underneath these painted rafters,
In these halls renowned and ancient?
This the place for men to linger,
This the court-room for the maidens,
Near the foaming beer of barley,
Honey-brewed in great abundance,
Very near, the salmon-waters,
Near, the nets for trout and whiting,
Here where food is never wanting,
Where the beer is ever brewing.
Here Wainola's sons assemble,
Here Wainola's daughters gather,
Here they never eat in trouble,
Here they live without regretting,
In the life-time of the landlord,
While the hostess lives and prospers.
'Who shall first be sung and lauded?
Shall it be the bride or bridegroom?
Let us praise the bridegroom's father,
Let the hero-host be chanted,
Him whose home is in the forest,
Him who built upon the mountains,
Him who brought the trunks of lindens,
With their tops and slender branches,
Brought them to the best of places,
Joined them skilfully together,
433
For the mansion of the nation,
For this famous hero-dwelling,
Walls procured upon the lowlands,
Rafters from the pine and fir-tree,
From the woodlands beams of oak-wood,
From the berry-plains the studding,
Bark was furnished by the aspen,
And the mosses from the fenlands.
Trimly builded is this mansion,
In a haven warmly sheltered;
Here a hundred men have labored,
On the roof have stood a thousand,
As this spacious house was building,
As this roof was tightly jointed.
Here the ancient mansion-builder,
When these rafters were erected,
Lost in storms his locks of sable,
Scattered by the winds of heaven.
Often has the hero-landlord
On the rocks his gloves forgotten,
Left his hat upon the willows,
Lost his mittens in the marshes;
Oftentimes the mansion-builder,
In the early hours of morning,
Ere his workmen had awakened,
Unperceived by all the village,
Has arisen from his slumber,
Left his cabin the snow-fields,
Combed his locks among the branches,
Bathed his eyes in dews of morning.
'Thus obtained the pleasant landlord
Friends to fill his spacious dwelling,
Fill his benches with magicians,
Fill his windows with enchanters,
Fill his halls with wizard-singers,
Fill his floors with ancient speakers,
Fill his ancient court with strangers,
Fill his hurdles with the needy;
Thus the Kalew-host is lauded.
'Now I praise the genial hostess,
Who prepares the toothsome dinner,
Fills with plenty all her tables,
434
Bakes the honeyed loaves of barley,
Kneads the dough with magic fingers,
With her arms of strength and beauty,
Bakes her bread in copper ovens,
Feeds her guests and bids them welcome,
Feeds them on the toothsome bacon,
On the trout, and pike, and whiting,
On the rarest fish in ocean,
On the dainties of Wainola.
'Often has the faithful hostess
Risen from her couch in silence,
Ere the crowing of the watcher,
To prepare the wedding-banquet,
Make her tables look attractive.
Brew the honey-beer of wedlock.
Excellently has the housewife,
Has the hostess filled with wisdom,
Brewed the beer from hops and barley,
From the corn of Kalevala,
From the wheat-malt honey-seasoned,
Stirred the beer with graceful fingers,
At the oven in the penthouse,
In the chamber swept and polished.
Neither did the prudent hostess,
Beautiful, and full of wisdom,
Let the barley sprout too freely,
Lest the beer should taste of black-earth,
Be too bitter in the brewing,
Often went she to the garners,
Went alone at hour of midnight,
Was not frightened by the black-wolf,
Did not fear the beasts of woodlands.
'Now the hostess I have lauded,
Let me praise the favored suitor,
Now the honored hero-bridegroom,
Best of all the village-masters.
Clothed in purple is the hero,
Raiment brought from distant nations,
Tightly fitting to his body;
Snugly sets his coat of ermine,
To the floor it hangs in beauty,
Trailing from his neck and shoulders,
435
Little of his vest appearing,
Peeping through his outer raiment,
Woven by the Moon's fair daughters,
And his vestment silver-tinselled.
Dressed in neatness is the suitor,
Round his waist a belt of copper,
Hammered by the Sun's sweet maidens,
Ere the early fires were lighted,
Ere the fire had been discovered.
Dressed in richness is the bridegroom,
On his feet are silken stockings,
Silken ribbons on his ankles,
Gold and silver interwoven.
Dressed in beauty is the bridegroom,
On his feet are shoes of deer-skin,
Like the swans upon the water,
Like the blue-duck on the sea-waves,
Like the thrush among the willows,
Like the water-birds of Northland.
Well adorned the hero-suitor,
With his locks of golden color,
With his gold-beard finely braided,
Hero-hat upon his forehead,
Piercing through the forest branches,
Reaching to the clouds of heaven,
Bought with countless gold and silver,
Priceless is the suitor's head-gear.
'Now the bridegroom has been lauded,
I will praise the young bride's playmate,
Day-companion in her childhood,
In the maiden's magic mansion.
Whence was brought the merry maiden,
From the village of Tanikka?
Thence was never brought the playmate,
Playmate of the bride in childhood.
Has she come from distant nations,
From the waters of the Dwina,
O'er the ocean far-outstretching?
Not from Dwina came the maiden,
Did not sail across the waters;
Grew as berry in the mountains,
As a strawberry of sweetness,
436
On the fields the child of beauty,
In the glens the golden flower.
Thence has come the young bride's playmate,
Thence arose her fair companion.
Tiny are her feet and fingers,
Small her lips of scarlet color,
Like the maiden's loom of Suomi;
Eyes that shine in kindly beauty
Like the twinkling stars of heaven;
Beam the playmate's throbbing temples
Like the moonlight on the waters.
Trinkets has the bride's companion,
On her neck a golden necklace,
In her tresses, silken ribbons,
On her arms are golden bracelets,
Golden rings upon her fingers,
Pearls are set in golden ear-rings,
Loops of gold upon her temples,
And with pearls her brow is studded.
Northland thought the Moon was shining
When her jeweled ear-ringsglistened;
Thought the Sun had left his station
When her girdle shone in beauty;
Thought a ship was homeward sailing
When her colored head-gear fluttered.
Thus is praised the bride's companion,
Playmate of the Rainbow-maiden.
'Now I praise the friends assembled,
All appear in graceful manners;
If the old are wise and silent,
All the youth are free and merry,
All the guests are fair and worthy.
Never was there in Wainola,
Never will there be in Northland,
Such a company assembled;
All the children speak in joyance,
All the aged move sedately;
Dressed in white are all the maidens,
Like the hoar-frost of the morning,
Like the welcome dawn of spring-time,
Like the rising of the daylight.
Silver then was more abundant,
437
Gold among the guests in plenty,
On the hills were money, pockets,
Money-bags along the valleys,
For the friends that were invited,
For the guests in joy assembled.
All the friends have now been lauded,
Each has gained his meed of honor.'
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Song-deliverer of Northland,
Swung himself upon the fur-bench
Or his magic sledge of copper,
Straightway hastened to his hamlet,
Singing as he journeyed onward,
Singing charms and incantations,
Singing one day, then a second,
All the third day chanting legends.
On the rocks the runners rattled,
Hung the sledge upon a birch-stump,
Broke it into many pieces,
With the magic of his singing;
Double were the runners bended,
All the parts were torn asunder,
And his magic sledge was ruined.
Then the good, old Wainamoinen
Spake these words in meditation:
'Is there one among this number,
In this rising generation,
Or perchance among the aged,
In the passing generation,
That will go to Mana's kingdom,
To the empire of Tuoni,
There to get the magic auger
From the master of Manala,
That I may repair my snow-sledge,
Or a second sledge may fashion?'
What the younger people answered
Was the answer of the aged:
'Not among the youth of Northland,
Nor among the aged heroes,
Is there one of ample courage,
That has bravery sufficient,
To attempt the reckless journey
438
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
To Manala's fields and castles,
Thence to bring Tuoni's auger,
Wherewithal to mend thy snow-sledge,
Build anew thy sledge of magic.'
Thereupon old Wainamoinen,
The eternal wisdom-singer,
Went again to Mana's empire,
To the kingdom of Tuoni,
Crossed the sable stream of Deathland,
To the castles of Manala,
Found the auger of Tuoni,
Brought the instrument in safety.
Straightway sings old Wainamoinen,
Sings to life a purple forest,
In the forest, slender birches,
And beside them, mighty oak-trees,
Shapes them into shafts and runners,
Moulds them by his will and power,
Makes anew his sledge of magic.
On his steed he lays the harness,
Binds him to his sledge securely,
Seats himself upon the cross-bench,
And the racer gallops homeward,
To the manger filled and waiting,
To the stable of his master;
Brings the ancient Wainamoinen,
Famous bard and wise enchanter,
To the threshold of his dwelling,
To his home in Kalevala.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
789:The Kalevala - Rune Xv
LEMMINKAINEN'S RESTORATION.
Lemminkainen's aged mother
Anxious roams about the islands,
Anxious wonders in her chambers,
What the fate of Lemminkainen,
Why her son so long has tarried;
Thinks that something ill has happened
To her hero in Pohyola.
Sad, indeed, the mother's anguish,
As in vain she waits his coming,
As in vain she asks the question,
Where her daring son is roaming,
Whether to the fir-tree mountain,
Whether to the distant heath-land,
Or upon the broad-sea's ridges,
On the floods and rolling waters,
To the war's contending armies,
To the heat and din of battle,
Steeped in blood of valiant heroes,
Evidence of fatal warfare.
Daily does the wife Kyllikki
Look about her vacant chamber,
In the home of Lemminkainen,
At the court of Kaukomieli;
Looks at evening, looks at morning,
Looks, perchance, upon his hair-brush,
Sees alas! the blood-drops oozing,
Oozing from the golden bristles,
And the blood-drops, scarlet-colored.
Then the beauteous wife, Kyllikki,
Spake these words in deeps of anguish:
'Dead or wounded is my husband,
Or at best is filled with trouble,
Lost perhaps in Northland forests,
In some glen unknown to heroes,
Since alas! the blood is flowing
From the brush of Lemminkainen,
273
Red drops oozing from the bristles.'
Thereupon the anxious mother
Looks upon the bleeding hair-brush
And begins this wail of anguish:
'Woe is me, my life hard-fated,
Woe is me, all joy departed!
For alas! my son and hero,
Valiant hero of the islands,
Son of trouble and misfortune!
Some sad fate has overtaken
My ill-fated Lemminkainen!
Blood is flowing from his hair-brush,
Oozing from its golden bristles,
And the drops are scarlet-colored.'
Quick her garment's hem she clutches,
On her arm she throws her long-robes,
Fleetly flies upon her journey;
With her might she hastens northward,
Mountains tremble from her footsteps,
Valleys rise and heights are lowered,
Highlands soon become as lowlands,
All the hills and valleys levelled.
Soon she gains the Northland village,
Quickly asks about her hero,
These the words the mother utters:
'O thou hostess of Pohyola,
Where hast thou my Lemminkainen?
Tell me of my son and hero!'
Louhi, hostess of the Northland,
Gives this answer to the mother:
'Nothing know I of thy hero,
Of the hero of the islands;
Where thy son may be I know not,
Cannot lend the information;
Once I gave thy son a courser,
Hitched the racer to his snow-sledge,
This the last of Lemminkainen;
May perchance be drowned in Wuhne,
Frozen In the icy ocean,
Fallen prey to wolves in hunger,
In a bear's den may have perished.'
Lemminkainen's mother answers:
274
'Thou art only speaking falsehoods,
Northland wolves cannot devour us,
Nor the bears kill Kaukomieli;
He can slay the wolves of Pohya
With the fingers of his left hand;
Bears of Northland he would silence
With the magic of his singing.
'Hostess of Pohyola, tell me
Whither thou hast sent my hero;
I shall burst thy many garners,
Shall destroy the magic Sampo,
If thou dost not tell me truly
Where to find my Lemminkainen.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'I have well thy hero treated,
Well my court has entertained him,
Gave him of my rarest viands,
Fed him at my well-filled tables,
Placed him in a boat of copper,
Thus to float adown the current,
This the last of Lemminkainen;
Cannot tell where he has wandered.
Whether in the foam of waters,
Whether in the boiling torrent,
Whether in the drowning whirlpool.'
Lemminkainen's mother answers:
Thou again art speaking falsely;
Tell me now the truth I pray thee,
Make an end of thy deception,
Where is now my Lemminkainen,
Whither hast thou sent my hero,
Young and daring son of Kalew?
If a third time thou deceivest,
I will send thee plagues, unnumbered,
I will send thee fell destruction,
Certain death will overtake thee.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'This the third time that I answer,
This the truth that I shall tell thee:
I have sent the Kalew-hero
To the Hisi-fields and forests,
There to hunt the moose of Lempo;
275
Sent him then to catch the fire-horse,
Catch the fire-expiring stallion,
On the distant plains of Juutas,
In the realm of cruel Hisi.
Then I sent him to the Death-stream,
In the kingdom of Tuoni,
With his bow and but one arrow,
There to shoot the swan as dowry
For my best and fairest daughter;
Have not heard about thy hero
Since he left for Tuonela;
May in misery have fallen,
May have perished in Manala;
Has not come to ask my daughter,
Has not come to woo the maiden,
Since he left to hunt the death-swan.'
Now the mother seeks her lost one,
For her son she weeps and trembles,
Like the wolf she bounds through fenlands,
Like the bear, through forest thickets,
Like the wild-boar, through the marshes,
Like the hare, along the sea-coast,
To the sea-point, like the hedgehog
Like the wild-duck swims the waters,
Casts the rubbish from her pathway,
Tramples down opposing brush-wood,
Stops at nothing in her journey
Seeks a long time for her hero,
Seeks, and seeks, and does not find him.
Now she asks the trees the question,
And the forest gives this answer:
'We have care enough already,
Cannot think about thy matters;
Cruel fates have we to battle,
Pitiful our own misfortunes!
We are felled and chopped in pieces,
Cut in blocks for hero-fancy,
We are burned to death as fuel,
No one cares how much we suffer.'
Now again the mother wanders,
Seeks again her long-lost hero,
Seeks, and seeks, and does not find him.
276
Paths arise and come to meet her,
And she questions thus the pathways:
'Paths of hope that God has fashioned,
Have ye seen my Lemminkainen,
Has my son and golden hero
Travelled through thy many kingdoms?'
Sad, the many pathways answer:
'We ourselves have cares sufficient,
Cannot watch thy son and hero,
Wretched are the lives of pathways,
Deep indeed our own misfortunes;
We are trodden by, the red-deer,
By the wolves, and bears, and roebucks,
Driven o'er by heavy cart-wheels,
By the feet of dogs are trodden,
Trodden under foot of heroes,
Foot-paths for contending armies.'
Seeks again the frantic mother,
Seeks her long-lost son and hero,
Seeks, and seeks, and does not find him;
Finds the Moon within her orbit,
Asks the Moon in pleading measures:
'Golden Moon, whom God has stationed
In the heavens, the Sun's companion,
Hast thou seen my Kaukomieli,
Hast thou seen my silver apple,
Anywhere in thy dominions? '
Thus the golden Moon makes answer:
'I have trouble all-sufficient,
Cannot watch thy daring hero;
Long the journey I must travel,
Sad the fate to me befallen,
Pitiful mine own misfortunes,
All alone the nights to wander,
Shine alone without a respite,
In the winter ever watching,
In the summer sink and perish.'
Still the mother seeks, and wanders,
Seeks, and does not find her hero,
Sees the Sun in the horizon,
And the mother thus entreats him:
Silver Sun, whom God has fashioned,
277
Thou that giveth warmth and comfort,
Hast thou lately seen my hero,
Hast thou seen my Lemminkainen,
Wandering in thy dominions?'
Thus the Sun in kindness answers:
'Surely has thy hero perished,
To ingratitude a victim;
Lemminkainen died and vanished
In Tuoni's fatal river,
In the waters of Manala,
In the sacred stream and whirlpool,
In the cataract and rapids,
Sank within the drowning current
To the realm of Tuonela,
To Manala's lower regions.'
Lemminkainen's mother weeping,
Wailing in the deeps of anguish,
Mourns the fate of Kaukomieli,
Hastens to the Northland smithy,
To the forge of Ilmarinen,
These the words the mother utters:
'Ilmarinen, metal-artist,
Thou that long ago wert forging,
Forging earth a concave cover,
Yesterday wert forging wonders,
Forge thou now, immortal blacksmith,
Forge a rake with shaft of copper,
Forge the teeth of strongest metal,
Teeth in length a hundred fathoms,
And five hundred long the handle.'
Ilmarinen does as bidden,
Makes the rake in full perfection.
Lemminkainen's anxious mother
Takes the magic rake and hastens
To the river of Tuoni,
Praying to the Sun as follows:
'Thou, O Sun, by God created,
Thou that shinest on thy Maker,
Shine for me in heat of magic,
Give me warmth, and strength, and courage,
Shine a third time full of power,
Lull to sleep the wicked people,
278
Still the people of Manala,
Quiet all Tuoni's empire.'
Thereupon the sun of Ukko,
Dearest child of the Creator,
Flying through the groves of Northland,
Sitting on a curving birch-tree,
Shines a little while in ardor,
Shines again in greater fervor,
Shines a third time full of power,
Lulls to sleep the wicked people
In the Manala home and kingdom,
Still the heroes with their broadswords,
Makes the lancers halt and totter,
Stills the stoutest of the spearmen,
Quiets Tuoni's ghastly empire.
Now the Sun retires in magic,
Hovers here and there a moment
Over Tuoni's hapless sleepers,
Hastens upward to his station,
To his Jumala home and kingdom.
Lemminkainen's faithful mother
Takes the rake of magic metals,
Rakes the Tuoni river bottoms,
Rakes the cataract and whirlpool,
Rakes the swift and boiling current
Of the sacred stream of death-land,
In the Manala home and kingdom.
Searching for her long-lost hero,
Rakes a long time, finding nothing;
Now she wades the river deeper,
To her belt in mud and water,
Deeper, deeper, rakes the death-stream,
Rakes the river's deepest caverns,
Raking up and down the current,
Till at last she finds his tunic,
Heavy-hearted, finds his jacket;
Rakes again and rakes unceasing,
Finds the hero's shoes and stockings,
Sorely troubled, finds these relies;
Now she wades the river deeper,
Rakes the Manala shoals and shallows,
Rakes the deeps at every angle;
279
As she draws the rake the third time
From the Tuoni shores and waters,
In the rake she finds the body
Of her long-lost Lemminkainen,
In the metal teeth entangled,
In the rake with copper handle.
Thus the reckless Lemminkainen,
Thus the son of Kalevala,
Was recovered from the bottom
Of the Manala lake and river.
There were wanting many fragments,
Half the head, a hand, a fore-arm,
Many other smaller portions,
Life, above all else, was missing.
Then the mother, well reflecting,
Spake these words in bitter weeping:
'From these fragments, with my magic,
I will bring to life my hero.'
Hearing this, the raven answered,
Spake these measures to the mother:
'There is not in these a hero,
Thou canst not revive these fragments;
Eels have fed upon his body,
On his eyes have fed the whiting;
Cast the dead upon the waters,
On the streams of Tuonela,
Let him there become a walrus,
Or a seal, or whale, or porpoise.'
Lemminkainen's mother does not
Cast the dead upon the waters,
On the streams of Tuonela,
She again with hope and courage,
Rakes the river lengthwise, crosswise,
Through the Manala pools and caverns,
Rakes up half the head, a fore-arm,
Finds a hand and half the back-bone,
Many other smaller portions;
Shapes her son from all the fragments,
Shapes anew her Lemminkainen,
Flesh to flesh with skill she places,
Gives the bones their proper stations,
Binds one member to the other,
280
Joins the ends of severed vessels,
Counts the threads of all the venules,
Knits the parts in apposition;
Then this prayer the mother offers:
'Suonetar, thou slender virgin,
Goddess of the veins of heroes,
Skilful spinner of the vessels,
With thy slender, silver spindle,
With thy spinning-wheel of copper,
Set in frame of molten silver,
Come thou hither, thou art needed;
Bring the instruments for mending,
Firmly knit the veins together,
At the end join well the venules,
In the wounds that still are open,
In the members that are injured.
'Should this aid be inefficient;
There is living in the ether,
In a boat enriched with silver,
In a copper boat, a maiden,
That can bring to thee assistance.
Come, O maiden, from the ether,
Virgin from the belt of heaven,
Row throughout these veins, O maiden,
Row through all these lifeless members,
Through the channels of the long-bones,
Row through every form of tissue.
Set the vessels in their places,
Lay the heart in right position,
Make the pulses beat together,
Join the smallest of the veinlets,
And unite with skill the sinews.
Take thou now a slender needle,
Silken thread within its eyelet,
Ply the silver needle gently,
Sew with care the wounds together.
'Should this aid be inefficient,
Thou, O God, that knowest all things,
Come and give us thine assistance,
Harness thou thy fleetest racer
Call to aid thy strongest courser,
In thy scarlet sledge come swiftly,
281
Drive through all the bones and channels,
Drive throughout these lifeless tissues,
Drive thy courser through each vessel,
Bind the flesh and bones securely,
In the joints put finest silver,
Purest gold in all the fissures.
'Where the skin is broken open,
Where the veins are torn asunder,
Mend these injuries with magic;
Where the blood has left the body,
There make new blood flow abundant;
Where the bones are rudely broken,
Set the parts in full perfection;
Where the flesh is bruised and loosened,
Touch the wounds with magic balsam,
Do not leave a part imperfect;
Bone, and vein, and nerve, and sinew,
Heart, and brain, and gland, and vessel,
Heal as Thou alone canst heal them.'
These the means the mother uses,
Thus she joins the lifeless members,
Thus she heals the death-like tissues,
Thus restores her son and hero
To his former life and likeness;
All his veins are knit together,
All their ends are firmly fastened,
All the parts in apposition,
Life returns, but speech is wanting,
Deaf and dumb, and blind, and senseless.
Now the mother speaks as follows:
'Where may I procure the balsam,
Where the drops of magic honey,
To anoint my son and hero,
Thus to heal my Lemminkainen,
That again his month may open,
May again begin his singing,
Speak again in words of wonder,
Sing again his incantations?
'Tiny bee, thou honey-birdling,
Lord of all the forest flowers,
Fly away and gather honey,
Bring to me the forest-sweetness,
282
Found in Metsola's rich gardens,
And in Tapio's fragrant meadows,
From the petals of the flowers,
From the blooming herbs and grasses,
Thus to heal my hero's anguish,
Thus to heal his wounds of evil.'
Thereupon the honey-birdling
Flies away on wings of swiftness,
Into Metsola's rich gardens,
Into Tapio's flowery meadows,
Gathers sweetness from the meadows,
With the tongue distills the honey
From the cups of seven flowers,
From the bloom of countless grasses;
Quick from Metsola returning,
Flying, humming darting onward,
With his winglets honey-laden,
With the store of sweetest odors,
To the mother brings the balsam.
Lemminkainen's anxious mother
Takes the balm of magic virtues,
And anoints the injured hero,
Heals his wounds and stills his anguish;
But the balm is inefficient,
For her son is deaf and speechless.
Then again out-speaks the mother:
Lemminkainen's Restoration.
'Little bee, my honey-birdling,
Fly away in one direction,
Fly across the seven oceans,
In the eighth, a magic island,
Where the honey is enchanted,
To the distant Turi-castles,
To the chambers of Palwoinen;
There the honey is effective,
There, the wonder-working balsam,
This may heal the wounded hero;
Bring me of this magic ointment,
That I may anoint his eyelids,
May restore his injured senses.'
Thereupon the honey-birdling
Flew away o'er seven oceans,
283
To the old enchanted island;
Flies one day, and then a second,
On the verdure does not settle,
Does not rest upon the flowers;
Flies a third day, fleetly onward,
Till a third day evening brings him
To the island in the ocean,
To the meadows rich in honey,
To the cataract and fire-flow,
To the sacred stream and whirlpool.
There the honey was preparing,
There the magic balm distilling
In the tiny earthen vessels,
In the burnished copper kettles,
Smaller than a maiden's thimble,
Smaller than the tips of fingers.
Faithfully the busy insect
Gathers the enchanted honey
From the magic Turi-cuplets
In the chambers of Palwoinen.
Time had gone but little distance,
Ere the bee came loudly humming
Flying fleetly, honey-laden;
In his arms were seven vessels,
Seven, the vessels on each shoulder;
All were filled with honey-balsam,
With the balm of magic virtues.
Lemminkainen's tireless mother
Quick anoints her speechless hero,
With the magic Turi-balsam,
With the balm of seven virtues;
Nine the times that she anoints him
With the honey of Palwoinen,
With the wonder-working balsam;
But the balm is inefficient,
For the hero still is speechless.
Then again out-speaks the mother:
'Honey-bee, thou ether birdling,
Fly a third time on thy journey,
Fly away to high Jumala,
Fly thou to the seventh heaven,
Honey there thou'lt find abundant,
284
Balsam of the highest virtue,
Only used by the Creator,
Only made from the breath of Ukko.
God anoints his faithful children,
With the honey of his wisdom,
When they feel the pangs of sorrow,
When they meet the powers of evil.
Dip thy winglets in this honey,
Steep thy plumage in His sweetness,
Hither bring the all-sufficient
Balsam of the great Creator;
This will still my hero's anguish,
This will heal his wounded tissues,
This restore his long-lost vision,
Make the Northland hills re-echo
With the magic of his singing,
With his wonderful enchantment.'
Thus the honey-bee made answer:
'I can never fly to heaven,
To the seventh of the heavens,
To the distant home of Ukko,
With these wings of little virtue.'
Lemminkainen's mother answered:
'Thou canst surely fly to heaven,
To the seventh of the heavens,
O'er the Moon, beneath the sunshine,
Through the dim and distant starlight.
On the first day, flying upward,
Thou wilt near the Moon in heaven,
Fan the brow of Kootamoinen;
On the second thou canst rest thee
On the shoulders of Otava;
On the third day, flying higher,
Rest upon the seven starlets,
On the heads of Hetewanè;
Short the journey that is left thee,
Inconsiderable the distance
To the home of mighty Ukko,
To the dwellings of the blessed.'
Thereupon the bee arising,
From the earth flies swiftly upward,
Hastens on with graceful motion,
285
By his tiny wings borne heavenward,
In the paths of golden moonbeams,
Touches on the Moon's bright borders,
Fans the brow of Kootamoinen,
Rests upon Otava's shoulders,
Hastens to the seven starlets.,
To the heads of Hetewanè,
Flies to the Creator's castle,
To the home of generous Ukko,
Finds the remedy preparing,
Finds the balm of life distilling,
In the silver-tinted caldrons,
In the purest golden kettles;
On one side, heart-easing honey,
On a second, balm of joyance,
On the third, life-giving balsam.
Here the magic bee, selecting,
Culls the sweet, life-giving balsam,
Gathers too, heart-easing honey,
Heavy-laden hastens homeward.
Time had traveled little distance,
Ere the busy bee came humming
To the anxious mother waiting,
In his arms a hundred cuplets,
And a thousand other vessels,
Filled with honey, filled with balsam,
Filled with the balm of the Creator.
Lemminkainen's mother quickly
Takes them on her, tongue and tests them,
Finds a balsam all-sufficient.
Then the mother spake as follows:
'I have found the long-sought balsam,
Found the remedy of Ukko,
Where-with God anoints his people,
Gives them life, and faith, and wisdom,
Heals their wounds and stills their anguish,
Makes them strong against temptation,
Guards them from the evil-doers.'
Now the mother well anointing,
Heals her son, the magic singer,
Eyes, and ears, and tongue, and temples,
Breaks, and cuts, and seams, anointing,
286
Touching well the life-blood centres,
Speaks these words of magic import
To the sleeping Lemminkainen:
'Wake, arise from out thy slumber,
From the worst of low conditions,
From thy state of dire misfortune!'
Slowly wakes the son and hero,
Rises from the depths of slumber,
Speaks again in magic accents,
These the first words of the singer:
'Long, indeed, have I been sleeping,
Long unconscious of existence,
But my sleep was full of sweetness,
Sweet the sleep in Tuonela,
Knowing neither joy nor sorrow!'
This the answer of his mother:
'Longer still thou wouldst have slumbered,
Were it not for me, thy, mother;
Tell me now, my son beloved,
Tell me that I well may hear thee,
Who enticed thee to Manala,
To the river of Tuoni,
To the fatal stream and whirlpool?'
Then the hero, Lemminkainen,
Gave this answer to his mother:
'Nasshut, the decrepit shepherd
Of the flocks of Sariola,
Blind, and halt, and poor, and wretched,
And to whom I did a favor;
From the slumber-land of envy
Nasshut sent me to Manala,
To the river of Tuoni;
Sent a serpent from the waters,
Sent an adder from the death-stream,
Through the heart of Lemminkainen;
Did not recognize the serpent,
Could not speak the serpent-language,
Did not know the sting of adders.'
Spake again the ancient mother:
'O thou son of little insight,
Senseless hero, fool-magician,
Thou didst boast betimes thy magic
287
To enchant the wise enchanters,
On the dismal shores of Lapland,
Thou didst think to banish heroes,
From the borders of Pohyola;
Didst not know the sting of serpents,
Didst not know the reed of waters,
Nor the magic word-protector!
Learn the origin of serpents,
Whence the poison of the adder.
'In the floods was born the serpent,
From the marrow of the gray-duck,
From the brain of ocean-swallows;
Suoyatar had made saliva,
Cast it on the waves of ocean,
Currents drove it outward, onward,
Softly shone the sun upon it,
By the winds 'twas gently cradled,
Gently nursed by winds and waters,
By the waves was driven shoreward,
Landed by the surging billows.
Thus the serpent, thing of evil,
Filling all the world with trouble,
Was created in the waters
Born from Suoyatar, its maker.'
Then the mother of the hero
Rocked her son to rest and comfort,
Rocked him to his former being,
To his former life and spirit,
Into greater magic powers;
Wiser, handsomer than ever
Grew the hero of the islands;
But his heart was full of trouble,
And his mother, ever watchful,
Asked the cause of his dejection.
This is Lemminkainen's answer:
'This the cause of all my sorrow;
Far away my heart is roaming,
All my thoughts forever wander
To the Northland's blooming virgins,
To the maids of braided tresses.
Northland's ugly hostess, Louhi,
Will not give to me her daughter,
288
Fairest maiden of Pohyola,
Till I kill the swan of Mana,
With my bow and but one arrow,
In the river of Tuoni.
Lemminkainen's mother answers,
In the sacred stream and whirlpool.
'Let the swan swim on in safety,
Give the water-bird his freedom,
In the river of Manala,
In the whirlpool of Tuoni;
Leave the maiden in the Northland.,
With her charms and fading beauty;
With thy fond and faithful mother,
Go at once to Kalevala,
To thy native fields and fallows.
Praise thy fortune, all sufficient,
Praise, above all else, thy Maker.
Ukko gave thee aid when needed,
Thou wert saved by thy Creator,
From thy long and hopeless slumber,
In the waters of Tuoni,
In the chambers of Manala.
I unaided could not save thee,
Could not give the least assistance;
God alone, omniscient Ukko,
First and last of the creators,
Can revive the dead and dying,
Can protect his worthy people
From the waters of Manala, .
From the fatal stream and whirlpool,
In the kingdom of Tuoni.'
Lemminkainen, filled with wisdom,
With his fond and faithful mother,
Hastened straightway on his journey
To his distant home and kindred,
To the Wainola fields and meadows,
To the plains of Kalevala.
*****
Here I leave my Kaukomieli,
Leave my hero Lemminkainen,
Long I leave him from my singing,
Turn my song to other heroes,
289
Send it forth on other pathways,
Sing some other golden legend.
~ Elias Lönnrot,
790:The Kalevala - Rune Xviii
THE RIVAL SUITORS
Wainamoinen, old and truthful,
Long considered, long debated,
How to woo and win the daughter
Of the hostess of Pohyola,
How to lead the Bride of Beauty,
Fairy maiden of the rainbow,
To the meadows of Wainola,
From the dismal Sariola.
Now he decks his magic vessel,
Paints the boat in blue and scarlet,
Trims in gold the ship's forecastle,
Decks the prow in molten silver;
Sings his magic ship down gliding,
On the cylinders of fir-tree:
Now erects the masts of pine-wood,
On each mast the sails of linen,
Sails of blue, and white, and scarlet,
Woven into finest fabric.
Wainamoinen, the magician,
Steps aboard his wondrous vessel,
Steers the bark across the waters,
On the blue back of the broad-sea,
Speaks these words in sailing northward,
Sailing to the dark Pohyola:
'Come aboard my ship, O Ukko,
Come with me, thou God of mercy,
To protect thine ancient hero,
To support thy trusting servant,
On the breasts of raging billows,
On the far out-stretching waters.
'Rock, O winds, this wondrous vessel,
Causing not a single ripple;
Rolling waves, bear ye me northward,
That the oar may not be needed
In my journey to Pohyola,
O'er this mighty waste of waters.'
317
Ilmarinen's beauteous sister,
Fair and goodly maid, Annikki,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
Who awakes each morning early,
Rises long before the daylight,
Stood one morning on the sea-shore,
Washing in the foam her dresses,
Rinsing out her silken ribbons,
On the bridge of scarlet color,
On the border of the highway,
On a headland jutting seaward,
On the forest-covered island.
Here Annikki, looking round her,
Looking through the fog and ether,
Looking through the clouds of heaven,
Gazing far out on the blue-sea,
Sees the morning sun arising,
Glimmering along the billows,
Looks with eyes of distant vision
Toward the sunrise on the waters,
Toward the winding streams of Suomi,
Where the Wina-waves were flowing.
There she sees, on the horizon,
Something darkle in the sunlight,
Something blue upon the billows,
Speaks these words in wonder guessing:
What is this upon the surges,
What this blue upon the waters,
What this darkling in the sunlight?
'Tis perhaps a flock of wild-geese,
Or perchance the blue-duck flying;
Then upon thy wings arising,
Fly away to highest heaven.
'Art thou then a shoal of sea-trout,
Or perchance a school of salmon?
Dive then to the deep sea-bottom,
In the waters swim and frolic.
'Art thou then a cliff of granite,
Or perchance a mighty oak-tree,
Floating on the rough sea-billows?
May the floods then wash and beat thee
Break thee to a thousand fragments.'
318
Wainamoinen, sailing northward,
Steers his wondrous ship of magic
Toward the headland jutting seaward,
Toward the island forest-covered.
Now Annikki, goodly maiden,
Sees it is the magic vessel
Of a wonderful enchanter,
Of a mighty bard and hero,
And she asks this simple question:
'Art thou then my father's vessel,
Or my brother's ship of magic?
Haste away then to thy harbor,
To thy refuge in Wainola.
Hast thou come a goodly distance?
Sail then farther on thy journey,
Point thy prow to other waters.'
It was not her father's vessel,
Not a sail-boat from the distance,
'Twas the ship of Wainamoinen,
Bark of the eternal singer;
Sails within a hailing distance,
Swims still nearer o'er the waters,
Brings one word and takes another,
Brings a third of magic import.
Speaks the goodly maid, Annikki,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
To the sailor of the vessel:
'Whither sailest, Wainamoinen,
Whither bound, thou friend of waters,
Pride and joy of Kalevala?'
From the vessel Wainamomen
Gives this answer to the maiden:
'I have come to catch some sea-trout,
Catch the young and toothsome whiting,
Hiding in tbese-reeds and rushes.'
This the answer of Annikki:
'Do not speak to me in falsehood,
Know I well the times of fishing;
Long ago my honored father
Was a fisherman in Northland,
Came to catch the trout and whiting,
Fished within these seas and rivers.
319
Very well do I remember
How the fisherman disposes,
How he rigs his fishing vessel,
Lines, and gaffs, and poles, and fish-nets;
Hast not come a-fishing hither.
Whither goest, Wainamoinen,
Whither sailest, friend of waters?
Spake the ancient Wainamoinen:
'I have come to catch some wild-geese,
Catch the hissing birds of Suomi,
In these far-extending borders,
In the Sachsensund dominions.'
Good Annikki gives this answer:
'Know I well a truthful speaker,
Easily detect a falsehood;
Formerly my aged father
Often came a-hunting hither,
Came to hunt the hissing wild-geese,
Hunt the red-bill of these waters.
Very well do I remember
How the hunter rigs his vessel,
Bows, and arrows, knives, and quiver,
Dogs enchained within the vessel,
Pointers hunting on the sea-shore,
Setters seeking in the marshes,
Tell the truth now Wainamoinen,
Whither is thy vessel sailing?'
Spake the hero of the Northland:
'To the wars my ship is sailing,
To the bloody fields of battle,
Where the streams run scarlet-colored,
Where the paths are paved with bodies!'
These the words of fair Annikki:
'Know I well the paths to battle.
Formerly my aged father
Often sounded war's alarum,
Often led the hosts to conquest;
In each ship a hundred rowers,
And in arms a thousand heroes,
Oil the prow a thousand cross-bows,
Swords, and spears, and battle-axes;
Know I well the ship of battle.
320
Speak Do longer fruitless falsehoods,
Whither sailest, Wainamoinen,
Whither steerest, friend of waters?
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Come, O maiden, to my vessel,
In my magic ship be seated,
Then I'll give thee truthful answer.'
Thus Annikki, silver-tinselled,
Answers ancient Wainamoinen:
'With the winds I'll fill thy vessel,
To thy bark I'll send the storm-winds
And capsize thy ship of magic,
Break in pieces its forecastle,
If the truth thou dost not tell me,
If thou dost not cease thy falsehoods,
If thou dost not tell me truly
Whither sails thy magic vessel.'
These the words of Wainamoinen:
'Now I make thee truthful answer,
Though at first I spake deception:
I am sailing to the Northland
To the dismal Sariola,
Where the ogres live and flourish,
Where they drown the worthy heroes,
There to woo the Maid of Beauty
Sitting on the bow of heaven,
Woo and win the fairy virgin,
Bring her to my home and kindred,
To the firesides of Walnola.'
Then Aunikki, graceful maiden,
Of the Night and Dawn, the daughter,
As she heard the rightful answer,
Knew the truth was fully spoken,
Straightway left her coats unbeaten,
Left unwashed her linen garments,
Left unrinsed her silks and ribbons
On the highway by the sea-shore,
On the bridge of scarlet color
On her arm she threw her long-robes,
Hastened off with speed of roebuck
To the shops of Ilmarinen,
To the iron-forger's furnace,
321
To the blacksmith's home and smithy,
Here she found the hero-artist,
Forging out a bench of iron,
And adorning it with silver.
Soot lay thick upon his forehead,
Soot and coal upon his shoulders.
On the threshold speaks Annikki,
These the words his sister uses:
'Ilmarinen, dearest brother,
Thou eternal artist-forger,
Forge me now a loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace my fingers,
Forge me gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for my bosom,
For my head forge golden trinkets,
And I'll tell a tale surprising,
Tell a story that concerns thee
Truthfully I'll tell the story.'
Then the blacksmith Ilmarinen
Spake and these the words he uttered:
'If thou'lt tell the tale sincerely,
I will forge the loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace thy fingers,
Forge thee gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for thy bosom,
For thy head forge golden trinkets;
But if thou shouldst tell me falsely,
I shall break thy beauteous jewels,
Break thine ornaments in pieces,
Hurl them to the fire and furnace,
Never forge thee other trinkets.'
This the answer of Annikki:
'Ancient blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Dost thou ever think to marry
Her already thine affianced,
Beauteous Maiden of the Rainbow,
Fairest virgin of the Northland,
Chosen bride of Sariola?
Shouldst thou wish the Maid of Beauty,
Thou must forge, and forge unceasing,
322
Hammering the days and nights through;
Forge the summer hoofs for horses,
Forge them iron hoofs for winter,
In the long nights forge the snow-sledge,
Gaily trim it in the daytime,
Haste thou then upon thy journey
To thy wooing in the Northland,
To the dismal Sariola;
Thither journeys one more clever,
Sails another now before thee,
There to woo thy bride affianced,
Thence to lead thy chosen virgin,
Woo and win the Maid of Beauty;
Three long years thou hast been wooing.
Wainamoinen now is sailing
On the blue back of the waters,
Sitting at his helm of copper;
On the prow are golden carvings,
Beautiful his boat of magic,
Sailing fleetly o'er the billows,
To the never-pleasant Northland,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Ilmarinen stood in wonder,
Stood a statue at the story;
Silent grief had settled o'er him,
Settled o'er the iron-artist;
From one hand the tongs descended,
From the other fell the hammer,
As the blacksmith made this answer:
'Good Annikki, worthy sister,
I shall forge the loom of silver,
Golden rings to grace thy fingers,
Forge thee gold and silver ear-rings,
Six or seven golden girdles,
Golden crosslets for thy bosom;
Go and heat for me the bath-room,
Fill with heat the honey-chambers,
Lay the faggots on the fire-place,
Lay the smaller woods around them,
Pour some water through the ashes,
Make a soap of magic virtue,
Thus to cleanse my blackened visage,
323
Thus to cleanse the blacksmith's body,
Thus remove the soot and ashes.'
Then Annikki, kindly sister,
Quickly warmed her brother's bath-room,
Warmed it with the knots of fir-trees,
That the thunder-winds had broken;
Gathered pebbles from the fire-stream,
Threw them in the heating waters;
Broke the tassels from the birch-trees,
Steeped the foliage in honey,
Made a lye from milk and ashes,
Made of these a strong decoction,
Mixed it with the fat and marrow
Of the reindeer of the mountains,
Made a soap of magic virtue,
Thus to cleanse the iron-artist,
Thus to beautify the suitor,
Thus to make the hero worthy.
Ilmarinen, ancient blacksmith,
The eternal metal-worker,
Forged the wishes of his sister,
Ornaments for fair Annikki,
Rings, and bracelets, pins and ear-drops,
Forged for her six golden girdles,
Forged a weaving loom of silver,
While the maid prepared the bath-room,
Set his toilet-room in order.
To the maid he gave the trinkets,
Gave the loom of molten silver,
And the sister thus made answer:
'I have heated well thy bath-room,
Have thy toilet-things in order,
Everything as thou desirest;
Go prepare thyself for wooing,
Lave thy bead to flaxen whiteness,
Make thy cheeks look fresh and ruddy,
Lave thyself in Love's aroma,
That thy wooing prove successful.'
Ilmarinen, magic artist,
Quick repairing to his bath-room,
Bathed his head to flaxen whiteness,
Made his cheeks look fresh and ruddy,
324
Laved his eyes until they sparkled
Like the moonlight on the waters;
Wondrous were his form and features,
And his cheeks like ruddy berries.
These the words of Ilmarinen:
'Fair Annikki, lovely sister,
Bring me now my silken raiment,
Bring my best and richest vesture,
Bring me now my softest linen,
That my wooing prove successful.'
Straightway did the helpful sister
Bring the finest of his raiment,
Bring the softest of his linen,
Raiment fashioned by his mother;
Brought to him his silken stockings,
Brought him shoes of marten-leather,
Brought a vest of sky-blue color,
Brought him scarlet-colored trousers,
Brought a coat with scarlet trimming,
Brought a red shawl trimmed in ermine
Fourfold wrapped about his body;
Brought a fur-coat made of seal-skin,
Fastened with a thousand bottons,
And adorned with countless jewels;
Brought for him his magic girdle,
Fastened well with golden buckles,
That his artist-mother fashioned;
Brought him gloves with golden wristlets,
That the Laplanders had woven
For a head of many ringlets;
Brought the finest cap in Northland,
That his ancient father purchased
When he first began his wooing.
Ilmarinen, blacksmith-artist,
Clad himself to look his finest,
When he thus addressed a servant:
'Hitch for me a fleet-foot racer,
Hitch him to my willing snow-sledge,
For I start upon a journey
To the distant shores of Pohya,
To the dismal Sariola.'
Spake the servant thus in answer:
325
'Thou hast seven fleet-foot racers,
Munching grain within their mangers,
Which of these shall I make ready?'
Spake the blacksmith, Ilmarinen:
'Take the fleetest of my coursers,
Put the gray steed in the harness,
Hitch him to my sledge of magic;
Place six cuckoos on the break-board,
Seven bluebirds on the cross-bars,
Thus to charm the Northland maidens,
Thus to make them look and listen,
As the cuckoos call and echo.
Bring me too my largest bear-skin,
Fold it warm about the cross-bench;
Bring me then my marten fur-robes,
As a cover and protection.'
Straightway then the trusty servant
Of the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Put the gray steed in the harness,
Hitched the racer to the snow-sledge,
Placed six cuckoos on the break-board,
Seven bluebirds on the cross-bars,
On the front to sing and twitter;
Then he brought the largest bear-skin,
Folded it upon the cross-bench;
Brought the finest robes of marten,
Warm protection for the master.
Ilmarinen, forger-artist,
The eternal metal-worker,
Earnestly entreated Ukko:
'Send thy snow-flakes, Ukko, father,
Let them gently fall from heaven,
Let them cover all the heather,
Let them hide the berry-bushes,
That my sledge may glide in freedom
O'er the hills to Sariola!'
Ukko sent the snow from heaven,
Gently dropped the crystal snow-flakes,
Lending thus his kind assistance
To the hero, Ilmarinen,
On his journey to the Northland.
Reins in hand, the ancient artist
326
Seats him in his metal snow-sledge,
And beseeches thus his Master:
'Good luck to my reins and traces,
Good luck to my shafts and runners!
God protect my magic snow-sledge,
Be my safeguard on my journey
To the dismal Sariola!'
Now the ancient Ilmarinen
Draws the reins upon the racer,
Snaps his whip above the courser,
To the gray steed gives this order,
And the charger plunges northward:
'Haste away, my flaxen stallion,
Haste thee onward, noble white-face,
To the never-pleasant Pohya,
To the dreary Sariola!'
Fast and faster flies the fleet-foot,
On the curving snow-capped sea-coast,
On the borders of the lowlands,
O'er the alder-hills and mountains.
Merrily the steed flies onward,
Bluebirds singing, cuckoos calling,
On the sea-shore looking northward,
Through the sand and falling snow-flakes
Blinding winds, and snow, and sea-foam,
Cloud the hero, Ilmarinen,
As he glides upon his journey,
Looking seaward for the vessel
Of the ancient Wainamoinen;
Travels one day, then a second,
Travels all the next day northward,
Till the third day Ilmarinen
Overtakes old Wainamoinen,
Rails him in his magic vessel,
And addresses thus the minstrel:
'O thou ancient Wainamoinen,
Let us woo in peace the maiden,
Fairest daughter or the Northland,
Sitting on the bow of heaven,
Let each labor long to win her,
Let her wed the one she chooses,
Him selecting, let her follow.'
327
Wainamoinen thus makes answer:
'I agree to thy proposal,
Let us woo in peace the maiden,
Not by force, nor faithless measures,
Shall we woo the Maid of Beauty,
Let her follow him she chooses;
Let the unsuccessful suitor
Harbor neither wrath nor envy
For the hero that she follows.'
Thus agreeing, on they journey,
Each according to his pleasure;
Fleetly does the steed fly onward,
Quickly flies the magic vessel,
Sailing on the broad-sea northward;
Ilmarinen's fleet-foot racer
Makes the hills of Northland tremble,
As he gallops on his journey
To the dismal Sariola.
Wainamoinen calls the South-winds,
And they fly to his assistance;
Swiftly sails his ship of beauty,
Swiftly plows the rough sea-billows
In her pathway to Pohyola.
Time had gone but little distance,
Scarce a moment had passed over,
Ere the dogs began their barking,
In the mansions of the Northland,
In the courts of Sariola,
Watch-dogs of the court of Louhi;
Never had they growled so fiercely,
Never had they barked so loudly,
Never with their tails had beaten
Northland into such an uproar.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Go and learn, my worthy daughter,
Why the watch-dogs have been barking,
Why the black-dog signals danger.'
Quickly does the daughter answer:
'I am occupied, dear father,
I have work of more importance,
I must tend my flock of lambkins,
I must turn the nether millstone,
328
Grind to flour the grains of barley,
Run the grindings through the sifter,
Only have I time for grinding.'
Lowly growls the faithful watch-dog,
Seldom does he growl so strangely.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Go and learn, my trusted consort,
Why the Northland dogs are barking,
Why the black-dog signals danger.'
Thus his aged wife makes answer;
'Have no time, nor inclination,
I must feed my hungry household,
Must prepare a worthy dinner,
I must bake the toothsome biscuit,
Knead the dough till it is ready,
Only have I strength for kneading.'
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Dames are always in a hurry,
Maidens too are ever busy,
Whether warming at the oven,
Or asleep upon their couches;
Go my son, and learn the danger,
Why the black-dog growls displeasure,'
Quickly does the son give answer:
'Have no time, nor inclination,
Am in haste to grind my hatchet;
I must chop this log to cordwood,
For the fire must cut the faggots,
I must split the wood in fragments,
Large the pile and small the fire-wood,
Only have I strength for chopping.'
Still the watch-dog growls in anger,
Growl the whelps within the mansion,
Growl the dogs chained in the kennel,
Growls the black-dog on the hill-top,
Setting Northland in an uproar.
Spake the master of Pohyola:
'Never, never does my black-dog
Growl like this without a reason;
Never does he bark for nothing,
Does not growl at angry billows,
Nor the sighing of the pine-trees.'
329
Then the master of Pohyola
Went himself to learn the reason
For the barking of the watch-dogs;
Strode he through the spacious court-yard,
Through the open fields beyond it,
To the summit of the uplands.
Looking toward his black-dog barking,
He beholds the muzzle pointed
To a distant, stormy hill-top,
To a mound with alders covered;
There he learned the rightful reason,
Why his dogs had barked so loudly,
Why had growled the wool-tail bearer,
Why his whelps had signalled danger.
At full sail, he saw a vessel,
And the ship was scarlet-colored,
Entering the bay of Lempo;
Saw a sledge of magic colors,
Gliding up the curving sea-shore,
O'er the snow-fields of Pohyola.
Then the master of the Northland
Hastened straightway to his dwelling,
Hastened forward to his court-room,
These the accents of the master:
'Often strangers journey hither,
On the blue back of the ocean,
Sailing in a scarlet vessel,
Rocking in the bay of Lempo;
Often strangers come in sledges
To the honey-lands of Louhi.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
How shall we obtain a token
Why these strangers journey hither?
My beloved, faithful daughter,
Lay a branch upon the fire-place,
Let it burn with fire of magic
If it trickle drops of scarlet,
War and bloodshed do they bring us;
If it trickle drops of water,
Peace and plenty bring the strangers.'
Northland's fair and slender maiden,
Beautiful and modest daughter,
330
Lays a sorb-branch on the fire-place,
Lights it with the fire of magic;
Does not trickle drops of scarlet,
Trickles neither blood, nor water,
From the wand come drops of honey.
From the corner spake Suowakko,
This the language of the wizard:
'If the wand is dripping honey,
Then the strangers that are coming
Are but worthy friends and suitors.'
Then the hostess of the Northland,
With the daughter of the hostess,
Straightway left their work, and hastened
From their dwelling to the court-yard;
Looked about in all directions,
Turned their eyes upon the waters,
Saw a magic-colored vessel
Rocking slowly in the harbor,
Having sailed the bay of Lempo,
Triple sails, and masts, and rigging,
Sable was the nether portion,
And the upper, scarlet-colored,
At the helm an ancient hero
Leaning on his oars of copper;
Saw a fleet-foot racer running,
Saw a red sledge lightly follow,
Saw the magic sledge emblazoned,
Guided toward the courts of Louhi;
Saw and heard six golden cuckoos
Sitting on the break-board, calling,
Seven bluebirds richly colored
Singing from the yoke and cross-bar;
In the sledge a magic hero,
Young, and strong, and proud, and handsome,
Holding reins upon the courser.
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Dearest daughter, winsome maiden,
Dost thou wish a noble suitor?
Should these heroes come to woo thee,
Wouldst thou leave thy home and country,
Be the bride of him that pleases,
Be his faithful life-companion?
331
'He that comes upon the waters,
Sailing in a magic vessel,
Having sailed the bay of Lempo,
Is the good, old Wainamoinen;
In his ship are countless treasures,
Richest presents from Wainola.
'He that rides here in his snow-sledge
In his sledge of magic beauty,
With the cuckoos and the bluebirds,
Is the blacksmith, Ilmarinen,
Cometh hither empty-handed,
Only brings some wisdom-sayings.
When they come within the dwelling,
Bring a bowl of honeyed viands,
Bring a pitcher with two handles,
Give to him that thou wouldst follow
Give it to old Wainamoinen,
Him that brings thee countless treasures,
Costly presents in his vessel,
Priceless gems from Kalevala.'
Spake the Northland's lovely daughter,
This the language of the maiden
'Good, indeed, advice maternal,
But I will not wed for riches,
Wed no man for countless treasures;
For his worth I'll choose a husband,
For his youth and fine appearance,
For his noble form and features;
In the olden times the maidens
Were not sold by anxious mothers
To the suitors that they loved not.
I shall choose without his treasures
Ilmarinen for his wisdom,
For his worth and good behavior,
Him that forged the wondrous Sampo,
Hammered thee the lid in colors.'
Spake the hostess of Pohyola:
'Senseless daughter, child of folly,
Thus to choose the ancient blacksmith,
From whose brow drips perspiration,
Evermore to rinse his linen,
Lave his hands, and eyes, and forehead,
332
Keep his ancient house in order;
Little use his wit and wisdom
When compared with gold and silver.'
This the answer of the daughter:
'I will never, never, never,
Wed the ancient Wainamoinen
With his gold and priceless jewels;
Never will I be a helpmate
To a hero in his dotage,
Little thanks my compensation.'
Wainamoinen, safely landing
In advance of Ilmarinen,
Pulls his gaily-covered vessel
From the waves upon the sea-beach,
On the cylinders of birch-wood,
On the rollers copper-banded,
Straightway hastens to the guest-room
Of the hostess of Pohyola,
Of the master of the Northland,
Speaks these words upon the threshold
To the famous Maid of Beauty:
'Come with me, thou lovely virgin,
Be my bride and life-companion,
Share with me my joys and sorrows,
Be my honored wife hereafter!'
This the answer of the maiden:
'Hast thou built for me the vessel,
Built for me the ship of magic
From the fragments of the distaff,
From the splinters of the spindle?'
Wainamoinen thus replying:
'I have built the promised vessel,
Built the wondrous ship for sailing,
Firmly joined the parts by magic;
It will weather roughest billows,
Will outlive the winds and waters,
Swiftly glide upon the blue-back
Of the deep and boundless ocean
It will ride the waves in beauty,
Like an airy bubble rising,
Like a cork on lake and river,
Through the angry seas of Northland,
333
Through Pohyola's peaceful waters.'
Northland's fair and slender daughter
Gives this answer to her suitor:
'Will not wed a sea-born hero,
Do not care to rock the billows,
Cannot live with such a husband
Storms would bring us pain and trouble,
Winds would rack our hearts and temples;
Therefore thee I cannot follow,
Cannot keep thy home in order,
Cannot be thy life-companion,
Cannot wed old Wainamoinen.'
~ Elias Lönnrot,
791:The Great Adventure Of Max Breuck
A yellow band of light upon the street
Pours from an open door, and makes a wide
Pathway of bright gold across a sheet
Of calm and liquid moonshine. From inside
Come shouts and streams of laughter, and a snatch
Of song, soon drowned and lost again in mirth,
The clip of tankards on a table top,
And stir of booted heels. Against the patch
Of candle-light a shadow falls, its girth
Proclaims the host himself, and master of his shop.
This is the tavern of one Hilverdink,
Jan Hilverdink, whose wines are much esteemed.
Within his cellar men can have to drink
The rarest cordials old monks ever schemed
To coax from pulpy grapes, and with nice art
Improve and spice their virgin juiciness.
Here froths the amber beer of many a brew,
Crowning each pewter tankard with as smart
A cap as ever in his wantonness
Winter set glittering on top of an old yew.
Tall candles stand upon the table, where
Are twisted glasses, ruby-sparked with wine,
Clarets and ports. Those topaz bumpers were
Drained from slim, long-necked bottles of the Rhine.
The centre of the board is piled with pipes,
Slender and clean, the still unbaptized clay
Awaits its burning fate. Behind, the vault
Stretches from dim to dark, a groping way
Bordered by casks and puncheons, whose brass stripes
326
And bands gleam dully still, beyond the gay tumult.
'For good old Master Hilverdink, a toast!'
Clamoured a youth with tassels on his boots.
'Bring out your oldest brandy for a boast,
From that small barrel in the very roots
Of your deep cellar, man. Why here is Max!
Ho! Welcome, Max, you're scarcely here in time.
We want to drink to old Jan's luck, and smoke
His best tobacco for a grand climax.
Here, Jan, a paper, fragrant as crushed thyme,
We'll have the best to wish you luck, or may we choke!'
Max Breuck unclasped his broadcloth cloak, and sat.
'Well thought of, Franz; here's luck to Mynheer Jan.'
The host set down a jar; then to a vat
Lost in the distance of his cellar, ran.
Max took a pipe as graceful as the stem
Of some long tulip, crammed it full, and drew
The pungent smoke deep to his grateful lung.
It curled all blue throughout the cave and flew
Into the silver night. At once there flung
Into the crowded shop a boy, who cried to them:
'Oh, sirs, is there some learned lawyer here,
Some advocate, or all-wise counsellor?
My master sent me to inquire where
Such men do mostly be, but every door
Was shut and barred, for late has grown the hour.
I pray you tell me where I may now find
One versed in law, the matter will not wait.'
'I am a lawyer, boy,' said Max, 'my mind
Is not locked to my business, though 'tis late.
327
I shall be glad to serve what way is in my power.
Then once more, cloaked and ready, he set out,
Tripping the footsteps of the eager boy
Along the dappled cobbles, while the rout
Within the tavern jeered at his employ.
Through new-burst elm leaves filtered the white moon,
Who peered and splashed between the twinkling boughs,
Flooded the open spaces, and took flight
Before tall, serried houses in platoon,
Guarded by shadows. Past the Custom House
They took their hurried way in the Spring-scented night.
Before a door which fronted a canal
The boy halted. A dim tree-shaded spot.
The water lapped the stones in musical
And rhythmic tappings, and a galliot
Slumbered at anchor with no light aboard.
The boy knocked twice, and steps approached. A flame
Winked through the keyhole, then a key was turned,
And through the open door Max went toward
Another door, whence sound of voices came.
He entered a large room where candelabra burned.
An aged man in quilted dressing gown
Rose up to greet him. 'Sir,' said Max, 'you sent
Your messenger to seek throughout the town
A lawyer. I have small accomplishment,
But I am at your service, and my name
Is Max Breuck, Counsellor, at your command.'
'Mynheer,' replied the aged man, 'obliged
Am I, and count myself much privileged.
I am Cornelius Kurler, and my fame
328
Is better known on distant oceans than on land.
10
My ship has tasted water in strange seas,
And bartered goods at still uncharted isles.
She's oft coquetted with a tropic breeze,
And sheered off hurricanes with jaunty smiles.'
'Tush, Kurler,' here broke in the other man,
'Enough of poetry, draw the deed and sign.'
The old man seemed to wizen at the voice,
'My good friend, Grootver, --' he at once began.
'No introductions, let us have some wine,
And business, now that you at last have made your choice.'
11
A harsh and disagreeable man he proved to be,
This Grootver, with no single kindly thought.
Kurler explained, his old hands nervously
Twisting his beard. His vessel he had bought
From Grootver. He had thought to soon repay
The ducats borrowed, but an adverse wind
Had so delayed him that his cargo brought
But half its proper price, the very day
He came to port he stepped ashore to find
The market glutted and his counted profits naught.
12
Little by little Max made out the way
That Grootver pressed that poor harassed old man.
His money he must have, too long delay
Had turned the usurer to a ruffian.
'But let me take my ship, with many bales
Of cotton stuffs dyed crimson, green, and blue,
Cunningly patterned, made to suit the taste
Of mandarin's ladies; when my battered sails
Open for home, such stores will I bring you
329
That all your former ventures will be counted waste.
13
Such light and foamy silks, like crinkled cream,
And indigo more blue than sun-whipped seas,
Spices and fragrant trees, a massive beam
Of sandalwood, and pungent China teas,
Tobacco, coffee!' Grootver only laughed.
Max heard it all, and worse than all he heard
The deed to which the sailor gave his word.
He shivered, 'twas as if the villain gaffed
The old man with a boat-hook; bleeding, spent,
He begged for life nor knew at all the road he went.
14
For Kurler had a daughter, young and gay,
Carefully reared and shielded, rarely seen.
But on one black and most unfriendly day
Grootver had caught her as she passed between
The kitchen and the garden. She had run
In fear of him, his evil leering eye,
And when he came she, bolted in her room,
Refused to show, though gave no reason why.
The spinning of her future had begun,
On quiet nights she heard the whirring of her doom.
15
Max mended an old goosequill by the fire,
Loathing his work, but seeing no thing to do.
He felt his hands were building up the pyre
To burn two souls, and seized with vertigo
He staggered to his chair. Before him lay
White paper still unspotted by a crime.
'Now, young man, write,' said Grootver in his ear.
'`If in two years my vessel should yet stay
From Amsterdam, I give Grootver, sometime
330
A friend, my daughter for his lawful wife.' Now swear.'
16
And Kurler swore, a palsied, tottering sound,
And traced his name, a shaking, wandering line.
Then dazed he sat there, speechless from his wound.
Grootver got up: 'Fair voyage, the brigantine!'
He shuffled from the room, and left the house.
His footsteps wore to silence down the street.
At last the aged man began to rouse.
With help he once more gained his trembling feet.
'My daughter, Mynheer Breuck, is friendless now.
Will you watch over her? I ask a solemn vow.'
17
Max laid his hand upon the old man's arm,
'Before God, sir, I vow, when you are gone,
So to protect your daughter from all harm
As one man may.' Thus sorrowful, forlorn,
The situation to Max Breuck appeared,
He gave his promise almost without thought,
Nor looked to see a difficulty. 'Bred
Gently to watch a mother left alone;
Bound by a dying father's wish, who feared
The world's accustomed harshness when he should be dead;
18
Such was my case from youth, Mynheer Kurler.
Last Winter she died also, and my days
Are passed in work, lest I should grieve for her,
And undo habits used to earn her praise.
My leisure I will gladly give to see
Your household and your daughter prosperous.'
The sailor said his thanks, but turned away.
He could not brook that his humility,
So little wonted, and so tremulous,
331
Should first before a stranger make such great display.
19
'Come here to-morrow as the bells ring noon,
I sail at the full sea, my daughter then
I will make known to you. 'Twill be a boon
If after I have bid good-by, and when
Her eyeballs scorch with watching me depart,
You bring her home again. She lives with one
Old serving-woman, who has brought her up.
But that is no friend for so free a heart.
No head to match her questions. It is done.
And I must sail away to come and brim her cup.
20
My ship's the fastest that owns Amsterdam
As home, so not a letter can you send.
I shall be back, before to where I am
Another ship could reach. Now your stipend --'
Quickly Breuck interposed. 'When you once more
Tread on the stones which pave our streets. -- Good night!
To-morrow I will be, at stroke of noon,
At the great wharf.' Then hurrying, in spite
Of cake and wine the old man pressed upon
Him ere he went, he took his leave and shut the door.
21
'Twas noon in Amsterdam, the day was clear,
And sunshine tipped the pointed roofs with gold.
The brown canals ran liquid bronze, for here
The sun sank deep into the waters cold.
And every clock and belfry in the town
Hammered, and struck, and rang. Such peals of bells,
To shake the sunny morning into life,
And to proclaim the middle, and the crown,
Of this most sparkling daytime! The crowd swells,
332
Laughing and pushing toward the quays in friendly strife.
22
The 'Horn of Fortune' sails away to-day.
At highest tide she lets her anchor go,
And starts for China. Saucy popinjay!
Giddy in freshest paint she curtseys low,
And beckons to her boats to let her start.
Blue is the ocean, with a flashing breeze.
The shining waves are quick to take her part.
They push and spatter her. Her sails are loose,
Her tackles hanging, waiting men to seize
And haul them taut, with chanty-singing, as they choose.
23
At the great wharf's edge Mynheer Kurler stands,
And by his side, his daughter, young Christine.
Max Breuck is there, his hat held in his hands,
Bowing before them both. The brigantine
Bounces impatient at the long delay,
Curvets and jumps, a cable's length from shore.
A heavy galliot unloads on the walls
Round, yellow cheeses, like gold cannon balls
Stacked on the stones in pyramids. Once more
Kurler has kissed Christine, and now he is away.
24
Christine stood rigid like a frozen stone,
Her hands wrung pale in effort at control.
Max moved aside and let her be alone,
For grief exacts each penny of its toll.
The dancing boat tossed on the glinting sea.
A sun-path swallowed it in flaming light,
Then, shrunk a cockleshell, it came again
Upon the other side. Now on the lee
It took the 'Horn of Fortune'. Straining sight
333
Could see it hauled aboard, men pulling on the crane.
25
Then up above the eager brigantine,
Along her slender masts, the sails took flight,
Were sheeted home, and ropes were coiled. The shine
Of the wet anchor, when its heavy weight
Rose splashing to the deck. These things they saw,
Christine and Max, upon the crowded quay.
They saw the sails grow white, then blue in shade,
The ship had turned, caught in a windy flaw
She glided imperceptibly away,
Drew farther off and in the bright sky seemed to fade.
26
Home, through the emptying streets, Max took Christine,
Who would have hid her sorrow from his gaze.
Before the iron gateway, clasped between
Each garden wall, he stopped. She, in amaze,
Asked, 'Do you enter not then, Mynheer Breuck?
My father told me of your courtesy.
Since I am now your charge, 'tis meet for me
To show such hospitality as maiden may,
Without disdaining rules must not be broke.
Katrina will have coffee, and she bakes today.'
27
She straight unhasped the tall, beflowered gate.
Curled into tendrils, twisted into cones
Of leaves and roses, iron infoliate,
It guards the pleasance, and its stiffened bones
Are budded with much peering at the rows,
And beds, and arbours, which it keeps inside.
Max started at the beauty, at the glare
Of tints. At either end was set a wide
Path strewn with fine, red gravel, and such shows
334
Of tulips in their splendour flaunted everywhere!
28
From side to side, midway each path, there ran
A longer one which cut the space in two.
And, like a tunnel some magician
Has wrought in twinkling green, an alley grew,
Pleached thick and walled with apple trees; their flowers
Incensed the garden, and when Autumn came
The plump and heavy apples crowding stood
And tapped against the arbour. Then the dame
Katrina shook them down, in pelting showers
They plunged to earth, and died transformed to sugared food.
29
Against the high, encircling walls were grapes,
Nailed close to feel the baking of the sun
From glowing bricks. Their microscopic shapes
Half hidden by serrated leaves. And one
Old cherry tossed its branches near the door.
Bordered along the wall, in beds between,
Flickering, streaming, nodding in the air,
The pride of all the garden, there were more
Tulips than Max had ever dreamed or seen.
They jostled, mobbed, and danced. Max stood at helpless stare.
30
'Within the arbour, Mynheer Breuck, I'll bring
Coffee and cakes, a pipe, and Father's best
Tobacco, brought from countries harbouring
Dawn's earliest footstep. Wait.' With girlish zest
To please her guest she flew. A moment more
She came again, with her old nurse behind.
Then, sitting on the bench and knitting fast,
She talked as someone with a noble store
Of hidden fancies, blown upon the wind,
335
Eager to flutter forth and leave their silent past.
31
The little apple leaves above their heads
Let fall a quivering sunshine. Quiet, cool,
In blossomed boughs they sat. Beyond, the beds
Of tulips blazed, a proper vestibule
And antechamber to the rainbow. Dyes
Of prismed richness: Carmine. Madder. Blues
Tinging dark browns to purple. Silvers flushed
To amethyst and tinct with gold. Round eyes
Of scarlet, spotting tender saffron hues.
Violets sunk to blacks, and reds in orange crushed.
32
Of every pattern and in every shade.
Nacreous, iridescent, mottled, checked.
Some purest sulphur-yellow, others made
An ivory-white with disks of copper flecked.
Sprinkled and striped, tasselled, or keenest edged.
Striated, powdered, freckled, long or short.
They bloomed, and seemed strange wonder-moths new-fledged,
Born of the spectrum wedded to a flame.
The shade within the arbour made a port
To o'ertaxed eyes, its still, green twilight rest became.
33
Her knitting-needles clicked and Christine talked,
This child matured to woman unaware,
The first time left alone. Now dreams once balked
Found utterance. Max thought her very fair.
Beneath her cap her ornaments shone gold,
And purest gold they were. Kurler was rich
And heedful. Her old maiden aunt had died
Whose darling care she was. Now, growing bold,
She asked, had Max a sister? Dropped a stitch
336
At her own candour. Then she paused and softly sighed.
34
Two years was long! She loved her father well,
But fears she had not. He had always been
Just sailed or sailing. And she must not dwell
On sad thoughts, he had told her so, and seen
Her smile at parting. But she sighed once more.
Two years was long; 'twas not one hour yet!
Mynheer Grootver she would not see at all.
Yes, yes, she knew, but ere the date so set,
The 'Horn of Fortune' would be at the wall.
When Max had bid farewell, she watched him from the door.
35
The next day, and the next, Max went to ask
The health of Jufvrouw Kurler, and the news:
Another tulip blown, or the great task
Of gathering petals which the high wind strews;
The polishing of floors, the pictured tiles
Well scrubbed, and oaken chairs most deftly oiled.
Such things were Christine's world, and his was she
Winter drew near, his sun was in her smiles.
Another Spring, and at his law he toiled,
Unspoken hope counselled a wise efficiency.
36
Max Breuck was honour's soul, he knew himself
The guardian of this girl; no more, no less.
As one in charge of guineas on a shelf
Loose in a china teapot, may confess
His need, but may not borrow till his friend
Comes back to give. So Max, in honour, said
No word of love or marriage; but the days
He clipped off on his almanac. The end
Must come! The second year, with feet of lead,
337
Lagged slowly by till Spring had plumped the willow sprays.
37
Two years had made Christine a woman grown,
With dignity and gently certain pride.
But all her childhood fancies had not flown,
Her thoughts in lovely dreamings seemed to glide.
Max was her trusted friend, did she confess
A closer happiness? Max could not tell.
Two years were over and his life he found
Sphered and complete. In restless eagerness
He waited for the 'Horn of Fortune'. Well
Had he his promise kept, abating not one pound.
38
Spring slipped away to Summer. Still no glass
Sighted the brigantine. Then Grootver came
Demanding Jufvrouw Kurler. His trespass
Was justified, for he had won the game.
Christine begged time, more time! Midsummer went,
And Grootver waxed impatient. Still the ship
Tarried. Christine, betrayed and weary, sank
To dreadful terrors. One day, crazed, she sent
For Max. 'Come quickly,' said her note, 'I skip
The worst distress until we meet. The world is blank.'
39
Through the long sunshine of late afternoon
Max went to her. In the pleached alley, lost
In bitter reverie, he found her soon.
And sitting down beside her, at the cost
Of all his secret, 'Dear,' said he, 'what thing
So suddenly has happened?' Then, in tears,
She told that Grootver, on the following morn,
Would come to marry her, and shuddering:
'I will die rather, death has lesser fears.'
338
Max felt the shackles drop from the oath which he had sworn.
40
'My Dearest One, the hid joy of my heart!
I love you, oh! you must indeed have known.
In strictest honour I have played my part;
But all this misery has overthrown
My scruples. If you love me, marry me
Before the sun has dipped behind those trees.
You cannot be wed twice, and Grootver, foiled,
Can eat his anger. My care it shall be
To pay your father's debt, by such degrees
As I can compass, and for years I've greatly toiled.
41
This is not haste, Christine, for long I've known
My love, and silence forced upon my lips.
I worship you with all the strength I've shown
In keeping faith.' With pleading finger tips
He touched her arm. 'Christine! Beloved! Think.
Let us not tempt the future. Dearest, speak,
I love you. Do my words fall too swift now?
They've been in leash so long upon the brink.'
She sat quite still, her body loose and weak.
Then into him she melted, all her soul at flow.
42
And they were married ere the westering sun
Had disappeared behind the garden trees.
The evening poured on them its benison,
And flower-scents, that only night-time frees,
Rose up around them from the beamy ground,
Silvered and shadowed by a tranquil moon.
Within the arbour, long they lay embraced,
In such enraptured sweetness as they found
Close-partnered each to each, and thinking soon
339
To be enwoven, long ere night to morning faced.
43
At last Max spoke, 'Dear Heart, this night is ours,
To watch it pale, together, into dawn,
Pressing our souls apart like opening flowers
Until our lives, through quivering bodies drawn,
Are mingled and confounded. Then, far spent,
Our eyes will close to undisturbed rest.
For that desired thing I leave you now.
To pinnacle this day's accomplishment,
By telling Grootver that a bootless quest
Is his, and that his schemes have met a knock-down blow.'
44
But Christine clung to him with sobbing cries,
Pleading for love's sake that he leave her not.
And wound her arms about his knees and thighs
As he stood over her. With dread, begot
Of Grootver's name, and silence, and the night,
She shook and trembled. Words in moaning plaint
Wooed him to stay. She feared, she knew not why,
Yet greatly feared. She seemed some anguished saint
Martyred by visions. Max Breuck soothed her fright
With wisdom, then stepped out under the cooling sky.
45
But at the gate once more she held him close
And quenched her heart again upon his lips.
'My Sweetheart, why this terror? I propose
But to be gone one hour! Evening slips
Away, this errand must be done.' 'Max! Max!
First goes my father, if I lose you now!'
She grasped him as in panic lest she drown.
Softly he laughed, 'One hour through the town
By moonlight! That's no place for foul attacks.
340
Dearest, be comforted, and clear that troubled brow.
46
One hour, Dear, and then, no more alone.
We front another day as man and wife.
I shall be back almost before I'm gone,
And midnight shall anoint and crown our life.'
Then through the gate he passed. Along the street
She watched his buttons gleaming in the moon.
He stopped to wave and turned the garden wall.
Straight she sank down upon a mossy seat.
Her senses, mist-encircled by a swoon,
Swayed to unconsciousness beneath its wreathing pall.
47
Briskly Max walked beside the still canal.
His step was firm with purpose. Not a jot
He feared this meeting, nor the rancorous gall
Grootver would spit on him who marred his plot.
He dreaded no man, since he could protect
Christine. His wife! He stopped and laughed aloud.
His starved life had not fitted him for joy.
It strained him to the utmost to reject
Even this hour with her. His heart beat loud.
'Damn Grootver, who can force my time to this employ!'
48
He laughed again. What boyish uncontrol
To be so racked. Then felt his ticking watch.
In half an hour Grootver would know the whole.
And he would be returned, lifting the latch
Of his own gate, eager to take Christine
And crush her to his lips. How bear delay?
He broke into a run. In front, a line
Of candle-light banded the cobbled street.
Hilverdink's tavern! Not for many a day
341
Had he been there to take his old, accustomed seat.
49
'Why, Max! Stop, Max!' And out they came pell-mell,
His old companions. 'Max, where have you been?
Not drink with us? Indeed you serve us well!
How many months is it since we have seen
You here? Jan, Jan, you slow, old doddering goat!
Here's Mynheer Breuck come back again at last,
Stir your old bones to welcome him. Fie, Max.
Business! And after hours! Fill your throat;
Here's beer or brandy. Now, boys, hold him fast.
Put down your cane, dear man. What really vicious whacks!'
50
They forced him to a seat, and held him there,
Despite his anger, while the hideous joke
Was tossed from hand to hand. Franz poured with care
A brimming glass of whiskey. 'Here, we've broke
Into a virgin barrel for you, drink!
Tut! Tut! Just hear him! Married! Who, and when?
Married, and out on business. Clever Spark!
Which lie's the likeliest? Come, Max, do think.'
Swollen with fury, struggling with these men,
Max cursed hilarity which must needs have a mark.
51
Forcing himself to steadiness, he tried
To quell the uproar, told them what he dared
Of his own life and circumstance. Implied
Most urgent matters, time could ill be spared.
In jesting mood his comrades heard his tale,
And scoffed at it. He felt his anger more
Goaded and bursting; -- 'Cowards! Is no one loth
To mock at duty --' Here they called for ale,
And forced a pipe upon him. With an oath
342
He shivered it to fragments on the earthen floor.
52
Sobered a little by his violence,
And by the host who begged them to be still,
Nor injure his good name, 'Max, no offence,'
They blurted, 'you may leave now if you will.'
'One moment, Max,' said Franz. 'We've gone too far.
I ask your pardon for our foolish joke.
It started in a wager ere you came.
The talk somehow had fall'n on drugs, a jar
I brought from China, herbs the natives smoke,
Was with me, and I thought merely to play a game.
53
Its properties are to induce a sleep
Fraught with adventure, and the flight of time
Is inconceivable in swiftness. Deep
Sunken in slumber, imageries sublime
Flatter the senses, or some fearful dream
Holds them enmeshed. Years pass which on the clock
Are but so many seconds. We agreed
That the next man who came should prove the scheme;
And you were he. Jan handed you the crock.
Two whiffs! And then the pipe was broke, and you were freed.'
54
'It is a lie, a damned, infernal lie!'
Max Breuck was maddened now. 'Another jest
Of your befuddled wits. I know not why
I am to be your butt. At my request
You'll choose among you one who'll answer for
Your most unseasonable mirth. Good-night
And good-by, -- gentlemen. You'll hear from me.'
But Franz had caught him at the very door,
'It is no lie, Max Breuck, and for your plight
343
I am to blame. Come back, and we'll talk quietly.
55
You have no business, that is why we laughed,
Since you had none a few minutes ago.
As to your wedding, naturally we chaffed,
Knowing the length of time it takes to do
A simple thing like that in this slow world.
Indeed, Max, 'twas a dream. Forgive me then.
I'll burn the drug if you prefer.' But Breuck
Muttered and stared, -- 'A lie.' And then he hurled,
Distraught, this word at Franz: 'Prove it. And when
It's proven, I'll believe. That thing shall be your work.
56
I'll give you just one week to make your case.
On August thirty-first, eighteen-fourteen,
I shall require your proof.' With wondering face
Franz cried, 'A week to August, and fourteen
The year! You're mad, 'tis April now.
April, and eighteen-twelve.' Max staggered, caught
A chair, -- 'April two years ago! Indeed,
Or you, or I, are mad. I know not how
Either could blunder so.' Hilverdink brought
'The Amsterdam Gazette', and Max was forced to read.
57
'Eighteen hundred and twelve,' in largest print;
And next to it, 'April the twenty-first.'
The letters smeared and jumbled, but by dint
Of straining every nerve to meet the worst,
He read it, and into his pounding brain
Tumbled a horror. Like a roaring sea
Foreboding shipwreck, came the message plain:
'This is two years ago! What of Christine?'
He fled the cellar, in his agony
344
Running to outstrip Fate, and save his holy shrine.
58
The darkened buildings echoed to his feet
Clap-clapping on the pavement as he ran.
Across moon-misted squares clamoured his fleet
And terror-winged steps. His heart began
To labour at the speed. And still no sign,
No flutter of a leaf against the sky.
And this should be the garden wall, and round
The corner, the old gate. No even line
Was this! No wall! And then a fearful cry
Shattered the stillness. Two stiff houses filled the ground.
59
Shoulder to shoulder, like dragoons in line,
They stood, and Max knew them to be the ones
To right and left of Kurler's garden. Spine
Rigid next frozen spine. No mellow tones
Of ancient gilded iron, undulate,
Expanding in wide circles and broad curves,
The twisted iron of the garden gate,
Was there. The houses touched and left no space
Between. With glassy eyes and shaking nerves
Max gazed. Then mad with fear, fled still, and left that place.
60
Stumbling and panting, on he ran, and on.
His slobbering lips could only cry, 'Christine!
My Dearest Love! My Wife! Where are you gone?
What future is our past? What saturnine,
Sardonic devil's jest has bid us live
Two years together in a puff of smoke?
It was no dream, I swear it! In some star,
Or still imprisoned in Time's egg, you give
Me love. I feel it. Dearest Dear, this stroke
345
Shall never part us, I will reach to where you are.'
61
His burning eyeballs stared into the dark.
The moon had long been set. And still he cried:
'Christine! My Love! Christine!' A sudden spark
Pricked through the gloom, and shortly Max espied
With his uncertain vision, so within
Distracted he could scarcely trust its truth,
A latticed window where a crimson gleam
Spangled the blackness, and hung from a pin,
An iron crane, were three gilt balls. His youth
Had taught their meaning, now they closed upon his dream.
62
Softly he knocked against the casement, wide
It flew, and a cracked voice his business there
Demanded. The door opened, and inside
Max stepped. He saw a candle held in air
Above the head of a gray-bearded Jew.
'Simeon Isaacs, Mynheer, can I serve
You?' 'Yes, I think you can. Do you keep arms?
I want a pistol.' Quick the old man grew
Livid. 'Mynheer, a pistol! Let me swerve
You from your purpose. Life brings often false alarms --'
63
'Peace, good old Isaacs, why should you suppose
My purpose deadly. In good truth I've been
Blest above others. You have many rows
Of pistols it would seem. Here, this shagreen
Case holds one that I fancy. Silvered mounts
Are to my taste. These letters `C. D. L.'
Its former owner? Dead, you say. Poor Ghost!
'Twill serve my turn though --' Hastily he counts
The florins down upon the table. 'Well,
346
Good-night, and wish me luck for your to-morrow's toast.'
64
Into the night again he hurried, now
Pale and in haste; and far beyond the town
He set his goal. And then he wondered how
Poor C. D. L. had come to die. 'It's grown
Handy in killing, maybe, this I've bought,
And will work punctually.' His sorrow fell
Upon his senses, shutting out all else.
Again he wept, and called, and blindly fought
The heavy miles away. 'Christine. I'm well.
I'm coming. My Own Wife!' He lurched with failing pulse.
65
Along the dyke the keen air blew in gusts,
And grasses bent and wailed before the wind.
The Zuider Zee, which croons all night and thrusts
Long stealthy fingers up some way to find
And crumble down the stones, moaned baffled. Here
The wide-armed windmills looked like gallows-trees.
No lights were burning in the distant thorps.
Max laid aside his coat. His mind, half-clear,
Babbled 'Christine!' A shot split through the breeze.
The cold stars winked and glittered at his chilling corpse.
~ Amy Lowell,
792:Earth, Ocean, Air, belovd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses,have been dear to me;
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred; then forgive
This boast, belovd brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favor now!

Mother of this unfathomable world!
Favor my solemn song, for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmd night
To render up thy charge; and, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
Enough from incommunicable dream,
And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome
Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
No human hands with pious reverence reared,
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:
A lovely youth,no mourning maiden decked
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
Gentle, and brave, and generous,no lorn bard
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.  
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

By solemn vision and bright silver dream
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
The fountains of divine philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
And knew. When early youth had passed, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home
To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
He like her shadow has pursued, where'er
The red volcano overcanopies
Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice
With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes
On black bare pointed islets ever beat
With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible
To avarice or pride, their starry domes
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,
Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous band his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own.

His wandering step,
Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
The awful ruins of the days of old:
Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers
Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk
Or jasper tomb or mutilated sphinx,
Dark thiopia in her desert hills
Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
Stupendous columns, and wild images
Of more than man, where marble daemons watch
The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men
Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,
He lingered, poring on memorials
Of the world's youth: through the long burning day
Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades
Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,
Her daily portion, from her father's tent,
And spread her matting for his couch, and stole
From duties and repose to tend his steps,
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
To speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep,
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.

The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
And o'er the arial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his way;
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veild maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
Of many-colored woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
As if her heart impatiently endured
Its bursting burden; at the sound he turned,
And saw by the warm light of their own life
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
Her panting bosom:she drew back awhile,
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.

Roused by the shock, he started from his trance
The cold white light of morning, the blue moon
Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,
The distinct valley and the vacant woods,
Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,
The mystery and the majesty of Earth,
The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes
Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.
The spirit of sweet human love has sent
A vision to the sleep of him who spurned
Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues
Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;
He overleaps the bounds. Alas! alas!
Were limbs and breath and being intertwined
Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, forever lost
In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,
That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death
Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds
And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake
Lead only to a black and watery depth,
While death's blue vault with loathliest vapors hung,
Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?
This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;
The insatiate hope which it awakened stung
His brain even like despair.

While daylight held
The sky, the Poet kept mute conference
With his still soul. At night the passion came,
Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,
And shook him from his rest, and led him forth
Into the darkness. As an eagle, grasped
In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast
Burn with the poison, and precipitates
Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,
Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight
O'er the wide ary wilderness: thus driven
By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,
Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,
Startling with careless step the moon-light snake,
He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,
Shedding the mockery of its vital hues
Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep
Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
Bearing within his life the brooding care
That ever fed on its decaying flame.
And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
Sered by the autumn of strange suffering,
Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand
Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;
Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone,
As in a furnace burning secretly,
From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,
Who ministered with human charity
His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,
Encountering on some dizzy precipice
That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind,
With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet
Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
In its career; the infant would conceal
His troubled visage in his mother's robe
In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
To remember their strange light in many a dream
Of after times; but youthful maidens, taught
By nature, would interpret half the woe
That wasted him, would call him with false names
Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand
At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path
Of his departure from their father's door.

At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
High over the immeasurable main.
His eyes pursued its flight:'Thou hast a home,
Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home,
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.
And what am I that I should linger here,
With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
That echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile
Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around.
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
A little shallop floating near the shore
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.
It had been long abandoned, for its sides
Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
Swayed with the undulations of the tide.
A restless impulse urged him to embark
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.
Following his eager soul, the wanderer
Leaped in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea
Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.

As one that in a silver vision floats
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on,
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
Through the white ridges of the chafd sea.
The waves arose. Higher and higher still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
With dark obliterating course, he sate:
As if their genii were the ministers
Appointed to conduct him to the light
Of those belovd eyes, the Poet sate,
Holding the steady helm. Evening came on;
The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day;
Night followed, clad with stars. On every side
More horribly the multitudinous streams
Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled
As if that frail and wasted human form
Had been an elemental god.

At midnight
The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
Bursting and eddying irresistibly
Rage and resound forever.Who shall save?
The boat fled on,the boiling torrent drove,
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
The shattered mountain overhung the sea,
And faster still, beyond all human speed,
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
With unrelaxing speed.'Vision and Love!'
The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
Shall not divide us long.'

The boat pursued
The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone
At length upon that gloomy river's flow;
Now, where the fiercest war among the waves
Is calm, on the unfathomable stream
The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,
Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,
Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound
That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;
Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
With alternating dash the gnarld roots
Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
Reflecting yet distorting every cloud,
A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round,
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
Till on the verge of the extremest curve,
Where through an opening of the rocky bank
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides
Is left, the boat paused shuddering.Shall it sink
Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
Of that resistless gulf embosom it?
Now shall it fall?A wandering stream of wind
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
And, lo! with gentle motion between banks
Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,
Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark!
The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar
With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
Where the embowering trees recede, and leave
A little space of green expanse, the cove
Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,
Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed
To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
But on his heart its solitude returned,
And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid
In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
Had yet performed its ministry; it hung
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
Of night close over it.

The noonday sun  
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of their ary rocks,
Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
Make network of the dark blue light of day
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine
A soul-dissolving odor to invite
To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell
Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
Images all the woven boughs above,
And each depending leaf, and every speck
Of azure sky darting between their chasms;
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,
Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
The motion of the leavesthe grass that sprung
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
An unaccustomed presenceand the sound
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
To stand beside himclothed in no bright robes
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;
But undulating woods, and silent well,
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him, as if he and it
Were all that was; onlywhen his regard
Was raised by intense pensivenesstwo eyes,
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
To beckon him.

Obedient to the light
That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
The windings of the dell. The rivulet,
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
Among the moss with hollow harmony
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
It danced, like childhood laughing as it went;
Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,
Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
That overhung its quietness.'O stream!
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,
Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,
Thy searchless fountain and invisible course,
Have each their type in me; and the wide sky
And measureless ocean may declare as soon
What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud
Contains thy waters, as the universe
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
I' the passing wind!'

Beside the grassy shore
Of the small stream he went; he did impress
On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
Roused by some joyous madness from the couch
Of fever, he did move; yet not like him
Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame
Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
He must descend. With rapid steps he went
Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
The forest's solemn canopies were changed
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae
Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
And nought but gnarld roots of ancient pines
Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here
Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
Had shone, gleam stony orbs:so from his steps
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
And musical motions. Calm he still pursued
The stream, that with a larger volume now
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there
Fretted a path through its descending curves
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and its precipice
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands
Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
And seems with its accumulated crags
To overhang the world; for wide expand
Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills
Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
In naked and severe simplicity,  
Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
Yielding one only response at each pause
In most familiar cadence, with the howl,
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river
Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,
Fell into that immeasurable void,
Scattering its waters to the passing winds.

Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine
And torrent were not all;one silent nook
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
It overlooked in its serenity
The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.
It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
And did embower with leaves forever green  
And berries dark the smooth and even space
Of its inviolated floor; and here
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore
In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay,
Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt
Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach
The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
One human step alone, has ever broken
The stillness of its solitude; one voice  
Alone inspired its echoes;even that voice
Which hither came, floating among the winds,
And led the loveliest among human forms
To make their wild haunts the depository
Of all the grace and beauty that endued
Its motions, render up its majesty,
Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
Commit the colors of that varying cheek,
That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

The dim and hornd moon hung low, and poured
A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star
Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
Slept, clasped in his embrace.O storm of death,
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!  
And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
Guiding its irresistible career
In thy devastating omnipotence,
Art king of this frail world! from the red field
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls
His brother Death! A rare and regal prey
He hath prepared, prowling around the world;  
Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

When on the threshold of the green recess
The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
Did he resign his high and holy soul
To images of the majestic past,
That paused within his passive being now,        
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone
Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
Of that obscurest chasm;and thus he lay,
Surrendering to their final impulses
The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,
The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear    
Marred his repose; the influxes of sense
And his own being, unalloyed by pain,
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It rests; and still as the divided frame    
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
That ever beat in mystic sympathy
With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still;
And when two lessening points of light alone
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
The stagnate night:till the minutest ray
Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
It pausedit fluttered. But when heaven remained
Utterly black, the murky shades involved  
An image silent, cold, and motionless,
As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
Even as a vapor fed with golden beams
That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame
No sense, no motion, no divinity
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of heaven did wandera bright stream
Once fed with many-voicd wavesa dream
Of youth, which night and time have quenched forever  
Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,
Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam
With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! Oh, that God,
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
Which but one living man has drained, who now,
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
No proud exemption in the blighting curse
He bears, over the world wanders forever,  
Lone as incarnate death! Oh, that the dream
Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
Raking the cinders of a crucible
For life and power, even when his feeble hand
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,
Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn
Robes in its golden beams,ah! thou hast fled!
The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things    
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
In vesper low or joyous orison,
Lifts still its solemn voice:but thou art fled
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips
So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
That image sleep in death, upon that form
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
Be shednot even in thought. Nor, when those hues
Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,
And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,
Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.
Composed at Bishopsgate Heath, near Windsor Park, 1815 (autumn).
Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'Alastor is written in a very different tone from Queen Mab. In the latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his youth -- all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny, of his fellow-creatures, gave birth. Alastor, on the contrary, contains an individual interest only. A very few years, with their attendant events, had checked the ardour of Shelley's hopes, though he still thought them well grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve.
This is neither the time nor the place to speak of the misfortunes that chequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did, he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward; inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in Queen Mab, the whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of 1815 an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute spasms. suddenly a complete change took place; and, though through life he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state of his health.
As soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad. He visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and returned to England from Lucerne, by the Reuss and the Rhine. The river-navigation enchanted him. In his favourite poem of Thalaba, his imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In the summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the source of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Winsdor to Crickdale. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were written on that occasion. Alastor was composed on his return. He spent his days under the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest-scenery we find in the poem.
None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature, the broodings of a poet's heart in solitude -- the mingling of the exulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe inspires with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion imparts -- give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during the last months as certain and near he here represented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation of death.'

~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor - or, the Spirit of Solitude
,
793:I.
In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool,
There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air,
A faery city 'neath the potent rule
Of Emperor Elfinan; fam'd ev'rywhere
For love of mortal women, maidens fair,
Whose lips were solid, whose soft hands were made
Of a fit mould and beauty, ripe and rare,
To tamper his slight wooing, warm yet staid:
He lov'd girls smooth as shades, but hated a mere shade.

II.
This was a crime forbidden by the law;
And all the priesthood of his city wept,
For ruin and dismay they well foresaw,
If impious prince no bound or limit kept,
And faery Zendervester overstept;
They wept, he sin'd, and still he would sin on,
They dreamt of sin, and he sin'd while they slept;
In vain the pulpit thunder'd at the throne,
Caricature was vain, and vain the tart lampoon.

III.
Which seeing, his high court of parliament
Laid a remonstrance at his Highness' feet,
Praying his royal senses to content
Themselves with what in faery land was sweet,
Befitting best that shade with shade should meet:
Whereat, to calm their fears, he promis'd soon
From mortal tempters all to make retreat,--
Aye, even on the first of the new moon,
An immaterial wife to espouse as heaven's boon.

IV.
Meantime he sent a fluttering embassy
To Pigmio, of Imaus sovereign,
To half beg, and half demand, respectfully,
The hand of his fair daughter Bellanaine;
An audience had, and speeching done, they gain
Their point, and bring the weeping bride away;
Whom, with but one attendant, safely lain
Upon their wings, they bore in bright array,
While little harps were touch'd by many a lyric fay.

V.
As in old pictures tender cherubim
A child's soul thro' the sapphir'd canvas bear,
So, thro' a real heaven, on they swim
With the sweet princess on her plumag'd lair,
Speed giving to the winds her lustrous hair;
And so she journey'd, sleeping or awake,
Save when, for healthful exercise and air,
She chose to "promener l'aile," or take
A pigeon's somerset, for sport or change's sake.

VI.
"Dear Princess, do not whisper me so loud,"
Quoth Corallina, nurse and confidant,
"Do not you see there, lurking in a cloud,
Close at your back, that sly old Crafticant?
He hears a whisper plainer than a rant:
Dry up your tears, and do not look so blue;
He's Elfinan's great state-spy militant,
His running, lying, flying foot-man too,--
Dear mistress, let him have no handle against you!

VII.
"Show him a mouse's tail, and he will guess,
With metaphysic swiftness, at the mouse;
Show him a garden, and with speed no less,
He'll surmise sagely of a dwelling house,
And plot, in the same minute, how to chouse
The owner out of it; show him a" --- "Peace!
Peace! nor contrive thy mistress' ire to rouse!"
Return'd the Princess, "my tongue shall not cease
Till from this hated match I get a free release.

VIII.
"Ah, beauteous mortal!" "Hush!" quoth Coralline,
"Really you must not talk of him, indeed."
"You hush!" reply'd the mistress, with a shinee
Of anger in her eyes, enough to breed
In stouter hearts than nurse's fear and dread:
'Twas not the glance itself made nursey flinch,
But of its threat she took the utmost heed;
Not liking in her heart an hour-long pinch,
Or a sharp needle run into her back an inch.

IX.
So she was silenc'd, and fair Bellanaine,
Writhing her little body with ennui,
Continued to lament and to complain,
That Fate, cross-purposing, should let her be
Ravish'd away far from her dear countree;
That all her feelings should be set at nought,
In trumping up this match so hastily,
With lowland blood; and lowland blood she thought
Poison, as every staunch true-born Imaian ought.

X.
Sorely she griev'd, and wetted three or four
White Provence rose-leaves with her faery tears,
But not for this cause; -- alas! she had more
Bad reasons for her sorrow, as appears
In the fam'd memoirs of a thousand years,
Written by Crafticant, and published
By Parpaglion and Co., (those sly compeers
Who rak'd up ev'ry fact against the dead,)
In Scarab Street, Panthea, at the Jubal's Head.

XI.
Where, after a long hypercritic howl
Against the vicious manners of the age,
He goes on to expose, with heart and soul,
What vice in this or that year was the rage,
Backbiting all the world in every page;
With special strictures on the horrid crime,
(Section'd and subsection'd with learning sage,)
Of faeries stooping on their wings sublime
To kiss a mortal's lips, when such were in their prime.

XII.
Turn to the copious index, you will find
Somewhere in the column, headed letter B,
The name of Bellanaine, if you're not blind;
Then pray refer to the text, and you will see
An article made up of calumny
Against this highland princess, rating her
For giving way, so over fashionably,
To this new-fangled vice, which seems a burr
Stuck in his moral throat, no coughing e'er could stir.

XIII.
There he says plainly that she lov'd a man!
That she around him flutter'd, flirted, toy'd,
Before her marriage with great Elfinan;
That after marriage too, she never joy'd
In husband's company, but still employ'd
Her wits to 'scape away to Angle-land;
Where liv'd the youth, who worried and annoy'd
Her tender heart, and its warm ardours fann'd
To such a dreadful blaze, her side would scorch her hand.

XIV.
But let us leave this idle tittle-tattle
To waiting-maids, and bed-room coteries,
Nor till fit time against her fame wage battle.
Poor Elfinan is very ill at ease,
Let us resume his subject if you please:
For it may comfort and console him much,
To rhyme and syllable his miseries;
Poor Elfinan! whose cruel fate was such,
He sat and curs'd a bride he knew he could not touch.

XV.
Soon as (according to his promises)
The bridal embassy had taken wing,
And vanish'd, bird-like, o'er the suburb trees,
The Emperor, empierc'd with the sharp sting
Of love, retired, vex'd and murmuring
Like any drone shut from the fair bee-queen,
Into his cabinet, and there did fling
His limbs upon a sofa, full of spleen,
And damn'd his House of Commons, in complete chagrin.

XVI.
"I'll trounce some of the members," cry'd the Prince,
"I'll put a mark against some rebel names,
I'll make the Opposition-benches wince,
I'll show them very soon, to all their shames,
What 'tis to smother up a Prince's flames;
That ministers should join in it, I own,
Surprises me! -- they too at these high games!
Am I an Emperor? Do I wear a crown?
Imperial Elfinan, go hang thyself or drown!

XVII.
"I'll trounce 'em! -- there's the square-cut chancellor,
His son shall never touch that bishopric;
And for the nephew of old Palfior,
I'll show him that his speeches made me sick,
And give the colonelcy to Phalaric;
The tiptoe marquis, mortal and gallant,
Shall lodge in shabby taverns upon tick;
And for the Speaker's second cousin's aunt,
She sha'n't be maid of honour,-- by heaven that she sha'n't!

XVIII.
"I'll shirk the Duke of A.; I'll cut his brother;
I'll give no garter to his eldest son;
I won't speak to his sister or his mother!
The Viscount B. shall live at cut-and-run;
But how in the world can I contrive to stun
That fellow's voice, which plagues me worse than any,
That stubborn fool, that impudent state-dun,
Who sets down ev'ry sovereign as a zany,--
That vulgar commoner, Esquire Biancopany?

XIX.
"Monstrous affair! Pshaw! pah! what ugly minx
Will they fetch from Imaus for my bride?
Alas! my wearied heart within me sinks,
To think that I must be so near ally'd
To a cold dullard fay,--ah, woe betide!
Ah, fairest of all human loveliness!
Sweet Bertha! what crime can it be to glide
About the fragrant plaintings of thy dress,
Or kiss thine eyes, or count thy locks, tress after tress?"

XX.
So said, one minute's while his eyes remaind'
Half lidded, piteous, languid, innocent;
But, in a wink, their splendour they regain'd,
Sparkling revenge with amorous fury blent.
Love thwarted in bad temper oft has vent:
He rose, he stampt his foot, he rang the bell,
And order'd some death-warrants to be sent
For signature: -- somewhere the tempest fell,
As many a poor fellow does not live to tell.

XXI.
"At the same time, Eban," -- (this was his page,
A fay of colour, slave from top to toe,
Sent as a present, while yet under age,
From the Viceroy of Zanguebar, -- wise, slow,
His speech, his only words were "yes" and "no,"
But swift of look, and foot, and wing was he,--)
"At the same time, Eban, this instant go
To Hum the soothsayer, whose name I see
Among the fresh arrivals in our empery.

XXII.
"Bring Hum to me! But stay -- here, take my ring,
The pledge of favour, that he not suspect
Any foul play, or awkward murdering,
Tho' I have bowstrung many of his sect;
Throw in a hint, that if he should neglect
One hour, the next shall see him in my grasp,
And the next after that shall see him neck'd,
Or swallow'd by my hunger-starved asp,--
And mention ('tis as well) the torture of the wasp."

XXIII.
These orders given, the Prince, in half a pet,
Let o'er the silk his propping elbow slide,
Caught up his little legs, and, in a fret,
Fell on the sofa on his royal side.
The slave retreated backwards, humble-ey'd,
And with a slave-like silence clos'd the door,
And to old Hun thro' street and alley hied;
He "knew the city," as we say, of yore,
And for short cuts and turns, was nobody knew more.

XXIV.
It was the time when wholesale dealers close
Their shutters with a moody sense of wealth,
But retail dealers, diligent, let loose
The gas (objected to on score of health),
Convey'd in little solder'd pipes by stealth,
And make it flare in many a brilliant form,
That all the powers of darkness it repell'th,
Which to the oil-trade doth great scaith and harm,
And superseded quite the use of the glow-worm.

XXV.
Eban, untempted by the pastry-cooks,
(Of pastry he got store within the palace,)
With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks,
Incognito upon his errand sallies,
His smelling-bottle ready for the allies;
He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain,
Vowing he'd have them sent on board the gallies;
Just as he made his vow; it 'gan to rain,
Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain.

XXVI.
"I'll pull the string," said he, and further said,
"Polluted Jarvey! Ah, thou filthy hack!
Whose springs of life are all dry'd up and dead,
Whose linsey-woolsey lining hangs all slack,
Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack;
And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter;
Whose glass once up can never be got back,
Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter,
That 'tis of modern use to travel in a litter.

XXVII.
"Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop
For all corn! thou snail-creeper to and fro,
Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop,
And fiddle-faddle standest while you go;
I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe,
Unto some lazar-house thou journeyest,
And in the evening tak'st a double row
Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest,
Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.

XXVIII.
"By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien,
An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge;
Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign,
Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge,
School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge,
A dull-ey'd Argus watching for a fare;
Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge
To whisking Tilburies, or Phaetons rare,
Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare."

XXIX.
Philosophizing thus, he pull'd the check,
And bade the Coachman wheel to such a street,
Who, turning much his body, more his neck,
Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet:
"Certes, Monsieur were best take to his feet,
Seeing his servant can no further drive
For press of coaches, that to-night here meet,
Many as bees about a straw-capp'd hive,
When first for April honey into faint flowers they dive."

XXX.
Eban then paid his fare, and tiptoe went
To Hum's hotel; and, as he on did pass
With head inclin'd, each dusky lineament
Show'd in the pearl-pav'd street, as in a glass;
His purple vest, that ever peeping was
Rich from the fluttering crimson of his cloak,
His silvery trowsers, and his silken sash
Tied in a burnish'd knot, their semblance took
Upon the mirror'd walls, wherever he might look.

XXXI.
He smil'd at self, and, smiling, show'd his teeth,
And seeing his white teeth, he smil'd the more;
Lifted his eye-brows, spurn'd the path beneath,
Show'd teeth again, and smil'd as heretofore,
Until he knock'd at the magician's door;
Where, till the porter answer'd, might be seen,
In the clear panel more he could adore,--
His turban wreath'd of gold, and white, and green,
Mustachios, ear-ring, nose-ring, and his sabre keen.

XXXII.
"Does not your master give a rout to-night?"
Quoth the dark page. "Oh, no!" return'd the Swiss,
"Next door but one to us, upon the right,
The Magazin des Modes now open is
Against the Emperor's wedding;--and, sir, this
My master finds a monstrous horrid bore;
As he retir'd, an hour ago I wis,
With his best beard and brimstone, to explore
And cast a quiet figure in his second floor.

XXXIII.
"Gad! he's oblig'd to stick to business!
For chalk, I hear, stands at a pretty price;
And as for aqua vitae -- there's a mess!
The dentes sapientiae of mice,
Our barber tells me too, are on the rise,--
Tinder's a lighter article, -- nitre pure
Goes off like lightning, -- grains of Paradise
At an enormous figure! -- stars not sure! --
Zodiac will not move without a slight douceur!

XXXIV.
"Venus won't stir a peg without a fee,
And master is too partial, entre nous,
To" -- "Hush -- hush!" cried Eban, "sure that is he
Coming down stairs, -- by St. Bartholomew!
As backwards as he can, -- is't something new?
Or is't his custom, in the name of fun?"
"He always comes down backward, with one shoe"--
Return'd the porter -- "off, and one shoe on,
Like, saving shoe for sock or stocking, my man John!"

XXXV.
It was indeed the great Magician,
Feeling, with careful toe, for every stair,
And retrograding careful as he can,
Backwards and downwards from his own two pair:
"Salpietro!" exclaim'd Hum, "is the dog there?
He's always in my way upon the mat!"
"He's in the kitchen, or the Lord knows where,"--
Reply'd the Swiss, -- "the nasty, yelping brat!"
"Don't beat him!" return'd Hum, and on the floor came pat.

XXXVI.
Then facing right about, he saw the Page,
And said: "Don't tell me what you want, Eban;
The Emperor is now in a huge rage,--
'Tis nine to one he'll give you the rattan!
Let us away!" Away together ran
The plain-dress'd sage and spangled blackamoor,
Nor rested till they stood to cool, and fan,
And breathe themselves at th' Emperor's chamber door,
When Eban thought he heard a soft imperial snore.

XXXVII.
"I thought you guess'd, foretold, or prophesy'd,
That's Majesty was in a raving fit?"
"He dreams," said Hum, "or I have ever lied,
That he is tearing you, sir, bit by bit."
"He's not asleep, and you have little wit,"
Reply'd the page; "that little buzzing noise,
Whate'er your palmistry may make of it,
Comes from a play-thing of the Emperor's choice,
From a Man-Tiger-Organ, prettiest of his toys."

XXXVIII.
Eban then usher'd in the learned Seer:
Elfinan's back was turn'd, but, ne'ertheless,
Both, prostrate on the carpet, ear by ear,
Crept silently, and waited in distress,
Knowing the Emperor's moody bitterness;
Eban especially, who on the floor 'gan
Tremble and quake to death,-- he feared less
A dose of senna-tea or nightmare Gorgon
Than the Emperor when he play'd on his Man-Tiger-Organ.

XXXIX.
They kiss'd nine times the carpet's velvet face
Of glossy silk, soft, smooth, and meadow-green,
Where the close eye in deep rich fur might trace
A silver tissue, scantly to be seen,
As daisies lurk'd in June-grass, buds in green;
Sudden the music ceased, sudden the hand
Of majesty, by dint of passion keen,
Doubled into a common fist, went grand,
And knock'd down three cut glasses, and his best ink-stand.

XL.
Then turning round, he saw those trembling two:
"Eban," said he, "as slaves should taste the fruits
Of diligence, I shall remember you
To-morrow, or next day, as time suits,
In a finger conversation with my mutes,--
Begone! -- for you, Chaldean! here remain!
Fear not, quake not, and as good wine recruits
A conjurer's spirits, what cup will you drain?
Sherry in silver, hock in gold, or glass'd champagne?"

XLI.
"Commander of the faithful!" answer'd Hum,
"In preference to these, I'll merely taste
A thimble-full of old Jamaica rum."
"A simple boon!" said Elfinan; "thou may'st
Have Nantz, with which my morning-coffee's lac'd."
"I'll have a glass of Nantz, then," -- said the Seer,--
"Made racy -- (sure my boldness is misplac'd!)--
With the third part -- (yet that is drinking dear!)--
Of the least drop of crme de citron, crystal clear."

XLII.
"I pledge you, Hum! and pledge my dearest love,
My Bertha!" "Bertha! Bertha!" cry'd the sage,
"I know a many Berthas!" "Mine's above
All Berthas!" sighed the Emperor. "I engage,"
Said Hum, "in duty, and in vassalage,
To mention all the Berthas in the earth;--
There's Bertha Watson, -- and Miss Bertha Page,--
This fam'd for languid eyes, and that for mirth,--
There's Bertha Blount of York, -- and Bertha Knox of Perth."

XLIII.
"You seem to know" -- "I do know," answer'd Hum,
"Your Majesty's in love with some fine girl
Named Bertha; but her surname will not come,
Without a little conjuring." "'Tis Pearl,
'Tis Bertha Pearl! What makes my brain so whirl?
And she is softer, fairer than her name!"
"Where does she live?" ask'd Hum. "Her fair locks curl
So brightly, they put all our fays to shame!--
Live? -- O! at Canterbury, with her old grand-dame."

XLIV.
"Good! good!" cried Hum, "I've known her from a child!
She is a changeling of my management;
She was born at midnight in an Indian wild;
Her mother's screams with the striped tiger's blent,
While the torch-bearing slaves a halloo sent
Into the jungles; and her palanquin,
Rested amid the desert's dreariment,
Shook with her agony, till fair were seen
The little Bertha's eyes ope on the stars serene."

XLV.
"I can't say," said the monarch; "that may be
Just as it happen'd, true or else a bam!
Drink up your brandy, and sit down by me,
Feel, feel my pulse, how much in love I am;
And if your science is not all a sham.
Tell me some means to get the lady here."
"Upon my honour!" said the son of Cham,
"She is my dainty changeling, near and dear,
Although her story sounds at first a little queer."

XLVI.
"Convey her to me, Hum, or by my crown,
My sceptre, and my cross-surmounted globe,
I'll knock you" -- "Does your majesty mean -- down?
No, no, you never could my feelings probe
To such a depth!" The Emperor took his robe,
And wept upon its purple palatine,
While Hum continued, shamming half a sob,--
"In Canterbury doth your lady shine?
But let me cool your brandy with a little wine."

XLVII.
Whereat a narrow Flemish glass he took,
That since belong'd to Admiral De Witt,
Admir'd it with a connoisseuring look,
And with the ripest claret crowned it,
And, ere the lively bead could burst and flit,
He turn'd it quickly, nimbly upside down,
His mouth being held conveniently fit
To catch the treasure: "Best in all the town!"
He said, smack'd his moist lips, and gave a pleasant frown.

XLVIII.
"Ah! good my Prince, weep not!" And then again
He filled a bumper. "Great Sire, do not weep!
Your pulse is shocking, but I'll ease your pain."
"Fetch me that Ottoman, and prithee keep
Your voice low," said the Emperor; "and steep
Some lady's-fingers nice in Candy wine;
And prithee, Hum, behind the screen do peep
For the rose-water vase, magician mine!
And sponge my forehead, -- so my love doth make me pine.

XLIX.
"Ah, cursed Bellanaine!" "Don't think of her,"
Rejoin'd the Mago, "but on Bertha muse;
For, by my choicest best barometer,
You shall not throttled be in marriage noose;
I've said it, Sire; you only have to choose
Bertha or Bellanaine." So saying, he drew
From the left pocket of his threadbare hose,
A sampler hoarded slyly, good as new,
Holding it by his thumb and finger full in view.

L.
"Sire, this is Bertha Pearl's neat handy-work,
Her name, see here, Midsummer, ninety-one."
Elfinan snatch'd it with a sudden jerk,
And wept as if he never would have done,
Honouring with royal tears the poor homespun;
Whereon were broider'd tigers with black eyes,
And long-tail'd pheasants, and a rising sun,
Plenty of posies, great stags, butterflies
Bigger than stags,-- a moon,-- with other mysteries.

LI.
The monarch handled o'er and o'er again
Those day-school hieroglyphics with a sigh;
Somewhat in sadness, but pleas'd in the main,
Till this oracular couplet met his eye
Astounded -- Cupid, I do thee defy!
It was too much. He shrunk back in his chair,
Grew pale as death, and fainted -- very nigh!
"Pho! nonsense!" exclaim'd Hum, "now don't despair;
She does not mean it really. Cheer up, hearty -- there!

LII.
"And listen to my words. You say you won't,
On any terms, marry Miss Bellanaine;
It goes against your conscience -- good! Well, don't.
You say you love a mortal. I would fain
Persuade your honour's highness to refrain
From peccadilloes. But, Sire, as I say,
What good would that do? And, to be more plain,
You would do me a mischief some odd day,
Cut off my ears and limbs, or head too, by my fay!

LIII.
"Besides, manners forbid that I should pass any
Vile strictures on the conduct of a prince
Who should indulge his genius, if he has any,
Not, like a subject, foolish matters mince.
Now I think on't, perhaps I could convince
Your Majesty there is no crime at all
In loving pretty little Bertha, since
She's very delicate,-- not over tall, --
A fairy's hand, and in the waist why -- very small."

LIV.
"Ring the repeater, gentle Hum!" "'Tis five,"
Said the gentle Hum; "the nights draw in apace;
The little birds I hear are all alive;
I see the dawning touch'd upon your face;
Shall I put out the candles, please your Grace?"
"Do put them out, and, without more ado,
Tell me how I may that sweet girl embrace,--
How you can bring her to me." "That's for you,
Great Emperor! to adventure, like a lover true."

LV.
"I fetch her!" -- "Yes, an't like your Majesty;
And as she would be frighten'd wide awake
To travel such a distance through the sky,
Use of some soft manoeuvre you must make,
For your convenience, and her dear nerves' sake;
Nice way would be to bring her in a swoon,
Anon, I'll tell what course were best to take;
You must away this morning." "Hum! so soon?"
"Sire, you must be in Kent by twelve o'clock at noon."

LVI.
At this great Caesar started on his feet,
Lifted his wings, and stood attentive-wise.
"Those wings to Canterbury you must beat,
If you hold Bertha as a worthy prize.
Look in the Almanack -- Moore never lies --
April the twenty- fourth, -- this coming day,
Now breathing its new bloom upon the skies,
Will end in St. Mark's Eve; -- you must away,
For on that eve alone can you the maid convey."

LVII.
Then the magician solemnly 'gan to frown,
So that his frost-white eyebrows, beetling low,
Shaded his deep green eyes, and wrinkles brown
Plaited upon his furnace-scorched brow:
Forth from his hood that hung his neck below,
He lifted a bright casket of pure gold,
Touch'd a spring-lock, and there in wool or snow,
Charm'd into ever freezing, lay an old
And legend-leaved book, mysterious to behold.

LVIII.
"Take this same book,-- it will not bite you, Sire;
There, put it underneath your royal arm;
Though it's a pretty weight it will not tire,
But rather on your journey keep you warm:
This is the magic, this the potent charm,
That shall drive Bertha to a fainting fit!
When the time comes, don't feel the least alarm,
But lift her from the ground, and swiftly flit
Back to your palace. * * * * * * * * * *

LIX.
"What shall I do with that same book?" "Why merely
Lay it on Bertha's table, close beside
Her work-box, and 'twill help your purpose dearly;
I say no more." "Or good or ill betide,
Through the wide air to Kent this morn I glide!"
Exclaim'd the Emperor. "When I return,
Ask what you will, -- I'll give you my new bride!
And take some more wine, Hum; -- O Heavens! I burn
To be upon the wing! Now, now, that minx I spurn!"

LX.
"Leave her to me," rejoin'd the magian:
"But how shall I account, illustrious fay!
For thine imperial absence? Pho! I can
Say you are very sick, and bar the way
To your so loving courtiers for one day;
If either of their two archbishops' graces
Should talk of extreme unction, I shall say
You do not like cold pig with Latin phrases,
Which never should be used but in alarming cases."

LXI.
"Open the window, Hum; I'm ready now!"
Zooks!" exclaim'd Hum, as up the sash he drew.
"Behold, your Majesty, upon the brow
Of yonder hill, what crowds of people!" "Whew!
The monster's always after something new,"
Return'd his Highness, "they are piping hot
To see my pigsney Bellanaine. Hum! do
Tighten my belt a little, -- so, so, -- not
Too tight, -- the book! -- my wand! -- so, nothing is forgot."

LXII.
"Wounds! how they shout!" said Hum, "and there, -- see, see!
Th' ambassador's return'd from Pigmio!
The morning's very fine, -- uncommonly!
See, past the skirts of yon white cloud they go,
Tinging it with soft crimsons! Now below
The sable-pointed heads of firs and pines
They dip, move on, and with them moves a glow
Along the forest side! Now amber lines
Reach the hill top, and now throughout the valley shines."

LXIII.
"Why, Hum, you're getting quite poetical!
Those 'nows' you managed in a special style."
"If ever you have leisure, Sire, you shall
See scraps of mine will make it worth your while,
Tid-bits for Phoebus! -- yes, you well may smile.
Hark! hark! the bells!" "A little further yet,
Good Hum, and let me view this mighty coil."
Then the great Emperor full graceful set
His elbow for a prop, and snuff'd his mignonnette.

LXIV.
The morn is full of holiday; loud bells
With rival clamours ring from every spire;
Cunningly-station'd music dies and swells
In echoing places; when the winds respire,
Light flags stream out like gauzy tongues of fire;
A metropolitan murmur, lifeful, warm,
Comes from the northern suburbs; rich attire
Freckles with red and gold the moving swarm;
While here and there clear trumpets blow a keen alarm.

LXV.
And now the fairy escort was seen clear,
Like the old pageant of Aurora's train,
Above a pearl-built minister, hovering near;
First wily Crafticant, the chamberlain,
Balanc'd upon his grey-grown pinions twain,
His slender wand officially reveal'd;
Then black gnomes scattering sixpences like rain;
Then pages three and three; and next, slave-held,
The Imaian 'scutcheon bright, -- one mouse in argent field.

LXVI.
Gentlemen pensioners next; and after them,
A troop of winged Janizaries flew;
Then slaves, as presents bearing many a gem;
Then twelve physicians fluttering two and two;
And next a chaplain in a cassock new;
Then Lords in waiting; then (what head not reels
For pleasure?) -- the fair Princess in full view,
Borne upon wings, -- and very pleas'd she feels
To have such splendour dance attendance at her heels.

LXVII.
For there was more magnificence behind:
She wav'd her handkerchief. "Ah, very grand!"
Cry'd Elfinan, and clos'd the window-blind;
"And, Hum, we must not shilly-shally stand,--
Adieu! adieu! I'm off for Angle-land!
I say, old Hocus, have you such a thing
About you, -- feel your pockets, I command,--
I want, this instant, an invisible ring,--
Thank you, old mummy! -- now securely I take wing."

LXVIII.
Then Elfinan swift vaulted from the floor,
And lighted graceful on the window-sill;
Under one arm the magic book he bore,
The other he could wave about at will;
Pale was his face, he still look'd very ill;
He bow'd at Bellanaine, and said -- "Poor Bell!
Farewell! farewell! and if for ever! still
For ever fare thee well!" -- and then he fell
A laughing! -- snapp'd his fingers! -- shame it is to tell!

LXIX.
"By'r Lady! he is gone!" cries Hum, "and I --
(I own it) -- have made too free with his wine;
Old Crafticant will smoke me. By-the-bye!
This room is full of jewels as a mine,--
Dear valuable creatures, how ye shine!
Sometime to-day I must contrive a minute,
If Mercury propitiously incline,
To examine his scutoire, and see what's in i,
For of superfluous diamonds I as well may thin it.

LXX.
"The Emperor's horrid bad; yes, that's my cue!"
Some histories say that this was Hum's last speech;
That, being fuddled, he went reeling through
The corridor, and scarce upright could reach
The stair-head; that being glutted as a leech,
And us'd, as we ourselves have just now said,
To manage stairs reversely, like a peach
Too ripe, he fell, being puzzled in his head
With liquor and the staircase: verdict -- found stone dead.

LXXI.
This as a falsehood Crafticanto treats;
And as his style is of strange elegance,
Gentle and tender, full of soft conceits,
(Much like our Boswell's,) we will take a glance
At his sweet prose, and, if we can, make dance
His woven periods into careless rhyme;
O, little faery Pegasus! rear -- prance --
Trot round the quarto -- ordinary time!
March, little Pegasus, with pawing hoof sublime!

LXXII.
Well, let us see, -- tenth book and chapter nine,--
Thus Crafticant pursues his diary:--
"'Twas twelve o'clock at night, the weather fine,
Latitude thirty-six; our scouts descry
A flight of starlings making rapidly
Towards Thibet. Mem.: -- birds fly in the night;
From twelve to half-past -- wings not fit to fly
For a thick fog -- the Princess sulky quite;
Call'd for an extra shawl, and gave her nurse a bite.

LXXIII.
"Five minutes before one -- brought down a moth
With my new double-barrel -- stew'd the thighs
And made a very tolerable broth --
Princess turn'd dainty, to our great surprise,
Alter'd her mind, and thought it very nice;
Seeing her pleasant, try'd her with a pun,
She frown'd; a monstrous owl across us flies
About this time, -- a sad old figure of fun;
Bad omen -- this new match can't be a happy one.

LXXIV.
"From two to half-past, dusky way we made,
Above the plains of Gobi, -- desert, bleak;
Beheld afar off, in the hooded shade
Of darkness, a great mountain (strange to speak),
Spitting, from forth its sulphur-baken peak,
A fan-shap'd burst of blood-red, arrowy fire,
Turban'd with smoke, which still away did reek,
Solid and black from that eternal pyre,
Upon the laden winds that scantly could respire.

LXXV.
"Just upon three o'clock a falling star
Created an alarm among our troop,
Kill'd a man-cook, a page, and broke a jar,
A tureen, and three dishes, at one swoop,
Then passing by the princess, singed her hoop:
Could not conceive what Coralline was at,
She clapp'd her hands three times and cry'd out 'Whoop!'
Some strange Imaian custom. A large bat
Came sudden 'fore my face, and brush'd against my hat.

LXXVI.
"Five minutes thirteen seconds after three,
Far in the west a mighty fire broke out,
Conjectur'd, on the instant, it might be,
The city of Balk -- 'twas Balk beyond all doubt:
A griffin, wheeling here and there about,
Kept reconnoitring us -- doubled our guard --
Lighted our torches, and kept up a shout,
Till he sheer'd off -- the Princess very scar'd --
And many on their marrow-bones for death prepar'd.

LXXVII.
"At half-past three arose the cheerful moon--
Bivouack'd for four minutes on a cloud --
Where from the earth we heard a lively tune
Of tambourines and pipes, serene and loud,
While on a flowery lawn a brilliant crowd
Cinque-parted danc'd, some half asleep reposed
Beneath the green-fan'd cedars, some did shroud
In silken tents, and 'mid light fragrance dozed,
Or on the opera turf their soothed eyelids closed.

LXXVIII.
"Dropp'd my gold watch, and kill'd a kettledrum--
It went for apoplexy -- foolish folks! --
Left it to pay the piper -- a good sum --
(I've got a conscience, maugre people's jokes,)
To scrape a little favour; 'gan to coax
Her Highness' pug-dog -- got a sharp rebuff --
She wish'd a game at whist -- made three revokes --
Turn'd from myself, her partner, in a huff;
His majesty will know her temper time enough.

LXXIX.
"She cry'd for chess -- I play'd a game with her --
Castled her king with such a vixen look,
It bodes ill to his Majesty -- (refer
To the second chapter of my fortieth book,
And see what hoity-toity airs she took).
At half-past four the morn essay'd to beam --
Saluted, as we pass'd, an early rook --
The Princess fell asleep, and, in her dream,
Talk'd of one Master Hubert, deep in her esteem.

LXXX.
"About this time, -- making delightful way,--
Shed a quill-feather from my larboard wing --
Wish'd, trusted, hop'd 'twas no sign of decay --
Thank heaven, I'm hearty yet! -- 'twas no such thing:--
At five the golden light began to spring,
With fiery shudder through the bloomed east;
At six we heard Panthea's churches ring --
The city wall his unhiv'd swarms had cast,
To watch our grand approach, and hail us as we pass'd.

LXXXI.
"As flowers turn their faces to the sun,
So on our flight with hungry eyes they gaze,
And, as we shap'd our course, this, that way run,
With mad-cap pleasure, or hand-clasp'd amaze;
Sweet in the air a mild-ton'd music plays,
And progresses through its own labyrinth;
Buds gather'd from the green spring's middle-days,
They scatter'd, -- daisy, primrose, hyacinth,--
Or round white columns wreath'd from capital to plinth.

LXXXII.
"Onward we floated o'er the panting streets,
That seem'd throughout with upheld faces paved;
Look where we will, our bird's-eye vision meets
Legions of holiday; bright standards waved,
And fluttering ensigns emulously craved
Our minute's glance; a busy thunderous roar,
From square to square, among the buildings raved,
As when the sea, at flow, gluts up once more
The craggy hollowness of a wild reefed shore.

LXXXIII.
"And 'Bellanaine for ever!' shouted they,
While that fair Princess, from her winged chair,
Bow'd low with high demeanour, and, to pay
Their new-blown loyalty with guerdon fair,
Still emptied at meet distance, here and there,
A plenty horn of jewels. And here I
(Who wish to give the devil her due) declare
Against that ugly piece of calumny,
Which calls them Highland pebble-stones not worth a fly.

LXXXIV.
"Still 'Bellanaine!' they shouted, while we glide
'Slant to a light Ionic portico,
The city's delicacy, and the pride
Of our Imperial Basilic; a row
Of lords and ladies, on each hand, make show
Submissive of knee-bent obeisance,
All down the steps; and, as we enter'd, lo!
The strangest sight -- the most unlook'd for chance --
All things turn'd topsy-turvy in a devil's dance.

LXXXV.
"'Stead of his anxious Majesty and court
At the open doors, with wide saluting eyes,
Conges and scrape-graces of every sort,
And all the smooth routine of gallantries,
Was seen, to our immoderate surprise,
A motley crowd thick gather'd in the hall,
Lords, scullions, deputy-scullions, with wild cries
Stunning the vestibule from wall to wall,
Where the Chief Justice on his knees and hands doth crawl.

LXXXVI.
"Counts of the palace, and the state purveyor
Of moth's-down, to make soft the royal beds,
The Common Council and my fool Lord Mayor
Marching a-row, each other slipshod treads;
Powder'd bag-wigs and ruffy-tuffy heads
Of cinder wenches meet and soil each other;
Toe crush'd with heel ill-natur'd fighting breeds,
Frill-rumpling elbows brew up many a bother,
And fists in the short ribs keep up the yell and pother.

LXXXVII.
"A Poet, mounted on the Court-Clown's back,
Rode to the Princess swift with spurring heels,
And close into her face, with rhyming clack,
Began a Prothalamion; -- she reels,
She falls, she faints! while laughter peels
Over her woman's weakness. 'Where!' cry'd I,
'Where is his Majesty?' No person feels
Inclin'd to answer; wherefore instantly
I plung'd into the crowd to find him or die.

LXXXVIII.
"Jostling my way I gain'd the stairs, and ran
To the first landing, where, incredible!
I met, far gone in liquor, that old man,
That vile impostor Hum. ----"
So far so well,--
For we have prov'd the Mago never fell
Down stairs on Crafticanto's evidence;
And therefore duly shall proceed to tell,
Plain in our own original mood and tense,
The sequel of this day, though labour 'tis immense!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
'Lord Houghton first gave this composition in the Life, Letters &c. (1848), and in Volume II, page 51, refers to it as "the last of Keats's literary labours." The poet says in a letter to Brown, written after the first attack of blood-spitting,
"I shall soon begin upon 'Lucy Vaughan Lloyd.' I do not begin composition yet, being willing, in case of a relapse, to have nothing to reproach myself with."
I presume, therefore, that the composition may be assigned to the Spring or Summer of 1820. In August of that year, Leigh Hunt seems to have had the manuscript in his hands, for, in the first part of his article on Coaches, which fills The Indicator for the 23rd of August 1820, he quotes four stanzas and four lines from the poem, as by "a very good poetess, of the name of Lucy V---- L----, who has favoured us with a sight of a manuscript poem," &c. The stanzas quoted are XXV to XXIX. Lord Houghton gives, in the Aldine Edition of 1876, the following note by Brown: --
"This Poem was written subject to future amendments and omissions: it was begun without a plan, and without any prescribed laws for the supernatural machinery."

His Lordship adds an interesting passage from a letter written to him by Lord Jeffrey: --
"There are beautiful passages and lines of ineffable sweetness in these minor pieces, and strange outbursts of individual fancy and felicitous expressions in the 'Cap and Bells,' though the general extravagance of the poetry is more suited to an Italian than to an English taste."
The late Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote to me of this poem as "the only unworthy stuff Keats ever wrote except an early trifle or two," and again as "the to me hateful Cap and Bells." I confess that it seems to me entirely unworthy of Keats, though certainly a proof, if proof were needed, of his versatility. It has the character of a mere intellectual and mechanical exercise, performed at a time when those higher forces constituting the mainspring of poetry were exhausted; but even so I find it difficult to figure Keats as doing anything so aimless as this appears when regarded solely as an effort of the fancy. He probably had a satirical under-current of meaning; and it needs no great stretch of the imagination to see the illicit passion of Emperor Elfinan, and his detestation for his authorized bride-elect, an oblique glance at the martial relations of George IV.
It is not difficult to suggest prototypes for many of the faery-land statesmen against whom Elfinan vows vengeance; and there are many particulars in which earthly incidents are too thickly strewn to leave one in the settled belief that the poet's programme was wholly unearthly.--- H. B. F.'
~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies - A Faery Tale .. Unfinished
,
794: Ilion

Book I: The Book of the Herald



Dawn in her journey eternal compelling the labour of mortals,
Dawn the beginner of things with the night for their rest or their ending,
Pallid and bright-lipped arrived from the mists and the chill of the Euxine.
Earth in the dawn-fire delivered from starry and shadowy vastness
Woke to the wonder of life and its passion and sorrow and beauty,
All on her bosom sustaining, the patient compassionate Mother.
Out of the formless vision of Night with its look on things hidden
Given to the gaze of the azure she lay in her garment of greenness,
Wearing light on her brow. In the dawn-ray lofty and voiceless
Ida climbed with her god-haunted peaks into diamond lustres,
Ida first of the hills with the ranges silent beyond her
Watching the dawn in their giant companies, as since the ages
First began they had watched her, upbearing Time on their summits.
Troas cold on her plain awaited the boon of the sunshine.
There, like a hope through an emerald dream sole-pacing for ever,
Stealing to wideness beyond, crept Simois lame in his currents,
Guiding his argent thread mid the green of the reeds and the grasses.
Headlong, impatient of Space and its boundaries, Time and its slowness,
Xanthus clamoured aloud as he ran to the far-surging waters,
Joining his call to the many-voiced roar of the mighty Aegean,
Answering Oceans limitless cry like a whelp to its parent.
Forests looked up through their rifts, the ravines grew aware of their shadows.
Closer now gliding glimmered the golden feet of the goddess.
Over the hills and the headlands spreading her garment of splendour,
Fateful she came with her eyes impartial looking on all things,
Bringer to man of the day of his fortune and day of his downfall.
Full of her luminous errand, careless of eve and its weeping,
Fateful she paused unconcerned above Ilions mysteried greatness,
Domes like shimmering tongues of the crystal flames of the morning,
Opalesque rhythm-line of tower-tops, notes of the lyre of the sungod.
High over all that a nation had built and its love and its laughter,
Lighting the last time highway and homestead, market and temple,
Looking on men who must die and women destined to sorrow,
Looking on beauty fire must lay low and the sickle of slaughter,
Fateful she lifted the doom-scroll red with the script of the Immortals,
Deep in the invisible air that folds in the race and its morrows
Fixed it, and passed on smiling the smile of the griefless and deathless,
Dealers of death though death they know not, who in the morning
Scatter the seed of the event for the reaping ready at nightfall.
Over the brooding of plains and the agelong trance of the summits
Out of the sun and its spaces she came, pausing tranquil and fatal,
And, at a distance followed by the golden herds of the sungod,
Carried the burden of Light and its riddle and danger to Hellas.
Even as fleets on a chariot divine through the gold streets of ether,
Swiftly when Life fleets, invisibly changing the arc of the soul-drift,
And, with the choice that has chanced or the fate man has called and now suffers
Weighted, the moment travels driving the past towards the future,
Only its face and its feet are seen, not the burden it carries.
Weight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden.
Earth sees not; lifes clamour deafens the ear of the spirit:
Man knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons.
Only he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his hearts ignorant whisper,
Whistle of winds in the tree-tops of Time and the rustle of Nature.
Now too the messenger hastened driving the car of the errand:
Even while dawn was a gleam in the east, he had cried to his coursers.
Half yet awake in lights turrets started the scouts of the morning
Hearing the jar of the wheels and the throb of the hooves exultation,
Hooves of the horses of Greece as they galloped to Phrygian Troya.
Proudly they trampled through Xanthus thwarting the foam of his anger,
Whinnying high as in scorn crossed Simois tangled currents,
Xanthus reed-girdled twin, the gentle and sluggard river.
One and unarmed in the car was the driver; grey was he, shrunken,
Worn with his decades. To Pergama cinctured with strength Cyclopean
Old and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals,
Carrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire.
Ilion, couchant, saw him arrive from the sea and the darkness.
Heard mid the faint slow stirrings of life in the sleep of the city,
Rapid there neared a running of feet, and the cry of the summons
Beat round the doors that guarded the domes of the splendour of Priam.
Wardens charged with the night, ye who stand in Laomedons gateway,
Waken the Ilian kings. Talthybius, herald of Argos,
Parleying stands at the portals of Troy in the grey of the dawning.
High and insistent the call. In the dimness and hush of his chamber
Charioted far in his dreams amid visions of glory and terror,
Scenes of a vivider world,though blurred and deformed in the brain-cells,
Vague and inconsequent, there full of colour and beauty and greatness,
Suddenly drawn by the pull of the conscious thread of the earth-bond
And of the needs of Time and the travail assigned in the transience
Warned by his body, Deiphobus, reached in that splendid remoteness,
Touched through the nerve-ways of life that branch to the brain of the dreamer,
Heard the terrestrial call and slumber startled receded
Sliding like dew from the mane of a lion. Reluctant he travelled
Back from the light of the fields beyond death, from the wonderful kingdoms
Where he had wandered a soul among souls in the countries beyond us,
Free from the toil and incertitude, free from the struggle and danger:
Now, compelled, he returned from the respite given to the time-born,
Called to the strife and the wounds of the earth and the burden of daylight.
He from the carven couch upreared his giant stature.
Haste-spurred he laved his eyes and regained earths memories, haste-spurred
Donning apparel and armour strode through the town of his fathers,
Watched by her gods on his way to his fate, towards Pergamas portals.
Nine long years had passed and the tenth now was wearily ending,
Years of the wrath of the gods, and the leaguer still threatened the ramparts
Since through a tranquil morn the ships came past Tenedos sailing
And the first Argive fell slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches;
Still the assailants attacked, still fought back the stubborn defenders.
When the reward is withheld and endlessly leng thens the labour,
Weary of fruitless toil grows the transient heart of the mortal.
Weary of battle the invaders warring hearthless and homeless
Prayed to the gods for release and return to the land of their fathers:
Weary of battle the Phrygians beset in their beautiful city
Prayed to the gods for an end of the danger and mortal encounter.
Long had the high-beached ships forgotten their measureless ocean.
Greece seemed old and strange to her children camped on the beaches,
Old like a life long past one remembers hardly believing
But as a dream that has happened, but as the tale of another.
Time with his tardy touch and Nature changing our substance
Slowly had dimmed the faces loved and the scenes once cherished:
Yet was the dream still dear to them longing for wife and for children,
Longing for hearth and glebe in the far-off valleys of Hellas.
Always like waves that swallow the shingles, lapsing, returning,
Tide of the battle, race of the onset relentlessly thundered
Over the Phrygian corn-fields. Trojan wrestled with Argive,
Caria, Lycia, Thrace and the war-lord mighty Achaia
Joined in the clasp of the fight. Death, panic and wounds and disaster,
Glory of conquest and glory of fall, and the empty hearth-side,
Weeping and fortitude, terror and hope and the pang of remembrance,
Anguish of hearts, the lives of the warriors, the strength of the nations
Thrown were like weights into Destinys scales, but the balance wavered
Pressed by invisible hands. For not only the mortal fighters,
Heroes half divine whose names are like stars in remoteness,
Triumphed and failed and were winds or were weeds on the dance of the surges,
But from the peaks of Olympus and shimmering summits of Ida
Gleaming and clanging the gods of the antique ages descended.
Hidden from human knowledge the brilliant shapes of Immortals
Mingled unseen in the mellay, or sometimes, marvellous, maskless,
Forms of undying beauty and power that made tremble the heart-strings
Parting their deathless secrecy crossed through the borders of vision,
Plain as of old to the demigods out of their glory emerging,
Heard by mortal ears and seen by the eyeballs that perish.
Mighty they came from their spaces of freedom and sorrowless splendour.
Sea-vast, trailing the azure hem of his clamorous waters,
Blue-lidded, maned with the Night, Poseidon smote for the future,
Earth-shaker who with his trident releases the coils of the Dragon,
Freeing the forces unborn that are locked in the caverns of Nature.
Calm and unmoved, upholding the Word that is Fate and the order
Fixed in the sight of a Will foreknowing and silent and changeless,
Hera sent by Zeus and Athene lifting his aegis
Guarded the hidden decree. But for Ilion, loud as the surges,
Ares impetuous called to the fire in mens hearts, and his passion
Woke in the shadowy depths the forms of the Titan and demon;
Dumb and coerced by the grip of the gods in the abyss of the being,
Formidable, veiled they sit in the grey subconscient darkness
Watching the sleep of the snake-haired Erinnys. Miracled, haloed,
Seer and magician and prophet who beholds what the thought cannot witness,
Lifting the godhead within us to more than a human endeavour,
Slayer and saviour, thinker and mystic, leaped from his sun-peaks
Guarding in Ilion the wall of his mysteries Delphic Apollo.
Heavens strengths divided swayed in the whirl of the Earth-force.
All that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages;
Life like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure;
Goal seems there none for the ball that is chased throughout Time by the Fate-teams;
Evil once ended renews and no issue comes out of living:
Only an Eye unseen can distinguish the thread of its workings.
Such seemed the rule of the pastime of Fate on the plains of the Troad;
All went backwards and forwards tossed in the swing of the death-game.
Vain was the toil of the heroes, the blood of the mighty was squandered,
Spray as of surf on the cliffs when it moans unappeased, unrequited
Age after fruitless age. Day hunted the steps of the nightfall;
Joy succeeded to grief; defeat only greatened the vanquished,
Victory offered an empty delight without guerdon or profit.
End there was none of the effort and end there was none of the failure.
Triumph and agony changing hands in a desperate measure
Faced and turned as a man and a maiden trampling the grasses
Face and turn and they laugh in their joy of the dance and each other.
These were gods and they trampled lives. But though Time is immortal,
Mortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture.
Artists of Nature content with their work in the plan of the transience,
Beautiful, deathless, august, the Olympians turned from the carnage,
Leaving the battle already decided, leaving the heroes
Slain in their minds, Troy burned, Greece left to her glory and downfall.
Into their heavens they rose up mighty like eagles ascending
Fanning the world with their wings. As the great to their luminous mansions
Turn from the cry and the strife, forgetting the wounded and fallen,
Calm they repose from their toil and incline to the joy of the banquet,
Watching the feet of the wine-bearers rosily placed on the marble,
Filling their hearts with ease, so they to their sorrowless ether
Passed from the wounded earth and its air that is ploughed with mens anguish;
Calm they reposed and their hearts inclined to the joy and the silence.
Lifted was the burden laid on our wills by their starry presence:
Man was restored to his smallness, the world to its inconscient labour.
Life felt a respite from height, the winds breathed freer delivered;
Light was released from their blaze and the earth was released from their greatness.
But their immortal content from the struggle titanic departed.
Vacant the noise of the battle roared like the sea on the shingles;
Wearily hunted the spears their quarry; strength was disheartened;
Silence increased with the march of the months on the tents of the leaguer.
But not alone on the Achaians the steps of the moments fell heavy;
Slowly the shadow deepened on Ilion mighty and scornful:
Dragging her days went by; in the rear of the hearts of her people
Something that knew what they dared not know and the mind would not utter,
Something that smote at her soul of defiance and beauty and laughter,
Darkened the hours. For Doom in her sombre and giant uprising
Neared, assailing the skies: the sense of her lived in all pastimes;
Time was pursued by unease and a terror woke in the midnight:
Even the ramparts felt her, stones that the gods had erected.
Now no longer she dallied and played, but bounded and hastened,
Seeing before her the end and, imagining massacre calmly,
Laughed and admired the flames and rejoiced in the cry of the captives.
Under her, dead to the watching immortals, Deiphobus hastened
Clanging in arms through the streets of the beautiful insolent city,
Brilliant, a gleaming husk but empty and left by the daemon.
Even as a star long extinguished whose light still travels the spaces,
Seen in its form by men, but itself goes phantom-like fleeting
Void and null and dark through the uncaring infinite vastness,
So now he seemed to the sight that sees all things from the Real.
Timeless its vision of Time creates the hour by things coming.
Borne on a force from the past and no more by a power for the future
Mighty and bright was his body, but shadowy the shape of his spirit
Only an eidolon seemed of the being that had lived in him, fleeting
Vague like a phantom seen by the dim Acherontian waters.
But to the guardian towers that watched over Pergamas gateway
Out of the waking city Deiphobus swiftly arriving
Called, and swinging back the huge gates slowly, reluctant,
Flung Troy wide to the entering Argive. Ilions portals
Parted admitting her destiny, then with a sullen and iron
Cry they closed. Mute, staring, grey like a wolf descended
Old Talthybius, propping his steps on the staff of his errand;
Feeble his body, but fierce still his glance with the fire within him;
Speechless and brooding he gazed on the hated and coveted city.
Suddenly, seeking heaven with her buildings hewn as for Titans,
Marvellous, rhythmic, a child of the gods with marble for raiment,
Smiting the vision with harmony, splendid and mighty and golden,
Ilion stood up around him entrenched in her giant defences.
Strength was uplifted on strength and grandeur supported by grandeur;
Beauty lay in her lap. Remote, hieratic and changeless,
Filled with her deeds and her dreams her gods looked out on the Argive,
Helpless and dumb with his hate as he gazed on her, they too like mortals
Knowing their centuries past, not knowing the morrow before them.
Dire were his eyes upon Troya the beautiful, his face like a doom-mask:
All Greece gazed in them, hated, admired, grew afraid, grew relentless.
But to the Greek Deiphobus cried and he turned from his passion
Fixing his ominous eyes with the god in them straight on the Trojan:
Messenger, voice of Achaia, wherefore confronting the daybreak
Comest thou driving thy car from the sleep of the tents that besiege us?
Fateful, I deem, was the thought that, conceived in the silence of midnight,
Raised up thy aged limbs from the couch of their rest in the stillness,
Thoughts of a mortal but forged by the Will that uses our members
And of its promptings our speech and our acts are the tools and the image.
Oft from the veil and the shadow they leap out like stars in their brightness,
Lights that we think our own, yet they are but tokens and counters,
Signs of the Forces that flow through us serving a Power that is secret.
What in the dawning bringst thou to Troya the mighty and dateless
Now in the ending of Time when the gods are weary of struggle?
Sends Agamemnon challenge or courtesy, Greek, to the Trojans?
High like the northwind answered the voice of the doom from Achaia:
Trojan Deiphobus, daybreak, silence of night and the evening
Sink and arise and even the strong sun rests from his splendour.
Not for the servant is rest nor Time is his, only his death-pyre.
I have not come from the monarch of men or the armoured assembly
Held on the wind-swept marge of the thunder and laughter of ocean.
One in his singleness greater than kings and multitudes sends me.
I am a voice out of Phthia, I am the will of the Hellene.
Peace in my right I bring to you, death in my left hand. Trojan,
Proudly receive them, honour the gifts of the mighty Achilles.
Death accept, if Ate deceives you and Doom is your lover,
Peace if your fate can turn and the god in you chooses to hearken.
Full is my heart and my lips are impatient of speech undelivered.
It was not made for the streets or the market, nor to be uttered
Meanly to common ears, but where counsel and majesty harbour
Far from the crowd in the halls of the great and to wisdom and foresight
Secrecy whispers, there I will speak among Ilions princes.
Envoy, answered the Laomedontian, voice of Achilles,
Vain is the offer of peace that sets out with a threat for its prelude.
Yet will we hear thee. Arise who are fleetest of foot in the gateway,
Thou, Thrasymachus, haste. Let the domes of the mansion of Ilus
Wake to the bruit of the Hellene challenge. Summon Aeneas.
Even as the word sank back into stillness, doffing his mantle
Started to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans
First in the race and the battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretes.
He in the dawn disappeared into swiftness. Deiphobus slowly,
Measuring Fate with his thoughts in the troubled vasts of his spirit,
Back through the stir of the city returned to the house of his fathers,
Taming his mighty stride to the pace infirm of the Argive.
But with the god in his feet Thrasymachus rapidly running
Came to the halls in the youth of the wonderful city by Ilus
Built for the joy of the eye; for he rested from war and, triumphant,
Reigned adored by the prostrate nations. Now when all ended,
Last of its mortal possessors to walk in its flowering gardens,
Great Anchises lay in that luminous house of the ancients
Soothing his restful age, the far-warring victor Anchises,
High Bucoleons son and the father of Rome by a goddess;
Lonely and vagrant once in his boyhood divine upon Ida
White Aphrodite ensnared him and she loosed her ambrosial girdle
Seeking a mortals love. On the threshold Thrasymachus halted
Looking for servant or guard, but felt only a loneness of slumber
Drawing the souls sight within away from its life and things human;
Soundless, unheeding, the vacant corridors fled into darkness.
He to the shades of the house and the dreams of the echoing rafters
Trusted his high-voiced call, and from chambers still dim in their twilight
Strong Aeneas armoured and mantled, leonine striding,
Came, Anchises son; for the dawn had not found him reposing,
But in the night he had left his couch and the clasp of Cresa,
Rising from sleep at the call of his spirit that turned to the waters
Prompted by Fate and his mother who guided him, white Aphrodite.
Still with the impulse of speed Thrasymachus greeted Aeneas:
Hero Aeneas, swift be thy stride to the Ilian hill-top.
Dardanid, haste! for the gods are at work; they have risen with the morning,
Each from his starry couch, and they labour. Doom, we can see it,
Glows on their anvils of destiny, clang we can hear of their hammers.
Something they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal,
Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters
Calm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices.
Troy is their stage and Argos their background; we are their puppets.
Always our voices are prompted to speech for an end that we know not,
Always we think that we drive, but are driven. Action and impulse,
Yearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow and helper.
Now too, deeming he comes with a purpose framed by a mortal,
Shaft of their will they have shot from the bow of the Grecian leaguer,
Lashing themselves at his steeds, Talthybius sent by Achilles.
Busy the gods are always, Thrasymachus son of Aretes,
Weaving Fate on their looms, and yesterday, now and tomorrow
Are but the stands they have made with Space and Time for their timber,
Frame but the dance of their shuttle. What eye unamazed by their workings
Ever can pierce where they dwell and uncover their far-stretching purpose?
Silent they toil, they are hid in the clouds, they are wrapped with the midnight.
Yet to Apollo I pray, the Archer friendly to mortals,
Yet to the rider on Fate I abase myself, wielder of thunder,
Evil and doom to avert from my fatherland. All night Morpheus,
He who with shadowy hands heaps error and truth upon mortals,
Stood at my pillow with images. Dreaming I erred like a phantom
Helpless in Ilions streets with the fire and the foeman around me.
Red was the smoke as it mounted triumphant the house-top of Priam,
Clang of the arms of the Greeks was in Troya, and thwarting the clangour
Voices were crying and calling me over the violent Ocean
Borne by the winds of the West from a land where Hesperus harbours.
Brooding they ceased, for their thoughts grew heavy upon them and voiceless.
Then, in a farewell brief and unthought and unconscious of meaning,
Parting they turned to their tasks and their lives now close but soon severed:
Destined to perish even before his perishing nation,
Back to his watch at the gate sped Thrasymachus rapidly running;
Large of pace and swift, but with eyes absorbed and unseeing,
Driven like a car of the gods by the whip of his thoughts through the highways,
Turned to his mighty future the hero born of a goddess.
One was he chosen to ascend into greatness through fall and disaster,
Loser of his world by the will of a heaven that seemed ruthless and adverse,
Founder of a newer and greater world by daring adventure.
Now, from the citadels rise with the townships crowding below it
High towards a pondering of domes and the mystic Palladium climbing,
Fronted with the morning ray and joined by the winds of the ocean,
Fate-weighed up Troys slope strode musing strong Aeneas.
Under him silent the slumbering roofs of the city of Ilus
Dreamed in the light of the dawn; above watched the citadel, sleepless
Lonely and strong like a goddess white-limbed and bright on a hill-top,
Looking far out at the sea and the foe and the prowling of danger.
Over the brow he mounted and saw the palace of Priam,
Home of the gods of the earth, Laomedons marvellous vision
Held in the thought that accustomed his will to unearthly achievement
And in the blaze of his spirit compelling heaven with its greatness,
Dreamed by the harp of Apollo, a melody caught into marble.
Out of his mind it arose like an epic canto by canto;
Each of its halls was a strophe, its chambers lines of an epode,
Victor chant of Ilions destiny. Absent he entered,
Voiceless with thought, the brilliant megaron crowded with paintings,
Paved with a splendour of marble, and saw Deiphobus seated,
Son of the ancient house by the opulent hearth of his fathers,
And at his side like a shadow the grey and ominous Argive.
Happy of light like a lustrous star when it welcomes the morning,
Brilliant, beautiful, glamoured with gold and a fillet of gem-fire,
Paris, plucked from the song and the lyre by the Grecian challenge,
Came with the joy in his face and his eyes that Fate could not alter.
Ever a child of the dawn at play near a turn of the sun-roads,
Facing destinys look with the careless laugh of a comrade,
He with his vision of delight and beauty brightening the earth-field
Passed through its peril and grief on his way to the ambiguous Shadow.
Last from her chamber of sleep where she lay in the Ilian mansion
Far in the heart of the house with the deep-bosomed daughters of Priam,
Noble and tall and erect in a nimbus of youth and of glory,
Claiming the world and life as a fief of her strength and her courage,
Dawned through a doorway that opened to distant murmurs and laughter,
Capturing the eye like a smile or a sunbeam, Penthesilea.
She from the threshold cried to the herald, crossing the marble,
Regal and fleet, with her voice that was mighty and dire in its sweetness.
What with such speed has impelled from the wind-haunted beaches of Troas,
Herald, thy car though the sun yet hesitates under the mountains?
Comest thou humbler to Troy, Talthybius, now than thou camest
Once when the streams of my East sang low to my ear, not this Ocean
Loud, and I roamed in my mountains uncalled by the voice of Apollo?
Bringest thou dulcet-eyed peace or, sweeter to Penthesilea,
Challenge of war when the spears fall thick on the shields of the fighters,
Lightly the wheels leap onward chanting the anthem of Ares,
Death is at work in his fields and the heart is enamoured of danger?
What says Odysseus, the baffled Ithacan? what Agamemnon?
Are they then weary of war who were rapid and bold and triumphant,
Now that their gods are reluctant, now victory darts not from heaven
Down from the clouds above Ida directing the luminous legions
Armed by Fate, now Pallas forgets, now Poseidon slumbers?
Bronze were their throats to the battle like bugles blaring in chorus;
Mercy they knew not, but shouted and ravened and ran to the slaughter
Eager as hounds when they chase, till a woman met them and stayed them,
Loud my war-shout rang by Scamander. Herald of Argos,
What say the vaunters of Greece to the virgin Penthesilea?
High was the Argives answer confronting the mighty in Troya.
Princes of Pergama, whelps of the lion who roar for the mellay,
Suffer my speech! It shall ring like a spear on the hearts of the mighty.
Blame not the herald; his voice is an impulse, an echo, a channel
Now for the timbrels of peace and now for the drums of the battle.
And I have come from no cautious strength, from no half-hearted speaker,
But from the Phthian. All know him! Proud is his soul as his fortunes,
Swift as his sword and his spear are the speech and the wrath from his bosom.
I am his envoy, herald am I of the conquering Argives.
Has not one heard in the night when the breezes whisper and shudder,
Dire, the voice of a lion unsatisfied, gnawed by his hunger,
Seeking his prey from the gods? For he prowls through the glens of the mountains,
Errs a dangerous gleam in the woodlands, fatal and silent.
So for a while he endures, for a while he seeks and he suffers
Patient yet in his terrible grace as assured of his banquet;
But he has lacked too long and he lifts his head and to heaven
Roars in his wonder, incensed, impatiently. Startled the valleys
Shrink from the dreadful alarum, the cattle gallop to shelter.
Arming the herdsmen cry to each other for comfort and courage.
So Talthybius spoke, as a harper voicing his prelude
Touches his strings to a varied music, seeks for a concord;
Long his strain he prepares. But one broke in on the speaker,
Sweet was his voice like a harps though heard in the front of the onset,
One of the sons of Fate by the people loved whom he ruined,
Leader in counsel and battle, the Priamid, he in his beauty
Carelessly walking who scattered the seeds of Titanic disaster.
Surely thou dreamedst at night and awaking thy dreams have not left thee!
Hast thou not woven thy words to intimidate children in Argos
Sitting alarmed in the shadows who listen pale to their nurses?
Greek, thou art standing in Ilion now and thou facest her princes.
Use not thy words but thy kings. If friendship their honey-breathed burden,
Friendship we clasp from Achilles, but challenge outpace with our challenge
Meeting the foe ere he moves in his will to the clash of encounter.
Such is the way of the Trojans since Phryx by the Hellespont halting
Seated Troy on her hill with the Ocean for comrade and sister.
Shaking in wrath his filleted head Talthybius answered:
Princes, ye speak their words who drive you! Thus said Achilles:
Rise, Talthybius, meet in her spaces the car of the morning;
Challenge her coursers divine as they bound through the plains of the Troad.
Hasten, let not the day wear gold ere thou stand in her ramparts.
Herald charged with my will to a haughty and obstinate nation,
Speak in the palace of Priam the word of the Phthian Achilles.
Freely and not as his vassal who leads, Agamemnon, the Argive,
But as a ruler in Hellas I send thee, king of my nations.
Long I have walked apart from the mellay of gods in the Troad,
Long has my listless spear leaned back on the peace of my tent-side,
Deaf to the talk of the trumpets, the whine of the chariots speeding;
Sole with my heart I have lived, unheeding the Hellene murmur,
Chid when it roared for the hunt the lion pack of the war-god,
Day after day I walked at dawn and in blush of the sunset,
Far by the call of the seas and alone with the gods and my dreaming,
Leaned to the unsatisfied chant of my heart and the rhythms of ocean,
Sung to by hopes that were sweet-lipped and vain. For Polyxenas brothers
Still are the brood of the Titan Laomedon slain in his greatness,
Engines of God unable to bear all the might that they harbour.
Awe they have chid from their hearts, nor our common humanity binds them,
Stay have they none in the gods who approve, giving calmness to mortals:
But like the Titans of old they have hugged to them grandeur and ruin.
Seek then the race self-doomed, the leaders blinded by heaven
Not in the agora swept by the winds of debate and the shoutings
Lion-voiced, huge of the people! In Troyas high-crested mansion
Speak out my word to the hero Deiphobus, head of the mellay,
Paris the racer of doom and the stubborn strength of Aeneas.
Herald of Greece, when thy feet shall be pressed on the gold and the marble,
Rise in the Ilian megaron, curb not the cry of the challenge.
Thus shalt thou say to them striking the ground with the staff of defiance,
Fronting the tempests of war, the insensate, the gamblers with downfall.
Princes of Troy, I have sat in your halls, I have slept in your chambers;
Not in the battle alone as a warrior glad of his foemen,
Glad of the strength that mates with his own, in peace we encountered.
Marvelling I sat in the halls of my enemies, close to the bosoms
Scarred by the dints of my sword and the eyes I had seen through the battle,
Ate rejoicing the food of the East at the tables of Priam
Served by the delicatest hands in the world, by Hecubas daughter,
Or with our souls reconciled in some careless and rapturous midnight
Drank of the sweetness of Phrygian wine, admiring your bodies
Shaped by the gods indeed, and my spirit revolted from hatred,
Softening it yearned in its strings to the beauty and joy of its foemen,
Yearned from the death that oertakes and the flame that cries and desires
Even at the end to save and even on the verge to deliver
Troy and her wonderful works and her sons and her deep-bosomed daughters.
Warned by the gods who reveal to the heart what the mind cannot hearken
Deaf with its thoughts, I offered you friendship, I offered you bridal,
Hellas for comrade, Achilles for brother, the world for enjoyment
Won by my spear. And one heard my call and one turned to my seeking.
Why is it then that the war-cry sinks not to rest by the Xanthus?
We are not voices from Argolis, Lacedaemonian tricksters,
Splendid and subtle and false; we are speakers of truth, we are Hellenes,
Men of the northl and faithful in friendship and noble in anger,
Strong like our fathers of old. But you answered my truth with evasion
Hoping to seize what I will not yield and you flattered your people.
Long have I waited for wisdom to dawn on your violent natures.
Lonely I paced oer the sands by the thousand-throated waters
Praying to Pallas the wise that the doom might turn from your mansions,
Buildings delightful, gracious as rhythms, lyrics in marble,
Works of the transient gods, and I yearned for the end of the war-din
Hoping that Death might relent to the beautiful sons of the Trojans.
Far from the cry of the spears, from the speed and the laughter of axles,
Heavy upon me like iron the intolerable yoke of inaction
Weighed like a load on a runner. The war-cry rose by Scamander;
Xanthus was crossed on a bridge of the fallen, not by Achilles.
Often I stretched out my hand to the spear, for the Trojan beaches
Rang with the voice of Deiphobus shouting and slaying the Argives;
Often my heart like an anxious mother for Greece and her children
Leaped, for the air was full of the leonine roar of Aeneas.
Always the evening fell or the gods protected the Argives.
Then by the moat of the ships, on the hither plain of the Xanthus
New was the voice that climbed through the din and sailed on the breezes,
High, insistent, clear, and it shouted an unknown war-cry
Threatening doom to the peoples. A woman had come in to aid you,
Regal and insolent, fair as the morning and fell as the northwind,
Freed from the distaff who grasps at the sword and she spurns at subjection
Breaking the rule of the gods. She is turbulent, swift in the battle.
Clanging her voice of the swan as a summons to death and disaster,
Fleet-footed, happy and pitiless, laughing she runs to the slaughter;
Strong with the gait that allures she leaps from her car to the slaying,
Dabbles in blood smooth hands like lilies. Europe astonished
Reels from her shock to the Ocean. She is the panic and mellay,
War is her paean, the chariots thunder of Penthesilea.
Doom was her coming, it seems, to the men of the West and their legions;
Ajax sleeps for ever, Meriones lies on the beaches.
One by one they are falling before you, the great in Achaia.
Ever the wounded are borne like the stream of the ants when they forage
Past my ships, and they hush their moans as they near and in silence
Gaze at the legions inactive accusing the fame of Achilles.
Still have I borne with you, waited a little, looked for a summons,
Longing for bridal torches, not flame on the Ilian housetops,
Blood in the chambers of sweetness, the golden amorous city
Swallowed by doom. Not broken I turned from the wrestle Titanic,
Hopeless, weary of toil in the ebb of my glorious spirit,
But from my stress of compassion for doom of the kindred nations,
But for her sake whom my soul desires, for the daughter of Priam.
And for Polyxenas sake I will speak to you yet as your lover
Once ere the Fury, abrupt from Erebus, deaf to your crying,
Mad with the joy of the massacre, seizes on wealth and on women
Calling to Fire as it strides and Ilion sinks into ashes.
Yield; for your doom is impatient. No longer your helpers hasten,
Legions swift to your call; the yoke of your pride and your splendour
Lies not now on the nations of earth as when Fortune desired you,
Strength was your slave and Troya the lioness hungrily roaring
Threatened the western world from her ramparts built by Apollo.
Gladly released from the thraldom they hated, the insolent shackles
Curbing their manhood the peoples arise and they pray for your ruin;
Piled are their altars with gifts; their blessings help the Achaians.
Memnon came, but he sleeps, and the faces swart of his nation
Darken no more like a cloud over thunder and surge of the onset.
Wearily Lycia fights; far fled are the Carian levies.
Thrace retreats to her plains preferring the whistle of stormwinds
Or on the banks of the Strymon to wheel in her Orphean measure,
Not in the revel of swords and fronting the spears of the Hellenes.
Princes of Pergama, open your gates to our Peace who would enter,
Life in her gracious clasp and forgetfulness, grave of earths passions,
Healer of wounds and the past. In a comity equal, Hellenic,
Asia join with Greece, one world from the frozen rivers
Trod by the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges.
Tyndarid Helen resign, the desirable cause of your danger,
Back to Greece that is empty long of her smile and her movements.
Broider with riches her coming, pomp of her slaves and the waggons
Endlessly groaning with gold that arrive with the ransom of nations.
So shall the Fury be pacified, she who exultant from Sparta
Breathed in the sails of the Trojan ravisher helping his oarsmen.
So shall the gods be appeased and the thoughts of their wrath shall be cancelled,
Justice contented trace back her steps and for brands of the burning
Torches delightful shall break into Troy with the swords of the bridal.
I like a bridegroom will seize on your city and clasp and defend her
Safe from the envy of Argos, from Lacedaemonian hatred,
Safe from the hunger of Crete and the Locrians violent rapine.
But if you turn from my voice and you hearken only to Ares
Crying for battle within you deluded by Hera and Pallas,
Swiftly the fierce deaths surges shall close over Troy and her ramparts
Built by the gods shall be stubble and earth to the tread of the Hellene.
For to my tents I return not, I swear it by Zeus and Apollo,
Master of Truth who sits within Delphi fathomless brooding
Sole in the caverns of Nature and hearkens her underground murmur,
Giving my oath to his keeping mute and stern who forgets not,
Not from the panting of Ares toil to repose, from the wrestle
Locked of hope and death in the ruthless clasp of the mellay
Leaving again the Trojan ramparts unmounted, leaving
Greece unavenged, the Aegean a lake and Europe a province.
Choosing from Hellas exile, from Peleus and Deidamia,
Choosing the field for my chamber of sleep and the battle for hearthside
I shall go warring on till Asia enslaved to my footsteps
Feels the tread of the God in my sandal pressed on her bosom.
Rest shall I then when the borders of Greece are fringed with the Ganges;
Thus shall the past pay its Titan ransom and, Fate her balance
Changing, a continent ravished suffer the fortune of Helen.
This I have sworn allying my will to Zeus and Ananke.
So was it spoken, the Phthian challenge. Silent the heroes
Looked back amazed on their past and into the night of their future.
Silent their hearts felt a grasp from gods and had hints of the heavens.
Hush was awhile in the room, as if Fate were trying her balance
Poised on the thoughts of her mortals. At length with a musical laughter
Sweet as the jangling of bells upon anklets leaping in measure
Answered aloud to the gods the virgin Penthesilea.
Long I had heard in my distant realms of the fame of Achilles,
Ignorant still while I played with the ball and ran in the dances
Thinking not ever to war; but I dreamed of the shock of the hero.
So might a poet inland who imagines the rumour of Ocean,
Yearn with his lust for the giant upheaval, the dance as of hill-tops,
Toss of the yellow mane and the tawny march and the voices
Lionlike claiming earth as a prey for the clamorous waters.
So have I longed as I came for the cry and the speed of Achilles.
But he has lurked in his ships, he has sulked like a boy that is angry.
Glad am I now of his soul that arises hungry for battle,
Glad, whether victor I live or defeated travel the shadows.
Once shall my spear have rung on the shield of the Phthian Achilles.
Peace I desire not. I came to a haughty and resolute nation,
Honour and fame they cherish, not life by the gift of a foeman.
Sons of the ancient house on whom Ilion looks as on Titans,
Chiefs whom the world admires, do you fear then the shock of the Phthian?
Gods, it is said, have decided your doom. Are you less in your greatness?
Are you not gods to reverse their decrees or unshaken to suffer?
Memnon is dead and the Carians leave you? Lycia lingers?
But from the streams of my East I have come to you, Penthesilea.
Virgin of Asia, answered Talthybius, doom of a nation
Brought thee to Troy and her haters Olympian shielded thy coming,
Vainly who feedest mens hearts with a hope that the gods have rejected.
Doom in thy sweet voice utters her counsels robed like a woman.
Answered the virgin disdainfully, wroth at the words of the Argive:
Hast thou not ended the errand they gave thee, envoy of Hellas?
Not, do I think, as our counsellor camst thou elected from Argos,
Nor as a lover to Troy hast thou hastened with amorous footing
Hurting thy heart with her frowardness. Hatred and rapine sent thee,
Greed of the Ilian gold and lust of the Phrygian women,
Voice of Achaian aggression! Doom am I truly; let Gnossus
Witness it, Salamis speak of my fatal arrival and Argos
Silent remember her wounds. But the Argive answered the virgin:
Hearken then to the words of the Hellene, Penthesilea.
Virgin to whom earths strongest are corn in the sweep of thy sickle,
Lioness vain of thy bruit who besiegest the paths of the battle!
Art thou not satiate yet? hast thou drunk then so little of slaughter?
Death has ascended thy car; he has chosen thy hand for his harvest.
But I have heard of thy pride and disdain, how thou scornest the Argives
And of thy fate thou complainest that ever averse to thy wishes
Cloisters the Phthian and matches with weaklings Penthesilea.
Not of the Ithacan boar nor the wild-cat littered in Locris
Nor of the sleek-coat Argive wild-bulls sates me the hunting;
So hast thou said, I would bury my spear in the lion of Hellas.
Blind and infatuate, art thou not beautiful, bright as the lightning?
Were not thy limbs made cunningly linking sweetness to sweetness?
Is not thy laughter an arrow surprising hearts imprudent?
Charm is the seal of the gods upon woman. Distaff and girdle,
Work of the jar at the well and the hush of our innermost chambers,
These were appointed thee, but thou hast scorned them, O Titaness, grasping
Rather the shield and the spear. Thou, obeying thy turbulent nature,
Tramplest oer laws that are old to the pleasure thy heart has demanded.
Rather bow to the ancient Gods who are seated and constant.
But for thyself thou passest and what hast thou gained for the aeons
Mingled with men in their works and depriving the age of thy beauty?
Fair art thou, woman, but fair with a bitter and opposite sweetness
Clanging in war when thou matchest thy voice with the shout of assemblies.
Not to this end was thy sweetness made and the joy of thy members,
Not to this rhythm Heaven tuned its pipe in thy throat of enchantment,
Armoured like men to go warring forth and with hardness and fierceness
Mix in the strife and the hate while the varied meaning of Nature
Perishes hurt in its heart and life is emptied of music.
Long have I marked in your world a madness. Monarchs descending
Court the imperious mob of their slaves and their suppliant gesture
Shameless and venal offends the majestic tradition of ages:
Princes plead in the agora; spurred by the tongue of a coward,
Heroes march to an impious war at a priestly bidding.
Gold is sought by the great with the chaffering heart of the trader.
Asia fails and the Gods are abandoning Ida for Hellas.
Why must thou come here to perish, O noble and exquisite virgin,
Here in a cause not thine, in a quarrel remote from thy beauty,
Leaving a land that is lovely and far to be slain among strangers?
Girl, to thy rivers go back and thy hills where the grapes are aspirant.
Trust not a fate that indulges; for all things, Penthesilea,
Break with excess and he is the wisest who walks by a measure.
Yet, if thou wilt, thou shalt meet me today in the shock of the battle:
There will I give thee the fame thou desirest; captive in Hellas,
Men shall point to thee always, smiling and whispering, saying,
This is the woman who fought with the Greeks, overthrowing their heroes;
This is the slayer of Ajax, this is the slave of Achilles.
Then with her musical laughter the fearless Penthesilea:
Well do I hope that Achilles enslaved shall taste of that glory
Or on the Phrygian fields lie slain by the spear of a woman.
But to the herald Achaian the Priamid, leader of Troya:
Rest in the halls of thy foes and ease thy fatigue and thy winters.
Herald, abide till the people have heard and reply to Achilles.
Not as the kings of the West are Ilions princes and archons,
Monarchs of men who drive their nations dumb to the battle.
Not in the palace of Priam and not in the halls of the mighty
Whispered councils prevail and the few dispose of the millions;
But with their nation consulting, feeling the hearts of the commons
Ilions princes march to the war or give peace to their foemen.
Lightning departs from her kings and the thunder returns from her people
Met in the ancient assembly where Ilus founded his columns
And since her famous centuries, names that the ages remember
Leading her, Troya proclaims her decrees to obedient nations.
Ceasing he cried to the thralls of his house and they tended the Argive.
Brought to a chamber of rest in the luminous peace of the mansion,
Grey he sat and endured the food and the wine of his foemen,
Chiding his spirit that murmured within him and gazed undelighted,
Vexed with the endless pomps of Laomedon. Far from those glories
Memory winged it back to a sward half-forgotten, a village
Nestling in leaves and low hills watching it crowned with the sunset.
So for his hour he abode in earths palace of lordliest beauty,
But in its caverns his heart was weary and, hurt by the splendours,
Longed for Greece and the smoke-darkened roof of a cottage in Argos,
Eyes of a woman faded and children crowding the hearthside.
Joyless he rose and eastward expected the sunrise on Ida.
***
~ Sri Aurobindo, 1 - The Book of the Herald
,
795:There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.
Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats unscalable
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
A thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heavenwhose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades 'mong oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
Within its pearly house.The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thinethe myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.

         On gold sand impearl'd
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

           Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

"What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-topthe sage's pen
The poet's harpthe voice of friendsthe sun;
Thou wast the riverthou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blastthou wast my steed
My goblet full of winemy topmost deed:
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss
My strange love cameFelicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live!
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
To its huge self; and the minutest fish
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the regality
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
So stedfastly, that the new denizen
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
The wilder'd strangerseeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:

"Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some sucking pool I will be hurl'd
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, andah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.By Dian's hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!"

He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

"Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost bosom, and I feel
A very brother's yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison gates that have so long opprest
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power
I had been grieving at this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul stands
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading scum,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

"I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely. But the crown
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see unfold
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

"Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
The utmost privilege that ocean's sire
Could grant in benediction: to be free
Of all his kingdom. Long in misery
I wasted, ere in one extremest fit
I plung'd for life or death. To interknit
One's senses with so dense a breathing stuff
Might seem a work of pain; so not enough
Can I admire how crystal-smooth it felt,
And buoyant round my limbs. At first I dwelt
Whole days and days in sheer astonishment;
Forgetful utterly of self-intent;
Moving but with the mighty ebb and flow.
Then, like a new fledg'd bird that first doth shew
His spreaded feathers to the morrow chill,
I tried in fear the pinions of my will.
'Twas freedom! and at once I visited
The ceaseless wonders of this ocean-bed.
No need to tell thee of them, for I see
That thou hast been a witnessit must be
For these I know thou canst not feel a drouth,
By the melancholy corners of that mouth.
So I will in my story straightway pass
To more immediate matter. Woe, alas!
That love should be my bane! Ah, Scylla fair!
Why did poor Glaucus everever dare
To sue thee to his heart? Kind stranger-youth!
I lov'd her to the very white of truth,
And she would not conceive it. Timid thing!
She fled me swift as sea-bird on the wing,
Round every isle, and point, and promontory,
From where large Hercules wound up his story
Far as Egyptian Nile. My passion grew
The more, the more I saw her dainty hue
Gleam delicately through the azure clear:
Until 'twas too fierce agony to bear;
And in that agony, across my grief
It flash'd, that Circe might find some relief
Cruel enchantress! So above the water
I rear'd my head, and look'd for Phoebus' daughter.
Aeaea's isle was wondering at the moon:
It seem'd to whirl around me, and a swoon
Left me dead-drifting to that fatal power.

"When I awoke, 'twas in a twilight bower;
Just when the light of morn, with hum of bees,
Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh trees.
How sweet, and sweeter! for I heard a lyre,
And over it a sighing voice expire.
It ceasedI caught light footsteps; and anon
The fairest face that morn e'er look'd upon
Push'd through a screen of roses. Starry Jove!
With tears, and smiles, and honey-words she wove
A net whose thraldom was more bliss than all
The range of flower'd Elysium. Thus did fall
The dew of her rich speech: "Ah! Art awake?
O let me hear thee speak, for Cupid's sake!
I am so oppress'd with joy! Why, I have shed
An urn of tears, as though thou wert cold dead;
And now I find thee living, I will pour
From these devoted eyes their silver store,
Until exhausted of the latest drop,
So it will pleasure thee, and force thee stop
Here, that I too may live: but if beyond
Such cool and sorrowful offerings, thou art fond
Of soothing warmth, of dalliance supreme;
If thou art ripe to taste a long love dream;
If smiles, if dimples, tongues for ardour mute,
Hang in thy vision like a tempting fruit,
O let me pluck it for thee." Thus she link'd
Her charming syllables, till indistinct
Their music came to my o'er-sweeten'd soul;
And then she hover'd over me, and stole
So near, that if no nearer it had been
This furrow'd visage thou hadst never seen.

"Young man of Latmos! thus particular
Am I, that thou may'st plainly see how far
This fierce temptation went: and thou may'st not
Exclaim, How then, was Scylla quite forgot?

"Who could resist? Who in this universe?
She did so breathe ambrosia; so immerse
My fine existence in a golden clime.
She took me like a child of suckling time,
And cradled me in roses. Thus condemn'd,
The current of my former life was stemm'd,
And to this arbitrary queen of sense
I bow'd a tranced vassal: nor would thence
Have mov'd, even though Amphion's harp had woo'd
Me back to Scylla o'er the billows rude.
For as Apollo each eve doth devise
A new appareling for western skies;
So every eve, nay every spendthrift hour
Shed balmy consciousness within that bower.
And I was free of haunts umbrageous;
Could wander in the mazy forest-house
Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler'd deer,
And birds from coverts innermost and drear
Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow
To me new born delights!

             "Now let me borrow,
For moments few, a temperament as stern
As Pluto's sceptre, that my words not burn
These uttering lips, while I in calm speech tell
How specious heaven was changed to real hell.

"One morn she left me sleeping: half awake
I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake
My greedy thirst with nectarous camel-draughts;
But she was gone. Whereat the barbed shafts
Of disappointment stuck in me so sore,
That out I ran and search'd the forest o'er.
Wandering about in pine and cedar gloom
Damp awe assail'd me; for there 'gan to boom
A sound of moan, an agony of sound,
Sepulchral from the distance all around.
Then came a conquering earth-thunder, and rumbled
That fierce complain to silence: while I stumbled
Down a precipitous path, as if impell'd.
I came to a dark valley.Groanings swell'd
Poisonous about my ears, and louder grew,
The nearer I approach'd a flame's gaunt blue,
That glar'd before me through a thorny brake.
This fire, like the eye of gordian snake,
Bewitch'd me towards; and I soon was near
A sight too fearful for the feel of fear:
In thicket hid I curs'd the haggard scene
The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen,
Seated upon an uptorn forest root;
And all around her shapes, wizard and brute,
Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting,
Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting!
O such deformities! Old Charon's self,
Should he give up awhile his penny pelf,
And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian,
It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan,
And tyrannizing was the lady's look,
As over them a gnarled staff she shook.
Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh'd out,
And from a basket emptied to the rout
Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick
And roar'd for more; with many a hungry lick
About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow,
Anon she took a branch of mistletoe,
And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial:
Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial
Was sharpening for their pitiable bones.
She lifted up the charm: appealing groans
From their poor breasts went sueing to her ear
In vain; remorseless as an infant's bier
She whisk'd against their eyes the sooty oil.
Whereat was heard a noise of painful toil,
Increasing gradual to a tempest rage,
Shrieks, yells, and groans of torture-pilgrimage;
Until their grieved bodies 'gan to bloat
And puff from the tail's end to stifled throat:
Then was appalling silence: then a sight
More wildering than all that hoarse affright;
For the whole herd, as by a whirlwind writhen,
Went through the dismal air like one huge Python
Antagonizing Boreas,and so vanish'd.
Yet there was not a breath of wind: she banish'd
These phantoms with a nod. Lo! from the dark
Came waggish fauns, and nymphs, and satyrs stark,
With dancing and loud revelry,and went
Swifter than centaurs after rapine bent.
Sighing an elephant appear'd and bow'd
Before the fierce witch, speaking thus aloud
In human accent: "Potent goddess! chief
Of pains resistless! make my being brief,
Or let me from this heavy prison fly:
Or give me to the air, or let me die!
I sue not for my happy crown again;
I sue not for my phalanx on the plain;
I sue not for my lone, my widow'd wife;
I sue not for my ruddy drops of life,
My children fair, my lovely girls and boys!
I will forget them; I will pass these joys;
Ask nought so heavenward, so tootoo high:
Only I pray, as fairest boon, to die,
Or be deliver'd from this cumbrous flesh,
From this gross, detestable, filthy mesh,
And merely given to the cold bleak air.
Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!"

That curst magician's name fell icy numb
Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come
Naked and sabre-like against my heart.
I saw a fury whetting a death-dart;
And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright,
Fainted away in that dark lair of night.
Think, my deliverer, how desolate
My waking must have been! disgust, and hate,
And terrors manifold divided me
A spoil amongst them. I prepar'd to flee
Into the dungeon core of that wild wood:
I fled three dayswhen lo! before me stood
Glaring the angry witch. O Dis, even now,
A clammy dew is beading on my brow,
At mere remembering her pale laugh, and curse.
"Ha! ha! Sir Dainty! there must be a nurse
Made of rose leaves and thistledown, express,
To cradle thee my sweet, and lull thee: yes,
I am too flinty-hard for thy nice touch:
My tenderest squeeze is but a giant's clutch.
So, fairy-thing, it shall have lullabies
Unheard of yet; and it shall still its cries
Upon some breast more lily-feminine.
Oh, noit shall not pine, and pine, and pine
More than one pretty, trifling thousand years;
And then 'twere pity, but fate's gentle shears
Cut short its immortality. Sea-flirt!
Young dove of the waters! truly I'll not hurt
One hair of thine: see how I weep and sigh,
That our heart-broken parting is so nigh.
And must we part? Ah, yes, it must be so.
Yet ere thou leavest me in utter woe,
Let me sob over thee my last adieus,
And speak a blessing: Mark me! thou hast thews
Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race:
But such a love is mine, that here I chase
Eternally away from thee all bloom
Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb.
Hence shalt thou quickly to the watery vast;
And there, ere many days be overpast,
Disabled age shall seize thee; and even then
Thou shalt not go the way of aged men;
But live and wither, cripple and still breathe
Ten hundred years: which gone, I then bequeath
Thy fragile bones to unknown burial.
Adieu, sweet love, adieu!"As shot stars fall,
She fled ere I could groan for mercy. Stung
And poisoned was my spirit: despair sung
A war-song of defiance 'gainst all hell.
A hand was at my shoulder to compel
My sullen steps; another 'fore my eyes
Moved on with pointed finger. In this guise
Enforced, at the last by ocean's foam
I found me; by my fresh, my native home.
Its tempering coolness, to my life akin,
Came salutary as I waded in;
And, with a blind voluptuous rage, I gave
Battle to the swollen billow-ridge, and drave
Large froth before me, while there yet remain'd
Hale strength, nor from my bones all marrow drain'd.

"Young lover, I must weepsuch hellish spite
With dry cheek who can tell? While thus my might
Proving upon this element, dismay'd,
Upon a dead thing's face my hand I laid;
I look'd'twas Scylla! Cursed, cursed Circe!
O vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy?
Could not thy harshest vengeance be content,
But thou must nip this tender innocent
Because I lov'd her?Cold, O cold indeed
Were her fair limbs, and like a common weed
The sea-swell took her hair. Dead as she was
I clung about her waist, nor ceas'd to pass
Fleet as an arrow through unfathom'd brine,
Until there shone a fabric crystalline,
Ribb'd and inlaid with coral, pebble, and pearl.
Headlong I darted; at one eager swirl
Gain'd its bright portal, enter'd, and behold!
'Twas vast, and desolate, and icy-cold;
And all aroundBut wherefore this to thee
Who in few minutes more thyself shalt see?
I left poor Scylla in a niche and fled.
My fever'd parchings up, my scathing dread
Met palsy half way: soon these limbs became
Gaunt, wither'd, sapless, feeble, cramp'd, and lame.

"Now let me pass a cruel, cruel space,
Without one hope, without one faintest trace
Of mitigation, or redeeming bubble
Of colour'd phantasy; for I fear 'twould trouble
Thy brain to loss of reason: and next tell
How a restoring chance came down to quell
One half of the witch in me.        On a day,
Sitting upon a rock above the spray,
I saw grow up from the horizon's brink
A gallant vessel: soon she seem'd to sink
Away from me again, as though her course
Had been resum'd in spite of hindering force
So vanish'd: and not long, before arose
Dark clouds, and muttering of winds morose.
Old Eolus would stifle his mad spleen,
But could not: therefore all the billows green
Toss'd up the silver spume against the clouds.
The tempest came: I saw that vessel's shrouds
In perilous bustle; while upon the deck
Stood trembling creatures. I beheld the wreck;
The final gulphing; the poor struggling souls:
I heard their cries amid loud thunder-rolls.
O they had all been sav'd but crazed eld
Annull'd my vigorous cravings: and thus quell'd
And curb'd, think on't, O Latmian! did I sit
Writhing with pity, and a cursing fit
Against that hell-born Circe. The crew had gone,
By one and one, to pale oblivion;
And I was gazing on the surges prone,
With many a scalding tear and many a groan,
When at my feet emerg'd an old man's hand,
Grasping this scroll, and this same slender wand.
I knelt with painreached out my handhad grasp'd
These treasurestouch'd the knucklesthey unclasp'd
I caught a finger: but the downward weight
O'erpowered meit sank. Then 'gan abate
The storm, and through chill aguish gloom outburst
The comfortable sun. I was athirst
To search the book, and in the warming air
Parted its dripping leaves with eager care.
Strange matters did it treat of, and drew on
My soul page after page, till well-nigh won
Into forgetfulness; when, stupefied,
I read these words, and read again, and tried
My eyes against the heavens, and read again.
O what a load of misery and pain
Each Atlas-line bore off!a shine of hope
Came gold around me, cheering me to cope
Strenuous with hellish tyranny. Attend!
For thou hast brought their promise to an end.

"In the wide sea there lives a forlorn wretch,
Doom'd with enfeebled carcase to outstretch
His loath'd existence through ten centuries,
And then to die alone. Who can devise
A total opposition? No one. So
One million times ocean must ebb and flow,
And he oppressed. Yet he shall not die,
These things accomplish'd:If he utterly
Scans all the depths of magic, and expounds
The meanings of all motions, shapes, and sounds;
If he explores all forms and substances
Straight homeward to their symbol-essences;
He shall not die. Moreover, and in chief,
He must pursue this task of joy and grief
Most piously;all lovers tempest-tost,
And in the savage overwhelming lost,
He shall deposit side by side, until
Time's creeping shall the dreary space fulfil:
Which done, and all these labours ripened,
A youth, by heavenly power lov'd and led,
Shall stand before him; whom he shall direct
How to consummate all. The youth elect
Must do the thing, or both will be destroy'd."

"Then," cried the young Endymion, overjoy'd,
"We are twin brothers in this destiny!
Say, I intreat thee, what achievement high
Is, in this restless world, for me reserv'd.
What! if from thee my wandering feet had swerv'd,
Had we both perish'd?""Look!" the sage replied,
"Dost thou not mark a gleaming through the tide,
Of divers brilliances? 'tis the edifice
I told thee of, where lovely Scylla lies;
And where I have enshrined piously
All lovers, whom fell storms have doom'd to die
Throughout my bondage." Thus discoursing, on
They went till unobscur'd the porches shone;
Which hurryingly they gain'd, and enter'd straight.
Sure never since king Neptune held his state
Was seen such wonder underneath the stars.
Turn to some level plain where haughty Mars
Has legion'd all his battle; and behold
How every soldier, with firm foot, doth hold
His even breast: see, many steeled squares,
And rigid ranks of ironwhence who dares
One step? Imagine further, line by line,
These warrior thousands on the field supine:
So in that crystal place, in silent rows,
Poor lovers lay at rest from joys and woes.
The stranger from the mountains, breathless, trac'd
Such thousands of shut eyes in order plac'd;
Such ranges of white feet, and patient lips
All ruddy,for here death no blossom nips.
He mark'd their brows and foreheads; saw their hair
Put sleekly on one side with nicest care;
And each one's gentle wrists, with reverence,
Put cross-wise to its heart.

               "Let us commence,
Whisper'd the guide, stuttering with joy, even now."
He spake, and, trembling like an aspen-bough,
Began to tear his scroll in pieces small,
Uttering the while some mumblings funeral.
He tore it into pieces small as snow
That drifts unfeather'd when bleak northerns blow;
And having done it, took his dark blue cloak
And bound it round Endymion: then struck
His wand against the empty air times nine.
"What more there is to do, young man, is thine:
But first a little patience; first undo
This tangled thread, and wind it to a clue.
Ah, gentle! 'tis as weak as spider's skein;
And shouldst thou break itWhat, is it done so clean?
A power overshadows thee! Oh, brave!
The spite of hell is tumbling to its grave.
Here is a shell; 'tis pearly blank to me,
Nor mark'd with any sign or charactery
Canst thou read aught? O read for pity's sake!
Olympus! we are safe! Now, Carian, break
This wand against yon lyre on the pedestal."

'Twas done: and straight with sudden swell and fall
Sweet music breath'd her soul away, and sigh'd
A lullaby to silence."Youth! now strew
These minced leaves on me, and passing through
Those files of dead, scatter the same around,
And thou wilt see the issue."'Mid the sound
Of flutes and viols, ravishing his heart,
Endymion from Glaucus stood apart,
And scatter'd in his face some fragments light.
How lightning-swift the change! a youthful wight
Smiling beneath a coral diadem,
Out-sparkling sudden like an upturn'd gem,
Appear'd, and, stepping to a beauteous corse,
Kneel'd down beside it, and with tenderest force
Press'd its cold hand, and weptand Scylla sigh'd!
Endymion, with quick hand, the charm applied
The nymph arose: he left them to their joy,
And onward went upon his high employ,
Showering those powerful fragments on the dead.
And, as he pass'd, each lifted up its head,
As doth a flower at Apollo's touch.
Death felt it to his inwards; 'twas too much:
Death fell a weeping in his charnel-house.
The Latmian persever'd along, and thus
All were re-animated. There arose
A noise of harmony, pulses and throes
Of gladness in the airwhile many, who
Had died in mutual arms devout and true,
Sprang to each other madly; and the rest
Felt a high certainty of being blest.
They gaz'd upon Endymion. Enchantment
Grew drunken, and would have its head and bent.
Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers,
Budded, and swell'd, and, full-blown, shed full showers
Of light, soft, unseen leaves of sounds divine.
The two deliverers tasted a pure wine
Of happiness, from fairy-press ooz'd out.
Speechless they eyed each other, and about
The fair assembly wander'd to and fro,
Distracted with the richest overflow
Of joy that ever pour'd from heaven.

                  "Away!"
Shouted the new-born god; "Follow, and pay
Our piety to Neptunus supreme!"
Then Scylla, blushing sweetly from her dream,
They led on first, bent to her meek surprise,
Through portal columns of a giant size,
Into the vaulted, boundless emerald.
Joyous all follow'd, as the leader call'd,
Down marble steps; pouring as easily
As hour-glass sandand fast, as you might see
Swallows obeying the south summer's call,
Or swans upon a gentle waterfall.

Thus went that beautiful multitude, nor far,
Ere from among some rocks of glittering spar,
Just within ken, they saw descending thick
Another multitude. Whereat more quick
Moved either host. On a wide sand they met,
And of those numbers every eye was wet;
For each their old love found. A murmuring rose,
Like what was never heard in all the throes
Of wind and waters: 'tis past human wit
To tell; 'tis dizziness to think of it.

This mighty consummation made, the host
Mov'd on for many a league; and gain'd, and lost
Huge sea-marks; vanward swelling in array,
And from the rear diminishing away,
Till a faint dawn surpris'd them. Glaucus cried,
"Behold! behold, the palace of his pride!
God Neptune's palaces!" With noise increas'd,
They shoulder'd on towards that brightening east.
At every onward step proud domes arose
In prospect,diamond gleams, and golden glows
Of amber 'gainst their faces levelling.
Joyous, and many as the leaves in spring,
Still onward; still the splendour gradual swell'd.
Rich opal domes were seen, on high upheld
By jasper pillars, letting through their shafts
A blush of coral. Copious wonder-draughts
Each gazer drank; and deeper drank more near:
For what poor mortals fragment up, as mere
As marble was there lavish, to the vast
Of one fair palace, that far far surpass'd,
Even for common bulk, those olden three,
Memphis, and Babylon, and Nineveh.

As large, as bright, as colour'd as the bow
Of Iris, when unfading it doth shew
Beyond a silvery shower, was the arch
Through which this Paphian army took its march,
Into the outer courts of Neptune's state:
Whence could be seen, direct, a golden gate,
To which the leaders sped; but not half raught
Ere it burst open swift as fairy thought,
And made those dazzled thousands veil their eyes
Like callow eagles at the first sunrise.
Soon with an eagle nativeness their gaze
Ripe from hue-golden swoons took all the blaze,
And then, behold! large Neptune on his throne
Of emerald deep: yet not exalt alone;
At his right hand stood winged Love, and on
His left sat smiling Beauty's paragon.

Far as the mariner on highest mast
Can see all round upon the calmed vast,
So wide was Neptune's hall: and as the blue
Doth vault the waters, so the waters drew
Their doming curtains, high, magnificent,
Aw'd from the throne aloof;and when storm-rent
Disclos'd the thunder-gloomings in Jove's air;
But sooth'd as now, flash'd sudden everywhere,
Noiseless, sub-marine cloudlets, glittering
Death to a human eye: for there did spring
From natural west, and east, and south, and north,
A light as of four sunsets, blazing forth
A gold-green zenith 'bove the Sea-God's head.
Of lucid depth the floor, and far outspread
As breezeless lake, on which the slim canoe
Of feather'd Indian darts about, as through
The delicatest air: air verily,
But for the portraiture of clouds and sky:
This palace floor breath-air,but for the amaze
Of deep-seen wonders motionless,and blaze
Of the dome pomp, reflected in extremes,
Globing a golden sphere.

             They stood in dreams
Till Triton blew his horn. The palace rang;
The Nereids danc'd; the Syrens faintly sang;
And the great Sea-King bow'd his dripping head.
Then Love took wing, and from his pinions shed
On all the multitude a nectarous dew.
The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and drew
Fair Scylla and her guides to conference;
And when they reach'd the throned eminence
She kist the sea-nymph's cheek,who sat her down
A toying with the doves. Then,"Mighty crown
And sceptre of this kingdom!" Venus said,
"Thy vows were on a time to Nais paid:
Behold!"Two copious tear-drops instant fell
From the God's large eyes; he smil'd delectable,
And over Glaucus held his blessing hands.
"Endymion! Ah! still wandering in the bands
Of love? Now this is cruel. Since the hour
I met thee in earth's bosom, all my power
Have I put forth to serve thee. What, not yet
Escap'd from dull mortality's harsh net?
A little patience, youth! 'twill not be long,
Or I am skilless quite: an idle tongue,
A humid eye, and steps luxurious,
Where these are new and strange, are ominous.
Aye, I have seen these signs in one of heaven,
When others were all blind; and were I given
To utter secrets, haply I might say
Some pleasant words:but Love will have his day.
So wait awhile expectant. Pr'ythee soon,
Even in the passing of thine honey-moon,
Visit my Cytherea: thou wilt find
Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind;
And pray persuade with theeAh, I have done,
All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son!"
Thus the fair goddess: while Endymion
Knelt to receive those accents halcyon.

Meantime a glorious revelry began
Before the Water-Monarch. Nectar ran
In courteous fountains to all cups outreach'd;
And plunder'd vines, teeming exhaustless, pleach'd
New growth about each shell and pendent lyre;
The which, in disentangling for their fire,
Pull'd down fresh foliage and coverture
For dainty toying. Cupid, empire-sure,
Flutter'd and laugh'd, and oft-times through the throng
Made a delighted way. Then dance, and song,
And garlanding grew wild; and pleasure reign'd.
In harmless tendril they each other chain'd,
And strove who should be smother'd deepest in
Fresh crush of leaves.

             O 'tis a very sin
For one so weak to venture his poor verse
In such a place as this. O do not curse,
High Muses! let him hurry to the ending.

All suddenly were silent. A soft blending
Of dulcet instruments came charmingly;
And then a hymn.

          "KING of the stormy sea!
Brother of Jove, and co-inheritor
Of elements! Eternally before
Thee the waves awful bow. Fast, stubborn rock,
At thy fear'd trident shrinking, doth unlock
Its deep foundations, hissing into foam.
All mountain-rivers lost, in the wide home
Of thy capacious bosom ever flow.
Thou frownest, and old Eolus thy foe
Skulks to his cavern, 'mid the gruff complaint
Of all his rebel tempests. Dark clouds faint
When, from thy diadem, a silver gleam
Slants over blue dominion. Thy bright team
Gulphs in the morning light, and scuds along
To bring thee nearer to that golden song
Apollo singeth, while his chariot
Waits at the doors of heaven. Thou art not
For scenes like this: an empire stern hast thou;
And it hath furrow'd that large front: yet now,
As newly come of heaven, dost thou sit
To blend and interknit
Subdued majesty with this glad time.
O shell-borne King sublime!
We lay our hearts before thee evermore
We sing, and we adore!

"Breathe softly, flutes;
Be tender of your strings, ye soothing lutes;
Nor be the trumpet heard! O vain, O vain;
Not flowers budding in an April rain,
Nor breath of sleeping dove, nor river's flow,
No, nor the Eolian twang of Love's own bow,
Can mingle music fit for the soft ear
Of goddess Cytherea!
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes
On our souls' sacrifice.

"Bright-winged Child!
Who has another care when thou hast smil'd?
Unfortunates on earth, we see at last
All death-shadows, and glooms that overcast
Our spirits, fann'd away by thy light pinions.
O sweetest essence! sweetest of all minions!
God of warm pulses, and dishevell'd hair,
And panting bosoms bare!
Dear unseen light in darkness! eclipser
Of light in light! delicious poisoner!
Thy venom'd goblet will we quaff until
We fillwe fill!
And by thy Mother's lips"
            Was heard no more
For clamour, when the golden palace door
Opened again, and from without, in shone
A new magnificence. On oozy throne
Smooth-moving came Oceanus the old,
To take a latest glimpse at his sheep-fold,
Before he went into his quiet cave
To muse for everThen a lucid wave,
Scoop'd from its trembling sisters of mid-sea,
Afloat, and pillowing up the majesty
Of Doris, and the Egean seer, her spouse
Next, on a dolphin, clad in laurel boughs,
Theban Amphion leaning on his lute:
His fingers went across itAll were mute
To gaze on Amphitrite, queen of pearls,
And Thetis pearly too.

             The palace whirls
Around giddy Endymion; seeing he
Was there far strayed from mortality.
He could not bear itshut his eyes in vain;
Imagination gave a dizzier pain.
"O I shall die! sweet Venus, be my stay!
Where is my lovely mistress? Well-away!
I dieI hear her voiceI feel my wing"
At Neptune's feet he sank. A sudden ring
Of Nereids were about him, in kind strife
To usher back his spirit into life:
But still he slept. At last they interwove
Their cradling arms, and purpos'd to convey
Towards a crystal bower far away.

Lo! while slow carried through the pitying crowd,
To his inward senses these words spake aloud;
Written in star-light on the dark above:
Dearest Endymion! my entire love!
How have I dwelt in fear of fate: 'tis done
Immortal bliss for me too hast thou won.
Arise then! for the hen-dove shall not hatch
Her ready eggs, before I'll kissing snatch
Thee into endless heaven. Awake! awake!

The youth at once arose: a placid lake
Came quiet to his eyes; and forest green,
Cooler than all the wonders he had seen,
Lull'd with its simple song his fluttering breast.
How happy once again in grassy nest!

(line 1): Woodhouse notes that "Keats said, with much simplicity, 'It will be easily seen what I think of the present ministers, by the beginning of the third Book.'"

(line 407): Whether the reference is to the Pillars of Hercules, the confluence of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, or to the scene of the Death of Hercules, is not very clear; but probably "wound up his story" refers rather to his last labour than to his death on Mount ta.

(lines 863-65): This simile must surely be a reminiscence of Perrin's Fables Amusantes or some similar book used in Mr. Clarke's School. I remember the Fable of the old eagle and her young stood first in the book I used at school. The draft gives line 860 thus -- 'But soon like eagles natively their gaze...'

At the end of this Book Keats wrote in the draft, "Oxf: Sept. 26."
~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, Endymion - Book III
,

IN CHAPTERS [150/247]



  100 Occultism
   29 Integral Yoga
   19 Poetry
   15 Philosophy
   13 Yoga
   11 Psychology
   8 Fiction
   8 Christianity
   3 Sufism
   2 Mythology
   1 Thelema
   1 Philsophy
   1 Mysticism
   1 Baha i Faith
   1 Alchemy


   56 Aleister Crowley
   26 Sri Aurobindo
   20 Franz Bardon
   17 James George Frazer
   12 Sri Ramakrishna
   12 Peter J Carroll
   9 Friedrich Nietzsche
   8 Carl Jung
   7 The Mother
   7 Satprem
   7 H P Lovecraft
   6 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   4 Saint Augustine of Hippo
   2 Plotinus
   2 Plato
   2 Kabir
   2 Joseph Campbell
   2 Jorge Luis Borges
   2 John Keats
   2 George Van Vrekhem
   2 Al-Ghazali
   2 A B Purani


   42 Liber ABA
   17 The Golden Bough
   15 Magick Without Tears
   14 The Practice of Magical Evocation
   12 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
   12 Liber Null
   9 Thus Spoke Zarathustra
   7 The Life Divine
   7 Lovecraft - Poems
   6 Savitri
   6 Initiation Into Hermetics
   5 The Secret Doctrine
   4 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
   4 City of God
   4 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
   3 Mysterium Coniunctionis
   3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
   2 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
   2 The Bible
   2 The Alchemy of Happiness
   2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
   2 Preparing for the Miraculous
   2 On the Way to Supermanhood
   2 Letters On Yoga I
   2 Keats - Poems
   2 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
   2 Essays On The Gita
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
   2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
   2 Agenda Vol 02


0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    does the magician annihilate his divine personality in
    that which is beyond.
  --
    The magician, his breast bare, stands before an altar
     on which are his Burin, Bell, Thurible, and two

01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The magician order of the cosmic Mind
  Coercing the freedom of infinity

01.05 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Spirits Freedom and Greatness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  She carries their magician processes
  And the formulas of their stupendous speech,

01.13 - T. S. Eliot: Four Quartets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Our poet is too self-conscious, he himself feels that he has not the perfect voice. A Homer, even a Milton possesses a unity of tone and a wholeness of perception which are denied to the modern. To the modern, however, the old masters are not subtle enough, broad enough, psychological enough, let us say the word, spiritual enough. And yet the poetic inspiration, more than the religious urge, needs the injunction not to be busy with too many things, but to be centred upon the one thing needful, viz., to create poetically and not to discourse philosophically or preach prophetically. Not that it is impossible for the poet to swallow the philosopher and the prophet, metabolising them into the substance of his bone and marrow, of "the trilling wire in his blood", as Eliot graphically expresses. That perhaps is the consummation towards which poetry is tending. But at present, in Eliot, at least, the strands remain distinct, each with its own temper and rhythm, not fused and moulded into a single streamlined form of beauty. Our poet flies high, very high indeed at times, often or often he flies low, not disdaining the perilous limit of bathos. Perhaps it is all wilful, it is a mannerism which he cherishes. The mannerism may explain his psychology and enshrine his philosophy. But the poet, the magician is to be looked for elsewhere. In the present collection of poems it is the philosophical, exegetical, discursive Eliot who dominates: although the high lights of the subject-matter may be its justification. Still even if we have here doldrums like
   That the past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence

0 1961-03-21, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   Then I woke up (I always wake up three or four times during the night) and when I went back to bed I had an attack of what the doctor and I have taken to be filariasis but a strange type of filariasis, for as soon as I master it in one spot it appears in another, and when I master it there it reappears somewhere else. Last night it was in the arms (it lasted quite a while, between 2:30 and 4 a.m.); but I was fully conscious, and each time the attack came, I went like this (gestures over the arms, to drive away the attack) and my arms were not affected at all. When it was over, I consciously entered the most material subtle physical, just beyond the body. I was sitting in my room there (an immense, cubic room) reading or writing something, when I heard the door open and close, but I was busy and didnt pay attention, presuming it was one of the people usually around me. Then suddenly I had such an unpleasant sensation in my body that I raised my head and looked, and I saw someone there. Do you know how the magicians in Europe dress, in short satin breeches and a shirt? He was wearing something like that. He was Indian, tall and rather dark, with slicked-down hairwhat you would normally call a handsome young man. He seemed to have been drawn1 there becausehe was standing in front of me staring into space, not looking at me. And the moment I saw him, there was the same sensation in all my cells as I have with what Ive been calling filariasis (its a special, minute kind of pain) and simultaneously all the cells felt disgusta tremendous will of rejection. Then I sat up straight (I didnt stand up) and said to him as forcefully as possible, How do you dare to come in here! I said it so loudly that the noise woke me up! I dont know what happened then, but things went much better afterwards.
   The moment I saw this person I knew he was only an instrument, but a well-paid instrumentsomeone paid a great deal to have him do that! I would recognize him again among hundreds I can still see him I see him more clearly than with physical eyes. He is an unintelligent man with no personal animosity, merely a very well-paid instrumentsomeone is hiding behind him, using him as a screen.
  --
   Do you really believe Z could be behind this magician you saw?
   It could be.
   I hadnt thought of it at allnot at all. I have seen Zs thoughts several times, but not in this form: very, very angry thoughts but simply trying to catch my attention.4 But this was something else. X said it was Z, thats what X saw. He doesnt seem to have attached the slightest importance to my magicianobviously this person was just a screen. It must be someone who knows magic and is being used by another as an instrument. But when I saw it all this morning, I must say I didnt once think of Z. Its only X who said so.
   But Z I dont know how to explain my relationship with him. He is sheltered by a light of benediction, so. When he was here I opened the doors for him to a realization he was incapable of having, something light years beyond him; and it gave him an appalling ambition, totally spoiling everything. From this point of view, its a great blessing for him; even if he becomes a dreadful Asura, it will come to a good end! It doesnt matter, its not important. Thats why this morning, even when I heard what X said about Z, it was the same thing: this great Light of the supreme Mother going out towards Z. His magic is not important, but if he indulges in it, too bad for him. It doesnt concern me: its Xs business and X is doing whats necessary and I believe (laughing) he hits hard!5

0 1961-04-22, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   (Soon afterwards, concerning X, who had stated that the most recent attacks against Mother, and even those of two years earlier when she had been forced to withdraw to her room, were the result of black magic, and that certain members of the Ashram were DIRECTLY responsible for them, or in any case, had served as intermediariesas a switchboard, to quote himin connection with an outside magician.)
   I have been racking my brains, but really, I cant hit on who, IN THE ASHRAM, could be doing magic against me! Having bad thoughts is very widespread, but that doesnt matter in the least.

0 1963-07-06, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   But some of the faces I saw had come with the intention of making certain suggestions I saw that (I dont know what their suggestions were, it didnt interest me and I kept sweeping it all away, so it went away). I didnt attach any importance to it, except that I kept answering in the same way (the feather duster), and I thought, This must be putting order somewhere! But today, N. read me a letter and told me the story of a boy who was herea very nice boy who worked well and who suddenly was overcome by disquiet and fear and got so ill at ease that finally he said, My family is calling me, they want me, I must go. Then (I dont know when it happened, it was a while ago), he wrote that some time after he came back home (I dont recall the details), he came to know that a magician was regularly doing black magic against him (he was seeing ugly faces, incense burning, all kinds of odd little gestureshe tells the whole story in his letter and it affected him very much), and that the magician (who I believe was more or less connected with the family!) was doing that regularly to make him leave the Ashram. Then he went to see the magician, or rather someone went to see the magician and told him, The boy is back now, you need not continue, he is here, so there is no more reason to And from that moment on, everything immediately disappeared: his feeling of disquiet and all his visions. Anyway, it was clear proof that the magicians work had put him in that state, and that as soon as the magician stopped his work, everything ceased.
   Well, I have lived many years, and we know those things to exist, but I didnt attach any importance to them because to me they seemed powerless. Indeed, they have never affected me (a few Tantrics did do some magic and succeeded in making me ill, but that had quite another character; this boys story is in the lowest, most material vital domain, you see), and only lately did I notice those little games. They didnt affect me in the leastit was like images shown on a cinema screen, unsightly images, and I just thought, Whats the point? Still, I did my cleanup, out of habit. But then, when I heard that story, I thought, Well, I must be teaching a good lesson or two to all those people who do dirty magic!

02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The key-book of a crabbed magician text,
  He scanned her subtle tangled weird designs
  --
  This deficit paupers the magician's skill:
  This want makes all the rest seem thin and bare.

02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A master magician of measure and device
  Has made an eternity from recurring forms

02.14 - Appendix, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Once we cross beyond these second gates we reach an inner region, a secluded apartment of the soul where poetry assumes the garb of magic, a transcendent skill lends to words the supernatural beauty and grace of a magician's art. How often we have read these lines and heard them repeated and yet they have not grown stale:
   A voice so thrilling never was heard. . .

04.09 - Values Higher and Lower, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   The crucial problem however lies, in a sense, in the way that the goal is to be reached, in the modus operandi. How is the higher status, whatever it is, to be brought down, made effective, be established here on earth and in life. Ideals there have been always and many; evidently we do not know how to go about the business and actualise what is thought and dreamed. About the new ideal too, suggestions have been made with regard to the path to be followed to reach it and are being tried and tested. Some say a life of inner or ethical discipline, conscious effort on the part of each Individual for his own sake is needed: the higher reality must be reached first by a few individuals, it cannot be attained by 'mass action. Others declare that personal effort will not lead very far; if there is to be a great or fundamental change in human nature, it is the Divine Grace alone that can bring it about. The surpassing of man is a miracle and only the supreme magician as an Avatara can do it. Others, again, are not prone to believe in a physical Incarnationsomewhat difficult usually for a European mind but would accept subtler forces or even superior beings, other than the human category, as aids and agents in the working out of the great future.
   It is India's great achievement and speciality that she has found the way the way to all truly high fulfilment. It is Yoga and the Yogic consciousness. Yoga is the science and art of discovering the higher truths, indeed, the highest reality and of living there, not a midway moral elevation only. In its integral view it combines all the three processes mentioned above. The Yogic consciousness seeks to lift the consciousness as high as possible, in fact, to the very highestit literally means union or identity (with the highest Reality, Spirit or God). Thus it has the true perception or vision of the forces that act in and upon the world and the powers that decide and is in union with them. The Yogic consciousness and power is also embodied in the Divine Incarnation for he is Yogeshwara: and in India it is accepted as a commonplace that God descends in a human shape, whenever there is a great crisis and man needs salvaging and salvation. God comes then with all his angels, with the divine host to battle for him and with him to establish the Dharma.

06.02 - The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A magician's formulas have made Matter's laws
  And while they last, all things by them are bound;
  --
  All here can change if the magician choose.
  If human will could be made one with God's,

10.01 - A Dream, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Stupefied, Harimohon exclaimed, Keshta, what is this spell? The boy clapped now his hands, swung round twice on his foot and laughed aloud, I am the only magician on earth. None shall understand this spell. This is my supreme riddle. Did you see it? Amid this agony also he could think only of me. Look again. The ascetic sat down once more, self-composed; his body went on suffering hunger and thirst, but his mind merely perceived the suffering and did not get involved in it or affected by it. At this moment, a voice, sweeter than a flute, called out from the hill, Beloved! Harimohon was startled. It was the very voice of Shyamsunder, sweeter than a flute. Then he saw a beautiful dusky-complexioned boy come out from behind the rocks, carrying in a dish excellent food and some fruits. Harimohon was dumb-founded and looked towards Sri Krishna. The boy was standing beside him, yet the boy who was coming resembled Sri Krishna in every detail! This boy came and throwing a light on the ascetic, said, See what I have brought for you. The ascetic smiled and asked, Oh, you have come? Why did you keep me starving so long? Well, take your seat and dine with me. The ascetic and the boy started eating the food from the dish, feeding each other, snatching away each others share. After the meal was over, the boy took the dish and disappeared into the darkness.
  Harimohon was about to ask something when, all of a sudden, he saw that there was neither Sri Krishna nor the ascetic, neither the tiger nor any hill. He found himself living in a well-to-do quarter of a town; he possessed much wealth, a family and children. Every day he was giving alms in charity to the Brahmins and to the beggars; he was regularly repeating the Divine Name three times a day; observing all the rites and rituals prescribed in the Shastras, he was following the path shown by Raghunandan, and was leading the life of an ideal father, an ideal husb and and an ideal son.

1.00b - Introduction, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  Even in the remotest times the MAGUS has been regarded as one of the highest adepts and it might be of interest to learn that, as a matter of fact, the word magic is derived from this word. The so called sorcerers are by no means initiates but only imitators to the mysteries, who counting partly on the ignorance and partly on the credulity of the individuality or a whole nation in order to reach their selfish aims by, lies and fraud. The true magician will always despise such practices.
  In reality, magic is a sacred science, it is, in the very true sense the sum of all knowledge because it teaches how to know and utilize the sovereign rules. There is no difference between magic and mystic or any other conception of the name. Wherever au thentic initiatio n is at stake, one has to proceed on the same basis, according to the same rules, irrespective of the name given by this or that creed. Considering the universal polarity rules of good and evil, active and passive, light and shadow, each science can serve good as well as bad purposes. Let us take the example of a knife, an object that virtually ought to be used for cutting bread only, which, however, can become a dangerous weapon in the hands of a murderer. All depends on the character of the individual. This principle goes just as well for all the spheres of the occult sciences. In my book I have chosen the term of magician for all of my disciples, it being a symbol of the deepest initiation and the highest wisdom.
  Many of the readers will know, of course, that the word tarot does not mean a game of cards, serving mantical purposes, but a symbolic book of initiation which contains the greatest secrets in a symbolic form. The first tablet of this book introduces the magician representing him as the master of the elements and offering the key to the first Arcanum, the secret of the ineffable name of Tetragrammaton*, the quabbalistic
  Yod-He-Vau-He. Here we will, therefore, find the gate to the magicians initiation.
  The reader will easily realize, how significant and how manifold the application of this tablet is. Not one of the books published up to date does describe the true sense of the first Tarot card so distinctly as I have done in my book. It is let it be noted born from the own practice and destined for the practical use of a lot of other people, and all my disciples have found it to be the best and most serviceable system.
  --
  Picture of the magician: The first Tarot card ~ Interpretation of the Symbolism
  Below you will find the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms expressed in a symbolic manner.
  --
  Above the hermaphrodite there is a globe as a sign of the earth sphere, above which the magician is illustrated with the four elements.
  Above the male, there are the active elements, that of the fire in red and the air element in blue colour. Above the female there are the passive elements, the water element in green and the element of the earth in yellow colour.
  The middle along the magician up to the globe is dark purple, representing the sign of the akasa principle
  Above the magicians head, with an invisible ribbon for a crown, there is a goldedged silvery white lotus flower as a sign of the divinity. In the inside there is the ruby red philosophers stone symbolizing the quintessence of the whole hermetic science. On the right side in the background there is the sun, yellow like gold and on the left side we see the moon, silvery-white, expressing plus and minus in the macro and microcosm, the electrical and magnetical fluids.
  Above the lotus flower, Creation has been symbolized by a ball, in the interior of which are represented the procreative positive and negative forces which stand for the creating act of the universe.

1.00d - Introduction, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Yet that one Thing is also the one and only Power because what shines in one point shines also in all other points. Once that is understood, all the rest is understood; there is but one Power in the world, not two. Even a child knows that: he is king, he is invulnerable. But the child grows up; he forgets. And men have grown up, and nations and civilizations, each in its own way seeking the Great Secret, the simple secret through war and conquest, through meditation or magic, through beauty, religion or science. Though, in truth, we do not know who is most advanced: the Acropolis builder, the Theban magician, the Cape Kennedy astronaut, or the Cistercian monk, for one has rejected life in order to understand it, one has embraced it without understanding it, another has left a trace of beauty, and still another, a white trail in a changeless sky we are merely the last on the list, that's all. And we still have not found our magic. The point, the potent little point, is still there on the open beach of the world; it shines for whoever will seize it, just as it shone before we were humans under the stars.
  Others, however, have touched the Secret. Perhaps the Greeks knew it, and the Egyptians, and certainly the Indian Rishis of Vedic times. But secrets are like flowers on a beautiful tree; they have their season, their unseen growth and sudden blossoming. There is a time for everything, for the conjunction of stars above our heads and the passage of the cormorant over the foam-flecked rock, and perhaps even for that foam itself, cast up for an instant from the swell of the wave; everything moves according to a single rite. And so do men. A secret, that is, a knowledge and power, has its own organic time; one little cell more evolved than others cannot embody the power of its knowledge, that is, change the world, hasten the blossoming of the great tree, unless the rest of the evolutionary terrain is ready.

1.00 - Introduction to Alchemy of Happiness, #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
  While perusing these pages, and noticing how much of the language of Ghazzali corresponds in its representations of God, of a holy life and of eternity, with the solemn instructions to which we have listened from our infancy, we may think of the magicians who imitated the miracles of Moses with their enchantments. Yet assuredly a vivid and respectful interest must be awakened in our minds for the races and nations, whose ideas of their relations as immortal beings arc so serious and earnest.
  [11]

1.01 - About the Elements, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  In the oldest book of wisdom, the Tarot, something has already been written about this great mystery of the elements. The first card of this work represents the magicia n pointing to the knowledge and mastery of the elements. On this first card the symbols are: the sword as the fiery element, the rod as the element of the air, the goblet as that of the water and the coins as the element of the earth. This proves without any doubt that already in the mysteries of yore, the magician was destined for the first Tarot card, mastery of the elements having been chosen as the first act of initiation. In honour of this tradition I shall give my principal attention to the elements for, as you will see, the key to the elements is the panacea, with the help of which all the occurring problems may be solved.
  According to the Indian succession of the tattwas, it runs as follows:
  --
  The analysis of the elements will also be discussed and the great practical value of them underlined, so that every scientist, whether he be a chemist, a physician, a magnetizer, an occultist, a magician, a mystic, a quabbalist or a yogi, etc., can derive his practical benefit from it. Should I succeed in teaching the reader so far that he is able to deal with the subject in the proper way and to find the practical key to the branch of knowledge most suitable for him, I will be glad to see that the purpose of my book has been fulfiled.

1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  dressed entirely in black. He knew it was the white magician.
  This personage had just addressed him at considerable length,
  --
  the help of the black magician." At that moment the door
  opened and in came another old man exactly like the first, ex-
  cept that he was dressed in white. He said to the white magician,
  "I need your advice/' but threw a sidelong, questioning look at
  the dreamer, whereupon the white magician answered: "You
  can speak freely, he is an innocent." The black magician then
  began to relate his story. He had come from a distant land where
  --
  and there vanished. The black magician had heard of this story
  and immediately set forth in pursuit of the horse. After a jour-
  --
  of the white magician. For he had found the lost keys of para-
  dise, and he did not know what to do with them. At this excit-
  --
  The black horse and the black magician are half-evil elements
  whose relativity with respect to good is hinted at in the exchange
  of garments. The two magicians are, indeed, two aspects of the
  wise old man, the superior master and teacher, the archetype of
  --
  mother." The black magician and the black horse correspond to
  the descent into darkness in the dreams mentioned earlier.
  --
  wise magician, who goes back in direct line to the figure of the
  36

1.01 - Fundamental Considerations, #The Ever-Present Origin, #Jean Gebser, #Integral
  And the second group of messengers the soothsayers, the magicians, and the high priests likewise went to receive the Spanish.
  But it was to no avail; they could not bewitch the people, they could not reach their intent with the Spanish; they simply failed to arrive.

1.01 - Historical Survey, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  Poland, Galicia, and certain portions of Russia have been the scene of the activities of wandering Rabbis and Tal- mudic scholars who were styled " Tsadikim " or magicians, men who assiduously devoted their lives and their powers to the Practical Qabalah. But it was not until the last century, with its impetus to all kinds of studies in com- parative mythology and religious controversy that we dis- cover an attempt to weld all philosophies, religions, scientific ideas and symbols into a coherent Whole.
  Eliphaz Levi Zahed, a Roman Catholic deacon of remark- able perspicuity, in 1852 published a brilliant volume,

1.01 - What is Magick?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    (Illustration: When a man falls in love, the whole world becomes, to him, nothing but love boundless and immanent; but his mystical state is not contagious; his fellow-men are either amused or annoyed. He can only extend to others the effect which his love has had upon himself by means of his mental and physical qualities. Thus, Catullus, Dante, and Swinburne made their love a mighty mover of mankind by virtue of their power to put their thoughts on the subject in musical and eloquent language. Again, Cleopatra and other people in authority moulded the fortunes of many other people by allowing love to influence their political actions. The magician, however well he succeeds in making contact with the secret sources of energy in nature, can only use them to the extent permitted by his intellectual and moral qualities. Mohammed's intercourse with Gabriel was only effective because of his statesmanship, soldiership, and the sublimity of his comm and of Arabic. Hertz's discovery of the rays which we now use for wireless telegraphy was sterile until reflected through the minds and wills of the people who could take his truth, and transmit it to the world of action by means of mechanical and economic instruments.)
    22. Every individual is essentially sufficient to himself. But he is unsatisfactory to himself until he has established himself in his right relation with the Universe.
  --
    (Illustration: If a man like Napoleon were actually appointed by destiny to control Europe, he should not be blamed for exercising his rights. To oppose him would be an error. Anyone so doing would have made a mistake as to his own destiny, except in so far as it might be necessary for him to learn the lessons of defeat. The sun moves in space without interference. The order of Nature provides a orbit for each star. A clash proves that one or the other has strayed from its course. But as to each man that keeps his true course, the more firmly he acts, the less likely are others to get in his way. His example will help them to find their own paths and pursue them. Every man that becomes a magician helps others to do likewise. The more firmly and surely men move, and the more such action is accepted as the standard of morality, the less will conflict and confusion hamper humanity.)
  Well, here endeth the First Lesson.

1.02 - Priestly Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  superstition. In early society the king is frequently a magician as
  well as a priest; indeed he appears to have often attained to power

1.02 - The Magic Circle, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  Therefore I intend to give the studious and eager magician a completely satisfactory description of the magic circle according the Universal Laws and Analogies.
  A true magic circle represents the symbolic lay-out of the macrocosm and the microcosm, that is, of the perfect man. It stands for the Beginning and the Ending for the Alpha and the Omega, as well as for Eternity, which has no beginning and no end. The magic circle, therefore, is a symbolic diagram of the Infinite, of Divinity in all its aspects, as can be comprehended by the microcosm, i. e. by the true adept, the perfect magician. To draw a magic circle means to symbolize the Divine in His perfection, to get into contact with Him. This happens, above all, at the moment the magician is standing in the centre of the magic circle, for it is by this act that the contact with the Divinity is demonstrated graphically. It is the magician's contact with the macrocosm in his highest step of consciousness. Therefore, from the point of view of true magic, it is quite logical that standing in the centre of the magic circle is equivalent to being, in one's consciousness, a unity with the Universal Divinity. From this one can see clearly that a magic circle is not only a diagram for protection from unwanted negative influences, but security and inviolability are brought about by this conscious and spiritual contact with the Highest. The magician who stands in the centre of the magic circle is protected from any influence, no matter, whether good or evil, for himself is, in fact, symbolizing the Divine in the universe. Furthermore, by standing in the centre of the magic circle, the magician also represents the Divinity in the microcosm and controls and rules the beings of the universe in a totalitarian manner.
  The esoteric essence of the magician's standing in the centre of the magic circle is, therefore, quite different from that which the books on evocations usually maintain. If a magician standing in the centre of the magic circle were not conscious of the fact that he is, at that moment, symbolizing God the Divine and Infinite, he would not be able to practise any influence on any being whatsoever. The magician is, at that instant, a perfect magic authority whom all powers and beings must absolutely obey. His will and the orders he gives to beings or powers are equivalent to the will and orders of the Infinite, the Divine, and must therefore be unconditionally respected by the beings and powers the magician has conjured up. If the magician, during such an operation, has not the right attitude towards his doings, he degrades himself to a sorcerer, a charlatan, who simply mimics and has no true contact with the Highest. The magician's authority would, in such a case, be rather doubtful. Moreover, he would be in danger of losing his control over such beings and powers, or, what would even be worse, he could be mocked by them, not to speak of other unwanted and unforeseen surprises and accompanying phenomena that he would be exposed, especially if negative forces were involved.
  The way in which a magic circle has to be formed depends on the grade of maturity and the individual attitude of the magician.
  The diagram, that is the drawing by which the Divinity is expressed within the circle, is subject to the religious concepts of the magician. The procedure followed by an oriental magician when forming a magic circle is of no use to an occidental magician, because his ideas of the Divine and the Infinite are quite different from those of the magician from the East. If an occidental initiate drew a magic circle according to oriental instructions, with all divine names appertaining to it, it would be ineffective and completely fall short of its purpose. A Christian magician must therefore never draw a magic circle according to an Indian or any other religion if he wants to save himself from an unnecessary effort. The construction of the magic circle depends, from the beginning, on one's individual ideas and beliefs and one's individual conception of the qualities of the Divine, who is to be symbolized graphically by this circle. This is the reason why a genuine magician will never draw a circle, carry out rituals, or follow instructions concerning ceremonial magic to which he himself is not identified in his individual practice. For this would be similar to wearing oriental clothes in the occident.
  Bearing these facts in mind, it comes natural that the magic circle has to be drawn in complete accordance with the views of life and maturity of the magician. The initiate who is conscious about the Harmony of the Universe and its exact hierarchy will, of course, make use of his knowledge when drawing the magic circle. Such a magician may, if he likes, and if the circumstances permit it, draw into his magic circle diagrams representing the whole hierarchy of the universe and thus come into contact with, and awake his consciousness of, the universe much more rapidly. He is free to draw, if necessary, several circles at a certain distance from each other in order to use them for representing the hierarchy of the universe in the form of divine names, genii, princes, angels and other powers. One must, of course, meditate appropriately and take the concept of the divine aspects in question into consideration when drawing the circle. The true magician must know that divine names are symbolic designations of divine qualities and powers. It stands to reason that while drawing the circle and entering the divine names the magician must also consider the analogies corresponding to the power in question, such as colour, number and direction, if he does not want to allow a breach in his consciousness to come into existance because he has not presented the universe in its complete analogy.
  Each magic circle, no matter whether a simple drawing or a complicated one, will always serve its purpose, depending, of course, on the magician's faculty to bring his individual consciousness into full accordance with the universal, the cosmic consciousness. Even a large barrel-hoop will do the job, providing the magician is capable of finding the relevant state of mind and is completely convinced that the circle in the centre of which he is standing represents the universe, to which is to react, as a representation of God.
  The magician will realize the more extensive his reading, the greater his intellectual capacity and the larger his store of knowledge happens to be, the more complicated his ritual and magic circle will be in order to furnish sufficient support for his spiritual consciousness, which then will make possible an easier connection of the microcosm and the macrocosm in the centre of the circle.
  As for the circles themselves, they may be drawn in various ways to suit the circumstances, the prevailing situation, the purpose, the possibilities, no matter whether they are simple ones or whether they follow a complicated hierarchial system.
  When working in the open air, a magic weapon, dagger or sword has to be used for drawing the circle on the ground. When working in a room, the circle may be drawn on the floor with a piece of chalk. A large sheet of paper can also be used for the circle. The most ideal circle, however, is the one sewn or embroidered into a piece of cloth, flannel or silk, for such a circle can be laid out in a room as well as outside of the house. The circles drawn on paper have the disadvantage that the paper will soon wear out and fall to pieces. In any case, the circle must be large enough to enable the magician to move about in it freely. When drawing the circle, the appropriate state of mind and full concentration are most essential. If a circle were drawn without the necessary concentration, a circle would undoubtedly be the result, but it would not be a magic one. The magic circle that has been worked into a piece of cloth or silk has to be re-drawn symbolically with one's finger or magic wand, or with some other magic weapon; not to forget the necessary concentration, meditation and state of mind. The magician must, in such a case, be fully aware of the fact that it is not the magical weapon in use that draws the circle, but the divine faculties symbolized by that magical instrument. Furthermore, he must realize that it is not he that is drawing the magic circle at the moment of concentration, but that the Divine Spirit is actually guiding his hand and instrument to draw the circle. Therefore, before drawing the magic circle, a conscious contact with the Almighty, with the Infinite, has to be brought about by the help of meditation and identification.
  The trained magician, having a thorough comm and of the practical exercises of the first tarot-card, as explained in my first work "Initiation into Hermetics" , has learned during one of the steps of that book how to become fully conscious of the spirit and how to act consciously as a spirit. It is not difficult for him to imagine that not he, but the Divine Spirit in all its high aspects is actually drawing the magic circle he wishes to have. The magician has thus learned also that in the world of the Invisible it is not the same although two persons might physically be doing the same, for a sorcerer, who does not possess the necessary maturity, will never be able to draw a true magic circle.
  The magician who is also acquainted with Quabbalah can draw another snake-like circle within the inner circle and divide it into 72 fields, giving each of these fields the name of a genius. These names of genii, together with their analogies, must be drawn magically by pronouncing them correctly. If working with a circle embroidered into a piece of cloth, the names inserted into the various fields must either be in Latin or in Hebrew. I shall give exact details about the genii and their analogies, use and effect in my next work called "The Key to the True Quabbalah". An embroidered circle has the advantage that it can easily be laid out and folded -together again without having to be drawn and charged anew each time it is to be used. The snake presented in the centre is not only the copy of an inner circle, but, above that, it is the symbol of wisdom. Besides this, other meanings may be attributed to this snake-symbol, for example the snake's strength, the power of imagination, etc. It is not possible to give a full description of all this, for this would go far beyond the aim of this book.
  A Buddhist magician drawing his Mandala, putting his five deities in the form of figures or diagrams on top of the relevant emanation, is, at that moment, meditating about each single deity whose influence he is trying to evoke. This magical ceremony, too, is, in our opinion, equivalent to the drawing of a magic circle, although it actually is a genuine prayer to the Buddhist deities. To say more about this matter in this book is quite unnecessary for enough material has already been published in Eastern literature about this kind of magical practice, either in exoteric or in secret manuscripts.
  A magic circle. may serve many purposes. It may be used for evocation of beings or as a protective means against invisible influences. It need not in all cases be drawn or placed on the ground. It can also be drawn in the air with a magical weapon, like the magic sword or the magic wand, under the condition that the magician is fully conscious of the universal quality of protection, etc. If no magical weapon is at hand, the circle can also be described with the finger or with the hand alone, providing this is done in the right spirit, in agreement with God. It is even possible to form a magic circle by one's mere imagination.
  The effect of such a circle on the mental or astral plane, indirectly also on this material world, depends, in this case, on the grade and strenght of such an imagination. The binding force of the circle is generally known in magnetic magic. Moreover, a magic circle may be produced by the accumulation of elements or the condensation of light. When practising evocations or invocation of beings, it is desirable to draw within the centre of the circle in which one is to stand another smaller circle or a pentagram with one of its points upwards, the symbol representing man. This is then the symbolization of the small world, of man as genuine magician.
  The books dealing with the construction of the magic circle clearly state that during the act of invocation the magician must not leave the circle, which, in its magic sense, means nothing else but that the consciousness of, or contact with, the Absolute, (i. e. the macrocosm), must not be interrupted. Needless to say that the magician, during his magic operation with the help of a magic circle and with the being standing in front of him, must not step out of the circle with his physical body, unless he has finished his experiment and dismissed the relevant being.
  All this clearly shows that a true magic circle is really the best means to practice ceremonial magic. The magician will always find that the magic circle is, in every respect, the highest symbol in his hand.
  It is hardly necessary to mention the specimen of a magic circle, since every magician will now know from what I have said above how he has to proceed, and it is now up to him to make use of the instructions given here. Yet he must never forget the main thing,
  that is the orientation he needs when working with a magic circle, for only if he has reached the necessary cosmic contact by means of meditation and imagination, i. e. the personal connection with his God, will he be qualified for entering the circle and starting work inside it.

1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
  ance. It is the magic of the magician [the Divine as Creator]
  you are trying to analyze, but only when you enter into
  the consciousness of the magician himself can you begin to
  experience the true origination, significance and circles of

1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  Similarity, the magician infers that he can produce any effect he
  desires merely by imitating it: from the second he infers that
  --
  principles which the magician applies in the practice of his art
  are implicitly believed by him to regulate the operations of
  --
  primitive magician knows magic only on its practical side; he never
  analyses the mental processes on which his practice is based, never
  --
  If my analysis of the magician's logic is correct, its two great
  principles turn out to be merely two different misapplications of
  --
  4. The magician's Progress
  WE have now concluded our examination of the general principles of
  --
  it is obvious that the magician ceases to be merely a private
  practitioner and becomes to some extent a public functionary. The
  --
  performance of these magical rites, the magician rises into a
  position of much influence and repute, and may readily acquire the
  --
  profession and claim put forward by the magician as such is false;
  not one of them can be maintained without deception, conscious or

1.03 - The Tale of the Alchemist Who Sold His Soul, #The Castle of Crossed Destinies, #Italo Calvino, #Fiction
  It would hardly have been surprising if our alchemist had got a swelled head, expecting any day an extraordinary change in the course of his life. This event must have been indicated in the following card, which was the enigmatic First Arcanum, sometimes known as The Juggler, in which some see a charlatan or magician performing his tricks.
  So, then, our hero, raising his eyes from his desk, had seen a magician seated before him, as he handled his alembics and his retorts.
  "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
  "Watch what I do," the magician answered, pointing to a glass flask over a fire.
  The dazzled look with which our companion threw down the Seven of Coins left no doubt about what he had seen: the splendor of all the mines of the Orient lying open before him.

1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  of nature. The magician does not doubt that the same causes will
  always produce the same effects, that the performance of the proper
  --
  example, the magicians claimed the power of compelling even the
  highest gods to do their bidding, and actually threatened them with
  --
  commands their masters the magicians may please to issue. There is a
  saying everywhere current in India: "The whole universe is subject
  --
  the priest has often pursued the magician. The haughty
  self-sufficiency of the magician, his arrogant demeanour towards the
  higher powers, and his unabashed claim to exercise a sway like
  --
  their magicians. Again, to take another example, in many villages of
  Provence the priest is still reputed to possess the faculty of

1.04 - Reality Omnipresent, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  12:Thus, after reconciling Spirit and Matter in the cosmic consciousness, we perceive the reconciliation, in the transcendental consciousness, of the final assertion of all and its negation. We discover that all affirmations are assertions of status or activity in the Unknowable; all the corresponding negations are assertions of Its freedom both from and in that status or activity. The Unknowable is Something to us supreme, wonderful and ineffable which continually formulates Itself to our consciousness and continually escapes from the formulation It has made. This it does not as some malicious spirit or freakish magician leading us from falsehood to greater falsehood and so to a final negation of all things, but as even here the Wise beyond our wisdom guiding us from reality to ever profounder and vaster reality until we find the profoundest and vastest of which we are capable. An omnipresent reality is the Brahman, not an omnipresent cause of persistent illusions.
  13:If we thus accept a positive basis for our harmony - and on what other can harmony be founded? - the various conceptual formulations of the Unknowable, each of them representing a truth beyond conception, must be understood as far as possible in their relation to each other and in their effect upon life, not separately, not exclusively, not so affirmed as to destroy or unduly diminish all other affirmations. The real Monism, the true Adwaita, is that which admits all things as the one Brahman and does not seek to bisect Its existence into two incompatible entities, an eternal Truth and an eternal Falsehood, Brahman and not-Brahman, Self and not-Self, a real Self and an unreal, yet perpetual Maya. If it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self. And if this Self, God or Brahman is no helpless state, no bounded power, no limited personality, but the self-conscient All, there must be some good and inherent reason in it for the manifestation, to discover which we must proceed on the hypothesis of some potency, some wisdom, some truth of being in all that is manifested. The discord and apparent evil of the world must in their sphere be admitted, but not accepted as our conquerors. The deepest instinct of humanity seeks always and seeks wisely wisdom as the last word of the universal manifestation, not an eternal mockery and illusion, - a secret and finally triumphant good, not an all-creative and invincible evil, - an ultimate victory and fulfilment, not the disappointed recoil of the soul from its great adventure.

1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
  To say a few words about the success of a case by the Divine Force or its failure Sri Aurobindo has never maintained that the Force is infallible. Only the Supramental Force is a "dead cert". But it is extremely difficult to bring it down. Short of that, everything is a play of possibility where many factors count: the doctor, the patient, the environment. The Force is not a magician, as we understand the word. It takes into account all these factors, particularly the faith and openness of the patient as in this case. If the patient's soul wants to leave the body, the Force cannot compel it to remain. In short, it is a complex tangle of forces that has to be dealt with, each case different from another and there is no universal rule that can be applied to all. Nevertheless, if two cases have failed, we have seen other serious ones where the cause of success was beyond all doubt.
  There were two small occasions when I attended on the Mother. Usually, she was not in the habit of consulting doctors. Her doctor was Sri Aurobindo. But once when her hand had swollen for no apparent reason, Sri Aurobindo asked me to have a look at it. I examined it in his presence with a certain amount of shy hesitation. Here lay the difference between myself and Dr. Manilal. He would have done the job in quite a business-like manner. The case was simple, however, and got cured with hot fomentation. The next occasion was when she was having much pain in the ear, perhaps from an insect bite. Sri Aurobindo asked if I could do something. I examined the ear and found a tiny spot of haemorrhage inside. The Mother inquired if the insect was still there. I said no, but when I suggested some ear-drops for the pain, she replied, "No, no medicine for me!" Medicines were an anathema to both the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Throughout their long yogic life they cured all their own ailments by applying the Force. Medicines were accepted only during the later stage of Sri Aurobindo's last illness and in the recent illness of the Mother. There were special reasons for this. I have given some of them in Sri Aurobindo's case in the chapter 'God Departs'.

1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  Its Tarot card is I - The magician, who stands by a table on which are various magical implements, his Sword,
  Cup, Pantacle, and Sceptre, while in his right hand he holds

1.05 - On the Love of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
  who has corrupted his soul is miserable."[1] Those who are gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it leads them to the conviction that he by whom it was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man who has studied medicine knows when he is listening to a physician. This is a kind of certainty which requires no support from miracles such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, the credit of which may be shaken by apparently equally extraordinary miracles performed by magicians.
  The Signs of the Love of God

1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
  redemptive possibility. Tales of the travelling sage, wandering magician or courageous adventurer
  constitute recognition of the utility of such potential. From the perspective of such narratives, a totality of

1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  1. The Public magician
  THE READER may remember that we were led to plunge into the
  --
  the public magician occupies a position of great influence, from
  which, if he is a prudent and able man, he may advance step by step
  --
  authority in great measure to their reputation as magicians.
  Among the objects of public utility which magic may be employed to
  --
  professional magicians on their behalf. In primitive society, where
  uniformity of occupation is the rule, and the distribution of the
  --
  man is more or less his own magician; he practises charms and
  incantations for his own good and the injury of his enemies. But a
  --
  of natural causation embraced by the savage magician no doubt appear
  to us manifestly false and absurd; yet in their day they were
  --
  extravagant pretensions of magicians and condemn the deceptions
  which they have practised on mankind, the original institution of
  --
  OF THE THINGS which the public magician sets himself to do for the
  good of the tribe, one of the chief is to control the weather and
  --
  important personage; and often a special class of magicians exists
  for the purpose of regulating the heavenly water-supply. The methods
  --
  AS THE magician thinks he can make rain, so he fancies he can cause
  the sun to shine, and can hasten or stay its going down. At an

1.06 - Dhyana, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  20:This power, by the way, is what has been described by magicians as the power of invisibility. Somebody or other has an excellent story of four quite reliable men who were on the look-out for a murderer, and had instructions to let no one pass, and who all swore subsequently in presence of the dead body that no one had passed. None of them had seen the postman.
  21:The thieves who stole the "Gioconda" from the Louvre were probably disguised as workmen, and stole the picture under the very eye of the guardian; very likely got him to help them.

1.06 - Magicians as Kings, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  object:1.06 - magicians as Kings
  author class:James George Frazer
  --
  VI. magicians as Kings
  THE FOREGOING evidence may satisfy us that in many lands and many
  --
  credulous fellows. In point of fact magicians appear to have often
  developed into chiefs and kings.
  --
  tribes of Central Australia the headmen are public magicians.
  Further, their most important function is to take charge of the
  --
  evidence for the evolution of the chief out of the magician, and
  especially out of the rain-maker, is comparatively plentiful. Thus
  --
  in 1894 two were much dreaded as magicians, and the wealth of cattle
  they possessed came to them almost wholly in the shape of presents
  --
  has often been developed out of the public magician, and especially
  out of the rain-maker. The unbounded fear which the magician
  inspires and the wealth which he amasses in the exercise of his
  --
  promotion. But if the career of a magician and especially of a
  rain-maker offers great rewards to the successful practitioner of
  --
  all tribes their doctors are conjurers--are magicians--are
  sooth-sayers, and I had like to have said high-priests, inasmuch as
  --
  In South America also the magicians or medicine-men seem to have
  been on the highroad to chieftainship or kingship. One of the
  --
  his subjects. "As a matter of fact the magician is the man who has
  most power in his hands, and he is accustomed to receive presents
  instead of to give them." It is the magician's duty to bring down
  misfortune and plagues on the enemies of his tribe, and to guard his
  --
  simple magician. At the present day the Malays firmly believe that
  the king possesses a personal influence over the works of nature,
  --
  the magician gives way to the priest, who, renouncing the attempt to
  control directly the processes of nature for the good of man, seeks
  --
  starting as a magician, tends gradually to exchange the practice of
  magic for the priestly functions of prayer and sacrifice. And while

1.06 - The Literal Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  The method of letter analysis, previously described, helps to clarify the general conception. 2 B is 9 Mercury, the magician bearing in his hand the Wand representing his
  Divine Will and Wisdom. * Y is the Tarotic Hermit ; also it is the symbol of innocence and spiritual virginity.

1.06 - The Three Schools of Magick 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  We must, however, enter a caveat against too literal an interpretation, even of the parable. It may be suspected, for reasons which should be apparent after further investigation of the doctrines of the Three Schools, that this parable was invented by an Intelligence of the Black School, who was aware of his iniquity, and thought to transform it into righteousness by the alchemy of making a boast of it. The intelligent reader will note the insidious attempt to identify the doctrine of the Black School with the kind of black magic that is commonly called Diabolism. In other words, this parable is itself an example of an exceedingly subtle black magical operation, and the contemplation of such devices carried far enough beings us to an understanding of the astoundingly ophidian processes of magicians. Let not the profane reader dismiss such subtleties from his mind as negligible nonsense. It is cunning of this kind that determines the price of potatoes.
  The above digression is perhaps not so inexcusable as it may seem on a first reading. Careful study of it should reveal the nature of the thought-processes which are habitually used by the secret Masters of the human race to determine its destiny.

1.07 - Incarnate Human Gods, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  sorcerer. His gods are often merely invisible magicians who behind
  the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations
  which the human magician works in a visible and bodily form among
  his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed to exhibit
  --
  for the magician, with his supposed miraculous powers, to acquire
  the reputation of being an incarnate deity. Thus beginning as little
  more than a simple conjurer, the medicine-man or magician tends to
  blossom out into a full-blown god and king in one. Only in speaking
  --
  the order of public magicians or medicine-men; logically it rests on
  a mistaken deduction from the association of ideas. Men mistook the
  --
  specialisation. Now magicians or medicine-men appear to constitute
  the oldest artificial or professional class in the evolution of
  --
  the magicians, who may be repressed but cannot be extirpated by the
  predominance of religion, still addict themselves to their old

1.07 - The Magic Wand, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The most important aid in ritual magic is, and always will be, the magic wand. Since the days of yore magicians and sorcerers have been pictured with a magic wand. Charlatans and stage illusionists are still making use of it today, trying to throw dust into the eyes of their audience by all sorts of tricks. The person who thinks it suffices to hold a magic wand in his hand in order to fulfil wonders is led astray. I will give here an explanation of the symbolic meaning and the description of the syntheses of the magic wand, seen from the magical point of view theoretically as well as for practical application.
  Above all, the magic wand is the symbol of the will, the power and the strength by which the magician maintains his influence on the sphere for which he has made and charged it. A magician will not have just one wand for his practice, but he will make several wands depending on what he intends to do or attain.
  The actual purpose of a magic wand is to help the magician project his will into any sphere or plane. He may have a wand 1. to influence any being, no matter if human or animal, 2. to cure people from diseases and to do away with bad, unfavourable influences, 3. to evoke high intelligences and to invoke demons and spirits. To say that the magic wand symbolizes the absolute power of the magician is truly justified. The person having fully comprehended the mystery of the magic wand in its magnitude will never do his operations of ritual magic without this implement. It would lead too far, if I tried to state here all the possibilities of the magic wand. For the intelligent student these hints will suffice and will serve as guiding principles. His knowledge will be enlarged by ample meditation.
  The magic wand is a condenser, no matter what material it is 41 made of or in which way it is manufactured. Charged with the will of the magician, it expresses a certain power. It may be a simple one (the usual type of wand) or a complicated one. All the wands carved out of wood are regarded as simple wands. But only a special kind of wood, suiting the purpose, may be used. Thus, hazelnut or willow are to be used for a wishing-wand. The wishing-wand is a modification of the magic wand. Though a wand made of ash-wood may be used as a magic wand for all magical operations the magician, when carrying out operations of ritual magic, will only charge it for the purpose of curing people.
  The wand made of elder-wood, proves, on account of its analogy to Saturn, especially efficient when calling up or evoking elemental spirits and demons. In making magic wands willow twigs may also be used for any type, for the willow is a very good fluid condenser. The attentive reader will remember that willows are often struck by lightning because of their high content of water, and their capability of absorbing. He may also remember the old saying referring to thunderstorms: "From the willow flee, look for a beech-tree. The wood of an oak or an acacia, too, is an excellent material for making a magic wand.
  It is, indeed, very easy to make a magic wand of any of the kinds of wood mentioned. Cut a twig, approximately 3/8 to 3/4 ins. in diameter and about 12-20 ins. in length, remove its skin and smooth it. Often the cutting of a magic wand has been restricted to special astrological periods, and the magician acquainted with astrology is free to make use of his knowledge when making a wand. But such a procedure is by no means necessary, since the magician knows very well that the stars may have a certain influence, but that they cannot force the wise to do anything, as he actually rules them. Thus anybody may, if he likes, make by himself a magic wand out of one of the materials mentioned above. If the magic wand is to serve ritual purposes, you are recommended to use a new knife when cutting the twig.
  The knife may later be used for other ritual purposes or other magical operations. It should, in that case, never be employed for any common purpose. If the magician does not expect to use the knife again after having cut and smoothed the twig for the magic 42 wand, he should bury it in order to prevent it from ever coming into the hands of anyone else.
  Another kind of magic wand is the steel magnet which has to be equipped with an insulated grip. Take a round steel rod (the best steel to use is electro-steel, (i. e. magnet steel) approximately 12-20 ins. long with a diameter of 3/8 ins., polish it and have it nickel-plated to prevent it from rusting. After having nickelplated the rod, the magician may magnetize it by means of an electric coil, similar to the magnetization of a horse-shoe or the magnet of an electrical motor. The greater the power of attraction of the magnet, the better it works. This is the way to get a very strong steel magnet which will not only do its work as such, but which will also serve as an excellent magic wand for many magical and magnetic experiments. First of all one must locate the north and the south pole on the magic electro magnetic rod and mark both poles: the south-pole with a minus and the north-pole with a plus. For the insulation of the rod the middle must be then wound with a silk ribbon as wide as the palm, i. e. about 3-4 ins.
  A rubber hose of the same length or a wooden handle that has been pierced for this purpose may also be used. Such a wand will enable the magician to cause many magnetic and magical phenomena, of which only a few will be treated here.
  If the magician is working with the electromagnetic fluid of the universe, intending to intensify it strongly in the physical world, then he must take hold of the wand in such a manner that his right hand will touch the plus-pole and his left hand the minuspole, with the ends of the rod touching the middle of his palms.
  After this the electrical fluid from the universe has to be led via the right side of the rod into the magician's body by means of the imagination. The plus-radiation of the rod (odpole-radiation) will thus be strongly intensified as it has the same oscillation and will make it easier for the magician to store the electrical fluid in his body. The same procedure has to be applied to the magnetic fluid of the south-pole. Vice versa the magician now intensifies the electrical fluid again, which he has previously stored up in his body, this time concentrating it into the plus-end of the rod so strongly that he can make his influence work directly on the 43 physical world. The same goes for the magnetic fluid which he will be able to store up in his left, that is the negative pole radiation. The middle of the rod, covered with the insulating material, will remain neutral. If the magician, by force of imagination, now concentrates his intention into the condensed electromagnetic fluid of the steel magnet the wand indeed becomes a magic wand.
  By means of the electromagnetic fluid, which radiates as a brilliant light from the rod, any realization on the physical world will be possible. Initiates usually apply this wand for influencing sick people and for all magnetic phenomena. This magic electromagnetic wand is, by the Law of the Universe, an excellent condenser with the same kind of oscillation as the universe, but in a most subtle way. The person meditating on this will be able to find other methods easily due to the universal laws. The magician will, for instance, be able to either pull the fluid out of the universe like an antenna and store it in his body, or to transfer it by force of imagination to other people, near him or far away.
  The wand will soon be an indispensible implement for the magician, for the positive and negative powers concentrated in it will help him to create the necessary oscillation in his electromagnetic fluid.
  Besides this, there are magic wands charged either with solid liquid, or combined condensers. Much could be said about how to make such rods and which methods are to be used, but I will only mention the most appropriate to serve the magician in his work.
  Take the twig of an elder-bush, 12-20 ins. long and 3/8 to 3/4 ins. in diameter, peel off its skin and smooth it with sand-paper.
  --
  The magician wealthy enough for financial considerations not to matter can use, instead of the fluid condenser, a condenser made of semi-precious stones. He will use for his electric fluid, a copper-rod the inside of which is filled with pulverized amber, an unsurpassed condenser for this kind of fluid. For his operations with the magnetic fluid he will, in this case, have to fill up the steel-pipe with pulverized rock-crystal instead of using a solid condenser. Rock-crystal, again, is a very good fluid condenser for the magnetic fluid. But it is also possible to solder two separate small pipes, thus making a single rod out of them; one half of the tube is, in this case, filled up with pulverized amber, the other with pulverized rock-crystal. Having done this, a single rod, separated in the middle, will contain both kinds of fluid condensers. In a case like this, however, the two halves must be connected by a thin piece of copper - or iron - wire going through the centre of both pipes. The outside of such a rod may be nickel45 plated. This ideal wand then has a unique fluid capacity and will serve any magical operation.
  There is still another possibility: a wooden rod may by ornamented with seven rings made of the planetary metals. The rings should be fixed to the rod in quabbalistic order. That is, a golden ring (for the Sun) is placed in the middle of the rod and three metal rings on each side. The following metals may be used for the rings in question:
  --
  This is all the magician needs to know: from the examples above he will, by himself, be able to proceed to other variations.
  The shape and the size of the wand plays a minor part. The most important thing about a magic wand is its charging for practical use, a description of which is given below.
  --
  They all depend on what the magician intends or wants to use it for.
  Above all, the magician must always be aware of the fact that the magic wand is a symbol of his will, his strength and his power, and that it is representing a container like a fluid condenser of that power, quality etc. in which he is not only able to transfer, but also to store up that power, according to his wish, to an exeedingly high density. It matters little if such a rod is 46 nothing but a simple twig, cut and adapted accordingly, or if it is a complicated wand, saturated or filled up with a fluid condenser.
  A magic wand may be charged with:
  1. the magician's will-power
  2. special qualities, faculties, etc.
  --
  After some time load the wand again in the same manner, and every time you repeat the cerem.ony you must increase the intensity of your imagination. Never forget that your whole spiritual will is embodied in the wand. It is important that you limit the time and if possible, also the space of the power concentrated in the wand; that is, concentrate your willpower into the wand with the idea that as long as it will exist it will represent all your will, all your power, and remain effective. A wand charged in this way will remain effective till you die, or should it be your special wish, even beyond your physical death, that is, it will remain a 47 magic wand. It may even last for centuries, and its influence may even increase with time, providing you have charged it with the wish that its power should grow from one day to the next. The effectiveness of the wand will first work on the mental sphere, then, after some time and repeated charging, on the astral sphere, and finally even on the physical world. The time required until a wand, first effective on the mental world, becomes effective in the physical world depends on the magician's maturity, training and power of imagination, and also on what he is striving for. The magician who is well acquainted with quabbalah will know that to bring about a realization from the mental sphere into the physical world, usually about 462 repetitions are necessary; by then the influence from the mental sphere takes shape, that is becomes condensed in the physical world. This, however, does not mean that the magician may not be able to bring about the same kind of success earlier than this. As already pointed out, the magic wand's power of realisation depends on the intention and purpose for which it has been made and charged. One could query whether the rod needs to be charged at all, since the magician's will should suffice. The magician, however, will not always be in a position to expand his mental exertion in the manner necessary for the transfer of one's will. There will be situations which will exhaust even the best magician, who then would be incapable of concentrating to his fullest power of expansion.
  However, a skillfully charged magic wand will also have its effect at moments when the magician is not using his will-power, but is just concentrating his thoughts on the realization of his wish, using his magic wand for this purpose. There is, of course, in this case a slight danger that a blasphemous person may get hold of the magic wand in order to realize his own desires, which, if it happened, would go on the cost of the magician and his rodvoltage. Therefore a magician will always do well not to tell any person, not even his best friend, for which purpose, in which respect, and in which manner he has charged his magic wand.
  This way of charging a magic wand with one's will-power will generally serve to influence beings, spirits, human beings and animals which are to act according to the magician's absolute will 48 and which are to obey the magician's magical power, no matter whether in this physical world or on the mental or astral planes.
  The influence of the magician is not at all restricted to living entities; it will also work on dead matter if this has been taken into consideration at the time of its being charged.
  Regarding Point 2: charge with qualities, faculties and the like:
  Under charging the wand with certain universal qualities is understood qualities such as omnipotence or other specific ones which the magician needs for his realizations in the mental, astral or physical planes and which are concentrated into the rod in the same manner as described above. It is possible (similar to the charge with the magician's will) when charging the wand with a certain quality, to impel the quality into the wand not only by embodying one's consciousness into it and by condensing the power, but also by pulling the quality down from the universe by means of one's imagination and concentration of will-power, thereby condensing the quality in the wand, thus charging it.
  Constant condensing of a certain quality will make the relevant spiritual power if concentrated in the wand a direct physical power. This means that with the wand the magician is in possession of an accumulator equivalent to a battery powerfully charged with electricity. That then one and the same power may be used for good as well as for bad purposes is true, but a magician, having proceeded as far as this in his individual training, will never think of any evil motives or try to put them into action, since he, at all times, is anxious to be regarded as a true and faithful servant by Divine Providence.
  Regarding Point 3: charge of the wand with Magnetism, Biomagnetism or Prana:
  The same procedure is to be followed as described in the preceding chapter. It is recommended, however, to achieve the storing of power in the wand without transferring one's consciousness into it. This can be effected by mere imagination, by means of the magician's body or directly from the universe. In 49 this case, too, the magician must not forget to set limits to the power transformed into the wand. He must also, by force of imagination, concentrate on the purpose he wishes the wand to serve. Repeated charge of the wand will make it not only effective in the mental and astral planes, but also in the physical world.
  The experienced magician need not be told again that the power then dwelling in the wand will radiate to the furthest distances. If he introduces the Akasha-principle between himself and his object, he will be able to bridge time and space, and the power in question will immediately, by using the wand, work on the person concerned with the same kind of influence, intensity and success as it would be if the person were standing right in front of him. Charged with life-force or magnetism, with the right idea of setting limits or conditions (that is, in this case, with the idea that the life-force or magnetism in the wand will be automatically intensified from one day to the other) the wand will easily enable the magician to call into existence any phenomena that can be effected by life-force. With a rod charged in this way, even an unexperienced person could work miracles, providing he knew how to use it. Therefore it is in the magician's own interest to keep well the secret of his magic wand. He may also charge his wand in a manner that it will automatically, without any effort on part of the will-power of the magician, bring to him a piece of life-force from the universe, which will then radiate from the wand. This kind of charging the wand with magnetism - biomagnetism - is preferred for curative operations. A magician working in the medical field may like to make use of this method and heal people far away from him by force of his wand charged in the above mentioned manner. In the hands of a magician, a wand charged in this manner, which can heal people miraculously over the widest distances, is, no doubt, a blessing for the suffering man.
  The charge of a magic wand with an electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic fluid is always the same, with the only exception that the transfer of the magician's consciousness may be omitted. If only one wand is to be charged, the procedure is a little more complicated. For the wand to be charged with one fluid only, be it electric or magnetic, that fluid has to be drawn from the 50 universe with the help of the imagination und must be impelled into the rod, to which end the magician has to concentrate on the wish that whenever he desires something, the fluid inside the rod will realize at once what he wishes, even though it be directed to the furthest possible sphere or the Akasha-principle. If you terminate the accumulation so that the fluid accumulated in the rod will intensify itself automatically from the universe, that it will, in other words, work by itself bioelectrically and biomagnetically, the rod will grow into an enormously strong battery. The magician is recommended to accumulate in his own body, prior to every use, the revelant fluid in order to be strong enough for the work with the accumulated fluid of the wand. If he is not willing to do this, he should at least insulate himself before he starts work by putting on a pair of pure silk-gloves, preferably manufactured by himself. Not before he has thus insulated himself should he take the wand into his hands. Since the magician usually works with both fluids, he should take the wand charged with the electrical fluid into his right hand, and the wand charged with the magnetic fluid into his left. It is always better to charge two rods; one with the electric the other with the magnetic fluid, especially if simple twigs or wooden wands, which are not impregnated with a fluid condenser, are used. This is not absolutely necessary, but it will make work easier. The magician who has a wand filled with a fluid condenser, without the wand being parted in the middle, will find it more advantagious to have the wand filled with only one fluid, as this also will make the work easier for him. If the rod is to be charged electromagnetically, that is if both fluids should be prevalent in the wand, the magician must use a rod which has no hole in its middle. Either end of the rod has to be pierced instead, and each half of it has to be provided with a fluid condenser. The magician must, however, put a mark on either end to remind him where the electrical and where the magnetic fluid is. To give the magician a better view, the half provided for the electrical fluid is usually painted red, the half provided for the magnetic fluid is usually painted blue. The rod must then be charged in such a manner that the largest intensity of the fluids rest at the ends of the rod and that the middle, insulated with silk, remains neutral. Charging of either half has to be carried out separately, that means that you may draw from the universe first the electric fluid, accumulating it in the one end of the rod until that end is sufficiently loaded, and immediately after that the magnetic fluid, or vice versa. The magician should never try to accumulate the electric fluid several times and then the magnetic fluid several times; for the equilibrium of the fluids inside the wand must be maintained. The magician must therefore accumulate the electrical fluid on one day and the magnetic fluid the next day. When charging the wand again, he has to go about in the other way.
  The magician will charge a rod with the electrical or the magnetic, or both fluids, if he wants to make his influence work by the help of these fluids on objects nearby or far away, regardless of their being subject to the Akasha or existent in either the mental, astral or physical world. Special variations of operations, for instance such as volting or treating sick people, or bearing of certain imaginations, will not be dealt with here, for the person having carefully studied up to this point will now be able to work out for himself his individual working methods.
  Regarding Point 4: the charge with elements:
  --
  1. The magician, by help of imagination charges his rod - no matter, whether it be simple or provided with a fluid condenser - with desire that when using it, the elements will have to obey him, regardless of which sphere they may belong to. If the wand has been sufficiently charged with the magician's power over the elements, then the results wanted will be brought about by the beings of the elements. The magician will do well to expand his power to all elements, fire, air, water and earth, so that he will not be forced to restrict his operations to a single element. When evoking, the magician should call to his magic circle the heads of the elements, one after the other, and have them swear to the magic wand that they will give him their absolute obedience at all times. After that the magician may, if he likes, engrave on his 52 wand the relevant symbols or seals of each individual head of the elements. This, however, is by no means absolutely necessary, for the wand in the hands of the magician represents the magician's absolute will and his power over each being of the elements. The shape of the seals of each head of the elements will become visible to the magician in his magic mirror or by direct transfer with the mental body in the realm of the elements. On top of that, the magician might well, on account of his personal experience and development, construct a symbol of the relevant element and have the head of any element swear to it that he will always be the obedient servant not only of the symbol which the magician has engraved in the wand, but of the whole wand.
  2. The other way to charge the wand with elements is as follows: The magician draws the element which he wants to use for his work directly from the universe, that is, its particular Iphere, by force of the imagination, and dynamically accumulates it in the wand. When working with this kind of loaded wand, the results wanted are not caused by the beings of the elements, but directly by the magician himself. The advantage of this way of charging a wand is that it will give the magician a strong feeling of latisfaction, because he is the immediate cause of the magical effect. It is necessary, however, that a separate rod be manufactured for each of the elements and the wands must be stored apart from each other. To prevent the magician from mixing them up, he must be sure that he can easily differentiate between them by their outside appearance. Each wand may, for this purpose, have the colour of the relevant element. At the beginning the results will only occur on the mental plane, but prolonged use and repeated charging will make it work also on the astral plane, and eventually also on the physical world. This kind of wand will enable its owner to influence all manners of spirits, men, animals, even inanimate nature, by the element, similar to the influence of the electromagnetic fluid. Good magicians are able to cause, by the force of such a wand, marvelous natural phenomena, for in Itance, change of weather, acceleration of the growth of plants, and many other things of that nature.
  Regarding Point 5: Charge with the Akasha-principle:
  When applying this principle, the charge of the magic wand is possible, but not any kind of accumulation, since the Akashaprinciple cannot be intensified. But repeated meditation on the qualities of the Akasha-principle with all its aspects in the magic wand will finally enable the magician to create causes in the Akasha-principle, which will itself realize in the mental and astral planes, and also in the physical plane. Using a rod charged in the manner described, the magician will be able to impel, by force of imagination, a power or quality via the wand into the Akasha, which then, like a volt created by an electromagnetic fluid, will have direct influence on the three-dimensional world from above.
  Such a wand will be regarded with awe by positive intelligences and will have a frightening effect on negative beings. A wand charged in this fashion is usually preferred by magicians working with negative beings, so-called demons, in order to make them pliant. For further details on this subject see the chapter dealing with necromancy.
  Regarding Point 6: Charge with Light-Fluid:
  The universal light, from which everything has been created, is to be accumulated in the wand by help of imagination and consideration of the qualities of the light, so that it will shine like a sun (concentrated universal light). A wand charged in this way is usually employed for theurgical purposes, that is for the evocation of higher beings of the light and intelligences, for it is an excellent magnet which will make the relevant light beings pay attention to the magician's will and desire. Besides this, all other measures must be taken, like, for instance, the insulation of the rod with white silk, its secure keeping and so on.
  Not only will the magician be able to work, with the help of the wand, in the physical world; he will also be in position to transfer, with his mental or astral hand, or with both, the mental and astral sphape of the wand into the relevant plane and will have his influence work in these planes without having to hold the wand in his physical hand. In case of the exteriorisation of his 54 whole mental body, he can take with him not only the mental shape of his magic wand with all its qualities into the mental plane but also the mental shape of all magic implements and aids, and there he is able to operate as if he were present with his whole physical body to carry out the operations. Never should the magician forget that the wand represents his true will in its completeness, absoluteness and power, which may well be compared with a magical oath, and therefore many magicians have their magic wand symbolize not only their will-power, but also the magical oath, which, from the hermetic point of view, may never and can never be broken. Many magicians carve into their wand the symbols appropriate to their will-power and the charge of the wand. Universal symbols, signs, seals of intelligences, divine names, and the like, may serve this purpose as far as they represent the true will-power of the magician. The details of this particular matter are left entirely to the magician's individuality.
  The magician will know from these instructions how he has to go about reaching his aim, and it is up to him to provide, if he likes, his wand with a secret name standing for his will-power. It will also be clear to the practising magician that such a name must be kept a secret and must never, under any circumstance, be spoken.

1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  The magician alone is real; his magic is illusory. This is discrimination.
  "Discrimination and renunciation. Discrimination means to know the distinction between the Real and the unreal. Renunciation means to have dispassion for the things of the world. One cannot acquire them all of a sudden. They must be practised every day.

1.083 - Choosing an Object for Concentration, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
  Nature is very clever and will never allow us to know what her tricks are a great magician indeed. So we will not know what the magician is doing, and how things are coming up suddenly. We are placed in a very difficult context. We are always embarrassed and caught by both our ears, so that we cannot move either this way or that way. We cannot keep quiet and not attempt to fulfil the desires. That is one way we are caught. The other way is that we cannot be satisfied by any amount of satisfaction of desires. So we are caught the other way also. We cannot keep quiet and we cannot do anything. This is a problem. How is yoga going to be the remedy for it?
  Yoga is the remedy because it summons to the forefront, to the daylight of knowledge, the deep-seated urge which is causing this problem. The ringleader of the problem is called immediately to the court and accosted openly, and the problem is tackled directly in an open forum it is not kept hidden inside. Our difficulties are caused by the presence of the infinite behind them which is the problem. It is not the finite objects that are the causes of the troubles. We are unnecessarily complaining that this is like this or that is like that. The world is not the cause of our problems. The world has been only a cats paw that has been thrust forward by the infinite behind it, which is always kept in the background and never brought to the forefront. What is behind is something unseen, and what is in front of us is not the cause of the trouble. But we transfer the cause of the trouble to the seen objects, and then it is that we make complaints about things. The trouble arises from something which we have not seen with our eyes, and which cannot be seen. It is the cause of the outward movement of the mind and the senses.

1.08a - The Ladder, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
  Everything in the operation is so arranged that it will remind the magician of his one Aim, his one True Object.
  He resolves that every weapon and instrument employed in his ceremony shall serve to remind him of his chosen end, making every impression (by means of the Qabalistic alpha- bet of association of ideas) the starting-point of a connected series of thoughts ending in that thing. His whole energy is resolved that every act shall turn to the advantage of his invocations.
  --
  From another viewpoint, the magician resolves to put himself into harmony with the cosmos, which he deifies.
  The Sun is to him, as we have already observed, a spiritual principle, a God ; the Moon another ; the planets yet other

1.08 - Departmental Kings of Nature, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  the kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the forest and hide
  themselves, for fear of being elevated to the invidious dignity

1.08 - The Magic Sword, Dagger and Trident, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  There are evocations of negative beings and such not liking being transferred into our physical world. For these beings the magician will use, should the magic wand not suffice, the magic sword, providing he insists on their manifestation. The magic sword has several symbolic meanings, but generally it serves as the symbol of absolute obedience of a being or a power to the magician. It is also the symbol of victory and superiority over any power or being. The sword is analogous to the light, it is an aspect of the fire and of the word. Already the bible says: "In the beginning was the word - light - and the word was with God". He who is somewhat acquainted with symbolism will remember that, as an example, Archangel Michael, the killer of the dragon, is symbolized with a burning sword; the dragon, in this case, is the symbol of the hostile, the negative principle. Adam and Eve, too, were driven out of paradise by an angel with a burning sword.
  The symbolic meaning is also in this case quite clear and unequivocal.
  The magic sword usually serves as an implement in those cases where the magician wishes to exert a certain compulsory or forceable influence on a power or being, usually quite against its will. It is an indispensable implement for magicians dealing exclusively with demonology and who therefore would never get any positive results unless they were using a magic sword. The true magician will usually get satisfactory results with his magic wand, but in spite of this he will not fail to manufacture for himself an implement such as the magic sword, in order to have it handy in case of emergencies. Such a magic sword means more safety for the magician and will streng then his authority. But when working, he will only use the sword for operations, especially for evocations, if a being were to oppose him strongly or to refuse to obey him.
  Some grimoires call such an instrument as the sword a dagger, yet the magic dagger is nothing else but a diminished sword with the same kind of symbolism. A magic dagger is manufactured the same way as a magic sword.
  When evoking demons and lower spirits, the sword or dagger may be replaced by a trident which has to be mounted on a long wooden shaft, similar to a wooden fork. The trident, like the sword or dagger, is a means of coercion. Grimoires, on top of that, recommend ornamenting the trident with engravings of divine names. This is left to the magician's individual taste and depends on the purpose of the evocation and the magician's attitude. The trident is also an enlarged symbol of the magic sword: the three points symbolize our three-dimensional world, and the magician can force the beings to fulfill his desire not only in the mental or astral world, but also in this physical world, or, if the magician likes, in all three planes. Regarding this, the fact that demons usually turn up with a trident and are pictured with a tri56 dent, should be mentioned. This does not mean that they run this trident through the souls in hell, as is sometimes wrongly assumed by foolish people, but that their influence works on all three worlds: the mental, astral and physical.
  The points of magic swords, daggers or tridents may also be employed for breaking or killing unevoked and unwanted beings like phantoms, larvae, elementals, elementaries, and the like, which may try to hinder the magician in his work. And yet another way of using these implements must be mentioned here since it is hardly known to anybody: a magic sword or dagger, not so much a trident, may do good service as a magical lightningconductor.
  After having ended his evocations, especially after evocations of higher negative beings, principals of demons and the like, the magician who intends to go to rest but who is uncertain whether these spirits will let him sleep unmolested, may furnish his bed with a magic lightning-conductor. Such a lightning-conductor can be manufactured by winding a copper or iron wire round the legs of the bed, both ends of which have to be connected with the sword or dagger. Then the sword or dagger must be stuck into the floor. The wires form a closed circle around the bed even if it has a square shape. The function of the sword or dagger is to conduct the influence directed towards the magician into the earth.
  Of course, the wire has to be drawn with the wish in the magician's mind, that it will form a circle and that no being or any unfavourable influence will be able to get inside the bed and that every influence, no matter from which being it may come, will be conducted into the earth. In such a magically sheltered bed provided with a magic lightning-conductor the magician will sleep undisturbed, and he may rest assured that no influence, no matter from which sphere it may come, will never have any effect upon him, or will ever be able to surprise and overwhelm him. If the magician has no sword or dagger handy at the moment, or if he has to use it for other purposes, a new knife which, in this case, must not be used for any other purposes, will fulfill the same function. This magic lightning conductor will also protect the magician against influences of black magic, especially during the hours of sleep. A well-trained, fully developed magician may be able to do without this implement, for he may draw a magic circle around his bed by force of imagination, mentally or astrally, thereby using his wand, sword or dagger. This will also give him full protection against any unwanted influences.
  The way in which a magic sword is manufactured depends on the magician's individuality. Several books instruct the magician to use a sword which has formerly been used for cutting off a man's head. This is obviously suggested to raise, in the heart of the magician, a certain feeling of awe, or a certain stress as soon as he takes hold of the sword. Usually those magicians who make use of such a sword are those who need such superficialities to get into the right state of mind. From the hermetic point of view such or similar pre-conditions are not necessary, providing that all other faculties necessarily exist. A sword made of the best kind of steel (refined steel) will fully serve its purpose. If the magician cannot produce such a sword himself he may have it made by a smith or another metal expert. The length of the sword may vary between two or three feet depending on the magician's height.
  The handle of the sword may be made of copper, since copper is a very good conductor of fluids.
  The shape of the sword does not play an essential role. It need only be sharpened on one side, but, of course, in can also be sharpened on both sides. Its point, however, must be well sharpened. It depends on the individual taste of the magician, if he has the handle ornamented or provided with suitable symbols.
  So much about the manufacturing of a magic sword.
  The charge of the sword is done by transferring upon it, by the help of the imagination, the qualities belonging to it, such as the power over all beings, the absolute victory and the respect due to it as the symbol of combat, life etc. These qualities have to be dynamically intensified in the sword by repeated charging. The magician may also accumulate the light-fluid in the sword in such a way that it will look like the shining sun or like a flaming sword, similar to that one which Archangel Michael holds in his hand in his symbolic pictures.
  The main point is the attitude of the magician towards the magic sword accompanied by an unbreakable belief in his absolute victory in all planes, which will give the sword the necessary force so that every power, every being will fear and respect it under any circumstance. After each use the sword has to be wrapped up in a piece of white or black silk and put away safely like the other magic implements.
  The magician may, by practising mental wandering, transfer the spiritual form of the sword into the mental plane and visit the planetary spheres taking his magic sword as well as his magic wand with him. There, according to his wish, he can make use of his magic power with the help of his magic implements. That every being will have to obey him in these spheres is clearly evident by what has been said before. The magician is able, during his magical operations and evocations, to transfer his mental sword with his mental hand into the relevant sphere by force of imagination, and there he can make the being carry out his wishes. Such a force, however, can only be exerted without danger by a magician who has a clean heart and a noble soul. If a sorcerer tried to do the like he would only make the being hate him and would soon become a victim of them and their influence.
  The history of occult science has given many examples of the tragic fate and even more tragic end of such sorcerers. It would exeed the extension of this book to talk about certain events in detail.

1.09 - The Crown, Cap, Magus-Band, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  Always when carrying out operations of ritual magic, no matter whether evocations, invocations or other operations, the magician should wear something on his head. He may take, for this purpose, a golden crown with magic symbols engraved on it, or he may take a cap or some other headgear with the symbols of the macrocosm and microcosm of the deity with whom the magician is connected or whose shape he is taking on. The symbols must either be drawn with a good colour or embroidered or fastened with silk. Such a symbol of the macrocosm and microcosm, for instance, is a hexagon in the middle of two circles inside of which is the microcosmic symbol of man, the pentagram. If the magician embroiders his cap himself, or if he has it embroidered by somebody else, he may choose a golden colour for the circles as a symbol of infinity; for the hexagon he may take a silvery colour as the symbol of the created universe, and for the pentagram in the centre a white or violet colour. Instead of using a cap or a turban as a headgear, a silk-band, a so-called magus-band, may suffice. This band may be in white, violet or black and is to be wound round the magician's head. The part running over his forehead should be ornamented with the macro-microcosmic symbol, described previously. The symbol may either be embroidered or drawn on a piece of parchment, thereby using the colour mentioned above. Instead of the symbol of the macrocosm some other symbol representing the magician's connection with the deity may be used. For instance, a cross, which at the same time, symbolizes the Positive and the Negative, and the ends of which symbolize the four elements. A rosecross symbol may also be employed, that is a cross with seven roses in the centre, also symbolizing the four elements, the Positive and the Negative, and on top of that, the seven planets. The magician's choice is not, as can be seen, restricted to a particular symbol. He may express his spiritual development, his destination, his maturity, his cosmic relationship by several symbols, whichever he prefers, and he may wear them on his cap or magus-band.
  As already mentioned, the crown, cap or magus-band is a symbol of the dignity of the magician's authority. It is a symbol of the perfection of his spirit, a symbol of his relationship to the microcosm and macrocosm, the tiny and the great world, the highest expression of his magical power, serving him to crown his head. All articles, no matter whether cap, crown or magus-band, must be made of the finest material and must serve no other purposes but operations of ritual magic. As soon as the cap, crown or magus-band is ready and has been tried out, it should be sanctified by meditation and a holy oath, so that the magician will only put it on his head when he is fully absorbed with the idea of his unity with the deity, and he will only make use of the cap for operations which demand this kind of symbolism. When speaking his oath the magician should put his right hand on the cap and should concentrate, by force of imagination, on the idea that at the moment he puts the cap on his head he is united with his deity, or with the symbol ornamenting his cap. Then he should put his headgear away safely together with his other magical implements.
  Whenever the magician is prepared for evocations, after having meditated for this purpose, and puts on his headgear, he will at once be united with the Deity and will have, not only in himself, but in the whole space or at the place where he puts it on, that feeling of a holy temple atmosphere. Therefore the magician will agree that his headgear is also an intrinsic part of his magical implements, and that he must draw his full attention towards it.
  Sorcerers also use caps which are ornamented with symbols of demons, but only few of them know about their genuine meaning and correct application, not to mention their actual symbolism. A magician, however, who does everything consciously can never decline to be a mere sorcerer and will never do anything he does not understand. Everything he does is done for a special purpose.

1.09 - The Guardian of the Threshold, #Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, #Rudolf Steiner, #Theosophy
  (It will be gathered from the above that the Guardian of the Threshold is an (astral) figure, revealing itself to the student's awakened higher sight; and it is to this supersensible encounter that spiritual science conducts him. It is a lower magical process to make the Guardian of the Threshold physically visible also. That was attained by producing a cloud of fine substance, a kind of frankincense resulting from a particular mixture of a number of substances. The developed power of the magician is then able to mould the frankincense
   p. 238

1.09 - The Secret Chiefs, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  as Vergil, that mighty seer and magician of Rome at her perihelion says in his First Book of the Aenead. (Vergil whose every line is also an Oracle, the leaves of his book more sacred, more significant, more sure than those of the Cumaean Sibyl!)
  These powers move in dimensions of time and space quite other than those with which we are familiar. Their values are incomprehensible to us. To a Secret Chief, wielding this weapon, "The nice conduct of a clouded cane" might be infinitely more important than a war, famine and pestilence such as might exterminate a third part of the race, to promote whose welfare is the crux of His oath, and the sole reason of His existence!

11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A magician with the omnipotent wand of thought,
  He builds the secret uncreated worlds.

1.10 - Harmony, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  There are no miracles. There is a vast Harmony which governs the world with a precision and delicacy as faultless in the meeting of atoms and the cycle of flowering and the return of migrating birds as in the meeting of men and the unfolding of events at a particular juncture. There is a vast, unique movement we thought we were separated from because we had built our little mental turrets on the frontier of our comprehension and black dotted lines on the softness of a great earthly hill, as others had built their hunting grounds, and the sea gulls, their white archipelago on the foam-flecked waters. And because we had put on these blinders or others to protect ourselves from the formidable magnitude of our lands, erected these dwarf fences to farm our little acre, the little wave of energy trapped in our sails, the little golden (or less golden) fireflies caught in the net of our intelligence, the little note captured from too great a Harmony, we have thought that the world behaved according to our laws, or at least our laws to the factual wisdom of our instruments and calculations, and that anything that exceeded this partitioning of the world or slipped through the meshes was unthinkable or nonexistent, miraculous hallucinatory. We were caught in our own trap. And by some gracious kindness which is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries to elucidate the world began to resemble our drawings of erudite children, our illnesses to follow the doctor's prognosis, our bodies to obey the prescribed medicine, our lives to travel in the designated groove between two walls of impossibility, and even our events to bow obligingly before our statistics and our thought of events. The world actually became mentalized from one end to the other and from top to bottom. Thought is the latest magician on the list, after the Mongolian shaman, the Theban occultist or the Bantu witchdoctor. It remains to be seen whether our magic is better than the others but magic it is, and we are not yet aware of all its power. But, in truth, there is only one Power, which uses an amulet, a Tantric yantra23 or an incantation, equally as well as a differential equation or even our simple and futile little thought. What do we want? That is the question.
  We manipulate thought haphazardly. Generally, we do not even manipulate it; it manipulates us. We are besieged by a thousand useless thoughts that run back and forth through our inner realm, automatically, futilely, ten, perhaps a hundred times by the time we have walked down the boulevard or climbed the stairs. It is hardly thought; it is a sort of thinking current that got into the habit of following some of our convolutions and circumvolutions and assumes a more or less neutral color, more or less brilliant, depending on our taste or inclination, our heredity, our environment, and is expressed by preferred or customary words, blue or gray philosophies in one language or another but it is one and the same current running everywhere. It is the mental machinery clicking and rumbling and working sempiternally the same range or intensity of the general current. This activity veils everything, envelops everything, and casts a pall over everything with its thick and sticky cloud. But the seeker of the new world is one step removed from this machinery; he has discovered the quiet little clearing behind; he has lit a fire of need in the center of his being; he takes his fire everywhere he goes. And everything is different for him. Unclouded in his little clearing, he begins to see the functioning of the mind; he watches the great play, uncovers step by step the secrets of the mental magic which ought perhaps to be called mental illusion, though if it is an illusion, it is a very effective one. And all sorts of phenomena begin to attract his notice, a little disorderly, in recurring little spurts that end up making a coherent picture. The more he sees, the stronger his control.
  --
  Indeed, it is magic. The seeker repeats the same experience ten, a hundred times. And he begins to stare in fascination. He begins, through a tiny experience, to ask himself a stupendous why?... Oh, the world's secrets are not concealed in thunder and flames! They are here, just waiting for a consenting look, a simple way of being that does not constantly put up its habitual barriers, its possibles or impossibles, its you-can'ts and you-mustn'ts, its buts and more buts, its ineluctables, and the whole train of its iron laws, the old laws of an animal-man who goes round and round in the cage built with his own hands. He looks about himself, and the experience multiplies, as if it were thrust before his very eyes, as if that simple little effort for truth sparked innumerable answers, precipitated circumstances, encounters, demonstrations, as if it were saying, Look, look, this is how it works. A consciousness beyond words lays its finger of light upon each encounter. The true picture emerges from behind appearances. A breath of truth here elicits the same truth in each thing and each movement. And he sees.... He does not see miracles or rather, he sees sordid little miracles blindly contrived by blind magicians. He sees poor humans in droves weaving the pretty bubble, patiently and tirelessly inflating it, each day adding their little breath of defeat or desire or helplessness, their miasma of self-doubt, their little noxious thoughts, stretching and nurturing the iridescent bubble of their knowledge and petty triumphs, the implacable bubble of their science, the bubble of their charity or virtue. And they go on, prisoners of a bubble, entangled in the network of force they have carefully woven, accumulated, piled up day after day. Each act results from that thrust; each circumstance is the obscure gravitation of that attraction, and everything moves mechanically, ineluctably, mathematically as we have willed it in a black or yellow or decrepit little bubble. And the more we kick and strain and struggle and draw this force inside to break the pretty or not so pretty wall, the harder it becomes, as if our ultimate effort still brought to it an ultimate strength. And we say we are the victims of circumstances, victims of this or that; we say we are poor, sick, ill-fated; we say we are rich, virtuous, triumphant. We say we are thousands of things under thousands of colors and bubbles, and there is nothing of the kind, no rich, no poor, no sick, no virtuous or victim; there is something else, oh, radically different, which is awaiting its hour. There is a secret godhead smiling.
  And the bubble grows. It takes in families, peoples, continents; it takes in every color, every wisdom, every truth, and envelops them. There is that breath of light, that note of beauty, the miracle of those few lines caught in architecture or geometry, that instant of truth that heals and delivers, that lovely curve glimpsed in a flash which links that star to this destiny, this asymptote to that hyperbola, this man to that song, this gesture to that effect and more men come, men by the thousands, who come puffing and inflating the little bubble, creating pink and blue and everlasting religions, infallible salvations in the great bubble, summits of light that are the sum of their compounded little hopes, abysses of hell that are the sum of their cherished fears; who come adding this note and that idea, this grain of knowledge and that healing second, this conjunction and that curve, that moment of effectiveness beneath the dust of the myriads of galaxies, chromatic temples, devising unquestionable medicines under the great bubble, irreducible sciences, implacable geometries, charts of illness, charts of recovery, charts of destiny. And everything twists and turns as the doctor willed it under the great fateful Bubble, as the scientist willed it, as that moment of coincidence among the countless myriads of lines in the universe has decided it for the eternity of time. We have seized a minute of the world and made it into the huge amber light that blinds and suffocates us in the great mental bubble. And there is nothing of the kind not one single law, not one single illness, not one single medical or scientific dogma, not one single temple is true,, not one perpetual chart, not one single destiny under the stars there is a tremendous mental hypnotism, and behind, far, far behind, and yet right here, so much here, immediately here, something impregnable, unseizable by any snare, unrestricted by any law, invulnerable to every illness and every hypnotism, unsaved by our salvations, unsullied by our sins, unsullied by our virtues, free from every destiny and every chart, from every golden or black bubble a pure, infallible bird that can recreate the world in the twinkling of an eye. We change our look, and everything changes. Gone is the pretty bubble. It is here if we want.

1.10 - The Magical Garment, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  This is to be treated in the same manner as the cap or magusband. The magical gament is a long robe made of silk, buttoned from the neck to the toes. The sleeves of the robe end at the wrists. The robe looks like the vestment of a clergyman and symbolizes the absolute purity of all ideas, and the purity of the magician's soul. It is also the symbol of protection. Just as a common garment protects a man's physical body from outside influences, rain, cold etc. so the magical garment of the magician shelters him from outside influences which may attact his body through its astral or mental matrix. As already mentioned several times, silk is the best insulating material against any astral or mental influences. A robe made of silk is therefore an excellent means of in61 sulation and may also be successfully used for other operations not directly connected with ritual magic; for instance, protection of the astral or physical body when projecting the mental or astral body so that no being can take possession of the magician's astral or physical body without his approval. A magic robe may also be successfully used for similar operations for which the insulation of the mental, astral and physical body is necessary. It is, however, up to the magician which possible variations he wants to make use of. Under no circumstances may the magician use a garment for ritual magic or evocations which has been used for common purposes such as, for example, training, or current magical operations. A special robe must be taken for this special kind of magic, and its colour must suit the purpose. Here I should point out that for common mental and astral operations or experiments, the insulating garment may be put on top of any other clothes; for evocations and ritual magic; however, the magical garment is to be worn over the naked body. The magician may, however, in cold weather, put on a shirt or pants made of pure silk und put the robe over them, but the pants or shirt must be of the same colour as the robe. The magician may use house-shoes of the same colour as the robe. The soles of the shoes can be made of leather or rubber.
  The colour of the robe corresponds to the work, idea and purpose the magician wishes to carry out. He may choose one of the three universal colours: white, violet or black. Violet is equivalent to the Akasha-colour and may be used for nearly all magical operations. White is chosen for the robe only, when dealing with high and good beings. Black is the appropriate colour for negative powers and beings. The magician is able to carry out almost all ritual operations with these colours. If he can afford the expense, he can have three robes made, one of each colour. A wealthy magician may choose, for his robes, colours analogous to the individual spheres of the planets he works with. Thus he will take for:
  - dark-violet beings of Saturn beings of Jupiter
  --
  Of course, only the prosperous magician will be able to afford such expenditure. A magician not so prosperous will get satisfactory results with just one robe in a light-violet colour. His cap or magus-band should be of the same colour.
  When the robe is ready, the magician must wash it in running water in order to de-od it, so that no alien influence will remain on the silk. Then he must iron the robe by himself, for no other hands but his should ever come in contact with it. The magician will find these measures quite justified, for, being very particular in this respect, he will already find it disturbing if another person, even if it is someone of his family, of his relations or friends, merely touches one of his magical implements. The robe prepared in the manner described must then be put in front of the magician, who, by help of imagination, must unite himself with his deity and bless the robe, not as his own person, but as the deity evoking itself. He must take an oath, that is swear to the garment that he will only use it for ritual purposes. A dress influenced and impregnated in such a way then has genuine magical power and will offer the magician absolute security. Before the magician prepares his robe for magical purposes he may embroider it, if he likes, with universal symbols similar to his cap. All this, of course, entirely depends on his own will and he may rest assured that he cannot make any mistakes in this respect.

1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
  The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but
  as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a di-

1.11 - The Magical Belt, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The magical belt is part of the magical garment. Put round the waist it keeps the whole robe together. The belt is made of the same material as the robe and cap, but leather may also be used; it must, however, be of the same colour as the garment. magicians of days gone by preferred belts made of lion skin, which they first made into leather and then into a belt. The skin of a lion was the symbol eof power, superiority and dominance. The symbolic meaning of the belt could really be best compared with the domination over the elements, the magical equilibrium. And the upper and lower part of a man's body, kept together in the middle by the belt, symbolizes the scales. The symbol chosen may either be drawn or carved into the leather or it may be embroidered on a silk belt. The symbolic drawing of the equilibrium of the elements and their domination can be made according to the magician's own ideas. He may, for instance, draw a circle and inside it a pentagram with one point upward, and in the middle of the pentagram again a triangle as the symbol of the domination over the elements of the three planes. In the middle of the triangle a cross with two arms of the same length should be drawn as the symbol of the Plus- and Minus-principles and their equilibrium.
  Also in this case the magician should go about as he has done with the cap and garment, that is he must sanctify and bless the belt and swear that he will use the belt together with the robe and only for ritual purposes. The belt will be stored away safely, together with the robe, in the same place as the other magical implements.

1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "That which is Brahman is also the Primal Energy. Once a king asked a yogi to impart Knowledge to him in one word. The yogi said, 'All right; you will get Knowledge in one word.' After a while a magician came to the king. The king saw the magician moving two of his fingers rapidly and heard him exclaim, 'Behold, O King! Behold.' The king looked at him amazed when, after a few minutes, he saw the two fingers becoming one.
  The magician moved that one finger rapidly and said, 'Behold, O King! Behold.' The implication of the story is that Brahman and the Primal Energy at first appear to be two.
  But after attaining the Knowledge of Brahman one does not see the two. Then there is no differentiation; it is One, without a second -Advaita-non-duality."

1.12 - Further Magical Aids, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The magician must deal the same way with any further aids which he may want to use for his ritual purposes as he has with the magical implements already described. There is still quite a number of them, and it would lead us too far if I were to deal with each of them in this book, as magical aids depend on the purpose and aim for which they are made. Thus, for instance, the magician needs a special pen, ink, engraving pencil for writing and engraving, needles for embroidering, embroidery-wool and embroidery-silk, parchment paper, colours, sacrificial blood for certain operations, the so-called holy oil, with which he anoints his implements and himself on certain parts of his body. Salt, incense or other means for incensing; a whip which he uses in much the same way as his magic sword, attri buting to it the same symbolism. Apart from that he needs a chain as the symbol of the relationship of the macrocosm with the microcosm with all its spheres. At the same time the chain is the symbol of the magician's admittance to the great brotherhood of magicians and to the hierarchy of all beings of the macrocosm and microcosm.
  The chain may be worn round the neck like a piece of jewellery and indicates that the magician is a member of the association of all true and genuine magicians.
  For certain magical operations a cup is also used as the symbol of wisdom and life. During certain magical operations the magician gets his holy meal, his eucharist, the holy communion out of this cup. A cup filled with wine is used to charge the wine with the divine power similar to the holy communion of Christians.
  The charging of the cup is to be carried out in such a way that the magician transforms himself into a deity, then blesses the wine, thus transforming it into the divine blood - wisdom, power, life.
  During work-breaks the magician drinks this transformed wine and so takes part in the holy sacrament. I have already dealt with this subject in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter on the eucharist.
  A bell may also serve as a magical aid for evocations. Such a bell should be made of electro-magicum, that is a prescribed mixture of all the metals of the planets. The magician uses this when he wants to draw the attention of the invisible world to himself.
  This is done by rhythmic ringing. The rhythm and the number of chimes depends on the number-rhythms of the sphere with which the magician wants to have communication. This oriental method is scarcely used by true magicians. In the east, especially in Tibet, this kind of evocation by bell-ringing, cymbal-beating etc., is often practised.
  I have already mentioned that all these implements must be new and never used for any other purpose except the one to which they are dedicated. Each implement must be put away safely after use. If it is no longer needed or if the magician does not intend to use it any more, the implement has to be destroyed or rendered innocuous. If one would use a magical implement for any other purposes, it would become desecrated and magically ineffectual.
  All magic implements have to be handled as if they were relics.
  The more carefully the magician handles his magical implements, the greater will be their magical power and effect.

1.12 - The Astral Plane, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  Besides, the astral plane is inhabited by many other beings of which I am mentioning only some species here. There are to so-called elementaries, entities with one or only very few qualities, according to the dominant vibrations of the elements. They are living on the similar vibrations proper to man and transmitted by him into the astral plane. Among them, there are some which have already reached a certain degree of intelligence, and some magicians are using these low-powered beings for their selfish purposes. Another kind of being is the larvae, which have been brought into life consciously or unconsciously, by intense sensorial thinking, through the astral matrix.
  They are not real beings, but only forms thriving on the passions of the animal world, on the lowest step of the astral level. Their instinct of self-preservation carries them into the sphere of those men whose passions are responsive to them. They will try, directly or indirectly, to raise and kindle the passions slumbering in man. If these forms are succeeding in seducing men to give in to their suitable passion, they are feeding and thriving on the emanation of this passion produced in man. Man laden with many passions will attract a host of such larvae in the lowest sphere of his astral plane. A great fight takes place and, in the problem of magic, this fact plays an important role. More about it is to be founding the chapter dealing with introspection.

1.12 - The Left-Hand Path - The Black Brothers, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Mark well this first distinction: the "Black magician" or Sorcerer is hardly even a distant cousin of the "Black Brother." The difference between a sneak-thief and a Hitler is not too bad an analogy.
  The Sorcerer may be indeed he usually is a thwarted disappointed man whose aims are perfectly natural. Often enough, his real trouble is ignorance; and by the time he has become fairly hot stuff as a Black magician, he has learnt that he is getting nowhere, and finds himself, despite himself, on the True Path of the Wise.
    "Invoking Zeus to swell the power of Pan,
  --
    And for this is BABALON under the power of the magician, that she hath submitted herself unto the work; and she guardeth the Abyss. And in her is a perfect purity of that which is above, yet she is sent as the Redeemer to them that are below. For there is no other way into the Supernal mystery but through her and the Beast on which she rideth; and the magician is set beyond her to deceive the brothers of blackness, lest they should make unto themselves a crown; for it there were two crowns, then should Ygdrasil, that ancient tree, be cast out into the Abyss, uprooted and cast down into the Outermost Abyss, and the Arcanum which is in the Adytum should be profaned; and the Ark should be touched, and the Lodge spied upon by them that are not masters, and the bread of the Sacrament should be the dung of Choronzon; and the wine of the Sacrament should be the water of Choronzon; and the incense should be dispersion; and the fire upon the Altar should be hate. But lift up thyself; stand, play the man, for behold! there shall be revealed unto thee the Great Terror, the thing of awe that hath no name.
    (Ibid. 3rd thyr)

1.12 - The Superconscient, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  Constantly and unknowingly, we receive influences and inspirations from these higher, superconscious regions, which express themselves inside us as ideas, ideals, aspirations, or works of art; they secretly mold our life, our future. Similarly, we constantly and unknowingly receive vital and subtle-physical vibrations, which determine our emotional life and relationship with the world every moment of the day. We are enclosed in an individual, personal body only through a stubborn visual delusion; in fact, we are porous throughout and ba the in universal forces, like an anemone in the sea: Man twitters intellectually (=foolishly) about the surface results and attributes them all to his "noble self," ignoring the fact that his noble self is hidden far away from his own vision behind the veil of his dimly sparkling intellect and the reeking fog of his vital feelings, emotions, impulses, sensations and impressions.183 Our sole freedom is to lift ourselves to higher planes through individual evolution. Our only role is to transcribe and materially embody the truths of the plane we belong to. Two important points, which apply to every plane of consciousness, from the highest to the lowest, deserve to be underscored in order for us better to understand the mechanism of the universe. First, these planes do not depend upon us or upon what we think of them any more than the sea depends on the anemone; they exist independently of man. Modern psychology, for which all the levels of being are mixed together in a so-called collective unconscious, like some big magician's hat from which to draw archetypes and neuroses at random, betrays in this respect a serious lack of vision: first, because the forces of these planes are not at all unconscious (except to us), but very conscious, definitely more so than we are; and secondly, because these forces are not "collective," in the sense that they are no more a human product than the sea is the product of the anemone; it is rather the frontal man who is the product of that Immensity behind. The gradations of consciousness are universal states not dependent on the outlook of the subjective personality; rather the outlook of the subjective personality is determined by the grade of consciousness in which it is organized according to its typal nature or its evolutionary stage.184 Naturally, it is only human to reverse the order of things and put ourselves in the center of the world. But this is not a matter of theory, always debatable, but of experience, which everyone can have. If we go out of our body and consciously enter these planes, we realize that they exist outside us, just as the entire world exists outside Manhattan, with forces and beings and even places that have nothing in common with our earthly world; entire civilizations have attested to this, stating it, engraving it, or painting it on their walls or in their temples, civilizations that were perhaps less ingenious than ours, but certainly not less intelligent.
  The second important point concerns the conscious forces and beings that occupy these planes. Here we must clearly draw a line between the superstition, or even hoax, arising from our "collective" contri bution, and the truth. As usual, the two are closely intermingled.

1.13 - System of the O.T.O., #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  It is improper to disclose the nature of these ceremonies; firstly, because their Initiates are bound by the strictest vows not to do so; secondly, because surprise is an element in their efficacy; and thirdly, because the Magical Formulae explicitly or implicitly contained therein are, from a practical point of view, both powerful and dangerous. Automatic safeguards there are, it is true; but a Black magician of first- class ability might find a way to overcome these obstacles, and work great mischief upon others before the inevitable recoil of his artillery destroys him.
  Such cases I have known. Let me recount briefly one rather conspicuous disaster. The young man was a genius and it was his bane. He got hold of a talisman of enormous power which happened to be exactly what he wanted to fulfill his heart's dearest wish. He knew also the correct way of getting it to work; but this way seemed to him far too long and difficult. So he cast about for a short cut. By using actual violence to the talisman, he saw how he could force it to carry out his design; he used a formula entirely alien to the spirit of the whole operation; it was rather like extracting information from a prisoner by torture, when patient courtesy would have been the proper method. So he crashed the gate and got what he wanted. But the nectar turned to poison even as he drained the cup, and his previous anguish developed into absolute despair. Then came the return of the current, and they brought it in "while of unsound mind." A most accurate diagnosis!

1.13 - The Divine Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  6:Still, when we have found that all things are Sachchidananda, all has not yet been explained. We know the Reality of the universe, we do not yet know the process by which that Reality has turned itself into this phenomenon. We have the key of the riddle, we have still to find the lock in which it will turn. For this Existence, Conscious-Force, Delight does not work directly or with a sovereign irresponsibility like a magician building up worlds and universes by the mere fiat of its word. We perceive a process, we are aware of a Law.
  7:It is true that this Law when we analyse it, seems to resolve itself into an equilibrium of the play of forces and a determination of that play into fixed lines of working by the accident of development and the habit of past realised energy. But this apparent and secondary truth is final to us only so long as we conceive of Force solely. When we perceive that Force is a selfexpression of Existence, we are bound to perceive also that this line which Force has taken, corresponds to some self-truth of that Existence which governs and determines its constant curve and destination. And since consciousness is the nature of the original Existence and the essence of its Force, this truth must be a self-perception in Conscious-Being and this determination of the line taken by Force must result from a power of selfdirective knowledge inherent in Consciousness which enables it to guide its own Force inevitably along the logical line of the original self-perception. It is then a self-determining power in universal consciousness, a capacity in self-awareness of infinite existence to perceive a certain Truth in itself and direct its force of creation along the line of that Truth, which has presided over the cosmic manifestation.

1.13 - The Pentacle, Lamen or Seal, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The difference between a pentacle and a seal is that the pentacle is a universal symbol of power and must be charged with the qualities of the relevant power by help of the magic wand or imagination; its purpose is to induce awe and obedience in a being, so that it fulfills the magician's will. The shape of the universal symbol depends on the religious attitude of the magician. The same universal symbol of power which the magician has embroidered or engraved in his headgear (crown, cap, magus-band) may be used for instance, a hexagram constructed within two circles in the middle of which rests a pentagram. In the centre of the pentagram is a cross which has arms of the same length. A cross alone may also serve as a universal symbol.
  Many magicians make use of the Pentacle Salomonis as a symbol of coercion for all beings. The magician surely will not choose a symbol the construction of which he would not find analogous to the universal laws, for with such a symbol he could not make obvious the authority he needs for his purposes. Only by completely understanding the meaning of his symbol and by being able to take the right attitude towards it will the magician get true magical results. A magician should always think of this. He should only use symbols which are clear to him in meaning and which represent the idea of his power.
  A seal, contrary to the pentacle, is the graphic representation of a being, power or sphere which is expressed by its symbolism.
  --
  1. The traditional seals which have either been found by clairvoyance or have been reproduced by spirit beings during astral visits to the various spheres. Beings will only react to this kind of seal if the magician knows how to transfer himself into their sphere of power. Due to a constant increase of the magician's reservoir of power, caused by frequent use of one and the same seal, he will also increase his influence and be able to make it work on the being in question.
  The copying and reproduction of seals, however, has been the source of many errors, and the seals have often been corrupted.
  Sometimes this has been done deliberately in order to make the magician's work more difficult and his success with this material less probable or even totally impossible. A magician with an open mind for astral operations may, if he likes, check the genuineness of the seal by use of the Akasha-principle, or trance, and by placing his total concentration on the seal. By doing this, he will also be able to correct the seal.
  2. There also exist universal seals which not only symbolize the qualities and range of action of beings but also their other characteristics. By applying the laws of analogy one may produce graphic constructions of such seals and charge them with the qualities of the relevant spirits by force of imagination. The being will have to react to such seals without resistance.
  3. The magician may also produce seals entirely according to his own ideas, without following any analogous relations. He must, however, have such seals approved by the being concerned. The being's approval of such a seal or sign can be established as follows: the magician wanders with his spirit into the being's own sphere and has the being swear mentally to his seal, its shape, or representation, that it will always react to it.
  A lamen is very similar to a universal symbol, but is not a symbol of the microcosm and macrocosm: it represents symbolically the intellectual and psychic authority, the attitude and the maturity of the magician. The lamen is usually sewn to the magician's garment, somewhere on his chest, or it is specially engraved into a suitable piece of metal, or drawn on a piece of parchment
  Ind worn like an amulet. It expresses, by its symbolic presentation, the absolute authority of the magician.
  The magician will avail himself of a talisman if, during magical operations, he needs protection from unwanted influences, or if he wants to have an outstanding success with his magical operations. The talisman may be the graphic representation of the qualities and faculties with which it has been loaded. The charging of the talisman has to be effected either by the magician himself or by a being evoked by him. If it is done by a being, the power necessary for the charging will have to come from the beings' own power or reservoir of power. In this case the traditional signs, that is, signs which have been conferred upon the magician by another magician, or that came direct from a being, may also be engraved on the talisman. The magician, however, may also make use of relating signs which he has had approved by the relevant being.
  Pentacles, lamens, seals or talismans to be used for ritual purposes may be made of suitable metals analogous to the beings' sphere, to the elements, planets or signs of the zodiac and the seals or signs engraved on them, or they may be engraved on small wax-plates which the magician has made by himself from pure bee's-wax and afterwards charged. Pentacles, seals and talismans may also be made of parchment and the symbols then painted or drawn on them with the corresponding colours in drawing ink.
  The old grimoires suggest the use of virgin parchment, i. e. the paper made from the skin of a prematurely born calf. The genuine magician will not need such parchment. A piece of common parchment which, by means of his imagination, he has deoded, i. e. freed from all bad influences, will do him the same kind of service. He may also use, for his seal or pentacle, a piece of blotting paper impregnated with a fluid condenser, but, in this case, he cannot draw the symbol with liquid colours; he must use a soft coloured pencil, otherwise the colours will blot when drawing the seals or signs.
  The charge of the seal, pentacle, talisman or lamen is done by running the finger over the drawing, and by the help of one's imagination, impregnating it with the desired characteristic. It is clear that by doing this the magician must be in genuine contact with the Supreme, with the Deity, so that it is actually the Deity, and not the magician, who charges the seal etc. via the magician, or the magician's body. Instead of using his finger the magician may also take his magic wand and by its help charge the seal or talisman. That such a talisman etc. will then have magic power goes without doubt, for by this procedure it becomes consecrated and the magician will be quite convinced of its magic effect.
  The seals of the various beings will be dealt with in detail in the chapter on the hierarchy of the beings and their qualities and effects.

1.14 - INSTRUCTION TO VAISHNAVS AND BRHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER (to M.): "I learnt Vednta from Nangta: 'Brahman alone is real; the world is illusory.' The magician performs his magic. He produces a mango-tree which even bears mangoes. But this is all sleight of hand. The magician alone is real."
  M: "It seems that the whole of life is a long sleep. This much I understand, that we are not seeing things rightly. We perceive the world with a mind by which we cannot comprehend even the nature of the sky. So how can our perceptions be correct?"
  --
  MASTER: "They are not eight bonds, but eight fetters. But what if they are? These fetters fall off in a moment, by the grace of God. Do you know what it is like? Suppose a room has been kept dark a thousand years. The moment a man brings a light into it, the darkness vanishes. Not little by little. Haven't you seen the magician's feat? He takes string with many knots, and ties one end to something, keeping the other in his hand. Then he shakes the string once or twice, and immediately all the knots come undone. But another man cannot untie the knots however he may try. All the knots of ignorance come undone in the twinkling of an eye, through the guru's grace.
  "Well, can you tell me why Keshab Sen has changed so much lately? He used to come here very often. He learnt here how to bow low before a holy man. One day I told him that one should not salute a holy man as he had been doing. Harish says rightly: 'All the cheques must be approved here. Only then will they be cashed in the bank.'"

1.14 - The Book of Magic Formulae, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  First of all the book of formulae is not to be understood in a literal sense, for the expression "magic spells" or "magical formulae" used in the grimoires has served as a cloak for certain ideas. In other cases its object has been to take away the magician's consciousness from its normal state by barbaric words, names and expressions, and thus bring him into a state of ecstasy in which, it is assumed, he is able to influence a being. But generally speaking, the only success that untrained persons will have in this case, is hallucinations, phantoms or delusions, or incomplete, mediumistic results which need not be dealt with here. Usually such mediumistic results are, provided that they are genuine at all, the outcome of the extoriorisation of the person's unconsciousness. Sometimes elementals, and, should the person concerned have a strong capability for emanation, even elementaries might be formed which the genuine magician has already been informed about in "Initiation into Hermetics". These elementaries are falsely regarded as the beings which are the object of evocation, and a person whose astral senses have not yet been sufficiently developed is not able to tell the difference or to control the situation. Therefore readers are warned against trying to practise ritual magic without necessary training. Apart from disappointments, the disturbances in the person's spirit and soul could have most regrettable consequences for the health. A genuine magician who has completed his magical training, may, however, without any danger whatever, safely practise ritual magic. This field of magic is no place for dabbler's experiments but a scheme of operation which facilitates the magical labour for the mature magician with already developed powers.
  The book of formulae, sometimes wrongly called the book of spirits, is the genuine magical diary of the magician practising ritual magic, in which he enters, step by step, the procedures of his ritual in order to be able to follow every point conscientiously up to his goal. Some readers might wish to know how mutilated charms, furmulae for incantation etc. could ever develop? From the days of yore the secret of magic has been restricted to high castes, potentates, kings and high priests. In order that the real truth, that true ideas and spiritual facts might never be known by the public, many code-words and secret formulae have been introduced, the deciphering of which has been reserved to the mature. The key for these codes was only transferred upon mature persons by word of mouth, and their profanation was punished with death. This is the reason why this science has remained a secret up to our time and it will continue to remain an occult and mystic science even if it is directly published, as the immature und profane person will regard it all as delusion or fantastic nonsense and, depending on his grade of maturity and psychic receptivity, will always have at hand an individual interpretation or view of this science. The most secret matters will thus never lose their occult tradition and there will always be but a few people who will profit by it. If a person who is not an initiate gets such a book of magic formulae in his hands and does not know the key to it, he will take everything in its literal sense without knowing that the particular words and formulae are nothing but aids for the magician's memory and that it is a schematic layout for the ritual work of a true magician. This makes it clear why sometimes the most senseless words have been used as magic charms to evoke a certain being. But the book of formulae is a proper note-book in which the genuine magician writes the whole procedure of his magic operations from beginning to end. If he is not sure that his book will never fall into the hands of another person, he will have to use, point by point, code-names. I can only give here a few instructions. These will, however, enable the magician to procede according to his own taste and ideas.
  1. Purpose of the operation
  --
  7. The drawing of the magic circle according to the magician's connection with the deity. If the operations are carried out with a magic circle sewn on a piece of linen, piece of cloth, or the like, it has to be re-drawn
  8. Drawing of the magic triangle
  --
  15. Girding on the magical belt with the right attitude to bring about the magician's power to control all powers, especially the elements
  16. Girding on magic sword to magic belt with the meditative attitude of absolute victory; re-charging, with magic wand in the right and concentrating on the idea that the magician's absolute will be realised
  17. Entering of the magic circle with the simultaneous feeling of ties and symbolization of the microcosm and macrocosm
  --
  20. Placing of the magician's whole personality into the relevant mental sphere with all his implements
  21. Giving orders to the being or power of that sphere in regard to its evocation and imaginative forming of shape in which the being or power is to appear in the magic triangle or magic m Irror
  --
  The genuine magician has to compute his book of formulae in this or a similar manner and, in consequence, has to procede by it.
  If he is acquainted with the knowledge of quabbalah, he may use the names of the relevant deities whenever he is placing his consciousness into a certain sphere. This is however just another of his aids, a support to his memory, and the true magician will be able to do without it. The first operation will presumably always be a little uncertain, but time will teach the magician everything he needs in this respect and he will, sooner or later, become a perfect master in this field of magic. Hard work will bring its reward.

1.15 - In the Domain of the Spirit Beings, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  Before describing a true magical operation and evocation I must make the reader acquainted with the spheres of the beings. A genuine magician is not allowed to do anything unless he knows fully what he is doing and unless he has a clear picture of what he intends to achieve. As the magician will have learned from the preceding chapter on the book of formulae, it is extremely important to know the correct handling and analogies of the magical implements, for without this thorough knowledge their analogies and symbolism it would be impossible to get any positive results. Further, the magician would not be able to find the genuine attitude for his meditations and to rise his spirit into the right sphere of consciousness. His magical implements would become an illusion and he would be lowered to the level of a common sorcerer. He could neither make his magical authority work on the beings, nor could he influence them in any way. The genuine magician does everything consciously; he has laid down each procedure systematically in his book of formulae before his operations, and his mind, his consciousness, is connected with his implements, their faculties, loadings etc. He must be just as well informed about the spheres of the being with which he wants to work. He must be able to pass a clear judgement on the existence and doings of these beings. His own experience will help him a great deal in this respect, for he will have visited, with his mental body, various spheres as suggested in "Initiation into Hermetics".
  The following discussions are therefore a short summary of the magician's experiences on his visits to the said spheres.
  Only the confirmed materialist, who, with his physical senses, does not perceive anything else but the material world and who only believes in what he sees, hears and feels, will doubt that there are other spheres beside this material world. The genuine magician will not give any judgement upon a materialist and will not try to dissuade him from his views. The materialist is in the state of maturity, in this physical world, which corresponds to his personal development. The magician will therefore make no effort to teach a materialist better, for the latter will always end by saying that he has never seen a spirit and therefore only believes in the things he has been able to perceive with his physical faculties, that is to see, hear or feel. The materialist does not deny the matter, he agrees that the material and power in which he lives must exist, but to believe that there exist other, more subtle spheres of material or power goes beyond his horizon. Therefore the magician never tries to influence the belief of another human being, for the non-initiate will always have his individual opinion of higher facts, and will always judge from his own point of view.
  Just the same as our physical world exists in three different states: solid, fluid and gaseous, so exist, following the laws of analogy, certain states of aggregation in a more subtle form, which are not accessible to our normal senses, but which are, however, connected with our physical world. These states of aggregation are called, from the hermetic point of view, planes and spheres. In these more subtle spheres the same things happen as in our physical world, and there, too, the Law of the Hermes diagram is valid: that which is above is as that which is below.
  --
  Therefore, in every sphere we have the same play of elements, the electric and magnetic fluid, which is maintained and controlled by Divine Providence according to the Akasha-principle. The person relying only on what he perceives with his five physical senses has only one sphere open to perception: the sphere corresponding to his physical senses, and he is not able to procede beyond it. Everything else must remain inconceivable, incredible and supersensual to him. The genuine magician, who has refined and developed his senses by mental and psychic training, will only consider this physical world as the starting point of his personal development and will never deny the existence of higher spheres because he is able to convince himself of their existence.
  That these spheres are more subtle and more compact states of aggregation has long become obvious to the true magician by his own personal experience. The magician will always be able to visit with his mental body the sphere corresponding to the state of development of his mental body's senses, and to be active in it.
  He must always bear this in mind when practising the magic of evocation. Naturally, these more subtle spheres are not subject to our ideas of space and time but go into one another in our terms, so that for instance, in a space which, in our imagination, is always somehow bordered and furnished with limits, many different spheres may be present.
  Depending on the grade of subtlety or density, there are innumerable spheres and intermediate spheres. To name them all here would be impossible. I will only mention those which are of importance for the practice of magic. Their graded density is called hierarchy. Before a magician plans to work on these spheres he must have a conception of their hierarchy, and must be well acquainted with the sphere in which he intends to work, first theoretically and later, of course, also practically. But, above all, he must have a thorough comm and over the physical sphere before he proceeds to the more subtle one next to it. Each of these spheres of hierarchy have their particular influence on our physical world according to the laws of analogy. With regard to the planetary spheres astrologers have discovered a somehow workable synthesis, but unfortunately the astrologers of today uses this chiefly only for mantic purposes, and it is hardly known that astrology actually only gives a partial explanation of the influences of these spheres, of planets and zodiacal signs. The astrological part of the higher spheres will not be dealt with here, for it does not come within the scope of this book. The true magician, however, will find a much closer relation between the individual spheres, if he deals with astrology, and will notice that astrology shows the true influences of the relevant spheres on our physical world, in their causes and effects.
  The grading of the spheres according to their grade of density and their qualities is called, in Quabbalah, the quabbalistic Tree of Life. The analogies and their practical application from the quabbalistic point of view will be dealt with by me in detail in my forthcoming book: "The Key to the True Quabbalah". This book is to rouse the readers interests in the spheres of the quabbalistic Tree of Life as far as they may serve magic purposes, that is as far as their beings are concerned. The spheres in their correct order are:
  1. The physical world as the starting point for the work of the magician, in which every human being, no matter whether initiated into hermetics or not, lives and moves with his senses, his spirit, his soul and his body.
  2. The next higher sphere existing above the physical world is the earth zone, the zone girdling the earth. This zone has various grades of density, so-called sub-zones into which man proceeds after having put off his earthly shape. This is the so-called astral world; in its lower grades of density dwell the average persons in their astral bodies after their physical death, in its higher spheres are also initiates, depending on their state of maturity. The more mature, more developed, more ethical a magician is, the more subtle is the zone layer in which he comes after his death. His place in the astral world will depend on how far he advanced during his life in this physical world. There is no heaven or hell in the astral world; these are merely the outcome of silly religious opinions and the object of the teachings of some religions which, due to their ignorance, separate life in the astral world into life in heaven or hell. If one regards the lower, rougher spheres of the astral world as being the hell, the brighter, higher spheres as the heaven, part of these religious beliefs could be true. The magician who knows how to interpret such symbols and ideas will find his own explanation for the expressions "hell", "heaven" and
  "purgatory" .
  It would go too far to tell the reader all about life in the astral world. Many books could be written on this subject. I will, nevertheless, give a few hints of interest to the magician. The magician will have experienced during his mental and astral wanderings, when his mental and astral body was split off, that in the astral sphere the ideas of time and space do not exist for him, so that in one single moment he is able to travel any distance and on his way there are no material hindrances which he would not be able to penetrate with his mental and astral body. Every human being will have the same experience after his physical death. The initiate, however, has the advantage of getting acquainted with this fact during his lifetime, and that already in this material world he is liberated of one sorrow: the fear of death. He knows well in which astral sphere he will live after his death, and for him the putting away of his physical body is only a transition from the physical world into a more subtle one, similar to changing his place of re~idence.
  The magician will experience yet another thing here on earth: all interests that are normal with an average, that is an undeveloped, non-initiated person in this physical world, will cease in the astral plane. Therefore it is not at all surprising that a genuine magician, who is equally familiar with the conditions here and there, that is in the physical and the astral world, loses his interests in this physical world, as far as he does not regard it as the means for his personal development. He will already learn here on earth that fame, honour, riches and all other earthly advantages cannot be taken from here to the astral world and are therefore useless. A true magician will therefore never cry for mortal things. His interest will constantly be directed to using the time which he has at his disposal in this physical sphere to the best of his abilities for his personal development.
  It is therefore quite clear that all bonds like love, fidelity etc. which might keep a human being in this physical world come to nothing there. People who have loved each other here, but have not kept the same pace in their psychic and mental development cannot, after dying, live in the same sphere and they will no longer feel the same affection for each other as they have done here. If, for instance, a man and a woman are equally developed they can move in the same sphere of the astral world after their death and will be connected by an inner band of sympathy to each other, but, in spite of this, they will not experience the same kind of love as they did in the physical world. In the astral world there exists nothing like the instinct for self-preservation, the instinct for carnal, sexual love and sexual lust. In the higher spheres a different feeling of affection than on earth connects two equally developed beings by a subtle band of vibration. In our physical world the sympathy or attraction of two beings is usually caused by external stimulation and maintained by the same factors.
  --
  If, therefore, a spirit with a low degree of development wants to get into contact with a spirit of a higher degree of development, the former must ask the latter, by force of imagination, to come to his sphere. Whether the higher developed being will fulfill the wish of the lower being, always depends on the purpose for which the lower being calls the higher one. This clearly shows that a lower being is not capable of moving to the higher spheres of the astral world. The contrary, however, is quite possible. A magician with a good degree of development is able to place himself iilto any sphere, for he is capable of accomodating and creating every kind of vibration and any form of every sphere he wants to get into touch with. Many a reader will here remember the words of the Bible and perceive its meaning:
  "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not".
  The experienced magician knows that the physical body is sustained by food (that is: condensed elements) and that the breath connects the astral with the physical body by the so-called astral band. Therefore he is also aware of the fact that as soon as, at the moment of dying, a person's breath stops, the separation of the astral and mental body from the physical body takes place. He will also find it quite logical that whenever, due to his magical training, he consciously separates not only the mental but also the astral body from his physical body, he will be put into a state of ecstasy or apparent death during which his breath has also stopped, with the only difference that his physical body, during this state of ecstasy, is not subject to decay, and a connection is still maintained with the mental and astral body. Since the magician can have power over life and death, if approved by Divine
  Providence, he is able to restore this connecting link in order to make a dead person live again, similar to the saints, who, as we know from history, have been able to do the same. I have already dealt with this matter in detail in "Initiation into Hermetics".
  If the magician has experienced his physical death, there is no reason why he should return to the physical world, and he is not desirous of restoring the band between the material and astral worlds. Of course, there are also magicians and sorcerers of lower degree, who consciously try, from the astral world, to build again the link between their astral and their physical bodies. But because they lack the necessary perfection enabling them to condense the light sufficiently, their success must remain a partial one. Usually such beings, clinging to their physical shape, try to evade the pre-conditions for such a realisation and vampirise the electro-magnetic fluid (vital energy) from living bodies in order to accumulate it in their abandoned physical bodies, assuming that in the course of time they will be able to revive them. The physical body laid aside by such a being in the manner indicated may be saved from decay for centuries. History gives us many examples of the conservation of deceased persons, and science cannot yet give any satisfactory explanation for this. Such vampires are, from the hermetic point of view, to be pitied, and the religious belief of those days did well in destroying such bodies which did not decay. Usually only by this destruction, such a body was usually pierced with a wooden spear or its head cut off and the body itself burned, was the spirit of such a body freed from its bondage. The sagas of the werewolves, too, can be explained from the hermetic point of view. The procedure was the same, only that at the moment of vampirizing, the astral body took on the shape of an animal in order to evade recognition by the possibly sensitive person who was vampirized.
  In summing up: in the physical world the physical and the astral bodies are kept together by food and breath and all the three parts - body, soul and spirit - are streng thened from the higher spheres by more subtle material elements during the sleep.
  --
  The actions and doings of the element of air and the element of fire in the astral sphere cause the astral-electric fluid; the actions and doings of the water-element and the element of the earth cause the astral-magnetic fluid. The beings use the fluids in order to create the effects, or, better said, the causes in our physical world. The Akasha-principle of the astral sphere keeps all the elements of the astral sphere in harmonious equilibrium. If a being of the astral sphere wants to influence our physical world, no matter whether it be a spirit of the elements or a human being, it must be capable of condensing both fluids, the electric as well as the magnetic, in such a manner that they are realized in the physical world. A well-trained magician who has a good comm and of the elements and fluids is able to carry out this act of condensing quite by himself, by the help of the imagination.
  When taking no active part in the work himself, he may have the condensation carried out by a medium from whom in this case, the spirits will extract, like vampires, the electric and magnetic fluid necessary to bring about the desired effect.
  --
  God's image, an immortal individual spirit. Although it is possible to make, out of a being computed of only one element, a fourelement-being by special magical operations and to give it an immortal spirit, a true magician will do this very seldom, and never without special reasons which must be valid enough to be justified before Divine Providence.
  The Akasha-principle of the astral sphere determines also the re-incarnation into the physical world of a human being living in the astral world. The astral material of light, usually called astral light, is the most divine emanation in the astral world. To initiates who see the divine principle of the astral world this lightprinciple appears as bright as the light of the burning sun or as the sun itself, provided they were in the physical world able to behold Divine Providence in the Light without having their deity transformed into a particular shape. The individual religion of a person has its due place in the astral world insomuch as he has attributed a certain shape and name to his deity according to his religious views in the physical world. Atheists feel no necessity for a God even in the astral world and are therefore not able to form an idea of the deity there. Nevertheless, they long for something higher, much like a thirsty man longs for water. People who have believed in several religions or deities during their existance on earth will find chaotic conditions. They will have a difficult time there, if they are not able to make up their minds to follow a certain form. However, during their course of development in the astral world their conception of God will be clarified so that finally they will believe in the deity which was really best for them. This conception of God then usually determines the place of their re-incarnation.
  A magician having explored during his lifetime, the astral sphere of the zone girdling the earth will know from his own experience, how the powers and beings of the astral sphere operate and what they do, but he may also learn it from those beings with which he is working magically.
  Just the same as the not yet fully developed magician in the physical world uses a spiritual guide for his training and likes to be taught by him, either by passive communication or automatic writing etc., a not yet perfect human being too will find his guides in the astral world. These guides will teach him from time to time and assist him whenever necessary. Highly developed spiritual beings of the zone girdling the earth condense themselves in their appropriate astral sphere and thus become the guides of individuals, or of groups of individuals, and initiate the astral beings of lower perfection into the higher laws. Such guides must never be compelled to do their work in the astral world; they are commissioned by Divine Providence to offer assistance to any astral being, depending on its maturity and state of perfection. In the astral world, the guide, one may also call him genius loci, not only teaches his protege the laws, but assists him in his whole development. It sometimes happens that an astral man wants to do something at his own accord, but is warned at the critical moment by his guide or genius not to do anything arbitrarily. The genius will intervene especially in those cases where an astral human being with a low degree of development is about to do something contrary to the laws of Divine Providence. The guide informs his protege about the laws of the physical world and prepares him for his rebirth. This clearly shows how necessary it is that the magical development of a human being during his time in the physical world leads him towards perfection in order to be prepared for life in a higher sphere.
  All blows of fate that are apt to purify a man's spirit in the physical world and that will help him to get the kind of experience necessary for his spiritual development are already prepared and determined by Divine Providence in the astral world for each individual according to his maturity and degree of development. The human being knows before his embodiment about the matter of teaching in the physical world and not only agrees to it, but even longs to get through it. At the moment of his rebirth he loses his knowledge about everything that Divine
  --
  Every man can reach perfection, for the evolution of the whole of mankind leads towards it. The spiritual guide designated to each individual by Divine Providence for his initiation into the astral world leads and controls the spiritual development of his protege and in many cases carries on with his commission after his protege has re-incarnated in the physical world. The magician should therefore try at the very beginning of his development to get into contact with his genius. How this is achieved has already been told in "Initiation into Hermetics". It sometimes happens that people who have already reached a high degree of perfection here on earth are able to continue their spiritual development in the astral world up to perfection, but these are selected by Divine
  Providence to fulfill one or more missions on earth. Such spiritual leaders are then magicians or initiates by birth who at a certain phase of the physical development of their human bodies, usually shortly after the period of puberty, become suddenly aware of their state, their degree of spiritual development, and just need a little more to be mature enough for their divine mission. Such missions need not always be of a magical or spiritual nature, they may also have to do with other aspects of this world.
  This explains the birth of human genii and inventors in all fields of material knowledge. The magician knows that all this is planned and controlled by Divine Providence, that is on the principles of Akasha in the astral world, and that nothing can take place which, from the magician's point of view, could not be explained by the universal laws.
  This has been a rough sketch of the most important aspects of the astral sphere of the so-called earth-zone or zone girdling the earth, which is the zone next to our physical world. The earthzone is, according to human thinking, not the most condensed form of sphere in spite of its being placed above us, since in it there exist the most various intensities of light, or vibration, in accordance with the degree of maturity of each individual human being. This earth-zone is by no means bordered in any way; it stretches out over the cosmos, not only over the ball of the earth.
  The laws ruling this zone have nothing to do with the idea of space, however, as they go for the whole microcosm and macrocosm and their analogous connection. This is the reason why man can only reach his perfection, his ultimate magical maturity, and his genuine connection with the deity, in this zone girdling the earth. This clearly shows that, from the point of view of magic, the earth-zone is the lowest sphere, but at the same time also the sphere with the highest emanation of the Divine Princi86 p Ie. I shall show further that there exist further spheres belonging to this hierarchy which the magician is able to contact, but he is able to live in the earth-zone also as a being of perfection, as the true image of God. In this zone girdling the earth the whole creation from the highest perfection of the deity down to the lowest and roughest form is manifested. A human being may get into contact with all kinds of spheres which lie above the earth-zone, but he cannot become their constant inhabitant, because the earth-zone is the reflecting mirror of the whole creation. It is the manifested world of all degrees of condensation. The old Quabbalists knew this truth and therefore called the earth-zone
  "Malkuth", which does not mean earth ball, but Kingdom, by which expression creation from its highest to its lowest manifestation is meant. According to the Tree of Life of the
  --
  Quabbalah this number ten is the reflection of number one in its most subtle form, that is, God, for the number ten may be reduced to a one by deleting the zero. The intuitive magician at once sees the true relations between creation and his individual body and realizes that it is not without reason that he has ten fingers and ten toes. The reader will, however, read more about this in the third book of this trilogy "The Key to the True Quabbalah".
  The intuitive magician will also perceive a certain relation between the earth-zone and the Muladhara Chakra but I will leave it to him to meditate in this respect.
  3. Next to the zone girdling the earth comes the zone of the
  Moon, with which the magician must become acquainted immediately after the earth-zone.
  4. Beyond the Moon-zone lies the zone of Mercury and beyond that zone follows
  S. the zone of Venus. If the magician has become sufficiently acquainted with these zones he will have to learn
  6. about the zone of the Sun and later
  --
  Many other zones lie beyond the last named, but it will be enough for the magician to get to know the zones corresponding to the planets, and be able to control them well.
  The analogies and the hierarchy of each zone are dealt with in the next chapter. Each sphere lying above the zone girdling the earth, between the Moon and Saturn, has a threefold effect: firstly on the mental, secondly on the astral and thirdly on the physical world. Depending on the question in which sphere of the earthzone a certain effect should be caused, the creation of the cause for such an effect must be considered in that zone. Since the zones mentioned above have certain individual influences on our earthzone the magician operating with beings of such zones must have a clear picture of the analogy of the laws of each zone regarding his own microcosm and the microcosm of any other human being. Each analogy of the zones to the micro- and macrocosm must be quite clear to him and he must know how to create the cause corresponding to the analogies with the help of the beings. In the magician's conception each zone will not be a limited plane beyond the earth-zone, but all zones run into one another in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm. The zones bear astrological names, but do not have directly to do with the constructions of the stars of the universe, although there exists some relation between the stars and their constellations, enabling the astrologers to draw their conclusions for mantic purposes or to find out unfavourable influences. I have already given some hints about the synthesis of astrology.
  Each zone is inhabited in just the same way as the earth-zone already known to us. The beings of the zones have their special commissions and are subject to the laws of their zone, as far as causes and effects are concerned. In our opinion there exist millions of beings in each zone. It is impossible to grade these beings categorically. Each of these beings has reached a certain degree in its spiritual development, a certain degree of maturity, and a commission has been transferred upon it according to this degree.
  --
  The magician will realize that these names for ranks and titles symbolise the degree of maturity of a being and certainly will not regard them as earthly ranks. Therefore, only the leaders, the initiates of the individual zones, are able to influence, with their causes and effects, our spheres, no matter whether mental, astral or physical. The way in which each individual being may in89 fluence our world will be dealt with analogously step by step in a further chapter on the hierarchy of the beings. Just the same as, in our opinion, there exist in the earth-zone positive and negative, that is good and evil beings, so is the situation the same in all other zones. The good or positive powers and beings are generally called angels or archangels, the negative ones demons or archdemons. The same kind of hierarchy is to be found with the negative beings: there are common demons, barons, counts, etc.
  The average person will have a conception of these beings corresponding to his power of understanding. In his imagination angels and archangels will have wings, demons and archdemons will have horns. But the person well acquainted with the symbolism will be able to interpret this conception according to true hermetics. A magician knows that an angel has no wings in the literal sense of the word and will see the analogy in these wings: the wings are an analogy to the birds who move about freely in the air above us. The wings are the symbol of what is superior to us, the symbol of agility, liberty, freedom and at the same time the principle of floating above us in the air, the element which is lightest and penetrates everything. The negative beings or demons are usually symbolized by animals with horns and tails, or by creatures that are half human and half animal. Their symbolism, on the contrary, stands for the opposite of what is good: the inferior, incomplete, defective, etc. The question of whether these beings, positive or negative, in their own spheres actually have the shapes attri buted to them by men, and meet each other in these shapes, may be left undecided to the non-initiate. The magician who is capable of visiting these zones by mental and astral travelling and who is able to influence himself with the vibration of these zones so that for the time of his stay he is like an inhabitant of the respective sphere, will have found out that this is not so. Without losing his individuality, he will find quite different .shapes there, which cannot be expressed by words. He will not find personified beings and their leaders there, but powers and vibrations that are analogous to the names and qualities. If he tried to concretise, from his individual point of view, one of these powers, or give it a shape according to his power of understanding, that power would appear in to him in a shape equivalent to his power of symbolic comprehension, no matter whether positive power, alias angel, or negative power, alias demon. A magician working with beings will make the beings perform the causes in that zone in which he exercises his influence. The work of a quabbalist is different. The latter places himself, with his spirit, into the zone in which a certain cause and effect is intended. Though he, too, masters the laws of the zone, he does not need the interposition of the beings for his purposes, but does everything by himself with the help of the quabbalistic word. There will be more about in my next work "The Key to the True Quabbalah".
  The principles of the quabbalist's work are quite different. The magician, however, in his present state of development, cannot, for the time being, do otherwise than go on making use of beings up to the point where he has reached a higher degree of development. Each quabbalist must first have become a magician, in order to be able to work differently and more advantageous by later.
  If a magician calls a being whose shape he does not know into the earth-zone or into our physical world from another zone, then such a being, provided it wants to take on a visible shape at all, must take on the shape appropriate to its qualities in order to get into contact with the magician. A common demon, however, is not able to do this, for a demon lacking the necessary maturity is not capable of condensing itself from out of its sphere into the earth-zone or our physical world. Therefore most books on magic conjurations do not even mention simple demons, but talk only of demons with a certain rank and title. But even these are never dealt with in detail.
  In this connection, one may raise the question of whether a being living in another zone would be able to call an initiate, a person of spiritual rank, into its zone. Such a question has to be denied from the hermetic point of view, for a human being, and especially an initiate, is a God-like creature symbolising in miniature, the macrocosm and representing the complete authority in the microcosm and macrocosm. A magician can therefore never be forced to do anything by any being, whatever degree of perfection it might have, with only one exception: Divine Providence. All heads, no matter of what rank or from which zone they come, and no matter whether good or evil, are only partial aspects of the macrocosm, of God. Without permission of Divine
  Providence no being is able to urge its will on the perfect magician who has reached the connection with God. This again makes obvious to the magician the true value of man, especially of the man connected with God, and his significance within creation.
  If a being of another zone wishes to enter the earth-zone or our physical world because Divine Providence has ordered it to do so or because it is its personal desire, no matter whether in a mental, astral or physical way, then such a being or head, irrelevant of its rank, must take on the shape appropriate to the qualities of the sphere from which it comes. An angel, for instance, who has love as its main quality, will appear as a perfect beauty; a being whose qualities are severity and strictness will have to appear in the shape appropriate to these qualities. It is exactly the same with beings of negative qualities: depending on the negative qualities they represent, they will have to take on, when appearing in the earthzone or on our physical earth, the shapes which symbolize these qualities. The appearing shapes of these beings, no matter whether good or evil or from whatever zone they come, will enable the magician who is well acquainted with symbolism to tell their qualities. The qualities of a being, its appearance and symbolic representation, is fully appropriate to its name, and according to the Law of Analogy, so that even a being of the highest rank is not able to give itself a name unsuitable to its qualities.
  The magician, especially if acquainted with quabbalah, is capable of thoroughly checking the analogies according to the law of analogy and of determining whether the assertion of a being is true or not. No being, not even the worst and most deceitful type, will ever dare to tell the genuine magician a name which it does not really possess, and it will never dare to appear in a shape other than the one corresponding to its qualities. The genuine magician, however, is naturally free to order the being who has appeared in its true shape to change its shape into one desired by him. He will always be obeyed by the being concerned, for the genuine magician, as repeatedly stated before, is a perfect authority, is a God-man.
  Each being, whether good or evil, whether angel or archangel, demon or archdemon, from whatever zone it may come, has certain restrictions in its qualities, caused and controlled by Divine
  Providence, and depends on these qualities in its zone. A magician will therefore do well in asking beings to fulfill only tasks which they are able to fulfill due to their qualities and which lie within the range of their zone. The magician must then know well all qualities, faculties, causes and effects, powers and influences of each individual zone, and have them under his control in order to avoid making the mistake of asking a being to do something outside of the range of its zone. If the magician does not take this into consideration and if, in consequence, he asks a being for something not lying iri its power, then the best such a being can do is to place itself in another zone and there to cause another being to fulfill the magician's will and desire. The actual effect is, in this case, not brought about by the being evoked by the magician, but by another being. The absolute will of the magician is thus not directly expressed, as the effect takes place without his knowledge. I shall give some more details on the various shapes in which beings normally appear etc. in the chapter on hierarchy.
  The magician might also be interested to learn how a being of another zone is able to bring about the desired effect in our physical world, be it mentally, astrally or physically. Since the will and desire of the magician is analogous to the qualities of the zones which he is dealing with, the commissioned being prepares the causes necessary for the effect in the world of causes of its own zone with the help of the electric and magnetic fluid, similar to the procedure of volting, as described in "Initiation into
  Hermetics", or directly by word-power (cosmic language) and leads it through the world of causes of the relevant zone into the world of causes of the earth-zone, condensed by imagination, and from here, depending on the kind of effect it should cause, into the mental, astral or physical sphere. This is the actual procedure in respect of the beings capable of making their influence work from their zone into our sphere. A spirit being, however, is not able to do anything on its own accord or by its own will to influence our sphere. Only the strict order of a magician given with his absolute authority enables a being to influence our sphere effectively from its zone; by doing so the being cannot be made responsible for anything; every responsibility lies with the magician. To make it yet clearer: the work done by a being is the same kind of work which a servant does for his master.
  Of course, a true magician will never dare ask a being, especially a negative being, to do things causing negative effects, for although he has become the master of life and death, the master of the laws, Divine Providence still controls him, and he would have to atone immensely for evil deeds which he could not account for.
  One might now ask why a magician uses an elemental, elementary, astral or physical being mentally, astrally or physically, for his operations in our world or sphere, or in another sphere, and why he does not prefer to work with the power he has himself acquired and so to cause the desired magical effect. He is, in fact, able to cause certain effects when operating in the mental sphere by elementals or volts, that is by electromagnetic fluids, and he is also able to generate a certain physical power by various operations with elementaries and to bring about in this way some physical effect. The difference in the procedure lies in the fact that the powers, beings, elementals, elementaries etc. generated by him cannot operate independently, since they possess no intellect; the beings of any other zone, however, are, because they are intelligent creatures, able to carry out jobs for which a certain degree of intelligence is necessary. In those cases where a magician can do without any such being in obtaining his goal, he will naturally desist from employing a being from another zone to fulfill his purposes. He will, above all, evoke beings in case 1. he wants do demonstrate his authority over the beings and 2. in order to get full information on the zones from which the beings come.
  Every experienced magician who leaves the physical world either with his mental or with his astral body to visit the various spheres of the earth-zone, or even to visit other zones, will realize that the beings of all zones, irrespective of their qualities and faculties, speak a universal language, called "metaphoricallanguage", i. e. the language of imagination. This is the reason why all beings can make themselves understood by another. Any average person may moreover experience this the moment he leaves his physical body, for he is then able to converse with any person amongst the dead, no matter to which nation he may have belonged before. If a magician whishes to say something in a sphere lying outside our physical world, that is if he wants to form ideas there, he will also do that by way of mouth, but no sounds will come out of his mouth; in place of sound vibrations pictures manifest themselves which then can be perceived by any being.
  If, however, a spirit being is embodied in our physical world, that is if it has left its zone to get adequately condensed in order to be visible and audible, then this metaphorical language is at once translated into the language the magician knows. This means that should a magician call, by condensation, from the earth-zone into the physical world, a person who before his death was of Chinese, Indian or any other nationality, he will find that such a spirit has a perfect comm and of the language the magician himself speaks. A religious person will remember that the apostles and disciples of Christ who, after the death of the
  Saviour, were filled with the Holy Ghost, were able to speak in all the languages of the earth. This expression of the Holy Bible

1.15 - Sex Morality, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    The Magical side. Sex is, directly or indirectly, the most powerful weapon in the armoury of the magician; and precisely because there is no moral guide, it is indescribably dangerous. I have given a great many hints, especially in Magick, and The Book of Thoth some of the cards are almost blatantly revealing; so I have been rapped rather severely over the knuckles for giving children matches for playthings. My excuse has been that they have already got the matches, that my explanations have been directed to add conscious precautions to the existing automatic safeguards.
  The above remarks refer mainly to the technique of the business; and it is going a very long way to tell you that you ought to be able to work out the principles thereof from your general knowledge of Magick, but especially the Formula of Tetragrammaton, clearly stated and explained in Magick, Chap. III. Combine this with the heart of Chap. XII and you've got it!

1.16 - Advantages and Disadvantages of Evocational Magic, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  It is quite the contrary with people who, either during their present incarnation or during a previous incarnation, have reached at least some degree of spiritual perfection and who have a certain power of imagination. They will not be able to get perfect, but perhaps partial results. These people are rigthly called sorcerers or necromancers from the hermetic point of view. And it is usually these people who fall into the hands of invisible powers, as we can see from history. The most striking and best known example is the tragedy of Doctor Faustus, popularised by Goethe. I must desist here from describing the personality of Doctor Faustus, but every magician will be able to explain what happened in this case.
  Every genuine magician works with the beings consciously, he is for them a person of certain authority, power and force, owing to his magical development and maturity, his attitude towards the spirit beings is quite different from the attitude of a sorcerer. A magician's influence on a being, too, is quite different, and the dangers to which a magician might be exposed are so small that they need scarcely be mentioned. The magician is subject to only a few temptations by the beings, but since he has achieved the magical equilibrium, nothing can lead him off his way, not even the most tempting projects. The beings acknowledge his authority and regard him as their master, as the image of creation, the image of God, and are quite willing to serve him without ever daring to ask for any rewards for their services. It is different with a necromancer or sorcerer, however, because of his inability to create the necessary authoritative power towards the beings. He is always in danger of losing his equilibrium at the cost of his individuality and magical development.
  If a necromancer or sorcerer has a relatively high power of imagination and is able partially to raise up his consciousness, it may happen that, by using magic though barbarous names, he succeeds in having one of his evocations translated into the language of the being and the being he is evoking hears his voice. The next question to arise is whether the being reacts to the evocation and intends to do what the sorcerer wants him to do. For the being at once realizes whether the sorcerer is mature enough and developed enough to be able to exercise coercion or whether it can go easily in opposition. If a positive, good being is involved, it will pity the sorcerer. If the sorcerer has evoked an indifferent and less active being and if the sorcerer's desire, if it were realised, would not harm him, it might, now and then, give a token of sympathy and do what the sorcerer wants done. But if the sorcerer desires anything that might harm him or any other person without being able to take the full responsibility for this, then the being will not react to the sorcerer's evocation. All means of coercion mentioned in various books for the sorcerer's use in order to have the beings to work for him are ineffectual and but mere phrases with only a slight or no effect at all on astral beings. Negative beings, on the other hand, prefer to react to negative and evil intentions and try to help the sorcerer in their realization. But a head of demons also knows quite well that he need not do what the sorcerer wants, if the sorcerer desires something which would debit him too much karmically or which he could not take responsibility for from the karmic point of view. In such a case not even a demon would dare to fulfill the sorcerer's wish, for this being, even though it be a negative one, depends on Divine Providence. It cannot, on its own accord, create vibrations which would cause a chaotic tate in the harmony of a sphere. Therefore it is necessary to point out again and again that a certain degree of magical development and perfection is absolutely necessary for the evocation of the beings of any sphere and in order to be able to place one's consciousness into the relevant sphere or zone and to translate one's thoughts into the metaphorical language or cosmic language so that a being understands them.
  With these points in mind the magician will realize the true value of the book of charms which he has started for his personal use, and that the book actually is a language book of the cosmic language in which he will enter all the procedures of his art of magical evocation translated into symbolic picture-language. A necromancer or sorcerer working according to the worst rituals and carrying out the most barbarous invocations and evocations is by no means able to practise invocations in a systematic order, that is, to start a conversation with the being concerned, not to mention the authority he should be able to represent, for he is lacking the necessary magical maturity and perfection. A necromancer might, at the most, put himself into an ecstatic state during his operations, which is not more than a cry into the zone in question, even if his citations are most terrifying and appear to him very promising.
  In most cases the sorcerer, during his state of ecstasy, is a victim of the most misleading hallucinations. In the most favourable case such an incomplete invocation of a sorcerer might, quite unconscious to him, result in the creation of an elemental or an elementary, owing to the ecstatic stress of the sorcerer's nerves, depending on the amount of nerve-power he projects from his magic circle into the magic triangle. Such an elementary might then unconsciously take the shape of the evoked being; the sorcerer, being unable to tell the difference, would regard the elementary as the being evoked by him. Such an elementary is then able to awaken certain desires in its creator and provide their satisfaction. I have already said enough about this in my first book: "Initiation into Hermetics".
  In this connection I must point out that the magician must have a clear idea of what a contract is, how such a contract is made, what are its disadvantages, etc. I shall now give further details on this point.
  Should a sorcerer or necromancer succeed in actually calling the head of a certain sphere into the physical world by the ecstatic elevation of his spirit, such a head, if it is a negative one, will always try to get under his influence not only the soul but also the spirit of the sorcerer in order to make him fully dependent.
  --
  The reader may now ask whether such a sorcerer is condemned to be the servant of a being or head forever. Answering such a question presents no difficulty to a magician who is equally acquainted with all spheres. As soon as the sorcerer has re-paid the head in full measure for its duties on earth - this can take, in our chronology, many hundreds of years, since time and space are absent in the spheres - the sorcerer's conscience will start working on him more and more and his four-pole nature feels himself little by little free from the bondage. When the sorcerer has paid back every penny of his debt, he can again do what he likes. But if, at that point, he still stifles his conscience, unwilling to follow it, he will remain in the sphere of his head and will, eventually, lose his four-polarity and identify himself with the plane in which he lives by taking on the vibration of that plane forever. By this way he will condemn himself. The sorcerer then ceases to be a human being, the image of God, and becomes a being of that sphere, that is, he sinks down to a demon. This certainly is the most regrettable state a human being can get into and may be called damnation from the religious point of view, or as true sin against the Holy Ghost.
  This would be the complete procedure for the sealing of a contract between a sorcerer and a being of another zone. Should the sorcerer follow the voice of his conscience he will be able to leave the zone of the head and find a new home in the earth-zone.
  Here he can again live as a four-pole being and renew his spiritual development. If, in this case, it is necessary for him to return into our physical world, this rebirth will be granted him without any difficulties for in the physical world it is far easier to become purified and to work on one's magical development like other beings. A reincarnated sorcerer is then able to acquire, in our world, great magic power, since he has experience in working with negative powers. Such re-born sorcerers are the born magicians, for they possess inborn magical faculties and do not need to accumulate much knowledge or to undergo a special training in magic. It cannot be denied, however that it could again happen that such a person is overcome by the temptation to misuse these powers and that the same head of spirits may approach him anew, possibly under a different mask, to regain his previous victim with the same intention of taking him again to his sphere after his physical death. Such a sorcerer, however, has a much freer will on this earth and can therefore resist such temptations much better.
  His conscience, too, works much better and will warn him more forcefully than does the conscience of a human being with no such personal career. Thus it seldom happens that a sorcerer falls in a second time. Usually he is so purified by his experience that he walks along the true path of magic and is less inclined to take up contacts with demons or negative spirits.
  This statement of true facts may be a warning to all truth seeking people not to follow the path of sorcery, for one can see from what has been said above that such a step is a great regression in the spiritual evolution and development of a human being. That all I have said is no fantastically made up story but a sad, true fact that can be checked by any true magician. Are-incarnated sorcerer proceeding along the right path of initiation is exposed to a far greater number of temptations than an average human being who is starting his spiritual development from the beginning.
  The planes which formerly bound him try time after time in the most refined manner to get their previous victim again under their control.
  --
  There is yet another way to seal contracts, known to only a few initiates. This should be a warning to all those who try to get into contact with various kinds of beings. This pact is not handled directly, but by the help of a human body already existing. Which of the two ways to seal contracts is the more advantageous depends on the view of the individual magician. The less known way may be prefered by deceased people as well as by other beings of the earth-zone, even by beings of higher zones.
  The getting into contact through a human being requires the human being's control of the elements, the light- and the Akashaprinciple and a higher intelligence and magical maturity on the side of the spirit being which wants to get into contact with, and make a contract with the human being. From the hermetic point of view such a contract is quite possible and is practised by a number of sorcerers without their differing from the average peo105 p Ie by anything strange or unnatural. Only the well trained clairvoyant and the eyes of a genuine magician are able to distinguish such a pact. The sorcerer is usually invited to such a contract by a being and he is not seldom offered such a pact by beings of the elements, which live next to the earth.
  If all conditions are fulfilled the making of such a contract presents no difficulty. The method rests on the following procedure: The being looks for a physical body anywhere in the material world at the moment of its dying. A healthy body is prefered in this case, a body which dies of little cause such as for instance during an accident. Also bodies dyding from the consequences of an inflammation of the lungs, of encephalitis, heart failure etc. may serve this purpose. On the other hand, bodies are not welcome which have been destroyed by tuberculosis or other infectious diseases of vital organs and in which the destruction of such organs have been the cause for the person's physical death.
  --
  The relatives and onlookers form the opinion that the dying person after having been in agony has come to life again as if by miracle and finally recovered from the disease. This is how the relatives and those persons, who are not able to observe by clairvoyance the leaving of the astral body from the physical body, look on the event. Since the being possesses a miraculous degree of adaptibility and maintains all faculties and powers of the astral world and since it knows everything, it continues playing the role of the person who actually died, but it will try to disappear from the surroundings of the relatives of the deceased person and to get into contact with the sorcerer without attracting attention. The being keeps all its abilities of its former sphere in the new body and puts itself at the disposal of the sorcerer. With the exception of a true magician nobody will ever find out the true facts and nobody will find anything suspicious in two friends or a boy friend and girl friend meeting each other, and the people around the two will never find out about the true relations of the two.
  The services which the being may render the sorcerer during his physical existence are exactly the same as if the sorcerer had got into contact with another being of that sphere. If the sorcerer wants to have his influence work on the astral or mental world via this being, then the latter puts itself into a state of trance und so can fulfill the sorcerer's wishes.
  --
  If a magician with a high degree of perfection and relationship to God would bring about such a procedure he would by his creative power, be able to build up, with the undine, the same kind of harmony of the elements as it possesses any human being.
  He would be able to create a new human being whose spirit would be as immortal as the spirit of any other human creature.
  However, a true magician will never undertake such operations without having sufficient reasons. I only mention this here because I want to show that such a thing lies within the faculties of a magician. The non-initiate may believe this to be an incredible fairy tale, but, from the hermetic point of view, such things are quite possible and can easily be realized. The true magician will not have any doubts of these possiblities.
  Apart from spiritism there is another kind of evocation of spirits called necromancy. The difference between a sorcerer and a necromancer is the following: the sorcerer usually tries to get into contact with higher beings of the earth-zone, with the heads of the elements or with the heads of other zones; the necromancer, on the other hand, merely practices the evocation of deceased persons. The method of necromancy is quite simple and a magician who has not yet reached perfection is able to apply this method with more success than a sorcerer practicing evocations. A necromancer faces the same kind of dangers as the sorcerer since a deceased human being may also take full possession of the necromancer and make him completely dependent. If a necromancer becomes so dependent on an astral being that he cannot do anything without the advice and help of the being, then we may also talk of a sort of pact in this case, though this kind of contract may not have the same tragical consequences as the pacts dealt with before.
  The magician is able to call any being from the astral world without any danger, without becoming dependent on it and without becoming a victim of necromancy. A necromancer is a person with a low degree of spiritual and magical development, whose main object is to get into contact with astral beings of the earth-zone, preferably with dead people. The necromancer will in most cases try to make use of a being from the astral sphere, that is he will either require of such a being certain magical duties in the physical, astral or mental plane or merely try to satisfy his curiosity. For this purpose the necromancer will choose a human being after his physical death who during his life on earth busied himself with any of the secret sciences and who possibly has reached a certain degree of perfection in this. If such a person happens to be a true magician who has followed the true path of initiation and has learned all its laws here on earth, having thus acquired a certain degree of perfection, who noble-minded strove for positive aims and controlled the negative powers, he will, if he thinks it beneficial, appear to the necromancer and point out to him the advantages or disadvantages of his projects and intentions. A true magician will, however, never keep up a constant connection with a necromancer, nor will he try to influence the necromancer in such a manner that he becomes dependent on him. He will always be prepared to warn the necromancer and will give him permission to call him in case of emergency. Furthermore, he will give good advice to the necromancer and initiate him into the laws of the astral sphere, but he will never be prepared to serve the necromancer, or to do whatever he wants, or to fulfill his material desires. Only bad magicians with little experience and an affection for negative powers or mere sorcery will try to maintain a contact with a necromancer or assist him in realizing his desires and to satisfying his curiosity. If the necromancer gets into the sphere and under the control of such a being, he will acquire the same kind of vibration as that being has in the earth-zone and thus becomes a fellow-sufferer. The astral being will then prevent the necromancer from making any progress in his spiritual and magical development and will see that he is never enlightened or blessed with personal advance. The being will then be full of malicious pleasure because it has succeeded in being troublesome to a human being on earth. It remembers the days of its own life on earth, its difficulties and troubles there, the temptations it could not resist, the powers it misused and the lack of chances for its true initiation, and it will also try to hinder the necromancer in his development. The danger that arises for the necromancer in such a case need not be analysed. I will, however, mention the fact that the necromancer may easily be vampirised by such a being and that the being will try to realize in the astral world its own egocentric plans by help of the vampirised powers of the necromancer.
  Therefore every scholar is warned not to take up any such contacts and not to make himself dependent on any being. The manner in which a necromancer calls a being from the astral plane rests on two methods. One method is spiritistic: the being is asked to reveal itself by help of mediums; that is by mediumistic writing or by mediums put into a state of trance. This method requires great perseverance until the being is able to take up a direct contact and to appear to the necromancer. The other method is that of evocation: the necromancer takes up contact with the being by help of a picture of the spirit's previous incarnation or by enlivening such a picture until finally the being steps out of it like an elementary, taking on its previous shape. A necromancer does not usually succeed at once, but if he goes on with his work persistently he might, depending on his maturity, development, willpower and imagination, force the being to appear to him visibly.
  --
  In this connection I should like to point out that the genuine magician, who having come along the path of true development tries to get into contact with positive beings irrespective of their rank or zone, should not become dependent even on good beings or intelligences. He may if he likes, get into touch with a good being any time he wishes, but he should not join any being even if he is especially attracted by it, for if he does, a pact could also be the result, similar to such with negative beings, though the dangers for a genuine magician operating with positive beings could never be so great nor so tragic.
  There also exist methods and instructions for the making of contracts with genii of any zone, who, due to such a contract, may advise and assist the magician in any respect. Of course a genuine magician will, during the course of his development, try to get into touch with good beings, since this is no doubt necessary, but he must not make himself dependent on any single being, no matter whether angel or superior intelligence. By becoming dependent on a good being a magician would take up, like a sorcerer, the vibration of the sphere from which the good being has come and, by and by, would influence himself so strongly with this vibration that finally he would take on the complete nature of that being. Such a being, however, will of course not be interested in a written contract.
  There are also methods for the conclusion of the same kind of written contract or pact between a magician and a superior positive intelligence. This contract concluding, the magician can be sure that the being will protect him in any respect; that it will help him, warn him and do every kind of good service for him; but after the death of the magician the being will automatically draw him to its own sphere. In that zone the magician will not have to serve the guardian angel by force, but freely. Since such a magician is in constant connection with good beings he will become part of that plane and will lose any interest in climbing any higher or in travelling to another zone. He will be content with his life and his evolutionary rise is temporarily interrupted.
  If a magician is sent by Divine Providence to the earth-zone or into our physical world to fulfill a certain task as a human being, he starts longing for a sphere set above him. Should a magician, after having been allied to a genius in a certain zone, be incarnated in our physical world, then such a former alliance becomes obvious by the magician's special ability either in the field of hermetic science or in any other cultural field such as art, literature etc. This shows that the procedure is the same, no matter whether it is a positive or negative one, and a genuine magician will never be hindered in his development by any pact with a genius or an angel, but will advance in his development unimpeded. By an equal affection for all beings the magician will always remain conscious of his desire to become a perfect human being, created as the true image of God, and true divinity will be reflected in him. He is not influenced by any sphere, therefore he can reach true perfection, providing that no one element is prevailing within him and that he has been able to develop within himself the absolute equilibrium of all forces and powers and to maintain the standard of this development in future.
  The higher spheres are the place where it is decided whether a magician is willing to reach the highest perfection possible or likes to become a saint. A magician desirous of the highest degree of perfection may become the greatest and highest lord of creation, for he fully symbolises the true and complete image of God in all his aspects. A saint, however, remains under one aspect only and reaches perfection therein. He becomes a part of that aspect, and finally, when he has reached perfection in this aspect, he loses his individuality. The highest degree of perfection that man is ever able to reach is that of becoming a true sovereign, a true magician, thus actually representing a true and complete image of God, whereby he never loses or is forced to give up his individuality.
  By the knowledge of the hierarchy of the beings, of their zones, their causes and effects, the true magician is able to rule over any being of creation, no matter whether good or evil, as this is actually his true commission. Ruling over the spirit beings does not necessarily mean ruling by force, for the beings, good or evil, will always be prepared to serve the magician, to complete his will and to fulfill any of his desires without asking for anything in return.
  The heads of zones also like to serve a magician, and if the magician desires it they will even put at his disposal the beings serving them, and will provide him with the necessary ankhur without ever daring to ask the magician to conclude a contract with the relevant zone. The genuine magician is free to put under his will as many serving genii as he likes, from any sphere he likes; they will all have to serve him as their highest master, or their sovereign. The genuine magician with a noble character will make no difference between a positive or a negative being, for Divine Providence has not created anything unclean. He is quite aware of the fact that demons are as necessary as angels, for without these contradictions a differentiating hierarchy would not be possible. His respect for a being, whether positive or negative, will depend on the being's rank. He himself will take the golden path of the middle way, the path of true perfection.

1.16 - Dianus and Diana, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  potent magician is powerless to avoid. The unattainable good, the
  inevitable ill, are now ascribed by him to the action of invisible
  --
  those of their predecessor the magician. Like him, they are expected
  to guard their people against hostile enchantments, to heal them in

1.16 - Religion, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The incipient magician will confess his faith to a universal religion. He will find out that every religion has good points as well as bad ones. He will therefore keep the best of it for himself and ignore the weak points, which does not necessarily mean that he must profess a religion, but he shall express awe to each for of worship, for each religion has its proper principle of God, whether the point in question be Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or any other kind of religion. Fundamentally he may be faithful to his own religion. But he will not be satisfied with the official doctrines of his Church, and will try to penetrate deeper into gods workshop. And such is the purpose of our initiation. According to the universal laws, the magician will form his own point of view about the universe which henceforth will be his true religion. He will state that, apart from the deficiencies, each defender of religion will endeavour to represent his religion as the best of all. Each religious truth is relative and the comprehension of it depends on the maturity of the person concerned. Therefore the adept does not interfere with anybody in this respect, nor will he try to sidetrack anyone from his truth, criticize him, to say nothing of condemning him. At the bottom of his heart he may feel sorry for fanatics or atheists without showing it outwardly. Let everybody hold on to what he believes and makes him happy and content. Should everybody stick to this maxim, there would be neither hatred nor religious dissensions on this earth. There would be no reason for disputes and all turns of mind could exist happily side by side.
  Quite a different thing is, if a seeker, dissatisfied by materialism and doctrines, and longing for spiritual support, will ask advice and information of an adept. In such a case the adept is obliged to supply the seeker with spiritual light and insight, according to his mental powers. Then the magician should spare neither time nor pains to communicate his spiritual treasures and lead the seeker to the light.

1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   and a heightening of its powers of light and love and strength and purity; and to show also how it can be done. If the Avatar were to act in an entirely supernormal fashion, this object would not be fulfilled. A merely supernormal or miraculous Avatar would be a meaningless absurdity; not that there need be an entire absence of the use of supernormal powers such as Christ's socalled miracles of healing, for the use of supernormal powers is quite a possibility of human nature; but there need not be that at all, nor in any case is it the root of the matter, nor would it at all do if the life were nothing else but a display of supernormal fireworks. The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption, - as did Christ, - secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature, - as did Buddha. The rationalist who would have cried to Christ, "If thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross," or points out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by disease, - as a dog dieth, - knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole matter. Even, the
  Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be assumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle.

1.16 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "A man practising hathayoga dwells a great deal on his body. He washes his intestines by means of a bamboo tube through his anus. He draws ghee and milk through his sexual organ. He learns how to manipulate his tongue by performing exercises. He sits in a fixed posture and bow and then levitates. All these are actions of prana. A magician was performing his feats when his tongue turned up and clove to the roof of his mouth. Immediately his body became motionless. People thought he was dead. He was buried and remained many years in the grave. After a long time the grave somehow broke open. Suddenly the man regained consciousness of the world and cried out, 'Come delusion! Come confusion!' (All laugh.) All these are actions of prana.
  "The Vedantists do not accept hathayoga. There is also rajayoga. Rajayoga describes how to achieve union with God through the mind by means of discrimination and bhakti.

1.17 - God, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  Let us approach the idea of God from a magicians standpoint. To the plain man the idea of God serves as a support for his spirit just not to entangle himself in uncertainty or get out of his depth. Therefore his God always remains something inconceivable, intangible, and incomprehensible to him. It is quite otherwise with the magician who knows his God in all aspects. He holds his God in awe as he knows himself to have been created in its image, consequently to be a part of God. He sees his lofty ideal, his first duty and his sacred objective in the union with the Godhead, in becoming the God-man. The rise to this sublime goal shall be described later on. The synthesis of this mystic union with God consists in developing the divine ideas, from the lowest up to the highest steps, in such a degree as to attain the union with the universal.
  Everyone is at liberty to abandon his individuality or to retain it. Such genii usually return to earth entrusted with a definite sacred task or mission.
  In this rise, the initiated magician is a mystic at the same time. Only performing this union and giving up his individuality, he voluntarily enters into dissolution which in the mystic wording is called mystic death.
  It is evident that true initiation knows neither a mystic nor a magic path. There is only one initiation linking both conceptions, in opposition to most of the mystic and spiritual schools which are dealing with the very highest problems, through meditation or other spiritual exercises, without having gone through the first steps at first. This would be very similar to somebody starting with the university studies without having gone through the elementary classes first. The results of such a onesided training, in some cases, are disastrous, sometimes even drastic, according to the individual talents. Generally the error is to be found in the fact that most of the matter comes from the Orient, where the material as well as the astral world is regarded as maya (illusion), and consequently little attention is paid to it. It is impossible to point out the details, for this would overstep the frame of this book. Sticking to a carefully planned, step-by-step development, there will be neither a mishap nor a failure nor bad consequences, for the simple reason that ripening takes place slowly but surely. It is quite an individual matter whether the adept will choose as his idea of God, Christ, Buddha, Brahma, Allah, or someone else. All depends on the idea, in the initiation.

1.17 - The Spiritus Familiaris or Serving Spirits, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  According to these books serving spirits are put at the magician's personal disposal by high beings, especially by the principals of demQns with the idea that the magician need not bother personally with the principals of demons, that is their masters, on each occasion and for every trivial matter. The books further state that such serving spirits usually are delivered to the magician, or, as is more likely, to the sorcerer by that head or principal of demons with whom he has concluded a contract. By means of an ankhur the serving spirit is provided by its head with the same kind of force, power and faculties etc. that the head possesses. The magician does not care by whom the effect he wants is caused; whether it is by the head himself or by any of the spirits serving him. One thing, however, is important: the Karmic responsibility always lies with the magician, or with the sorcerer. As already mentioned in the chapter dealing with the various kinds of con114 tracts, the magician must, after the contract has expired in the physical world, follow the principal of demons into his sphere and there pay back in full measure for the work done by it. This repayment, of course, is not a material repayment, but a spiritual one.
  From the hermetic point of view, the serving spirit must not be taken for the so-called family spirits of the primitive peoples of antiquity. These family spirits were, in most cases, the deceased of a tribe, its ancestors and pre-ancestors, heroes etc. with whom a type of necromancy was practised similar to a more primitive kind of fetish-worsphip by keeping up a permanent contact with these deceased. This kind of necromancy may be compared with the spiritism of our own days. Since every initiate knows about the practices, cult operation etc. necessary for getting into contact with an ancestor, with a family spirit, I will desist from writing again about this matter. Not only had each family their family or house ghost; there were also numerous tribes having their own genius, as is known from history. The true magician is able to tell the difference, from the hermetic standpoint, between an actual spiritus familiaris and a family or ancestral spirit.
  The attitude a genuine magician takes towards getting into contact with a head, i. e. a higher being, a higher intelligence, is quite different to that of a sorcerer or black- magician. The latter wants to get beings under his power without any special effort and without the appropriate preparatory operations and magical development, in order to make these being serve him and help him to realize all his desires. Unfortunately, a sorcerer is likely to forget that by doing so he is debiting his Karma and that he is doing this at the costs of his evolution, and above all, to the costs of his magical development. Beings serving a sorcerer never work without reward. From the material point of view such services may only be regarded as loans. Actually, the sorcerer becomes the slave of the relevant being, for after their contract has expired, the sorcerer must, as already pointed 'out before, pay back everything. The beings are fully aware of this fact, and their devotion towards the magician, which is to ensure him that they are always willing to serve him and to fulfill any of his desires, often delude a sorcerer to the erroneous opinion that he has become master over the beings. His desires, his claims towards these beings increase during the course of the alliance, and the sorcerer eventually develops into a glutton. Only shortly before the expiration date of the contract, the sorcerer realizes what he has done and what Karmic responsibilities he has taken upon his shoulders. But at that point it is usually too late, and all advice and instructions to shake off the bondages of such a contract are, from the hermetic point of view, useless and impracticable, andin the eyes of a true magician sheer ridiculous. Negative effects that have once been set at work, no matter in which way, must, due to the law of cause and effect, have their due clear off and adjustment.
  One might oppose that Divine Providence, in its aspects of love and charity, could, in some cases, make an exception. However, the genuine magician knows that causes are always followed up by the relevant effects, otherwise the Law of Karma, the law of retaliation, the rule of law of the whole universe, would be untrue, that is illusory. That this is not so, but that, on the contrary, everything takes place due to the most genuine laws with a most admirable precision need not be stressed here. Divine love and charity with all their other aspects such as benevolence etc. work up to the point where man realizes that he himself is the cause of the sorrows that have overcome him, and this knowledge enables him to carry his burden more easily. From the correct universal point of view Providence, in its aspects of love, benevolence etc., cannot further intervene. Every experienced magician, knowing the universal laws, finds this in order. Every genuine magician should therefore take heed not to conclude a contract which would entirely halt his personal magical development and evolution. A true initiate will not even be tempted to conclude contacts with high and good heads, no matter how great the advantages might be. To bind oneself to spirit beings and their spheres means losing the freedom of one's own thoughts and doings.
  Why then, one might ask, is it necessary to deal with the magic of evocation; is it not better to work for one's personal development and to leave the beings where they are? The answer to this
  - question is that the genuine magician may, if he likes, get into contact with any beings, positive ones or negative ones, and that he should even regard it as his duty to practise the true magic of evocation, but he must never be tempted to bind himself to any being. He can use his connections to enlarge his knowledge about the various spheres, to learn about the laws of such spheR:S, magician is their master, is the true initiate to whom they owe obedience and loyalty. They would not even dare to approach a genuine magician, who has been truly initiated into magic and has therefore reached perfection in it, with a contract in mind. The magician may, if he thinks it necessary, employ serving spirits from one sphere or the other, but he knows quite well that he does not owe them anything, for anything that a being might be doing for him he can do out of his own powers as the result of his systematic magical development. The magician may employ beings firstly to help his fellow men, not himself, and secondly to use the valuable time saved for his own development. This is the right attitude to take and it cannot be compared with the attitude of a sorcerer, as one can easily see. The magician need not practise the magic of evocation all the time, but he must be able to carry out successfully such practices whenever it should be necessary.
  Exact knowledge of the true magic of evocation will increase his wisdom, will increase his power over beings of the universe, and, in this manner, streng then his magic authority. A true magician must therefore be perfect in every respect. During his magical evocations he will pay attention to the exact hierarchy of the beings and will:
  1. get into contact with the heads of the elements and their beings; if necessary, also with their serving spirits, their subjects

1.17 - The Transformation, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
  etc., but it only touches the effects, never the true cause. The yogi sees the cause before the effect. A scientist can deduce a certain cause from the effects produced, whereas a yogi deduces the effects from the cause; he can even deduce effects that do not yet exist from a cause that already exists (e.g., the accident will happen tomorrow from the force of the accident that is already there in the background). The scientist manipulates effects, at times bringing about catastrophes; the yogi sees the cause, or, rather, identifies with the Cause, and thereby he can alter the effects, or as Sri Aurobindo puts it, the "habits" we call laws. Ultimately, all our physical effects, which we have codified into laws, are nothing more than a convenient support for the manifestation of forces that are behind, exactly as a performance of magic requires certain ritualistic diagrams, certain ingredients or formulas, so that the forces invoked can manifest themselves. This whole world is a gigantic magical performance, a constant act of magic. But the earthly diagram, all the ingredients we have so earnestly and unchangeably codified, all our infallible formulas, are merely conventions. The earthly ritual can change if, instead of remaining mesmerized by the effects, we go back to the cause behind them on the side of the magician. There is a tale about a Hindu Brahmin who, every day at the hour of his worship, had the family cat tied up so that he would not be disturbed in his ritual. Eventually, both the Brahmin and the cat died, and the Brahmin's son, now in charge of the worship ceremony, procured a new cat, which he then conscientiously tied up during the sacrifice! From father to son, the cat had become an indispensable element in the effective performance of
  the ritual. Our own unassailable laws, too, may contain a few little cats. If we go back to the original force concealed behind the physical support, to the "true movement," as the Mother describes it, then we begin to witness the Great Play, and to realize just how different it is from the rigid notions we have of it. Behind the phenomenon of gravitation, to take one of the rituals, there is what the ancient yogis called Vayu, which causes gravitation and the electromagnetic fields (as Sri Aurobindo mentioned also during that conversation of 1926),

1.18 - Asceticism, #Initiation Into Hermetics, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The idea that by eating the meat of an animal, the animal powers or faculties could be conveyed to oneself is nonsense and originates in a mental ignorance of the perfect and genuine primitive laws. The magician does not pay any attention to such misconception.
  In the interest of his mago-mystic development, the magician must be moderate in eating and drinking, and observe a reasonable mode of life. It is impossible to fix precise rules or prescriptions, the magic way of life being quite individual. Each and all must know best what agrees or disagrees with them. It is a sacred duty to keep the balance everywhere. There are three kinds of asceticism: (1), intellectual or mental asceticism, (2) psychic or astral asceticism, 93) physical or material asceticism. The first kind has to do with the discipline of thoughts, the second kind is engaged in ennobling the soul through control of passions and instincts, and the third kind is concerned with harmonizing the body through a moderate and natural way of life.
  Without these three kinds of asceticism, which must be developed at the same tie and parallel to each other, a correct magical rise is unthinkable. To avoid any one-sided development, none of the three kinds may be neglected, and none of them may prevail. Further information about how to accomplish this task will be given in the practical training course of this book.
  Before bringing the theoretical part to an end which has illustrated the principles, I advise everybody that this part should not only be read, but must become the mental possession of the concerned person by means of intense reflection and meditation. He who is going to be a magician will recognize that life is dependent on the work of the elements in the various planes and spheres. It is to be seen in great and in small things, in the microcosm as well as in the macrocosm, temporarily and eternally, everywhere there are powers in action. Starting from this point of cognition, you will find that there is no death at all, in the true sense of the word, but everything goes on living, transmuting and becoming perfect according to primitive laws. Therefore a magician is not afraid of death, for he believes the physical death to be only a transition to a subtler sphere, the astral plane, and from there to the spiritual level, and so on. Consequently he will not believe in heaven nor in hell. The priests of the various religions stick to these fancies solely to keep their kids to the point. Their moralizing serves only to provoke fear of the hell or the purgatory and to promise heaven to morally good people. Average people, as far as they are religiously inclined, are favorably influenced by such a point of view for, from fear of hell, they will try to be good.
  But as for the magician, he sees the purpose of the moral laws in ennobling the mind and the soul, for it is in an ennobled soul only that the universal powers can do their work, especially if body, mind and soul have been equally trained and developed.

1.18 - Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  If the magician takes into his hands a book on evocation, or if he has, in his library, several books dealing with this subject, he will find a certain connection between all the instructions, and if he takes them all together he will be informed how to call a being and which formulae have to be used for that purpose etc. In none of the books, however, will he find the actual pre-conditions for a successful evocation. Therefore it is not at all surprising that nearly all attempts go wrong. From the hermetic point of view any contact with a spirit being of a certain sphere may be regarded as a sort of evocation, irrespective of the fact whether spiritistic methods, methods of necromancy or any other methods are applied for establishing such a contact. The question of whether the desired being actually appears on account of the various methods applied remains unanswered, for only the person who tries them could give a true statement about it. If sometimes such an attempt made according to the methods laid down in those books leads to a success, it is still undecided, whether the results have come out because of the method, for other practices could also have played a decisive part. For instance, in the case of spiritistic evocations, success can be brought about by some quite different factors, even if a great amount of evidences is available indicating that the success is the result of the method of evocation suggested. The subconsciousness of the oral medium may be the cause for the spiritistic success, if it is a success at all. Furthermore, the subconscious creation of phantoms, elementals, elementaries, which the operator's increased attention and power of imagination might have created during the evocation, can in such a case, not be attributed to the being but to the operator's own individuality.
  This fact is hardly ever acknowledged by the person concerned.
  I shall give - from the hermetic point of view - a full description of everything absolutely necessary for a successful evocation, i. e. the actual magical connection with beings of any sphere. Above all, the magician or the person intending to busy himself with magical evocation should know that without the development of one's astral senses, especially those of clairvoyance and clairaudience, a successful evocation cannot be thought of. It would be the same as if a blind man wanted to follow an unknown street without a guide. Clairvoyance and clairaudience is the first condition for consciously getting into contact with a being by the help of active magic. If the magician does not care for this condition, or if a person dares to try an evocation without having his astral senses trained accordingly, he can be sure that he will, like all other operators, be disappointed and have no success at all. At the same time he is in danger of being degraded to a necromancer or sorcerer if, during an exalted state, he should have any partial success of whatever sort, regardless of the fact that his plans and intentions rest on good motives.
  The magician must, under all conditions, be able to make use of his astral senses during his operation, because then he is able to control exactly the whole procedure and is not in danger of being deceived or of working without success. A magician whose astral senses are well developed knows at once whether the being involved is merely a creation of imagination or whether it is the being he wanted to appear from a certain sphere. An evocation, from the hermetic point of view, is therefore the conscious getting into contact with a certain being, not effected by passive intercourse - as described in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter dealing with the conscious passive connection with beings - the magician being used as a medium, but outside of his body.
  The being or power of any sphere which is to be evoked outside the body of the magician, may either be called into the magic triangle, or the magic mirror, or onto a material impregnated with a fluid condenser to be condensed there. At the beginning the magician will not be able to do without the magic implements. Later, as soon as he has enough experience and as soon as he has a certain sphere under his complete control, i. e. as soon as the beings of that sphere are fully under his power, pay him obedience and loyalty and, by that, acknowledge his magical authority, he can do without magical aids. The experienced magician then is in the position to call any being of the sphere he has under his power and to work with it, without using magical aids.
  He can call a being to any place at any time, how and when he wishes to do so, without the aid of the circle or triangle and without any special preparations. A beginner, on the other hand, must necessarily use magic aids, for they are a support for his consciousness and are therefore necessary for a successful evocation.
  If the magician has complete control over a sphere without having to use any magical weapons, he advances to the next higher sphere and again makes use of his magical aids until he also controls that sphere completely. The magician must always bear three principles in mind when he wants to bring about a successful evocation:
  1. If he intends to call a spirit being of a certain sphere into his sphere, no matter whether he calls it into the triangle, the mirror, or into a fluid condenser, he must bear in mind that the being is only able to move about in an atmosphere appropriate to its own sphere. He therefore must artifically create the spheric atmosphere by accumulating the light, the material of the sphere, either into the triangle, or preferably into the whole room in which he is working. If working with a magic mirror it has to be impregnated or condensed respectively with the according light material of the sphere. When operating in the open air, the impregnation must be kept within such limits that the beings or powers that are to manifest themselves have sufficient room to move about. The accumulated or impregnated light must have a colour which is in accordance with the colour-law of the individual planet. I have already given the reader and student a detailed information on this question of impregnating or accumulating light in space in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter dealing with space-impregnation. If, for instance, a being of the Moon-sphere is evoked outside oneself, the light, or rather the material to be accumulated, must be of a silvery white colour; in the case of a being of Mercury the light-material must be opalescent; beings from Venus must have a green, beings from the Sun a golden yellow, from Mars a red, from Jupiter a blue, from Saturn a violet light, etc.
  If, for instance, the magician calls a being of the earth-element, he must get the element of the earth into the magic triangle or the magic mirror by the help of his imagination. If he wants to call to him a being from the Moon, he must create the vibration of the Moon sphere. No being is able to dwell in a sphere not appropriate to it. If, in case of citation, this principle is not adhered to, a being might be forced to come to our physical sphere, but it would, in such a case, have to create, by itself, the necessary spheric vibration. The magician would, in this case, lose his control over the being, and his authority, too, would suffer from such a failure, for the being would consider the magician as not perfect and would therefore not pay him respect and would refuse to obey him. Strictly adhering to and acting according to this principle is most important when evocations are carried out, and this must never be forgotten by a true magician.
  2. The magician must be able to place himself, with his consciousness, during the evocation, into the sphere of the being cited, so that the being will behold him. This transplanting of one's spirit is done under the laws of the Akasha-principle, i. e. by the magician's putting himself into a state of trance in which he does not know any time or space, and it is in this state that he cites, according to his will, and due to his authority etc. the being concerned. Without these faculties the magician is not able to make a being appear.
  3. The magician must call forth, by means of his magical authority, the being's awe and obedience, for otherwise no being - no matter whether positive or negative - would respect him.
  The magical authority or influence of the magician does not work on a being due to the magician's personality, but because he has influenced or bound himself with an intelligence superior to the being or appears as a deity in the aspect authoritative to the being. It is thus not the magician who makes his influence work on the being, but the authority of the superior being or of the highest possible intelligence; of the evoking deity itself. When practising evocation, the magician will first influence or ally himself with the superior intelligence. He will only take on the shape of the highest quality for his self-assertion as an authority and show it in obstinate cases in which the being should try to oppose anyhow. If the magician were to try to influence the being evoked by his own personality only, the being could refuse to obey him, or could, for the worse, deceive him in a most shocking manner. If, however, the being is actually receiving his orders from a superior intelligence, or even God in any aspect, not from the magician himself, then the being must, under any circumstance, obey the order. The magician has already learned from "Initiation into Hermetics", the identification with an intelligence or with a divine aspect where I wrote about the community with the individual god.
  One can see from what has been said above that these three principles have never been mentioned in any instructions, because no author has ever had personal experience in the magic of evocation. They have therefore derived their teaching methods from other written sources which, in fact, were also incomplete.
  --
  Before a magician starts with the evocation of beings he must have the whole procedure precisely entered into the book of formulae and should, if possible, know it by heart, so that he is not delayed during his operations by any looking up. It is possible that difficulties will arise at the beginning of the magician's practice, but soon the repeated evocation of beings will increase his self-confidence. Besides that, he will realize that an evocation is not just the calling of a being, but a regular ritual, composed of a whole number of magical operations. The magician must make sure that no hiatus exists in this rite, for each hiatus would be a disturbance not only to the magician, but also to the being evoked. A faultless operation is that which the grimoires call the complete circle. This expression does not refer to the circle that is drawn by the magician for his protection, and as a symbol of the microcosm and macrocosm, which is of the relationship to God, but it refers to the total coherent magical operation. The purpose of the evocation, too, must be laid down in writing before its beginning, for during the evocation no additional questions may be raised.
  As one can guess from the whole procedure of preparation, a cautiously prepared and precisely completed magical evocation requires much time. If, by repeated intercourse with one and the same being, the magician has established a good connection, so that the being pays him absolute obedience and thereby completely acknowledges his magical authority, the magician may, to save time, arrange a different way to contact the being either by an abbreviated individual rite, or even just a word for the evocation of the being and by getting the being's approval for this, or he may cause the being to choose an abridged method to which the being itself and its servants are bound to react at any time. This abridged method, too, has to be written into the book of furmulae conscientiously, so that during its practical application no mistakes occur. This is especially important should the magician have entered into a number of connections with beings.
  If the simplified method is offered by a being who, at the same time requests the magician not to write down the procedure, but just to remember it well, the magician must respect such a request. Even if the magician is allowed to make some provisional notes on this abridged procedure, these notes, like the whole book of formulae, must never get into the hands of other people, not even into the hands of a genuine magician, the only exception being those cases where the being, the originator of the simplified procedure, agrees to the magician's handing the procedure over to somebody else, or even asks for this. Otherwise the magician should never dare to evade a prohibition or even break it, unless he does not mind his authority being shaken. What this would mean for a magician need not be further discussed here.
  A being first appears to a magician in the same manner as it is accustomed to move about in its own native zone. If the magician is not pleased with the way in which the being appears, he may, by means of his magical authority, cause the being to appear in the shape he approves of. There are no restrictions in this respect, and it is up to the magician to decide which shape the being evoked should , by help of his imagination, take on. The sex, too, is in this case of no consequence. The magician will, however, do well not to insist, for instance, in a being's appearing in a male shape, if in its relevant sphere it has been a female creature, although the being would have to do even this, should the magician insist upon it. Therefore, beginners in magic operations are recommended to let a being appear in the shape familiar to its own zone.
  The magician converses with a being in his own familiar language. Since he is, in any case, in an elevated state, in the state of trance, his language automatically changes into the spiritual language, into the so-called metaphorical language and is so understood by the being. The being, too, who normally uses its own language, will converse in this spiritual language, which again will be translated automatically into the language with which the magician is familiar. Due to this fact the magician will at first have the feeling that the answers by the being come from his own subconscious much in the same manner as a person's inner voice is heard. By and by the magician will get used to this and will finally realise that the being is actually speaking outside him, and after repeated work in this field it will appear to him to be the same as if he were talking to one of his fellow-men.
  The unwanted accompanying factors mentioned in the grimoires, for instance the vandalism of beings, creakings, thunderstorms, flashes of lightning and other disturbances which are said to usually accompany evocations are totally unknown to the genuine magician and may only occur with necromancers and sorcerers who have undergone no magical training, or with people who have left the necessary preparatory operations unobserved or who have made only little preparation for a true evocation.
  A genuine magician will not experience any unwanted accompanying phenomena, and his evocations will run as smoothly as if he were carrying out any other physical, astral or spiritual actions. In the beginning a magician will do well not to ask a being too many questions, but to address it with only a few concrete questions. They should refer to the sphere from which the being has come. No questions should be asked that would infringe upon the dignity of the being. At a later date a being, an intelligence, a head or the servants set at the magician's disposal, may be asked to play an active part; they need not be used for the conveyance of knowledge only. The beings, in general, like to serve a genuine magician and help him in an unselfish manner as much as lies in their power. A magician certainly will never be so silly as to ask a spirit being to bring him treasures or to do for him heavy physical work, since the effect of the being's display of power in our physical world depends on the fuel (i. e. the material used for its materialisation) that the magician puts at its disposal.
  At first the beings will only be able to do mental work. Later, when the magician has enough experience, they will do astral and after some time also physical work for him, though the magician is recommended not to burden a spirit being with physical jobs, for it would have to carry out such duties in exactly the same manner as the magician with his acquired magic faculties. The beings make use of the same powers that are used by the magician for his personal operations. This means that to do physical work they need the fluids of elements, i. e. the electrical or magnetic fluid, and take into account the Akasha-principle, just as the magician himself. The beings usually draw the matter or substance and the power out of the atmosphere of the magician. Therefore a magician should always bear in mind that every evocation is done at his own cost. This is reason enough for the magician not to carry out an evocation for the mere satisfaction of other people's curiosity, and he will, as already mentioned, practise an evocation first of all to help his fellow-men, or to increase his power over beings and elements and so acquire more personal experience.
  For the actual evocation of beings no spells or similar nonsense is necessary. Since, during the whole time of the evocation, the magician is in an elevated state, in a true relationship with God, he places himself with his consciousness into the sphere of the chosen being and, after having called out its name, asks the being to appear to him. The being hears the magician, at once reacts to his call, and quite willingly comes near him. A true magician will never be obliged to threaten a being or do anything of that sort in order to make the being obedient to his will. This may only happen with stubborn demons to whom the magician demonstrates the power of his relationship to God. In the case of a true relationship to God, hardly any being, no matter what rank it may have, will ever dare to place itself in opposition to the divinity, for the divinity is the power by which the being was created, and therefore it must be respected.
  Since, for the magician, the saying is true that the stars influence, but do not force, it is left to the magician to fix the time for the evocation according to astrological rules, provided that he has a fundamental knowledge of astrology and is therefore able to fix the favourable planetary moments in respect of the relevant beings.
  All the various ways of evocation described in grimoires are not for magicians but for sorcerers. Therefore, for a true magician, the instructions given in a grimoire are useless, and consequently the magician will put them aside. He knows the true path of initiation, he knows, too, how an evocation is to be carried out, and he is therefore convinced that he will fully succeed in his operations.
  After the end of the evocation it is the magician's duty to send the spirit being back to its sphere, i. e. to discharge it. He accompanies it with his consciousness and, in doing so, he has an inner feeling of satisfaction and certainty that the being will return to the sphere from which it has been called and from which it has come. All the implements used for the evocation are returned by the magician to their depository and all accumulated powers are again discharged by his will and imagination. And this is the end of the evocation.

1.18 - The Perils of the Soul, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  are magicians who can make a man ill by stabbing his shadow with a
  pike or hacking it with a sword. After Sankara had destroyed the

1.19 - The Practice of Magical Evocation, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
  The magician will certainly find it useful if an example of a genuine evocation is given here, for in no book written up to now will he find such an exact description of an evocation in accor126 dance with the universal laws. As far as the general set-up is concerned, it is left to the magician to make any small changes or additions here and there and to adapt it to individual situations and circumstances under which he intends to carry out the evocation.
  The best thing, of course, is, if he has available for this high purpose a special room which will only be entered by him alone. In such a case he should not even ask another person to do the necessary cleaning. A room like that will, in the truest sense of the word, serve as a temple. If the magician is in such a lucky situation, he is able to have regard to all laws of analogy, and he can furnish and adapt the room in the same way as the old magicians had their temples established, which had an altar in the east.
  The magician may, in accordance with the degree of his maturity and his religious belief, place on the altar a symbol of his deity, or he may set up in the middle of the altar a magic mirror, like the old initiates and magi did, and place on either side of it a candlestick with seven arms and a censer between them. Formerly temples were usually embellished by four colomns ornamented with various symbolic figures, each column representing one of the elements. The walls were decorated with pictures symbolising various deities of the four elements. In the days of yore only such initiates as were members of the highest social circles could afford such temples. Unfortunately there will be only few people also today so wealthy that they can afford such a splendidly equipped magical workshop.
  This information refers only to the essentials, and every magician, whether poor or wealthy, should therefore be able to practise magical evocation, even should he have no special room at his disposal. The magician is not bound to any special place, and he may carry out the citation in a bed-room as well as in a kitchen; even an attic or a suitable place in a cellar may serve the purpose and enable the magician to carry out a faultless evocation. If the magician has none of the above mentioned possibilities, then all he needs to do is to betake himself to a lonely place somewhere in the open air where he is sure that he is not being watched by anybody and, consequently, can work without being disturbed.
  Of course, conditions like this cannot be taken into consideration in detail in the description, and every magician should know best how and where he may carry out his operations. Since it is easy to understand, I have chosen as the example of an evocation the
  Venus-intelligence called HAGIEL. The magician will, of course, proceed in the same manner in respect of any other spirit being or intelligence; however, he will always have to take into consideration the laws of analogy effective in each individual sphere in respect of the accumulation of coloured light.
  Before the magician begins the actual evocation he must know in advance exactly, apart from having worked out a precise plan, from which plane or sphere he intends to call a being, or intelligence, and what he indends to ask from it. In part two of this book, dealing with the hierarchy of beings, the magician will find a number of good, (i. e. positive) beings of various individual spheres, a large selection, enabling him to choose the being, according to his wish, which will help him to realize his plans. It must be understood, however, that this book by no means gives the reader complete information on all beings and intelligences, for there are thousands of them in each plane and sphere. But the intelligences mentioned will be, in general, sufficient for practical work.
  Let us assume that the magician has decided to evoke the
  Venus-intelligence named Hagiel and that he intends to ask this intelligence for luck and success in his operations in which he has to rely on the friendship and sympathy of a certain person; for the Venus-intelligence will serve this purpose well, since it is endowed with all such faculties as friendship, love, luck and success.
  Before starting the evocation the magician takes a bath or at least cleans his whole body, for one should not evoke a being in an unclean state, especially if a high and good intelligence is to be evoked. An evocation not only requires a clean spirit and a clean soul, it also requires a clean body. If it is not possible to ba the or to wash the whole body, the magician must at least carefully wash his hands. Everybody is able to do this, and therefore it must never be forgotten. When washing the magician has to concentrate on the idea that all unfavourable physical and psychic influences run off with the water. Prepared in this manner, the magician takes his magical implements, one after the other, from their depository and puts them on a clean, preferably new, piece of cloth which has been kept in the depository especially for this purpose and which is to protect the implements from dust. Let us assume that the evocation of Hagiel is carried out in a normal living-room. See that during the whole evocation you are not disturbed by anything, and, in order to evade any glances of curiosity, cover the windows carefully with a curtain. Then go and change your clothes, i. e. put on your magic garments: first your silk stockings - in cold weather your silk underwear - and houseshoes. The evocation already starts with the act of dressing; for you must concentrate on the thoughts which are to do with the evocation only. So bear in mind that by putting on the clothes you are insulated against all unfavourable influences that may come from the universe or the invisible world. When dressing, you must be entirely sure that your body is not being influenced by any being, whether good or evil. Then, after having dressed, this meditative attitude of being completely insulated and protected must be maintained. Then put round your waist your magic belt and be completely taken up by the thought that you are the sovereign over all elements, the master of all powers.
  Finally you put round your head your magus-band or put on the magic headgear with a feeling of true relationship to God, and that not you as a magician, but that God is actually carrying through the whole operation. You must unite yourself with the divine principle inside you in such a way that you have the feeling that you are the deity itself. Having done all this, you are able to go a further step in your operation. You light the magic lamp, which, in our case, must fill the room with a lightgreen light. Set the magic lamp in a place round which you will be able to draw the magic circle or hang it up in the centre of the room. This does not mean that the lamp must be exactly in the centre of the room though it would have the advantage that the whole room gets an equal light. Your next task will be the setting up and impregnation of the magic mirror, if you like, of two magic mirrors. In this example instructions are given for the use of two mirrors. One mirror is to bring about the materialization of Hagiel in the physical world, the other is to keep off unwanted influences. Being conscious of the fact that not you, but the deity is carrying out the procedure, you create, by the help of the imagination, a great sea of light in a wonderful emerald colour, which, also by imagination, you accumulate from the whole universe into the mirror in a manner that the whole surface of the mirror is taken up by this colour. The power of illumination of the condensed green light must be so strong as to illuminate completely the room in which you work. At that moment you must have the imaginative impression that this accumulated light is actually a power matrix, a fluid, which can almost be seen by the physical eye. In any case you must have the permanent impression that you are moving about in the room in an oscillation of green light. This is the way to prepare, magically, the room for the being to be evoked, and in a room like this there will be no more obstacles for the being and it will feel the atmosphere of its own sphere. Already at the moment you accumulate the light you concentrate on the idea that the purpose of this accumulation is to condense the evoked spirit being in a manner that you can see it with your physical eyes and hear it with your physical ears. The stronger your imagination, belief, will and conviction, the better condensed and truer Hagiel will appear to you. When impregnating the room, do not forget to include that you wish the accumulated planetary light-power to remain in the mirror and in the room until you dissolve it again by force of your imagination.
  Similar examples are given in "Initiation into Hermetics" in the chapter dealing with room-impregnation and here you find the evidence that all the exercises and magic operations of that first work have their special purpose. You will also see that when carrying out further magical operations you will not be able to do without any of these practices. If you have not actively gone through the exercises of the first book you are unable to get into conscious contact with any spirit being outside you, or of materialising such a being.
  --
  Moreover you must concentrate on the idea that this intelligence is allied to the sign and will react to it at any time and be always willing to perform that which you, the magician, want it to perform. You must be aware of the fact that it is not you who draws the afore-mentioned sign, but God, and that therefore the intelligence will render absolute obedience to God. With this meditative attitude in mind, a failure is quite impossible. Your
  * With regard to the various spheres the blotting paper must have the following shapes: for the sphere of Saturn a triangle of Jupiter a quadrangle of Mars a pentagon of the Sun a hexagon of Venus a heptagon of Mercury an octagon of the Moon a nonagon
  --
  Your imagination at the moment of drawing (i. e. re-drawing) the magic triangle is as important and essential as the drawing (i. e. redrawing) of the magic circle. The magician determines the shape and the range of effectivity of the intelligence that is to appear. If he omits this, Hagiel will only appear to him in her mental shape and will consequently, only be present in the magician's mind.
  The manifestation of Hagiel would not succeed: not as far as her appearance and, naturally, also not as far as her influencing power is concerned. If these preparations are finished, too, you put the triangle in front of the circle and place the seal prepared in the middle of the triangle. Some magicians intensify the threedimensional effect of the being to be evoked by placing into each corner of the triangle a small spirit lamp and by lighting it. The fuel he uses must be an extract of spirit and camomile, i. e. a fluid condenser in which the magician has already accumulated, by the help of imagination, the three-dimensional world. When the spirit lamps, which are provided with small wicks, are burning, much like the spirit lamps of laboratories, the power of imagination concentrated in the fuel slowly expands in the room as the fuel slowly evaporates. By this, the materialization of the evoked being is supported. However, the setting up of spirit lamps is not absolutely necessary, but it is a good aid, especially for beginners, for a beginner in evocational practice needs many more supports than a magician with experience in this kind of work. Beginners may place such lamps, in regular intervals, not only in the triangle but also along the line inside the circle. The number of lamps to be placed inside the circle depends on the analogous number of the relevant planet. In our case an intelligence is involved which belongs to the sphere of Venus to which the number seven appertains. For your information the relevant numbers are given below which belong to the planets: if necessary, use for the Earth-zone
  10 lamps for zone of the Moon
  --
  The magician may also symbolise the elements in the circle, in which case he only needs 4 lamps. He himself stands in the middle of the circle as the fifth element, as the representative of the
  Akasha-principle. When setting up the lamps, the magician takes into consideration the four cardinal points and places a lamp in the East, West, South and North side of the circle. It is entirely left to the magician either to express by the lamps the planetary number or to symbolise the elements.
  Of course, it is also possible for him to draw three circles. In the middle circle he puts four lamps, as the symbol of the elements, into the external circles he places the number of lamps analogous to the symbolic number of the planet from which the being is to be called. Naturally, the setting up of lamps will complicate the preparations for the evocation but the person able to provide himself with such lamps should not desist from using this aid, for the more aids to support his consciousness he has at the beginning, the better will he succeed.
  The censer now comes into the picture. The magician either places it between the circle and the triangle or directly into the triangle. The censer is either filled with burning charcoal, or has a wick and over this a little copper plate fixed. This plate is heated by the flame. The powder in the censer must in all cases correspond to the being's sphere and is to be placed on the plate. Since, in our case, we are dealing with an intelligence from Venus, ground Cinnamon-bark will suffice as incense. Only a small quantity should be used so that the room just faintly smells of cinnamon. cinnamon-tincture can also be used, and a few drops of this substance must then be poured on the copper-plate. You will get this liquid substance from any chemist, though, you may also prepare it yourself, if you wish. Just mix normal cinnamon with two thirds of spirit of wine and let it stand and draw for eight days. After this period filter it and the cinnamon tincture is ready for use. If, during magical operations, you do not intend to work with a censer, put a few drops of cinnamon tincture on a piece of blotting paper. In either case the smell of cinnamon will create a temple-atmosphere agreeable to the intelligence of Hagiel, and this atmosphere will also help with the materialization of the intelligence in our physical world. The censering of the room, however, is not at all so important as some books would have it.
  It is just another aid.
  Surplus censering of the room usually has the disadvantage of making the magician to cough, which is neither desirable nor agreeable. Pernicious poisoning drugs and mixtures of narcotic substances will never be used by a true magician. If the magician is dealing with a being not belonging to any of the seven planetary spheres and is not sure about the exact analogy in respect of the incense he may use a universal fluid condenser when he censes his room. This rule is mainly applicable for beings coming from the earth-zone. The fluid condenser has to be appropriately impregnated, i. e. the accumulation of the light fuel has to be carried out at the same time as the magician is concentrating on the wish for success.
  Below you will find a list of the incenses to be applied for the various spheres. It must, however, be pointed out that incense can only serve as an aid for the materialization at the beginning. It is by no means absolutely necessary.
  --
  Since we are dealing, in the assumed case, with Hagiel, that is, with a positive planetary intelligence, you may fasten your magic sword to your magic belt, on the left side of your body. If you have among your magical implements a dagger, you also put this implement under your belt, for a good being - no matter from which sphere it may come - will hardly ever require the use of a sword or a dagger. If, however, you were dealing with a demonic being, you would have to hold the dagger or sword in your right hand as the symbol of victory; your magic wand would, in such a case, have to be in your left. By putting the sword to your belt you express the idea that the being concerned will not have to be forced by any means to do your will. With regard to stubborn beings the magician will not be able to do without the sword or dagger. Negative beings are ordered by the magician, with the help of the flaming sword as the symbol of victory, to render him absolute obedience and to do whatever he wants. There exists not one demonic being which the magician would not be able to make obedient to his will. All he needs to do is to hold the point of his sword in the direction of the place where he wants the being to appear and the negative being will immediately do what the magician orders it to do. Since every being has a drive of selfpreservation, all demons are afraid of the magic sword or dagger, for in true relationship with God a magic sword or dagger would, to speak symbolically, tear a demon to pieces.
  Take your magic wand into your right hand, step into the centre of the circle and concentrate on the idea that you are the centre, that you are God, the sovereign of all spheres and that you are with your all-consciousness at the same moment in the Venussphere. As a divine principle you call in your mind the intelligence Hagiel as if you would call its name, in your mind, throughout the whole sphere of the Venus. You must be convinced that your calling the name is heard everywhere in the Venussphere and that Hagiel, acknowledging you as her God, also hears you. Remain in this state of stress for a few moments, for your spirit will then conceive that Hagiel is answering you in your mind. Since you are in the Venus-sphere with your allconsciousness you will first register Hagiel's voice as if it were coming from the inmost depth of your own spirit. As soon as you hear the voice of Hagiel and as soon as you are sure that you see the spirit being, you return to your soul, keeping up your consciousness of being God himself, and you will find yourself reunited with your soul within your physical body. Now call for
  --
  Now it is up to you to tell this intelligence what you desire. If you intend to contact Hagiel repeatedly then do not forget to make arrangements at this first meeting in which simple manner you may in future call this high and beautiful spirit being. If you are interested you can also win Hagiel's servants for you. These are usually represented to the magician in their female shape. The servants of the Venus-queen are also very beautiful, as the magician may see himself.
  Evocations like these will bring you the most diverse experiences. To give you details on them in this connection is quite impossible. It is, however, left to the magician's own will to gain as much experience as he wants. I can only give here a few hints from my own experience as to how he has to go about, as a genuine magician, the evocation of beings.
  If you have reached an agreement with Hagiel on everything and if Hagiel has promised to fulfil your wishes, you can be sure that she will really keep her promise. All that now remains for you to do is to send this intelligence off again. You offer your thanks quite individually, for instance, by expressing your pleasure in the fact that Hagiel wholly acknowledges you as a genuine magician and is obedient to you, and then you ask the intelligence to return to her own sphere. With your allconsciousness you place yourself into the Venus sphere and concentrate by means of the imagination that Hagiel is returning from the partial sphere of your room to her domicil. After having done this meditative step you return as a magician from your allconsciousness to your normal consciousness, thereby bringing the evocation to an end. Staying in the room in which you have carried out the evocation you will find yourself, for a while after
  Hagiel's departure, in a state of happiness, a feeling of bliss will pervade you, and, as if dominated by true happiness, you will find yourself in a state of exaltation. If you please, you may remain in the room within the magic circle for some time and reconstruct the whole experience with Hagiel once more in your mind so that you will remember well every part of it when you completely finish your evocation. By help of imagination you dissolve the accumulated light into the universe, take the sign out of the triangle and put it away in safe keeping. You can leave the circle without any danger, put out the lamps, etc. All magical instruments and aids are returned to their repository. If Hagiel has informed you of any special knowledge which you should not put down in writing, but merely keep well in your head, the knowledge being intended for you alone, then you must comply with such a wish. Otherwise you enter the procedure of the whole evocation into your diary to enable you to keep a good control over your workings and to have a reference book for them. You can follow the same procedure as with Hagiel in respect of any other being from any other sphere. By and by you will also become a perfect master in this respect and your personal experience will grow immensely.

12.09 - The Story of Dr. Faustus Retold, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Dr. Faust, as you know, you must have seen him on our school stage, was a very learned man. His ambition was to acquire all knowledge, knowledge of all subjects, of all arts and sciences. But he wanted not only to be a doctor of theories but of practice also, not only a learned man but a man of power in additionnot only to know but to control. Universal nature was his field and he sought not only to measure and survey the outside but to probe into her deeper secret mysteries. In those days there was a line of inquiry pursued by savants that was called occultism. The occultist sought to discover the secret and subtle forces of nature through which one could influence and control outer and material things and happenings. In this field there were the alchemists whose attempt was to transform lead into gold, that is to say, manipulate forces and elements in nature in such a way that mere lead would be turned into pure gold. So, our Dr. Faust, in tune with these magicians as they were commonly known, ventured into this region to possess the power over the forces of nature. This control over nature could go to the extent of producing what we know as miracles, for example, you ask for a thing, anything whatsoever, and it is there before you; you want to go some place, you will the thing and you are there like a flash of lightning. You can even make people do what you want to be done.
   One day when Dr. Faust was deeply engaged in this interesting occupation, suddenly he saw standing in front of him a figurea strange figure, black, robed in black, huge in staturehe was taken by surprise. Half in curiosity, half in fear he asked who he was. The figure answered: he was what Dr. Faust wanted, that is to say, he could give Faust whatever he wanted, he was that Power. Dr. Faust questioned him and he was answered that the person was indeed what he was claiming to be. Faust was to ask only to have the thing he wanted. Faust could have more and more knowledge, more and more power. Not only that, but something infinitely greater and more precious. Dr. Faust wanted to know what that was. "Infinite pleasure, infinite delight. You will never be sad or sorrowful, never suffer, I will give you perfect enjoyment." This ambitious greedy man swallowed the bait. Faust asked whether it was all truewhat he was professing. The person answered: "More than what I have promised, I will give you. But it is give and take, you can take only when you give." "Give! What can I give? What have I got?" Oh! it is nothing, it is just a trifle. You won't ever know that you are giving. Ready?" "Ready? Yes, quite. But just tell me what it is?" "Oh! it is indeed nothingyour soul!" "Soul?" Faust did not know what the soul was. He nodded assent, strange to say, somewhat hesitatinglyalthough so eager and ardent till now. Take it then, he said.

1.20 - RULES FOR HOUSEHOLDERS AND MONKS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  The magician and his magic. All become speechless with wonder at the magic, but it is all unreal. The magician alone is real. The rich man and his garden. People see only the garden; they should look for its rich owner."
  MANI MALLICK (to the Master): "What a big electric light they have at the exhibition! It makes us think how great He must be who has made such an electric light."

1.20 - Talismans - The Lamen - The Pantacle, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The decisive advantage of this system is not that its variety makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we already posses the Invocations necessary to call forth the Energies required. What is perhaps still more to the point, they work without putting the magician to such severe toil and exertion as is needed when he has to write them out from his own ingenium. Yes! This is weakness on my part, and I am very naughty to encourage you to shirk the hardest path.
  I used often to make the background of my Talismans of four concentric circles, painting then, the first (inmost) in the King (or Knight) scale, the second in the Queen, the third in the Prince, and the outermost in the Princess scale, of the Sign, Planet, or Element to which I was devoting it. On this, preferably in the "flashing" colours, I would paint the appropriate Names and Figures.
  Lastly, the Talisman may be surrounded with a band inscribed with a suit- able "versicle" chosen from some Holy book, or devised by the magician to suit the case.
  In the British Museum (and I suppose elsewhere) you may see the medal struck to commemorate the victory over the Armada. This is a reproduction, perhaps modified, of the Talisman used by Dee to raise the storm which scattered the enemy fleet.
  --
  Remember, too, please, what I have pointed out elsewhere, that the greatest Masters have quite often not been magicians at all, technically; they have used such devices as Secret Societies, Slogans and Books. If you are so frivolous as to try to exclude these from our discourse, it is merely evidence that you have not understood a single word of what I have been trying to tell you these last few hundred years!
  May I close with a stray example or so? Equinox III, 1, has the Neophyte's Pantacle of Frater O.I.V.V.I.O.[32] The Fontispiece of the original (4 volume) edition of Magick, the colors vilely reproduced, is a Lamen of my own Magick, or a Pantacle of the Science, I'm sure I'm not sure which![33]

1.21 - Tabooed Things, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  wish to prevent the blood from falling into the hands of magicians,
  who might make an evil use of it. That is admittedly the reason why
  --
  them from falling into the hands of a magician, but that the owner
  may have them at the resurrection of the body, to which some races
  --
  forth, they call in a magician to her aid. He looks at her and says,
  "The child is bound in the womb, that is why she cannot be
  --
  bonds the magician imagines that he simultaneously releases the
  child in her womb from the trammels which impede its birth. The same

1.22 - Tabooed Words, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  that no magician might have magic power over me. I went out to
  behold that which I have made, I walked in the two lands which I
  --
  remote past; every Egyptian magician aspired to wield like powers by
  similar means. For it was believed that he who possessed the true

1.23 - FESTIVAL AT SURENDRAS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "Yes. Further, I think of the magician and his magic. The magician alone is real. His magic is illusory, like a dream. I realized this when I heard the Chandi recited.
  Sumbha and Nisumbha were scarcely born when I learnt that they both were dead."
  --
  too. Nothing whatsoever exists after he cuts through the whole thing with the sword of jnna. Then even his 'I' becomes as unreal as the magic of the magician."
  M. was reflecting on these words, when the Master said: "Do you know what it is like? It is as if there were a flower with twenty-five layers of petals, and you cut them all with one stroke.

1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Of course it is easy as pie to knock all this to pieces by "lunatic logic," saying: "Then toothache is really as pleasant as strawberry shortcake:" You are hereby referred to Eight Lectures on Yoga. None of the terms I am using have been, or can be defined. All my propositions amount to no more than tautology: A. is A. You may even quote The Book of the Law itself: "Now a curse upon Because and his kin! . . . . Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!" (AL II, 28-33). These things stink of Ignoratio Elenchi, or something painfully like it: as sort of slipping up a cog, of "confusing the planes" of willfully misunderstanding the gist of an argument. (All magicians, by the way, ought to be grounded solidly in Formal Logic.)
  Never forget, at the least, how simple it is to make a maniac's hell-broth of any proposition, however plain to common sense.

1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  A man gets the fulfillment of the desire he cherishes while practising sadhana. As one thinks, so one receives. A magician was showing his tricks before a king. Now and then he exclaimed: 'Come confusion! Come delusion! O King, give me money! Give me clothes!' Suddenly his tongue turned upward and clove to the roof of his mouth. He experienced kumbhaka. He could utter neither word nor sound, and became motionless.
  People thought he was dead. They built a vault of bricks and buried him there in that posture. After a thousand years someone dug into the vault. Inside it people found a man seated in samdhi. They took him for a holy man and worshipped him. When they shook him his tongue was loosened and regained its normal position. The magician became conscious of the outer world and cried, as he had a thousand years before: 'Come confusion! Come delusion! O King, give me money! Give me clothes!'
  "I used to weep, praying to the Divine Mother, 'O Mother, destroy with Thy thunderbolt my inclination to reason.' "

1.25 - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
  Whosoever thy tutelary deity may be, meditate upon the form for much timeas being apparent, yet non-existent in reality, like a form produced by a magician. Then let the visualization of the tutelary deity melt away from the extremities, till nothing at all remaineth visible of it; and put thyself in the state of the Clearness and the Voidnesswhich thou canst not conceive as something and abide in that state for a little while. Again meditate upon the tutelary deity; again meditate upon the Clear Light; do this alternately. Afterwards allow thine own intellect to melt away gradually, beginning from the extremities.
  The Tibetan Book of the Dead

1.26 - Sacrifice of the Kings Son, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  enchantments practised by the royal magician for the purpose of
  bringing about the celestial phenomena which they feebly mimicked.

1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  10:Since the Consciousness-Force of the eternal Existence is the universal creatrix, the nature of a given world will depend on whatever self-formulation of that Consciousness expresses itself in that world. Equally, for each individual being, his seeing or representation to himself of the world he lives in will depend on the poise or make which that Consciousness has assumed in him. Our human mental consciousness sees the world in sections cut by the reason and sense and put together in a formation which is also sectional; the house it builds is planned to accommodate one or another generalised formulation of Truth, but excludes the rest or admits some only as guests or dependents in the house. Overmind Consciousness is global in its cognition and can hold any number of seemingly fundamental differences together in a reconciling vision. Thus the mental reason sees Person and the Impersonal as opposites: it conceives an impersonal Existence in which person and personality are fictions of the Ignorance or temporary constructions; or, on the contrary, it can see Person as the primary reality and the impersonal as a mental abstraction or only stuff or means of manifestation. To the Overmind intelligence these are separable Powers of the one Existence which can pursue their independent self-affirmation and can also unite together their different modes of action, creating both in their independence and in their union different states of consciousness and being which can be all of them valid and all capable of coexistence. A purely impersonal existence and consciousness is true and possible, but also an entirely personal consciousness and existence; the Impersonal Divine, Nirguna Brahman, and the Personal Divine, Saguna Brahman, are here equal and coexistent aspects of the Eternal. Impersonality can manifest with person subordinated to it as a mode of expression; but, equally, Person can be the reality with impersonality as a mode of its nature: both aspects of manifestation face each other in the infinite variety of conscious Existence. What to the mental reason are irreconcilable differences present themselves to the Overmind intelligence as coexistent correlatives; what to the mental reason are contraries are to the Overmind intelligence complementaries. Our mind sees that all things are born from Matter or material Energy, exist by it, go back into it; it concludes that Matter is the eternal factor, the primary and ultimate reality, Brahman. Or it sees all as born of Life-Force or Mind, existing by Life or by Mind, going back into the universal Life or Mind, and it concludes that this world is a creation of the cosmic Life-Force or of a cosmic Mind or Logos. Or again it sees the world and all things as born of, existing by and going back to the Real Idea or Knowledge-Will of the Spirit or to the Spirit itself and it concludes on an idealistic or spiritual view of the universe. It can fix on any of these ways of seeing, but to its normal separative vision each way excludes the others. Overmind consciousness perceives that each view is true of the action of the principle it erects; it can see that there is a material world-formula, a vital world-formula, a mental world-formula, a spiritual worldformula, and each can predominate in a world of its own and at the same time all can combine in one world as its constituent powers. The self-formulation of Conscious Force on which our world is based as an apparent Inconscience that conceals in itself a supreme Conscious-Existence and holds all the powers of Being together in its inconscient secrecy, a world of universal Matter realising in itself Life, Mind, Overmind, Supermind, Spirit, each of them in its turn taking up the others as means of its selfexpression, Matter proving in the spiritual vision to have been always itself a manifestation of the Spirit, is to the Overmind view a normal and easily realisable creation. In its power of origination and in the process of its executive dynamis Overmind is an organiser of many potentialities of Existence, each affirming its separate reality but all capable of linking themselves together in many different but simultaneous ways, a magician craftsman empowered to weave the multicoloured warp and woof of manifestation of a single entity in a complex universe.
  11:In this simultaneous development of multitudinous independent or combined Powers or Potentials there is yet - or there is as yet - no chaos, no conflict, no fall from Truth or Knowledge. The Overmind is a creator of truths, not of illusions or falsehoods: what is worked out in any given overmental energism or movement is the truth of the Aspect, Power, Idea, Force, Delight which is liberated into independent action, the truth of the consequences of its reality in that independence. There is no exclusiveness asserting each as the sole truth of being or the others as inferior truths: each God knows all the Gods and their place in existence; each Idea admits all other ideas and their right to be; each Force concedes a place to all other forces and their truth and consequences; no delight of separate fulfilled existence or separate experience denies or condemns the delight of other existence or other experience. The Overmind is a principle of cosmic Truth and a vast and endless catholicity is its very spirit; its energy is an all-dynamism as well as a principle of separate dynamisms: it is a sort of inferior Supermind, - although it is concerned predominantly not with absolutes, but with what might be called the dynamic potentials or pragmatic truths of Reality, or with absolutes mainly for their power of generating pragmatic or creative values, although, too, its comprehension of things is more global than integral, since its totality is built up of global wholes or constituted by separate independent realities uniting or coalescing together, and although the essential unity is grasped by it and felt to be basic of things and pervasive in their manifestation, but no longer as in the Supermind their intimate and ever-present secret, their dominating continent, the overt constant builder of the harmonic whole of their activity and nature.

1.29 - What is Certainty?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The Master of the Temple deals very simply and efficiently with problems of this kind. "The Mind" (says he) of this Party of the First Part, hereinafter referred to as Frater N (or whatever his 8 = 3 motto may be) is so constructed that the interval from C to C is most harmoniously divided into n notes; that of the Party of the Second Part hereinafter referred to as not a Heretic, an Atheist, a Bolshie, ad Die-hard, a Schismatic, an Anarchist, a Black magician, a Friend of Aleister Crowley, or whatever may be the current term of abuse Mr. A, Lord B, the Duke of C, Mrs. X, or whatever he or she may chance to be called into five. The Structure called of-all-Truth in neither of us is affected in the least, any more than in the reading of a Thermometer with Fahrenheit on one side and Centigrade on the other.
  You naturally object that this answer is little better than an evasion, that it automatically pushes the Gamut question outside the Charmed of-all-Truth Circle.

1.31 - Is Thelema a New Religion?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Religion, he says, Latin: religio, piety. Collection or paying attention to: religens as opposed to negligens, neglecting; the attitude of Gallio. But it also implies a binding together i.e. of ideas; in fact, a "body of doctrine." Not a bad expression. A religion then, is a more or less coherent and consistent set of beliefs, with precepts and prohibitions therefrom deducible. But then there is the sense in which Frazer (and I) often use the word: as in opposition to "Science" or "Magic." Here the point is that religious people attribute phenomena to the will of some postulated Being or Beings, placable and moveable by virtue of sacrifice, devotion, or appeal. Against such, the scientific or magical mind believes in the Laws of Nature, asserts "If A, then B" if you do so-and-so, the result will be so-and-so, aloof from arbitrary interference. Joshua, it is alleged, made the sun stand still by supplication, and Hezekiah in the same way cause it to "go back upon the dial of Ahaz;" Willett did it by putting the clock back, and getting an Act of Parliament to confirm his lunacy. Petruchio, too "It shall be what o'clock I say it is!" The two last came close to the magical method; at least, to that branch of it which consists of "fooling all the people all the time." But such an operation, if true Magick were employed, would be beyond the power of any magician of my acquaintance; for it would mess up the solar system completely. (You remember how this happened, and what came of it, in a rather clever short story by H.G. Wells.) For true Magick means "to employ one set of natural forces at a mechanical advantage as against another set" I quote, as closely as memory serves, Thomas Henry Huxley, when he explains that when he lifts his water-jug or his elbow he does not "defy the Law of Gravitation." On the contrary, he uses that Law; its equations form part of the system by which he lifts the jug without spilling the water.
  To sum up, our system is a religion just so far as a religion means an enthusiastic putting-together of a series of doctrines, no one of which must in any way clash with Science or Magick.

1.38 - Woman - Her Magical Formula, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    I am the magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. 'Come unto me' is a foolish word: for it is I that go.
    Who worshipped Heru-pa-kraath have worshipped me; ill, for I am the worshipper. [6-8]

1.39 - Prophecy, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
    They were there to assist at the publication of a book by 62 year-old magician, ALEISTER CROWLEY.
    Publication occurred at 6:22 sharp, when the Sun entered Capricornus.

1.40 - The Nature of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  in British New Guinea, tell of a certain magician named Segera, who
  had sago for his totem. When Segera was old and ill, he told the
  --
  dismembering the body of a king or magician and burying the pieces
  in different parts of the country in order to ensure the fertility

1.50 - Eating the God, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  Batak magicians can conjure the demon of disease out of the
  patient's body into an image made out of a banana-tree with a human
  --
  which they call _nyani;_ fortunately, however, the magician can
  induce these maleficent beings to come out of the sick person and

1.56 - The Public Expulsion of Evils, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  and magicians and tell them that the people are now to eat the new
  yams and be merry, therefore they must cleanse the town and remove

1.60 - Between Heaven and Earth, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  of her own. After about ten days the magician comes and undoes the
  spell by muttering charms and breathing on her and on the more

1.66 - The External Soul in Folk-Tales, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  a magician called Punchkin held a queen captive for twelve years,
  and would fain marry her, but she would not have him. At last the
  --
  Punchkin. So the queen spoke the magician fair, and pretended that
  she had at last made up her mind to marry him. "And do tell me," she
  --
  parrot. He brought it to the door of the magician's palace, and
  began playing with it. Punchkin, the magician, saw him, and, coming
  out, tried to persuade the boy to give him the parrot. "Give me my
  --
  tore off one of his wings; and as he did so the magician's right arm
  fell off. Punchkin then stretched out his left arm, crying, "Give me
  --
  left leg, down fell the magician's left. Nothing remained of him
  except the trunk and the head; but still he rolled his eyes, and
  --
  that of the magician in the previous tale. As the bird's wings and
  legs are torn off, the ogre's arms and legs drop off; and when its
  --
  first dove is killed, the magician grows sick; when the second is
  killed, he grows very sick; and when the third is killed, he dies.
  --
  is." So the princess asked the magician, and he told her that in the
  wood was a hydra with seven heads; in the middle head of the hydra
  --
  laid it under the magician's pillow. No sooner did the enchanter lay
  his head on the pillow than he gave three terrible yells, turned

1.76 - The Gods - How and Why they Overlap, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  How restore faith in the Gods? There is only one way; we must get to know them personally. And that, of course, is one of the principal tasks of the magician.
  One further remark. I have suggested that all these "identical" gods are in reality distinct persons, but belonging to the same families. Can we follow up this line of thought? Yes: but I will defer it to a subsequent letter.

1.79 - Progress, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The experience of the magician and the Yogi does suggest that there is room in the human brain as at present constituted for almost limitless expansion. At least our system of Training is more immediately practical than digging up our Corpora Quadragenina and planting them in a Monkey's Medulla just to see what will come of it. So put down that bread-knife!
  Love is the law, love under will.

1.83 - Epistola Ultima, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The aspiring magician only analyses himself for the purpose of finding new worlds to conquer. His first objective is the astral plane; its discovery, the classification of its tenants, and their control.
  All his early practises therefore are devoted to exploring the worlds which surround (if you choose, or if your prefer are contained in) the object of sense. If there is a tree in your garden, you want to find out whether that tree is occupied by a nymph or a nat, and if so, what are they like? How do they act? How can you make them useful to your purpose? It is in fact the ordinary every-day scientific method of exploration. The only difference is that in the course of one's experiments one becomes aware of parts of the nature of the object to be examined which are subtler and perhaps more powerful, nearer to reality, than those which ordinary scientific examination discloses. You will notice, however, that the qualities above-mentioned are identical. The chemical elements which go to form a tree are subtler, more powerful and nearer to reality than the tree as it is presented to the senses.
  --
  Before closing the subject entirely I think it well to point out that there are quite a number of worlds on which a good deal of work remains to be done. In particular I cannot refrain from mentioning the work of Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelly. My own work on this subject has been so elaborate and extensive that I shall never sufficiently regret that I never had an opportunity of completing it, but I should like to emphasize that the obtaining of a book like Liber 418 is in itself so outstanding an achievement that it should serve as an encouragement to all magicians.
  In the case of many worlds, in particular that of Abra Melin, of the greater and lesser Keys of Solomon, of Pietro di Abano, of Cornelius Agrippa, while we have perfectly adequate information as to the methods we have very meagre examples of the results, especially so far as refers to the technical side of the work.
  I must conclude with a warning. So many of these branches of magick are so fascinating that any one of them is liable to take hold of the magician by the short hair and upset his balance completely. It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the magicians is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step crossing of the abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.
  Anything apart from this course is a side issue and unless so regarded may lead to the complete ruin of the whole work of the magician.
  II
  The second part of this letter, which appears to be expanding into a sort of essay, will be devoted to Yoga. You will have noticed that the grade of Master of the Temple is itself intimately associated with Yoga. It is when one reaches this plane that the apparently contradictory forms of the Great Work, Magick and Yoga, begin to converge, though even earlier in the course of the work it must have been noticed that achievements in Yoga have been of great assistance to magical operations, and that many of the mental states necessary to the development of the magician are identical with those attained in the course of the strictly technical Yogic operations.
  The literature necessary to the study of Magick is somewhat variegated; there are quite a number of classics on the subject and though it would be easy enough for me to draw up a list of not more than half-a dozen which I consider really essential, there may be as many as an hundred which in the more or less subsidiary forms are useful to the magician.
  With Yoga the case is very different indeed. The literature on the subject is so enormous and contains so vast a number of more or less secret documents which circulate from hand to hand, that I believe that the best advice I can give anyone is to cut one's cloth very sparingly if one is to make a fitting suit. I do not think I am going too far if I say that Part I of Book 4 and my Eight Lectures on Yoga form an absolutely sufficient guide to the useful practise of the subject; anything else is almost certain to operate as a distraction.
  --
  As I have written it has become clearer to me that this is the case, but I should not like you to arise from its perusal with any idea that I have been in some way derogating Yoga I would not like to maintain that it is necessary to Magick because there have been many very great magicians who knew nothing at all of the subject but I am just as strongly convinced as I was before that the practice of Yoga in itself is of enormous assistance to the magician in his more intelligible path, only adding that he should beware lest the logical antinomies inherent in Yoga divert him from or discourage him in his simple path.
  Love is the law, love under will.

1914 03 19p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   O Lord, eternal Teacher, Thou whom we can neither name nor understand, but whom we want to realise more and more at every moment, enlighten our intelligence, illumine our hearts, transfigure our consciousness; may everyone awaken to the true life, flee from egoism and its train of sorrow and anguish, and take refuge in Thy divine and pure Love, source of all peace and all happiness. My heart so full of Thee seems to expand into infinity and my intelligence, all illumined with Thy Presence, shines like the purest diamond. Thou art the wonderful magician, he who transfigures all things, from ugliness brings forth beauty, from darkness light, from the mud clear water, from ignorance knowledge and from egoism goodness.
   In Thee, by Thee, for Thee we live and Thy law is the supreme master of our life.

1955-08-03 - Nothing is impossible in principle - Psychic contact and psychic influence - Occult powers, adverse influences; magic - Magic, occultism and Yogic powers -Hypnotism and its effects, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Sweet Mother, I have heard that the magicians who use occult powers for their work suffer a great deal after their death. Is it true?
  What sort of magicians are you speaking about? Any kind?
  Those who have occult powers and use them for their personal interest? You mean these?
  --
  Sweet Mother, are there any magicians who do not work magic for their personal interest?
  You mean magical rites? Because, you see, you must not mix up magic with occultism.

1957-06-26 - Birth through direct transmutation - Man and woman - Judging others - divine Presence in all - New birth, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
    Sri Aurobindo is probably alluding, among other things, to an incident which took place in 1921 in Pondicherry at the "Guest House" where he lived. A cook who had been dismissed had gone to a local black magician to try to take his revenge, and a shower of stones began to fall into the courtyard of the "Guest House", regularly for several days. The people on the first floor could see the stones forming in front of their eyes and then falling into the courtyard. These stones were so real that they hurt a young servant, and could be picked up. Strangely enough they were all covered with moss. Finally, when larger and larger stones started falling inside closed rooms, and there was no longer any doubt about their occult origin, Mother intervened with her inner power and the "shower" stopped. A few days later the cook's wife came running to ask for Sri Aurobindo's forgiveness: the cook lay dying in the hospital, struck by the "recoil" of his shower of stones. Sri Aurobindo answered, "For this he need not die!" And everything returned to normal. This incident is related in detail in The Life of Sri Aurobindo by A. B. Purani, 1964 Ed., pp. 282-83.
  ***

1969 12 09, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
   219Hatred is a sword of power, but its edge is always double. It is like the Kritya1 of the ancient magicians which, if baulked of its prey, returned in fury to devour its sender.
   220Love God in thy opponent, even while thou strikest him; so shall neither have hell for his portion.

1.ami - To the Saqi (from Baal-i-Jibreel), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Naeem Siddiqui Original Language Urdu Look! What wonders the spring has wrought! The river bank is a paradise! Rose-embowered glades, Blossoming jasmine and hyacinth, And violets, the envy of the skies!. Rainbow colours transformed Into a chorus of rapturous sounds, And the harmony of flowers The hillside is carnation-red; In the languid haze, the air Seems drunk with the beauty of life! The brook, on the heights of the hill, Dances to its own music. The world is dizzy in a pageant of colour! My rosy-cheeked Cup-bearer! The voice of spring is the voice of life! But the spring lasts not for ever; So bring me the cup that tears all veils -- The wine that brightens life -- The wine that intoxicates the world -- The wine in which flows The music of everlasting life, The wine that reveals eternity's secret. Unveil the secrets, O Saqi. Look! The world has changed apace! New are the songs, and new is the music; The West's magic has dissolved; The West's magicians are bewildered; Old politics has lost its game; The world is tired of kings; Gone are the days of the rich; Gone is the jugglery of old; Awake is China's sleeping giant; The Himalayas' torrents are unleashed; Sinai is riven; Moses awaits the light divine. The Muslim says that God is One But his heart is Still a heathen: Culture, sufism, rites and rthetoric, All adore non- Arab idols; The truth was lost in trifles, And the nation was lost in conventions. The speaker's rhetoric is enchanting, But is devoid of passion; It is clothed in logic neat, But lost in a maze of words; The sufi, unique in the love of truth, Unique in the love of God, Was lost in un-Islamic thought; Was lost in the hierarchic quest; The fire of love is extinguished, And a Muslim is a heap of ashes, O Saqi! Give me the old wine again! Let the potent cup go round! Let me soar on the wings of love; Make my dust bright-pinioned; Make wisdom free; And make the young guide the old; Thou it is that nourishest. this nation; Thou it is that canst sustain it; Urge them to move, to stir; Give them Ali's heart; give them Siddiq's passion; Let the same old love pierce their hearts; Awaken in them a burning zeal; Let the stars throw down their spears, And let the earth's dwellers tremble Give the young a passion that consumes; Give them my vision, my love of God; Free my boat from the whirlpool's grip, And make it move forward-, Reveal to me the secrets of life, For thou knowest them all; The treasures of a fakir like me Are suffused, unsleeping eyes, And secret yearnings of the heart-, My anguished sighs at night, My solitude in the world of men, My hopes and my fears, My quest untiring, My nature an arena of thought A mirror of the world. My heart a battlefield of life, With armies of suspicion, And bastions of certitude; With these treasures I am More rich than the richest of all. Let the young join my throng, And let them find an anchor of hope. The sea of life has its ebb and flow-, In every atom's heart is the pulse of life; It manifests itself in the body, As a flame conceals a wave of smoke; Contact with the earth was harsh for it, But it liked the labour; It is in motion, and not in motion; Tired of the elements' shackles; A unity, imprisoned by plurality; But always unique, unequalled. It has made this dome of myriad glass; It has carved this pantheon. It does not repeat its craft For thou art not me, and I am not thou; It has created the world of men, And remains in solitude, Its brightness is seen in the stars, And in the lustre of pearls-, To it belong the wildernesses, The flowers and the thorns; Mountains sometimes are shaken by its might; It captures angels and nymphs; It makes the eagle pounce on a prey, And leave a blood-stained body. Every atom throbs with life; Rest is an illusion; Life's journey pauses not, For every moment is a new glory; Life, thou thinkest, is a mystery; Life is a delight in eternal flight; Life has seen many ups and downs; It loves a journey, not a goal. Movement is life's being; Movement is truth, pause is a mirage. Life's enjoyment is in perils, In facing ups and downs; In the world beyond Life stalked for death, But the impulse to procreate Peopled the world of man and beast. Flowers blossomed and dropped From this tree of life. Fools think life is ephemeral; Life renews itself for ever -- Moving fast as a flash, Moving to eternity in a breath; Time, a chain of days and nights, Is the ebb and flow of breath. This flow of breath is like a sword, Selfhood is its sharpness; Selfhood is the secret of life; It is the world's awakening, Selfhood is solitary, absorbed, An ocean enclosed in a drop; It shines in light and in darkness, Existent in, but away from, thee and me. The dawn of life behind it, eternity before, It has no frontiers before, no frontiers behind. Afloat on the river of time, Bearing the buffets of the waves, Changing the course of its quest, Shifting its glance from time to time; For it a hill is a grain of sand, Mountains are shattered by its blows; A journey is its beginning and end, And this is the secret of its being. It is the moon's beam, the spark in the flint, Colourless itself, though infused with colours, No concern has it with the calculus of space, With linear time's limits, with the finitude of life. It manifested itself in man's essence of dust, After an eternity of a strife to be born. It is in thy heart that Selfhood has an abode, As heaven has its abode in the cornea of thy eye. To one who guards his Selfhood, The living that demeans it, is poison; He accepts only a living, That keeps his self- esteem; Keep away from royal pomp, Keep thy Selfhood free; Thou shouldst bow in prayer, Not bow to a human being. This myriad-coloured world, Under the sentence of death, This world of sight and sound, I Where life means eating and drinking, Is Selfhood's initial stage; It is not thy abode, O traveller! This dust-bowl is not the source of thy fire; The world is for thee, not thou for the world. Demolish this illusion of' time and space; Selfhood is the Tiger of God, the world is its prey; The earth is its prey, the heavens are its prey; Other worlds there are, still awaiting birth, The earth-born are not the centre of all life; They all await thy assault, Thy cataclysmic thought and deed; Days and nights revolve, To reveal thy Selfhood to thee; Thou art the architect of the world. Words fail to convey the truth; Truth is the mirror, words its shade; Though the breath is a burning flame, The flame has limited bounds. 'If now I soar any farther, The vision will sear my wings.' <
1f.lovecraft - He, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   magician. His fright, turning to steely despair, left room for a
   resurgence of his rage against me; and he staggered a step toward the

1f.lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   daemonologists, and magicians known to man; and was a treasure-house of
   lore in the doubtful realms of alchemy and astrology. Hermes

1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   engulf it; with that of Nug-Soth, a magician of the dark conquerors of
   A.D. 16,000; with that of a Roman named Titus Sempronius Blaesus, who

1f.lovecraft - The Thing on the Doorstep, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   of magician at school; and had really seemed able to accomplish some
   highly baffling marvels. She professed to be able to raise
  --
   momentarily in the magicians body and able to stare half across the
   room at her real body, whose eyes blazed and protruded with an alien
  --
   bodydisappear to become a great magician like her father and leave him
   marooned in that female shell that wasnt even quite human. Yes, he

1f.lovecraft - The Trap, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   erudite magician, none of the common people doubted; and even educated
   persons attached much fearful importance to Holms rumored attempts to

1f.lovecraft - Two Black Bottles, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   curse. If it had not been for that old magician, he might still be
   preaching in the little damp church across the moor.

1f.lovecraft - Under the Pyramids, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   magician is resented and disputed. I thought of how much my
   hollow-voiced guide Abdul Reis looked like an old Egyptian priest or

1.jk - Endymion - Book III, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
   That curst magician's name fell icy numb
  Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come

1.jk - The Cap And Bells; Or, The Jealousies - A Faery Tale .. Unfinished, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  Until he knock'd at the magician's door;
  Where, till the porter answer'd, might be seen,
  --
  It was indeed the great magician,
  Feeling, with careful toe, for every stair,
  --
  For the rose-water vase, magician mine!
  And sponge my forehead, -- so my love doth make me pine.
  --
  Then the magician solemnly 'gan to frown,
  So that his frost-white eyebrows, beetling low,

1.jwvg - The Pupil In Magic, #Goethe - Poems, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  Of the old magician rid;
  And henceforth shall ev'ry spirit

1.kbr - He's That Rascally Kind Of Yogi, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
  the magician's sleight-of-hand -
  Kabir says, saints, he's made it

1.kbr - Hes that rascally kind of yogi, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh Original Language Hindi He's that rascally kind of yogi who has no sky or earth, no hand, foot, form or shape. Where there's no market he sets up shop, weighs things and keeps the accounts. No deeds, no creeds, no yogic powers, not even a horn or gourd, so how can he go begging? "I know you and you know me and I'm inside of you." When there isn't a trace of creation or destruction, what do you meditate on? That yogi built a house brimful of Ram. He has no healing herbs, his root-of-life is Ram. He looks and looks at the juggler's tricks, the magician's sleight-of-hand -- Kabir says, saints, he's made it to the King's land. [2024.jpg] -- from The Bijak of Kabir, Translated by Linda Hess / Translated by Shukdeo Singh <
1.pbs - Alastor - or, the Spirit of Solitude, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
  Raking the cinders of a crucible

1.rwe - Monadnoc, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
  Western magicians, here they work;
  Sweat and season are their arts,

2.01 - Indeterminates, Cosmic Determinations and the Indeterminable, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Actually to our Science this infinite or indeterminate Existence reveals itself as an Energy, known not by itself but by its works, which throws up in its motion waves of energism and in them a multitude of infinitesimals; these, grouping themselves to form larger infinitesimals, become a basis for all the creations of the Energy, even those farthest away from the material basis, for the emergence of a world of organised Matter, for the emergence of Life, for the emergence of Consciousness, for all the still unexplained activities of evolutionary Nature. On the original process are erected a multitude of processes which we can observe, follow, can take advantage of many of them, utilise; but they are none of them, fundamentally, explicable. We know now that different groupings and a varying number of electric infinitesimals can produce or serve as the constituent occasion - miscalled the cause, for here there seems to be only a necessary antecedent condition - for the appearance of larger atomic infinitesimals of different natures, qualities, powers; but we fail to discover how these different dispositions can come to constitute these different atoms, - how the differentiae in the constituent occasion or cause necessitate the differentiae in the constituted outcome or result. We know also that certain combinations of certain invisible atomic infinitesimals produce or occasion new and visible determinations quite different in nature, quality and power from the constituent infinitesimals; but we fail to discover, for instance, how a fixed formula for the combination of oxygen and hydrogen comes to determine the appearance of water which is evidently something more than a combination of gases, a new creation, a new form of substance, a material manifestation of a quite new character. We see that a seed develops into a tree, we follow the line of the process of production and we utilise it; but we do not discover how a tree can grow out of a seed, how the life and form of the tree come to be implied in the substance or energy of the seed or, if that be rather the fact, how the seed can develop into a tree. We know that genes and chromosomes are the cause of hereditary transmissions, not only of physical but of psychological variations; but we do not discover how psychological characteristics can be contained and transmitted in this inconscient material vehicle. We do not see or know, but it is expounded to us as a cogent account of Nature-process, that a play of electrons, of atoms and their resultant molecules, of cells, glands, chemical secretions and physiological processes manages by their activity on the nerves and brain of a Shakespeare or a Plato to produce or could be perhaps the dynamic occasion for the production of a Hamlet or a Symposium or a Republic; but we fail to discover or appreciate how such material movements could have composed or necessitated the composition of these highest points of thought and literature: the divergence here of the determinants and the determination becomes so wide that we are no longer able to follow the process, much less understand or utilise. These formulae of Science may be pragmatically correct and infallible, they may govern the practical how of Nature's processes, but they do not disclose the intrinsic how or why; rather they have the air of the formulae of a cosmic magician, precise, irresistible, automatically successful each in its field, but their rationale is fundamentally unintelligible.
  There is more to perplex us; for we see the original indeterminate Energy throwing out general determinates of itself, - we might equally in their relation to the variety of their products call them generic indeterminates, - with their appropriate states of substance and determined forms of that substance: the latter are numerous, sometimes innumerable variations on the substance-energy which is their base: but none of these variations seems to be predetermined by anything in the nature of the general indeterminate. An electric Energy produces positive, negative, neutral forms of itself, forms that are at once waves and particles; a gaseous state of energy-substance produces a considerable number of different gases; a solid state of energysubstance from which results the earth principle develops into different forms of earth and rock of many kinds and numerous minerals and metals; a life principle produces its vegetable kingdom teeming with a countless foison of quite different plants, trees, flowers; a principle of animal life produces an enormous variety of genus, species, individual variations: so it proceeds into human life and mind and its mind-types towards the still unwritten end or perhaps the yet occult sequel of that unfinished evolutionary chapter. Throughout there is the constant rule of a general sameness in the original determinate and, subject to this substantial sameness of basic substance and nature, a profuse variation in the generic and individual determinates; an identical law obtains of sameness or similarity in the genus or species with numerous variations often meticulously minute in the individual. But we do not find anything in any general or generic determinate necessitating the variant determinations that result from it. A necessity of immutable sameness at the base, of free and unaccountable variations on the surface seems to be the law; but who or what necessitates or determines? What is the rationale of the determination, what is its original truth or its significance? What compels or impels this exuberant play of varying possibilities which seem to have no aim or meaning unless it be the beauty or delight of creation? A Mind, a seeking and curious inventive Thought, a hidden determining Will might be there, but there is no trace of it in the first and fundamental appearance of material Nature.

2.01 - The Road of Trials, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
  An early voyager among the Lapps has left a vivid description of the weird performance of one of these strange emissaries into the kingdoms of the dead[2]. Since the yonder world is a place of everlasting night, the ceremonial of the shaman has to take place after dark. The friends and neighbors gather in the flickering, dimly lighted hut of the patient, and follow attentively the gesticulations of the magician. First he summons the helping spirits; these arrive, invisible to all but himself. Two women in ceremonial attire, but without belts and wearing linen hoods, a man without hood or belt, and a girl not as yet adult, are in attendance.
  The shaman uncovers his head, loosens his belt and shoestrings, covers his face with his hands and begins to twirl in a variety of circles. Suddenly, with very violent gestures, he shouts: "Fit out the reindeer! Ready to boat!" Snatching up an ax, he begins striking himself about the knees with it and swinging it in the direction of the three women. He drags burning logs out of the fire with his naked hands. He dashes three times around each of the women and finally collapses, "like a dead man." During the whole time, no one has been permitted to touch him. While he reposes now in trance, he is to be watched so closely that not even a fly may settle upon him. His spirit has departed, and he is viewing the sacred mountains with their inhabiting gods. The women in attendance whisper to each other, trying to guess in what part of the yonder world he now may be[3]. If they mention the correct mountain, the shaman stirs either a hand or a foot. At length he begins to return. In a low, weak voice he utters the words he has heard in the world below. Then the women begin to sing. The shaman slowly awakes, declaring both the cause of the illness and the manner of sacrifice to be made. Then he announces the length of time it will take for the patient to grow well.

2.01 - The Temple, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Temple represents the external Universe. The magician must take it as he finds it, so that it is of no particular shape; yet we find written, Liber VII, vi, 2: "We made us a Temple of stones in the shape of the Universe, even as thou didst wear openly and I concealed." This shape is the Vesica Piscis; but it is only the greatest of the magicians who can thus fashion the Temple. There may, however, be some choice of rooms; this refers to the power of the magician to reincarnate in a suitable body.

2.02 - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The Spirit that manifests things or manifests itself in them so obscurely, looks to our reason like a magician and his power or Maya a creative magic: but magic can create illusions or it can create astounding realities, and we find it difficult to decide which of these suprarational processes faces us in this universe.
  But, in fact, the cause of this impression must necessarily be sought not in anything illusory or fantastic in the Supreme or the universal Self-existence, but in our own inability to seize the supreme clue to its manifold existence or discover the secret plan and pattern of its action. The Self-existent is the Infinite and its way of being and of action must be the way of the Infinite, but our consciousness is limited, our reason built upon things finite: it is irrational to suppose that a finite consciousness and reason can be a measure of the Infinite; this smallness cannot judge that Immensity; this poverty bound to a limited use of its scanty means cannot conceive the opulent management of those riches; an ignorant half-knowledge cannot follow the motions of an All-Knowledge. Our reasoning is based upon our experience of the finite operations of physical Nature, on an incomplete observation and uncertain understanding of something that acts within limits; it has organised on that basis certain conceptions which it seeks to make general and universal, and whatever contradicts or departs from these conceptions it regards as irrational, false or inexplicable. But there are different orders of the reality and the conceptions, measures, standards suitable to one need not be applicable to another order. Our physical being is built first upon an aggregate of infinitesimals, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells; but the law of action of these infinitesimals does not explain all the physical workings even of the human body, much less can they cover all the law and process of action of man's supraphysical parts, his life movements and mind movements and soul movements. In the body finites have been formed with their own habits, properties, characteristic ways of action; the body itself is a finite which is not a mere aggregate of these smaller finites which it uses as parts, organs, constituent instruments of its operations; it has developed a being and has a general law which surpasses its dependence upon these elements or constituents. The life and mind again are supraphysical finites with a different and more subtle mode of operation of their own, and no dependence on the physical parts for instrumentation can annul their intrinsic character; there is something more and other in our vital and mental being and vital and mental forces than the functioning of a physical body. But, again, each finite is in its reality or has behind it an Infinite which has built and supports and directs the finite it has made as its self-figure; so that even the being and law and process of the finite cannot be totally understood without a knowledge of that which is occult within or behind it: our finite knowledge, conceptions, standards may be valid within their limits, but they are incomplete and relative. A law founded upon an observation of what is divided in Space and Time cannot be confidently applied to the being and action of the Indivisible; not only it cannot be applied to the spaceless and timeless Infinite, but it cannot be applied even to a Time Infinite or a Space Infinite. A law and process binding for our superficial being need not be binding on what is occult within us. Again our intellect, founding itself on reason, finds it difficult to deal with what is infrarational; life is infrarational and we find that our intellectual reason applying itself to life is constantly forcing upon it a control, a measure, an artificial procrustean rule that either succeeds in killing or petrifying life or constrains it into rigid forms and conventions that lame and imprison its capacity or ends by a bungle, a revolt of life, a decay or disruption of the systems and superstructures built upon it by our intelligence.

2.02 - The Circle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  2:Though the magician has been limited in his choice of room, he is more or less able to choose what part of the room he will work in.
  3:He will consider convenience and possibility. His circle should not be too small and cramp his movements; it should not be so large that he has long distances to traverse. Once the circle is made and consecrated, the magician must not leave it, or even lean outside, lest he be destroyed by the hostile forces that are without. He chooses a circle rather than any other lineal figure for many reasons; e.g.,
  3.1:\t1. He affirms thereby his identity with the Infinite.
  --
  7:The size of the whole figure is determined by the size of one square of the Tau. And the size of this square is that of the base of the Altar, which is placed upon Malkuth. It will follow then that, in spite of the apparent freedom of the magician to do anything he likes, he is really determined absolutely; for as the Altar must have a base proportionate to its height, and as that height must be convenient for the magician, the size of the whole will depend upon his own stature. It is easy to draw a moral lesson from these considerations. We will merely indicate this one, that the scope of any man's work depends on his own original genius. Even the size of the weapons must be determined by necessary proportion. The exceptions to this rule are the Lamp, which hangs form the roof, above the centre of the Circle, above the square of Tiphereth; and the Oil, whose phial is so small that it will suit any altar.
  8:On the Circle are inscribe the Names of God; the Circle is of green, and the names are in flaming vermilion, of the same colour as the Tau. Without the Circle are nine pentagrams equidistant,1 in the centre of each of which burns a small Lamp; these are the "Fortresses upon the Frontiers of the Abyss." See the eleventh thyr, Liber 418 ("Equinox V"). They keep off those forces of darkness which might otherwise break in.
  9:The names of God form a further protection. The magician may consider what names he will use; but each name should in some way symbolise this Work in its method and accomplishment. It is impossible here to enter into this subject fully; the discovery or construction of suitable names mught occupy the most learned Qabalist for many years.
  10:These nine lamps were originally canldes made of human far, the fat of enemies1 slain by the magician; they thus served as warnings to any hostile force of what might be expected if it caused trouble. To-day such candles are difficult to procure; and it is perhaps simpler to use beeswax. The honey has been taken by the magician; nothing is left of the toil of all those hosts of bees but the mere shell, the fuel of light. This beeswax is also used in the construction of the Pantacle, and this forms a link between the two symbols. The Pantacle is thefood of the Magus; and some of it he gives up in order to give light to that which is without. For these lights are only apparently hostile to intrusion; they serve to illuminate the Circle and the Names of God, and so to bring the first and outmost symbols of initiation within the view of the profane.
  11:These candles stand upon pentagrams, which symbolize Geburah, severity, and give protection; but also represent the microcosm, the four elements crowned by Spirit, the Will of man perfected in its aspiration to the Higher. They are placed outside the Circle to attract the hostile forces, to give them the first inkling of the Great Work, which they too must some day perform.

2.03 - The Altar, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Altar represents the solid basis of the work, the fixed Will1 of the magician; and the law under which he works. Within this altar everything is kept, since everything is subject to law. Except the Lamp.
  2:According to some authorities the Altar should be made of oak to represent the stubbornness and rigidity of law; others would make it of Acacia, for Acacia is the symbol of resurrection.
  3:The Altar is a double cube, which is a rough way of symbolizing the Great Work; for the doubling of the cube, like the squaring of the circle, was one of the great problems of antiquity. The surface of this Altar is composed of ten squares. The top is Kether, and the bottom Malkuth. The height of the Altar is equal to the height above the ground of the navel of the magician. The Altar is connected with the Ark of the Covenant, Noah's Ark, the nave (navis, a ship) of the Church, and many other symbols of antiquity, whose symbolism has been well worked out in an anonymous book called "The Canon," (Elkin Matthews), which should be studied carefully before constructing the Altar.
  4:For this Altar must embody the magician's knowledge of the laws of Nature, which are the laws through which he works.
  5:He should endeavour to make geometrical constructions to symbolize cosmic measurements. For example, he may take the two diagonals as (say) the diameter of the sun. Then the side of the alter will be found to have a length equal to some other cosmic measure, a vesica drawn on the side some other, a "rood cross" within the vesica yet another. Each magician should work out his own system of symbolism-and he need not confine himself to cosmic measurements. He might, for example, find some relation to express the law of inverse squares.
  6:The top of the altar shall be covered with gold, and on this gold should be engraved some such figure as the Holy Oblation, or the New Jerusalem, or, if he have the skill, the Microcosm of Vitruvius, of which we give illustrations.

2.03 - THE ENIGMA OF BOLOGNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [79] The dreamer was standing in the presence of a handsome old man dressed entirely in black. He knew it was the white magician. This personage had just addressed him at considerable length, but the dreamer could no longer remember what it was about. He recalled only the closing words: And for this we need the help of the black magician. At that moment the door opened and in came another old man exactly like the first, except that he was dressed in white. He said to the white magician, I need your advice, but threw a sidelong, questioning glance at the dreamer, whereupon the white magician answered: You can speak freely, he is an innocent. The white-clad black magician then related his story. He had come from a distant land where something extraordinary had happened. The country was ruled by an old king who felt his death near and had therefore sought out a worthy tomb for himself. There were in that land a great number of tombs from ancient times, and the king had chosen the finest for himself. According to legend, it was the tomb of a virgin who had died long ago. The king caused it to be opened, in order to get it ready for use. But when the bones were exposed to the light of day they suddenly took on life and changed into a black horse, which galloped away into the desert. The black magician had heard this story and immediately set forth in pursuit of the horse. After a journey of many days through the desert he reached the grasslands on the other side. There he met the horse grazing, and there also he came upon the find on account of which he now needed the advice of the white magician. For he had found the lost keys of paradise, and he did not know what to do with them. Here the dream ended.
  [80] The tomb was obviously haunted by the spirit of the virgin, who played the part of the kings anima. Like the nymph in Malvasius, she was forced to leave her old dwelling-place. Her chthonic and sombre nature is shown by her transformation into a black horse, a kind of demon of the desert. We have here the widespread conception of the anima as horsewoman and nightmare, a real ungodly spirit, and at the same time the well-known fairytale motif of the aging king whose vitality is at an end. As a sous-entendu a magical, life-renewing marriage with the nymph seems to be planned (somewhat in the manner of the immortal Merlins marriage with his fairy), for in paradise, the garden of love with the apple-tree, all opposites are united. As Isaiah says:
  --
  There white and black come together in kingly marriage, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels (61 : 10). The two antithetical magicians are obviously making ready the work of union, and what this must mean for a young theologian can be conceived only as that colossal problem whose solution was considered by the more speculative alchemists to be their chief task. Therefore the Senior text continues:
  He [the male] will be roused,217 like the white doves,218 and his step shall rejoice, and he shall cast his seed upon the marble219 into the image [or spirit that dwells in the marble], and the ravens will come flying, and will fall upon it and gather it up. Then they will fly to the tops of the mountains, whither none can climb, and they will become white,220 and multiply. . . . Likewise no man hath known this, unless he himself hath conceived it in his head.

2.03 - THE MASTER IN VARIOUS MOODS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "The world is illusory; Brahman alone is real. The world is of the nature of magic. The magician is real but his magic is unreal"
  Power of inborn tendencies

2.04 - The Scourge, the Dagger and the Chain, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  6:The Dagger is Mercury: it is used to calm too great heat, by the letting of blood; and it is this weapon which is plunged into the side or heart of the magician to fill the Holy Cup. Those faculties which come between the appetites and the reason are thus dealt with.
  7:The Chain is Salt: it serves to bind the wandering thoughts; and for this reason is placed about the neck of the magician, where Dath is situated.
  8:These instruments also remind us of pain, death, and bondage. Students of the gospel will recall that in the martyrdom of Christ these three were used, the dagger being replaced by the nails.1

2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
  and Death," the magician of Delusion. He was a personification
  of the Threefold Fire and of the difficulties of the last test, a final

2.05 - The Holy Oil, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Holy Oil is the Aspiration of the magician; it is that which consecrates him to the performance of the Great Work; and such is its efficacy that it also consecrates all the furniture of the Temple and the instruments thereof. It is also the grace or chrism; for this aspiration is not ambition; it is a quality bestowed from above. For this reason the magician will anoint first the top of his head before proceeding to consecrate the lower centres in their turn.
  2:This oil is of a pure golden colour; and when placed upon the skin it should burn and thrill through the body with an intensity as of fire. It is the pure light translated into terms of desire. It is not the Will of the magician, the desire of the lower to reach the higher; but it is that spark of the higher in the magician which wishes to unite the lower with itself.
  3:Unless therefore the magician be first anointed with this oil, all his work will be wasted and evil.
  4:This oil is compounded of four substances. The basis of all is the oil of the olive. The olive is, traditionally, the gift of Minerva, the Wisdom of God, the Logos. In this are dissolved three other oils; oil of myrrh, oil of cinnamon, oil of galangal. The Myrrh is attributed to Binah, the Great Mother who is both the understanding of the magician and that sorrow and compassion which results from the contemplation of the Universe. The Cinnamon represents Tiphereth, the Sun-the Son, in whom Glory and Suffering are identical. The Galangal represents both Kether and Malkuth, the First and the Last, the One and the Many, since in this Oil they are One.
  5:These oils taken together represent therefore the whole Tree of Life. The ten Sephiroth are blended into the perfect gold.
  --
  8:The phial which contains the Oil should be of clear rock crystal, and some magicians have fashioned it in the shape of the female breast, for that it is the true nourishment of all that lives. For this reason also it has been made of mother-of-pearl and stoppered with a ruby.
  class:consecration

2.06 - The Wand, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  12:So far it has been spoken, as it were, in the negative. Aaron's rod has become a serpent, and swallowed the serpents of the other magicians; it is now necessary to turn it once more into a rod. footnote: As everyone knows, the word used in Exodus for a Rod of Almond is {{Hebrew letters: Mem-tet-Hay Hay-Shin-Qof-Dalet}, adding to 463. Now 400 is Tau, the path leading from Malkuth to Yesod. Sixty is Samekh, the path leading leading {{sic}} from Yesod to Tiphereth; and 3 is Gimel, the path leading thence to Kether. The whole rod therefore gives the paths from the Kingdom to the Crown.}
  13:This Magical Will is the wand in your hand by which the Great Work is accomplished, by which the Daughter is not merely set upon the throne of the Mother but assumed into the Highest. footnote: In one, the best, system of Magick, the Absolute is called the Crown, God is called the Father, the Pure Soul is called the Mother the Holy Guardian Angel is called the Son, and the Natural Soul is called the Daughter. The Son purifies the Daughter by wedding her; she thus becomes the Mother the uniting of whom with the Father absorbs all into the Crown. See Liber CDXVIII.
  --
  66:Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true mystic, can never rest. To him the magician is but a servant. His wand is of infinite length; it is the creative Mahalingam.
  67:The difficulty with such an one is naturally that his wand being very thin in proportion to its length is liable to wobble. Very few artists are conscious of their real purpose, and in very many cases we have this infinite yearning supported by so frail a constitution that nothing is achieved.
  68:The magician must build all that he has into his pyramid; and if that pyramid is to touch the stars, how broad must be the base! There is no knowledge and no power which is useless to the magician. One might almost say there is no scrap of material in the whole Universe with which he can dispense. His ultimate enemy is the great magician, the magician who created the whole illusion of the Universe; and to meet him in battle, so that nothing is left either of him or of yourself, you must be exactly equal to him.
  69:At the same time let the magician never forget that every brick must tend to the summit of the pyramid - the sides must be perfectly smooth; there must be no false summits, even in the lowest layers.
  70:This is the practical and active form of that obligation of a Master of the Temple in which it is said: "I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul."
  --
  96:The Tendencies are, however, much harder to combat than the three lower Shandhas put together - for the simple reason that they are for the most part below consciousness, and must be, as it were, awakened in order to be destroyed, so that the will of the magician is in a sense trying to do two opposite things at the same time.
  97:Consciousness itself is only destroyed by Samadhi.

2.06 - Two Tales of Seeking and Losing, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  He is not the only one who seeks in the succession of the cards the path of a change within himself that can be transmitted externally. There is also another, who, with the beautiful heedlessness of youth, feels he recognizes himself in the boldest warrior figure of the whole deck, the Knight of Swords, and he confronts the most cutting of Swords cards and the sharpest of Clubs to reach his goal. But he has to take a roundabout route (as the serpentine sign of the Two of Coins indicates), defying (Two of Swords) the infernal powers (The Devil) called up by Merlin the magician (The Juggler) in the forest of Broceliande (Seven of Clubs), if he wants finally to be allowed to sit at the Round Table (Ten of Cups) of King Arthur (King of Swords) in the place no knight so far has been worthy of occupying.
  If you look carefully, the destination for both the alchemist and the knight-errant should be the Ace of Cups which, for the one, contains phlogiston or the philosopher's stone or the elixir of long life, and for the other the talisman guarded by the Fisher King, the mysterious vessel whose first poet lacked time-or else was unwilling-to explain it to us; and thus, since then, rivers of ink have flown in conjectures about the Grail, still contended between the Roman religion and the Celtic. (Perhaps the Champagne troubadour wanted precisely this: to keep alive the battle between The Pope and the Druid-Hermit. There is no better place to keep a secret than in an unfinished novel.)
  --
  As things stand, the two stories constantly risk stumbling over each other, if the mechanism is not made quite clear. The alchemist is the man who, to achieve transformations of matter, tries to make his soul become as unchangeable and pure as gold; but there is the instance of a Doctor Faust, who inverts the alchemist's rules, makes the soul an object of exchange, and thus hopes nature will become incorruptible and it will no longer be necessary to seek gold because all elements will be equally precious: the world is gold, and gold is the world. In the same way a knight-errant is one who submits his actions to an absolute and severe moral law, so that natural law can maintain abundance on earth with absolute freedom; but let us try to imagine a Perceval-Parzival-Parsifal who inverts the rule of the Round Table, knightly virtues in him will be involuntary, they will come forth as a gift of nature, like the colors of butterflies' wings, and while performing his exploits with dazed nonchalance, he will perhaps succeed in subduing nature to his will, in possessing the knowledge of the world like an object, in becoming magician and thaumaturge, in healing the wound of the Fisher King, and in restoring green sap to the wasteland.
  The mosaic of cards that we are watching, fixed here, is therefore the Work of the Quest that one would like to conclude without work or search. Doctor Faust has wearied of having the instantaneous metamorphoses of metals depend on the slow transformations that take place within himself, he doubts the wisdom accumulated in the solitary life of a Hermit, he is disappointed in the powers of his art as he is in this dawdling over the tarot combinations. At that moment a thunderbolt illuminates his little cell at the top of The Tower. A personage appears before him with a broad-brimmed hat, such as the students wear at Wittenberg, a wandering clerk perhaps, or a charlatan Juggler, a mountebank at a fair, who has laid out on a stand a laboratory of ill-assorted jars.

2.07 - The Cup, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:AS the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the magician, so is the Magick Cup his Understanding.
  2:This is the cup of which it was written: "Father, if it be Thy Will, let this cup pass from Me!" And again: "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?"
  --
  15:The Cup can hardly be described as a weapon. It is round like the pantacle - not straight like the wand and the dagger. Reception, not projection, is its nature. footnote: As the magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he stands in the Circle, and the spirit in the Triangle; so the magician is in the Triangle with respect to his own God.
  16:So that which is round is to him a symbol of the influence from the higher. This circle symbolizes the Infinite, as every cross or Tau represents the Finite. That which is four square shows the Finite fixed into itself; for this reason the altar is foursquare. It is the solid basis from which all the operation proceeds. One form footnote: An ugly form. A better is given in the illustration. of the magical cup has a sphere beneath the bowl, and is supported upon a conical base.

2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Mage, the divine magician, but was also used for the adverse formative power of a lower knowledge, the deceit, illusion and deluding magic of the Rakshasa. The divine Maya is the knowledge of the Truth of things, its essence, law, operation, which the gods possess and on which they found their own eternal action and creation12 and their building of their powers in the human being. This idea of the Vedic mystics can in a more metaphysical thought and language be translated into the conception that the Ignorance is in its origin a dividing mental knowledge which does not grasp the unity, essence, self-law of things in their one origin and in their universality, but works rather upon divided particulars, separate phenomena, partial relations, as if they were the truth we had to seize or as if they could really be understood at all without going back behind the division to the unity, behind the dispersion to the universality. The Knowledge is that which tends towards unification and, attaining to the supramental faculty, seizes the oneness, the essence, the self-law of existence and views and deals with the multiplicity of things out of that light and plenitude, in some sort as does the Divine
  Himself from the highest height whence He embraces the world.

2.08 - Memory, Self-Consciousness and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Therefore through that it can most easily lay hold on the fact of eternal being, on the reality; all the rest it is tempted, when it considers things narrowly, to look on not merely as phenomenon, but as, possibly, error, ignorance, illusion, because they no longer appear to it directly real. So the Illusionist considers them; the only thing he holds to be truly real is that eternal self which lies behind the mind's direct present self-consciousness. Or else, like the Buddhist, one comes to regard even that eternal self as an illusion, a representation, a subjective image, a mere imagination or false sensation and false idea of being. Mind becomes to its own view a fantastic magician, its works and itself at once strangely existent and non-existent, a persistent reality and yet a fleeting error which it accounts for or does not account for, but in any case is determined to slay and get done with both itself and its works so that it may rest, may cease in the timeless repose of the Eternal from the vain representation of appearances.
  But, in truth, our sharp distinctions made between the without and the within, the present and the past self-consciousness are tricks of the limited unstable action of mind. Behind the mind and using it as its own surface activity there is a stable consciousness in which there is no binding conceptual division between itself in the present and itself in the past and future; and yet it knows itself in Time, in the present, past and future, but at once, with an undivided view which embraces all the mobile experiences of the Time-self and holds them on the foundation of the immobile timeless self. This consciousness we can become aware of when we draw back from the mind and its activities or when these fall silent. But we see first its immobile status, and if we regard only the immobility of the self, we may say of it that it is not only timeless, but actionless, without movement of idea, thought, imagination, memory, will, self-sufficient, selfabsorbed and therefore void of all action of the universe. That then becomes alone real to us and the rest a vain symbolising in non-existent forms - or forms corresponding to nothing truly existent - and therefore a dream. But this self-absorption is only

2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  The rational mind supports life, but about seventy-nine per cent. of it not only refuses itself to enter into combination, but prevents the remaining twenty-one per cent. from doing so. Enthusiasms are checked; the intellect is the great enemy of devotion. One of the tasks of the magician is to manage somehow to separate the
  Oxygen and Nitrogen in his mind, to stifle four-fifths so that he may burn up the remainder, a flame of holiness. But this cannot be done by the Sword.
  --
  The magician cannot wield the Sword unless the Crown is on his head.
  Those magicians, who have attempted to make the Sword the sole or even the principal weapon, have only destroyed themselves, not be the destruction of combination, but by the destruction of division.1 Weakness overcomes strength.
  The most stable political edifice of history has been that of China, which was founded principally on politeness; and that of India has proved strong enough to absorb its many conquerers.2
  --
  Let the magician consider these matters before he takes the Sword in his hand. Let him understand that the Ruach, this loose combination of 6 Sephiroth, only bound together by their attachment to the human will in Tiphereth, must be rent asunder.
  The mind must be broken up into a form of insanity before it can be transcended.
  --
  Ruach must be thrust by the magician into his own heart.
  But there is a subsequent task, of which it is spoken-Liber VII, v, 47. "He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke." In the throat is Dath-the throne of Ruach. Dath is Knowledge. This final destruction of Knowledge opens the gate of the City of the Pyramids.
  --
  But this Sword is not for the ordinary magician. For this is the Sword flaming every way that keeps Eden, and in this Sword the Wand and the Cup are concealed-so that although the being of the magician is blasted by the Thunderbolt, and poisoned by the Serpent, at the same tiem the organs whose union is the supreme sacrament are left in him.
  At the coming of Adonai the individual is destroyed in both senses.
  --
  The magician must therefore make himself absolutely free in this respect.
  It is the constant practice of Demons to attempt to terrify, to shock, to disgust, to allure. Against all this he must oppose the Steel of the Sword. If he has got rid of the ego-idea this task will be comparatively easy; unless he has done so it will be almost impossible. So says the
  --
  But it is too much to expect of the young magician to practise attachment to the distasteful; let him first become indifferent. Let him endeavour to see facts as facts, as simply as he would see them if they were historical. Let him avoid the imaginative interpretation of any facts. Let him not put himself in the place of the people of whom the facts are related, or if he does so, let it be done only for the purpose of comprehension. Sympathy,1 indignation, praise and blame, are out of place in the observer.
  No one has properly considered the question as to the amount and quality of the light afforded by candles made by waxed Christians.

2.09 - The Pantacle, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  16:All phenomena are sacraments. Every fact, and even every falsehood, must enter into the Pantacle; it is the great storehouse from which the magician draws.
  17:"In the brown cakes of corn we shall taste the food of the world and be strong."1 1 We have avoided dealing with the Pantacle as the Paten of the Sacrament, though special instructions about it are given in Liber Legis. It is composed of meal, honey, wine, holy oil, and blood.
  --
  22:This then is a very great difficulty for the magician. He cannot possibly have all experience, and though he may console himself philosophically with the reflection that the Universe is coterminous with such experience as he has, he will find it grow at such a pace during the early yers of his life that he may almost be tempted to believe in the possibility of experiences beyond his own, and from a practical standpoint he will seem to be confronted with so many avenues of knowledge that he will be bewildered which to choose.
  23:The ass hesitated between two thistles; how much more that greater ass, that incomparably greater ass, between two thousand!
  --
  41:The Pantacle is tehn in a sense identical with the Karma or Kamma of the magician.
  42:The Karma of a man is his ledger. The balance has not been struck, and he does not know what it is; he does not even fully know what debts he may have to pay, or what is owed him; nor does he know on what dates even those payments which he anticipates may fall due.
  --
  45:Now consider that this Karma is all that a man has or is. His ultimate object is to get rid of it completely-when it comes to the point of surrendering1 the Self to the Beloved; but in the beginning the magician is not that Self, he is only the heap of refuse from which that Self is to be built up. The Magical instruments must be made before they are destroyed.
  46:The idea of Karma has been confused by many who ought to have known better, including the Buddha, with the ideas of poetic justice and of retri bution.
  --
  75:We cut a figure on the ice; it is effaced in a morning by the tracks of other skaters; nor did that figure do more than scratch the surface of the ice, and the ice itself must melt before the sun. Indeed the magician may despair when hie comes to make the Pantacle! Everyone has the material, one man's pretty well as good as his brother's; but for that Pantacle to be in any way fashioned to a willed end, or even to an intelligible end, or even to a known end: "Hoc opus, Hic labor est." It is indeed the toil of ascending from Avernus, and escaping to the upper air.
  76:In order to do it, it is most necessary to understand our tendencies, and to will the development of one, the destruction of another. And though all elements in the Pantacle must ultimately be destroyed, yet some will help us directly to reach a position from which this task of destruction becomes possible; and there is no element wherein which may not be occasionally helpful.

2.10 - The Lamp, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:IN Liber A vel Armorum, the official instruction of the A..A.. for the preparation of the Elemental Weapons, it is said that each symbolic representation of the Universe is to be approved by the Superior of the magician. To this rule the Lamp is an exception; it is said:
  2:"... a Magick Lamp that shall burn without wick or oil, being fed by the thyr. This shall he accomplish secretly and apart, without asking the advice or approval of his Adeptus Minor."
  --
  12:It is not possible for anyone to advise or approve; for this Lamp is not made with hands; it exists alone for ever; it has no parts, no person; it is before "I am." Few can behold it, yet it is always there. For it there is no here nor there, no then nor now; all parts of speech are abolished, save the noun; and this noun is not found either in human speech of in Divine. It is the Lost Word, the dying music of whose sevenfold echo is I A O and A U M. Without this Light the magician could not work at all; yet few indeed are the magicians that have known of it, and far fewer They that have beheld its brilliance!
  13:The Temple and all that is in it must be destroyed again and again before it is worthy to receive that Light. Hence it so often seems that the only advice that any master can give to any pupil is to destroy the Temple.

2.11 - The Crown, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Crown of the magician represents the Attainment of his Work. It is a band of pure gold, on the front of which stand three pentagrams, and on the back a hexagram. The central pentagram contains a diamond or great opal; the other three symbols contain the Tau. Around this Crown is twined the golden Urus serpent, with erect head and expanded hood. Under the Crown is a crimson cap of maintenance, which falls to the shoulders.
  2:Instead of this, the Ateph Crown of Thoth is sometimes worn; for Thoth is the God of Truth, of Wisdom, and the Teacher of Magick. The Ateph Crown has two ram's horns, showing energy, dominion, the force that breaks down obstacles, the sign of the spring. Between these horns is the disk of the sun; from this springs a Lotus upheld by the twin plumes of truth, and three other sun-disks are upheld, one by the cup of the lotus, the others beneath the curving feathers.
  --
  4:The crimson cap implies concealment, and is also symbolical of the flood of glory that pours upon the magician from above. It is of velvet for the softness of the divine kiss, and crimson for that it is the very blood of God which is its life. The band of gold is the eternal circle of perfection. The three pentagrams symbolize the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, while the hexagram represents the magician himself. Ordinarily, pentagrams represent the microcosm, hexagrams the macrocosm; but here the reverse is the case, because in this Crown of Perfction, that which is below has become that which is above, and that which is above has become that which is below. If a diamond be worn, it is for the Light which is before all manifestations in form; if an opal, it is to commemorate that sublime plan of the All, to fold and unfold in eternal rapture, to manifest as the Many that the Many may become the One Unmanifest. But this matter is too great for an elementary treatise on Magick.
  5:The Serpent which is coiled about the Crown means many things, or, rather, one thing in many ways. It is the symbol of royalty and of initiation, for the magician is anointed King and Priest.
  6:It also represents Hadit, of which one can here only quote thiese words: "I am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring: in my coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nuit are one. If I droop down mine head, and shoot forth venom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are one."
  7:The serpent is also the Kundalini serpent, the Magical force itself; the manifesting side of the Godhead of the magician, whose unmanifested side is peace and silence, of which there is no symbol.
  8:In the Hindu system the Great Work is represented by saying that this serpents, which is normally coiled at the base of the spine, rises with her hood over the head of the Yogi, there to unite with the Lord of all.

2.12 - The Robe, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Robe of the magician may be varied according to his grade and the nature of his working.
  2:There are two principal Robes, the white and the black; of these the black is more important than the white, for the white has no hood. These Robes may be varied by the addition of various symbols, but in any case the shape of the Robe is a Tau.
  --
  4:The Robe is that which conceals, and which protects the magician from the elements; it is the silence and secrecy with which he works, the hiding of himself in the occult life of Magick and Meditation. This is the "going away into the wilderness" which we find in the lives of all men of the highest types of greatness. And it is also the withdrawing of one's self from life as such.
  5:In another sense it is the "Aura" of the magician, that inivisible egg or sheath which surrounds him. This "Aura" must be shining, elastic, impenetrable, even by the light, that is, by any partial light that comes from one side.
  6:The only light of the magician is from the Lamp which hangs above his head, as he stands in the centre of the Circle, and the Robe, being open at the neck, opposes no obstacles to the passage of this light. And being open, and very wide open, at the bottom, it permits that light to pass and illumine them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

2.13 - On Psychology, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   There was a scientist and a magician. Both of them wanted to rescue a girl from alien enemies. The magician was the psychic and mental man who knows the Truth but does not know concretisation of the same. He has the grasp of the Spirit but not of the process and its details.
   The scientist and the magician tried to save the girl. The magician failed. Then the scientist tried; he found himself baffled by the opponents as they dasyus, the hostile vital powers were not struck down by the blows of the sword or of anything. The opponents were going to a king's capital. Then they fled and the girl was taken away.
   The scientist was a geologist who had made the discovery that the strata of the earth must be measured from the top and not from the bottom. When the enemies fled they left; their things behind and did not like to go into the capital wounded. The scientist then found a big book on geology half as big as this room among the things left: behind, and he found the girl just between the cover and the pages.

2.13 - The Book, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Book of Spells or of Conjurations is the Record of every thought, word, and deed of the magician; for everything that he has willed is willed to a purpose. It is the same as if he had taken an oath to perform some achievement.
  2:Now this Book must be a holy Book, not a scribbling-book in which you jot down every piece of rubbish that comes into your head. It is written, Liber VII, v, 23: "Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee. Be this devotion a potent spell to exorcise the demons of the Five."
  3:This Book must be thus written. In the first place the magician must perform the practice laid down in Liber CMXIII so that he understands perfectly who he is, and to what his development must necessarily tend. So much for the first page of the Book.
  4:Let him then be careful to write nothing therein that is inharmonious or untrue. Nor can he avoid this writing, for this is a Magick Book. If you abandon even for an hour the one purpose of your life, you will find a number of meaningless scratches and scrawls on the white vellum; and these cannot be erased. In such a case, when you come to conjure a demon by the power of the Book, he will mock you; he will point to all this foolish writing, more like his own than yours. In vain will you continue with the subsequent spells; you have broken by your own foolishness the chain which would have bound him.

2.13 - THE MASTER AT THE HOUSES OF BALARM AND GIRISH, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  MASTER: "Everything is possible for God. It is He who casts the spell. The magician swallows the knife and takes it out again; he swallows stones and bricks."
  A DEVOTEE: "The Brahmos say that a man should perform his worldly duties. He must not renounce them."

2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  (To M.) "The truth is that God alone is real and all else unreal. Men, universe, house, and children-all these are like the magic of the magician. The magician strikes his wand and says: 'come delusion! Come confusion!' Then he says to the audience, 'Open the lid of the pot; see the birds fly into the sky.' But the magician alone is real and his magic unreal. The unreal exists for a second and then vanishes.
  "iva was seated in Kailas. His companion Nandi was near Him. Suddenly a terrific noise arose. 'Revered Sir,' asked Nandi, 'what does that mean?' iva said: 'Ravana is born.

2.14 - The Bell, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Magical Bell is best attached to the chain. In some systems of Magick a number of bells have been worn, swen upon the hem of the robe with the idea of symbolizing that every movement of the magician should make music. But the Bell of which we shall speak is a more important implement. This Bell summons and alarms; and it is also the Bell which sounds at the elevation of the Host.
  2:It is thus also the "Astral Bell" of the magician.1 1 During certain meditation-practices the Student hears a bell sounded in the depths of his being. It is not subjective, for it is sometimes heard by other people, Some magicians are able to call the attention of those with whom they wish to communicate at a distance by its means, or so it is said.
  3:The Bell itself is made of electrum magicum, an alloy of the "seven metals" blended together in a special manner. First the gold is melted up with the silver during a favourable aspect of the Sun and moon; these are then fused with tin when Jupiter is well dignified. Lead is added under an auspicious Saturn; and so for the quicksilver, copper, and iron, when Mercury, Venus, and Mars are of good augury.
  4:The sound of this Bell is indescribably commanding, solemn, and majestic. Without even the minuted jar, its single notes tinkle fainter and fainter into silence. At the sound of this Bell the Universe ceases for an indivisible moment of time, and attends to the Will of the magician. Let him not interrupt the sound of this Bell. Let this be that which is written, Liber VII, v, 31: "There is a solemnity of the silence. There is no more voice at all."
  5:As the Magical Book was the record of the past, so is the Magick Bell the prophecy of the future. The manifested shall repeat itself again and again, always a clear thin note, always a simplicity of music, yet ever less and less disturbing the infinite silence until the end.

2.15 - The Lamen, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:THE Breastplate or Lamen of the magician is a very elaborate and important symbol. In the Jewish system we read that the High Priest was to wear a plate with twelve stones, for the twelve tribes of Israel (with all their correspondences), and in this plate were kept the Urim and Thummim.1
  2:The modern Lamen, is, however, a simple plate which (being worn over the heart) symbolises Tiphereth, and it should therefore be a harmony of all the other symbols in one. It connects naturally by its shape with the Circle and the Pantacle; but it is not sufficient to repeat the design of either.
  --
  4:In this Lamen the magician must place the secret keys of his power.
  5:The Pantacle is merely the material to be worked upon, gathered together and harmonized but not yet in operation, the parts of the engine arranged for use, or even put together, but not yet set in motion. In the Lamen these forces are already at work; even accomplishment is prefigured.

2.16 - The Magick Fire, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  1:INTO the Magick Fire all things are cast. It symbolizes the final burning up of all things in Shivadarshana. It is the absolute destruction alike of the magician and the Universe.
  2:The Thurible stands upon a small altar. "My altar is of open brasswork; burn thereon in silver or gold." This altar stands in the East, as if to symbolize the identity of Hope and Annihilation. This brass comtains the metals of Jupiter and Venus fused in a homogenous alloy. This is then symbolical of divine love, and it is "open brass work" because this love is not limited in direction or extent; it is not particularized, it is universal.
  --
  4:It has been treated with nitre, whose potassium has the violet flame of Jupiter, the father of all, whose nitrogen is that inert element which by proper combination becomes a constituent of all the most explosive bodies known; and oxygen, the food of fire. This fire is blown upon by the magician; this blaze of destruction has been kindled by his word and by his will.
  5:Into this Fire he casts the Incense, symbolical of prayer, the gross vehicle or image of his aspiration. Owing to the imperfection of this image, we obtain mere smoke instead of perfect combustion. But we cannot use explosives instead of incense, because it would not be true. Our prayer is the expression of the lower aspiring to the higher; it is without the clear vision of the higher, it does not understand what the higher wants. And, however sweet may be its smell, it is always cloudy.

2.18 - SRI RAMAKRISHNA AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  "Listen a little to the Vedantic reasoning. A magician came to a king to show his magic.
  When the magician moved away a little, the king saw a rider on horseback approaching him. He was brilliantly arrayed and had various weapons in his hands. The king and the audience began to reason out what was real in the phenomenon before them. Evidently the horse was not real, nor the robes, nor the armour. At last they found out beyond the shadow of a doubt that the rider alone was there. The significance of this is that Brahman alone is real and the world unreal Nothing whatsoever remains if you analyse."
  DOCTOR: "I don't object to this."

2.19 - THE MASTER AND DR. SARKAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
  This reminded M. of Sri Ramakrishna's saying that the magician alone is real and all else unreal.
  MASTER: "Well, how is it that the other time I tried to attract Purna but failed? This weakens my faith a little."

2.24 - The Message of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Nature which is the secret of things in themselves is not manifest in their outward phenomena. The Nature which we see when we look outwards, the Nature which acts in our mind and body and senses is a lower Force, a derivation, a magician who creates figures of the Spirit but hides the Spirit in its figures, conceals the truth and makes men look upon masks, a Force which is only capable of a sum of secondary and depressed values, not of the full power and glory and ecstasy and sweetness of the manifestation of the Divine. This Nature in us is a Maya of the ego, a tangle of the dualities, a web of ignorance and the three gunas. And so long as the soul of man lives in the surface fact of mind and life and body and not in his self and spirit, he cannot see God and himself and the world as they really are, cannot overcome this Maya, but must do what he can with its terms and figures.
  "It is possible by drawing back from the lower turn of his nature in which man now lives, to awake from this light that is darkness and live in the luminous truth of the eternal and immutable self-existence. Man then is no longer bound up in his narrow prison of personality, no longer sees himself as this little

2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
   | 27-02-39 | Sri Aurobindo: linguist and magician |
   | 20-12-39 | S.K Maitra on Kant and Gita; Religion and Reason |

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun magician

The noun magician has 2 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
                  
1. (5) magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist ::: (someone who performs magic tricks to amuse an audience)
2. sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist ::: (one who practices magic or sorcery)


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun magician

2 senses of magician                          

Sense 1
magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist
   => performer, performing artist
     => entertainer
       => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
         => organism, being
           => living thing, animate thing
             => whole, unit
               => object, physical object
                 => physical entity
                   => entity
         => causal agent, cause, causal agency
           => physical entity
             => entity

Sense 2
sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist
   => occultist
     => person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
       => organism, being
         => living thing, animate thing
           => whole, unit
             => object, physical object
               => physical entity
                 => entity
       => causal agent, cause, causal agency
         => physical entity
           => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun magician

2 senses of magician                          

Sense 1
magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist
   => escapologist, escape expert
   => mind reader, telepathist, thought-reader

Sense 2
sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist
   => enchanter
   => exorcist, exorciser
   => magus
   => sorceress
   => witch doctor
   HAS INSTANCE=> Cagliostro, Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Giuseppe Balsamo


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun magician

2 senses of magician                          

Sense 1
magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist
   => performer, performing artist

Sense 2
sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist
   => occultist




--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun magician

2 senses of magician                          

Sense 1
magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist
  -> performer, performing artist
   => actor, histrion, player, thespian, role player
   => artiste
   => baton twirler, twirler
   => comedian, comic
   => cowboy, rodeo rider
   => dancer, professional dancer, terpsichorean
   => executant
   => fire-eater, fire-swallower
   => fire walker
   => geek
   => headliner, star
   => juggler
   => magician, prestidigitator, conjurer, conjuror, illusionist
   => minstrel
   => monologist
   => musician, instrumentalist, player
   => puppeteer
   => Savoyard
   => sightreader
   => snake charmer
   => straight man, second banana
   => stripper, striptease artist, striptease, stripteaser, exotic dancer, ecdysiast, peeler
   => strongman
   => vaudevillian
   => ventriloquist

Sense 2
sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist
  -> occultist
   => Chaldean, Chaldaean, Chaldee
   => enchantress, witch
   => psychic
   => sorcerer, magician, wizard, necromancer, thaumaturge, thaumaturgist




--- Grep of noun magician
magician



IN WEBGEN [10000/790]

Wikipedia - Abracadabra -- Magical incantation used by stage magicians
Wikipedia - Alcofrisbas, the Master Magician -- 1903 film by Georges Melies
Wikipedia - Alexander (magician)
Wikipedia - Ali Bongo (magician) -- British comedy magician and former president of The Magic Circle
Wikipedia - Ali Cook -- English magician and actor
Wikipedia - Allan Ackerman -- American magician
Wikipedia - Angela Funovits -- American magician, mentalist, and physician
Wikipedia - Anton the Magician -- 1978 film
Wikipedia - An Unkindness of Magicians -- 2017 fantasy novel by Kat Howard
Wikipedia - Archie Manners -- British comedian and magician
Wikipedia - Arnold de Biere -- German magician
Wikipedia - Ben Bradshaw (magician) -- Australian magician
Wikipedia - Brendan Patricks -- British actor and magician
Wikipedia - Broken wand ceremony -- Ritual performed at the funeral of a magician
Wikipedia - Carleton Carpenter -- Actor, magician, dancer, writer
Wikipedia - Category:Chaos magicians
Wikipedia - Ceremonial magician
Wikipedia - Chandu the Magician (film) -- 1932 film
Wikipedia - Charles Bach -- American magician
Wikipedia - Chris Linn -- American magician, comedian, and entertainer
Wikipedia - Chris Nicholson (magician) -- British magician
Wikipedia - Christian Chelman -- Belgian magician
Wikipedia - Christian Farla -- Dutch magician from Rotterdam
Wikipedia - Curtis Adams (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Danny Orleans -- American magician (born 1954)
Wikipedia - Dan White (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Dave Lee (chaos magician)
Wikipedia - David Abbott (magician)
Wikipedia - David Copperfield (illusionist) -- American magician
Wikipedia - David Maas -- American magician
Wikipedia - David Williamson (magician) -- American magician born in 1961
Wikipedia - Debbie Leifer -- American female magician
Wikipedia - Detective Conan: Magician of the Silver Sky
Wikipedia - Dick Brooks (magician) -- United States magician and entertainer
Wikipedia - Dick Williams (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Doc Eason -- American magician
Wikipedia - Dominic Wood -- English magician
Wikipedia - Dorothy Dietrich -- American stage magician and escapologist
Wikipedia - Doug McKenzie (magician) -- British magician
Wikipedia - Dynamo: Magician Impossible -- British television series
Wikipedia - Dynamo (magician) -- English illusionist
Wikipedia - Earl "Presto" Johnson -- American magician
Wikipedia - Eliphas LM-CM-)vi -- French occult author and ceremonial magician
Wikipedia - Franz Harary -- American magician and inventor
Wikipedia - Geoffrey Durham -- British comedy magician and actor
Wikipedia - Ger Copper -- Dutch magician
Wikipedia - Gil Filar -- Canadian writer, ex-actor and -magician
Wikipedia - Harry Anderson -- American actor and magician (1952-2018)
Wikipedia - Harry Blackstone Jr. -- American magician
Wikipedia - Harry Lorayne -- American magician
Wikipedia - Henri Robin -- Dutch magician
Wikipedia - Henry Gordon (magician)
Wikipedia - Howard Thurston -- American magician
Wikipedia - Jacob Philadelphia -- American magician and alchemist
Wikipedia - James Randi -- Canadian-American stage magician and scientific skeptic
Wikipedia - Jamie Allan (magician) -- United Kingdom-based magician
Wikipedia - Jamy Ian Swiss -- American magician, historian of magic, and scientific skeptic (born 1953)
Wikipedia - Jay Owenhouse -- American Magician and Illusionist
Wikipedia - Jean-Eugene Robert-Houdin -- French magician
Wikipedia - Jerry Andrus -- American magician
Wikipedia - Jewel Aich -- Bangladeshi stage magician
Wikipedia - John Booth (magician)
Wikipedia - John George (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - John Mulholland (magician)
Wikipedia - John Scarne -- American magician
Wikipedia - Joshua Seth -- American magician
Wikipedia - Juliana Chen -- Chinese magician
Wikipedia - Julius and Agnes Zancig -- Stage magicians and authors on occultism
Wikipedia - Justin Flom -- American magician
Wikipedia - Justin Willman -- American magician, comedian, television producer
Wikipedia - Kirby Van Burch -- American magician
Wikipedia - Lance Burton -- American stage magician
Wikipedia - Larry Anderson (actor) -- American actor and magician
Wikipedia - Lee Eun-gyeol -- South Korean magician
Wikipedia - List of Floral Magician Mary Bell episodes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of magicians -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of The Magicians (American TV series) episodes -- 2015 fantasy TV series episode list
Wikipedia - List of The Magicians (British TV series) episodes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Luca Gallone -- British magician and Internet personality
Wikipedia - Magician (fantasy) -- Magicians appearing in fantasy fiction
Wikipedia - Magician (Feist novel)
Wikipedia - Magician (illusion)
Wikipedia - Magician Mickey -- 1937 Mickey Mouse cartoon
Wikipedia - Magician (paranormal)
Wikipedia - Magician's assistant -- Performer in a magic act who is not billed as the magician
Wikipedia - Magicians in fantasy
Wikipedia - Magicians of the Gods -- Book by Graham Hancock
Wikipedia - magician
Wikipedia - Mandrake the Magician (serial) -- 1939 film
Wikipedia - Mario and the Magician (film) -- 1994 film
Wikipedia - Mark Edward -- Mentalist, magician, author & skeptic
Wikipedia - Mark Wilson (magician) -- American magician and author
Wikipedia - Mathemagician -- A mathematician and magician
Wikipedia - Max Malini -- Slavic-American magician
Wikipedia - Melinda Saxe -- American magician
Wikipedia - Merlin the Magician (comics)
Wikipedia - Michael Ammar -- American close-up magician
Wikipedia - Millroy the Magician -- Novel by American writer Paul Theroux
Wikipedia - Nakul Shenoy -- Indian magician
Wikipedia - Norm Nielsen -- American magician
Wikipedia - O. P. Sharma (magician) -- Indian Magician
Wikipedia - Oscar Munoz (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Ottokar Fischer -- Austrian magician
Wikipedia - Pauline Schmidt -- Danish female magician
Wikipedia - Penn Jillette -- American magician
Wikipedia - Peter Eldin -- British author and magician
Wikipedia - Piff the Magic Dragon -- British magician and comedian
Wikipedia - Prahlad Acharya -- Magician
Wikipedia - Princess Mysteria -- African American newspaper columnist and magician
Wikipedia - Professor Peller -- Nigerian stage magician
Wikipedia - Return of the Magician
Wikipedia - Reynold Alexander -- Puerto Rican magician
Wikipedia - Ricky Jay -- American magician and actor
Wikipedia - Robert Marshall (magician)
Wikipedia - Roberto Giobbi -- Swiss stage magician
Wikipedia - Ross Skiffington -- Australian magician
Wikipedia - Roy Walton -- English magician
Wikipedia - Ryan Hayashi -- American magician
Wikipedia - Shamsudheen Cherpulassery -- Indian magician
Wikipedia - Signor Blitz -- British magician and performer
Wikipedia - Simo Aalto -- Finnish magician
Wikipedia - Society of American Magicians -- The oldest fraternal magic organization in the world
Wikipedia - Stage magician
Wikipedia - Steve Cohen (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Sticky Vicky -- Spanish magician
Wikipedia - Teller (magician) -- American magician
Wikipedia - Tenkatsu Shokyokusai -- Japanese magician
Wikipedia - Thaumaturgy -- Capability of a magician or a saint to work magic or miracles
Wikipedia - The Amazing Johnathan -- American stand-up comedian and magician
Wikipedia - The Mad Magician
Wikipedia - The Magic Circle (organisation) -- Vritish organization for amateur and professional magicians
Wikipedia - The Magician (1926 film) -- 1926 film by Rex Ingram
Wikipedia - The Magician (1958 film) -- 1958 film
Wikipedia - The Magician (Maugham novel)
Wikipedia - The Magician (musician) -- Belgian disc jockey
Wikipedia - The Magicians (American TV series) -- 2015 American fantasy television series
Wikipedia - The Magician's Elephant (musical) -- Upcoming stage musical based on the 2009 children's novel
Wikipedia - The Magicians (Grossman novel) -- 2009 fantasy novel by Lev Grossman
Wikipedia - The Magician's Nephew -- Children's fantasy novel by C. S. Lewis, 1955
Wikipedia - The Magician (Tarot card)
Wikipedia - The Magician (Tarot)
Wikipedia - The Morning of the Magicians -- |1960 book by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier
Wikipedia - The Naked Magicians -- Australian live comedy magic show
Wikipedia - The Reign of the Brown Magician -- Novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Wikipedia - The Sacred Riana -- Indonesian magician and illusionist
Wikipedia - The Sex Magicians
Wikipedia - The Twa Magicians -- Traditional song
Wikipedia - Tim Ellis (magician) -- Australian magician
Wikipedia - Tobbe Blom -- Swedish TV host on TV4 and magician
Wikipedia - Tommy Cooper -- British prop comedian and magician
Wikipedia - Tommy Wonder (magician) -- Dutch magician
Wikipedia - Travellers and Magicians -- 2003 Bhutanese Dzongkha-language film
Wikipedia - Walter B. Gibson -- Pulp writer and magician
Wikipedia - Will Tsai -- Taiwanese-Canadian magician and entrepreneur
Wikipedia - Young & Strange -- British comedy magicians
Wikipedia - Zito -- Court magician
James Randi ::: Born: August 7, 1928; Occupation: Magician;
Jamy Ian Swiss ::: Born: January 1, 1953; Occupation: Magician;
Criss Angel ::: Born: December 19, 1967; Occupation: Magician;
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa ::: Born: September 14, 1486; Died: February 18, 1535; Occupation: Magician;
Uri Geller ::: Born: December 20, 1946; Occupation: Magician;
Paul Daniels ::: Born: April 6, 1938; Died: March 17, 2016; Occupation: Magician;
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10079321.The_Magician_King
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10079321-the-magician-king
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1064776.Black_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10819920.The_Magician_King
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1116458.The_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1185603.Magic_and_the_Magician_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13013864-the-magician-king
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13574139-alice-parker-and-the-mind-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642358-the-magician-s-tower
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13810.Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13812.Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13812.Magician_Apprentice__The_Riftwar_Saga___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1452553.The_Magician_Within
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1463307.At_the_House_of_the_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/150555.The_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797023-the-magician-s-tower
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16055.The_Magician_s_Assistant
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16674653-the-magicians-and-the-magician-king
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169885.Magician_s_Ward
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17234601-the-magician-s-doll
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17263898-the-secrets-of-the-immortal-nicholas-flammel-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1760637.The_Sea_Magician_The_Living_fire_Menace
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1802711.The_Bone_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144117-the-divine-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18229918-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18967261-king-warrior-magician-lover
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19103097-the-magician-s-land
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19103097.The_Magician_s_Land__The_Magicians___3_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/206491.Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20673588-the-rise-and-fall-of-oscar-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20727654-the-paper-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20727654.The_Paper_Magician__The_Paper_Magician___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20727654.The_Paper_Magician__The_Paper_Magician_Trilogy___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21897317.The_Magician_s_Lie
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21897317-the-magician-s-lie
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22076621-the-magicians-trilogy-boxed-set
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2211407.Night_Of_The_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22341276-the-glass-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22521286-the-paper-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22846522-the-magician-s-dream
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22910024-the-glass-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22965840-the-magician-s-daughter
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23485372-the-master-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2386154.The_Magician_and_the_Fool
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2402971.The_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240343.The_Complete_Magician_s_Tables
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245727.Mairelon_the_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24734165-the-magician-s-doll
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25007662-amongst-mystics-and-magicians-in-stockholm
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/252189.The_Magician_s_Wife
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25663548-magicians-of-the-gods
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2582799-the-magicians-and-mrs-quent
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25891049-magicians-of-the-gods
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25981433-the-masquerading-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27441.Mr_Sebastian_and_the_Negro_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28249.The_Magicians_Guild
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28249.The_Magicians__Guild__Black_Magician_Trilogy___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28365818-the-masquerading-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28754570-the-magician-s-duel
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28926969-velia-and-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2925444-magician-s-tables
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29440010-the-unlicensed-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29780692-marketing-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30049047-the-bone-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30094418-kingdom-of-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30312855.The_Last_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30312855-the-last-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30992252-a-tale-of-magicians-who-puffed-up-money-that-lost-its-puff
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/310921.The_Specter_from_the_Magician_s_Museum
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31127991-the-last-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450773._Magicians_Impossible
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450773.Magicians_Impossible
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31450773-magicians-impossible
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3200102-georgie-and-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32735037.An_Unkindness_of_Magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32735037-an-unkindness-of-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33396475-an-unkindness-of-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33403646-two-magicians-by-satyajit-ray
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3342764-the-magician-s-apprentice
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33790435-the-plastic-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34794557-the-magician-of-lhasa
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34835339-magicians-rivalry
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35071435-the-magician-s-diary
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35683493-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35697528-the-plastic-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/357775.The_Moment_of_the_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36254652-the-bohemian-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36624207-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37589945-the-magician-and-the-shaman
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37832574-tales-from-the-magician-s-skull-1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3790544-the-magician-s-book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3868783.The_Last_Magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41141252-whet-toa-and-the-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/414365.The_Magician_s_Wife
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43412502-the-glass-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43916.Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44231811-the-defiant-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44688.Magician_s_Gambit
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45480894-magician-s-hoard
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4629732-the-magician-s-tale
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/47525.The_Magicians_of_Caprona
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4950050-the-magicians-guild---persekutuan-penyihir
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4999085-scenario-of-the-ballet-the-struggle-of-the-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/502306.The_Ambivalent_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/539128.Mario_and_the_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6101718.The_Magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6101718-the-magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6101718.The_Magicians__The_Magicians___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6101718.The_Magicians__The_Magicians__1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/617560.The_Last_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6345760.The_Magician_s_Elephant
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6345760-the-magician-s-elephant
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6345760-the-magician-s-elephant\
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6559147.The_Magicians
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65605.The_Magician_s_Nephew
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65605.The_Magician_s_Nephew__Chronicles_of_Narnia___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65605.The_Magician_s_Nephew__Chronicles_of_Narnia___6_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/65608.The_Magician_s_Nephew
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6589696-the-radio-magician-other-stories
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/665971.The_Magician_and_the_Analyst
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7007109-nobody-trusts-a-black-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/729827.Julian_the_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7521140-the-magician-s-castle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7882701-magician-s-muse
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/809835.The_Red_Magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8150045-the-magician-s-elephant
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8259344-the-magician-of-lhasa
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8919239-exu-divine-trickster-and-master-magician
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91781.King_Warrior_Magician_Lover
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/940167.The_Magician_of_Lublin
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9598209-the-last-greatest-magician-in-the-world
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/964413.Paschal_Beverly_Randolph__A_Nineteenth_Century_Black_American_Spiritualist__Rosicrucian__and_Sex_Magician
http://magician.wikia.com/wiki/Special:WantedPages
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/List_of_names_for_the_Biblical_nameless#Pharaoh.27s_magicians
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-morning-of-magicians.html
dedroidify.blogspot - magicians-companion
dedroidify.blogspot - secrets-of-occult-part-1-magicians
dedroidify.blogspot - eliphas-levi-magician
https://esotericotherworlds.blogspot.com/2012/11/magician-paranormal.html
Occultopedia - magician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/FloralMagicianMaryBell
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicStrip/MandrakeTheMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Magicians
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheMadMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TheMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LightNovel/IsekaiCheatMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LightNovel/MagiciansAcademy
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/DemigodsAndMagicians
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MairelonTheMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/NewYorkMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheBlackMagicianTrilogy
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheMagicians
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheMagiciansNephew
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/ThePaperMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackMagicianGirl
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EthnicMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicianDetective
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagiciansAreWizards
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RabbitMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StageMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhiteMagicianGirl
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheMagicians2016
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheMagician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheMagicians
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheMagicians2016
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MagicianLord
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/MagiciansQuestMysteriousTimes
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Webcomic/Magician
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/MagicianMickey
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/TheMagician
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/LovelyMagicianSavvy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/Mathemagician
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/TheKitchenMagician
https://knowyourarchetypes.com/archetypes-list/#Magician_Archetype
https://knowyourarchetypes.com/magician-archetype/
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Magicians
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Magicians_by_nationality
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chandu_the_Magician_(film)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:A_Magician_by_Edward_Kelly.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Magician
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Magicians
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Mad_Magician
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Magician's_Nephew
The Bozo Show (1962 - 2011) - A variety show on WGN in Chicago showed the talent of many actors. Two people would portray Bozo over the shows run. Famous Magician Marshell Brodien got his start as Wizzo T. Wizard (the T stood for Walter).Entertainer and radio/tv broadcaster:Bob Bell was the first performer to mc the series as...
Lidsville (1971 - 1973) - Psychedelic Show by Sid and Marty Krofft in a land of hats were Mark's quest is to get back home after he fell into a magician's hat. He was pursued by a mad wizard named Horatio J. HooDoo. Butch Patrick played Mark & Charles Nelson Reilly played HooDoo. This show once ran on ABC.
Defenders of the Earth (1986 - 1986) - In the year 2015, Ming the Merciless is wreaking havoc on planet Earth and intends to take anyone in his way out. The only thing that stands in his way is a team of the world's greatest heroes; space explorer Flash Gordon, "The Ghost Who Walks" The Phantom, the great magician Mandrake and his assis...
Creepy Crawlers (1994 - 1994) - Chris, a normal teenager, accidentally stumbles upon a box of green super-ooze, which, when opened, releases the five undead Creepy Crawler Commandos, Superheroes with innards showing and special afterlife powers. But evil magician Gugengrime steals the goo, and uses it to make his own army of Creep...
The Magician (1973 - 1974) - Show was a crime drama series. A rich magician used his magical talents to help people out of their problems, usually with criminals. In addition to his acting talents, Bill Bixby was actually a very accomplished magician in real life. The highly acclaimed magician, "Blackstone" gave the series his...
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (2003 - 2010) - Documentary series hosted by magician's Penn Jillette and his sidekick Teller. Each episode they debate, criticizes and debunk various topics which they dubbed "Bullshit". Often there would be interviews with experts on both sides with interjections of Penn's blunt and comedic commentary.
Mr. Merlin (1981 - 1982) - Merlin the Magician is alive and well and living as an auto mechanic in San Francisco. Upon orders from his boss Alexandra, Merlin attempts to train his teenage employee at the garage, Zac, to be his heir apparent. Most of the show's comedy comes from Zac's inexperience with his powers and the chara...
Captain Future (1978 - 1979) - Captain Future and his crew battle evil villains in various locations. Time travel, parallel dimensions and micro cosmos are some of the extraordinary ones. Captain Future's nemesis is Vul Kuolun, who is called 'The Magician of Mars'.
Magic Kaito 1412 (2014 - 2015) - Eight years after the mysterious death of his father, Kaito Kuroba, a slightly mischievous but otherwise ordinary teenager, discovers a shocking secret: the Phantom Thief Kaito Kidalso known as "The Magician Under the Moonlight"was none other than his own father. The former thief was murdered by a...
The Familiar of Zero (2006 - 2012) - Louise Franoise Le Blanc de La Vallire is a self-absorbed mage in a world of wands, cloaks, and royalty. Although she studies at Tristain Academy, a prestigious school for magicians, she has a major problem: Louise is unable to cast magic properly, earning her the nickname of "Louise the Zero" fro...
Magical Emi, the Magic Star (1985 - 1986) - Mai Kazuki is from a family of magicians. Her grandparents are leaders of a troupe, Magic Carat, and their daughter Mai's mother debuted under them. Naturally, Mai wants to become a magician herself, just like her hero, the fabulous legend Emily Howell. Unfortunately, because she is still a youn...
Floral Magician Mary Bell (1992 - 1993) - or known as Magical Heroes in some countries, is the fourth and last magical girl anime by Ashi Productions. The fifty-episode series first aired in Japan from 1992 until 1993. It has also been broadcast in Hong Kong, South Korea, Italy, Taiwan, China, France, Poland, Thailand, and in most Arab coun...
Prince Planet (1965 - 1966) - A boy of the Universal Peace Corps from the planet Radion lands on Earth to fight against criminals and extraterrestrial villains such as the Martian magician of Mars Warlock, and Krag of Kragmire.
Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed (1997 - 2009) - Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed originally began as a series of four specials on Fox in 1997. The series shows a magic trick being performed by a masked magician and then an explanation as to how the trick is performed. The series originally aired as four spec...
Frosty the Snowman(1969) - A discarded silk tophat becomes the focus of a struggle between a washed-up stage magician and a group of schoolchildren after it magically brings a snowman to life. Realizing that newly-living Frosty will melt in spring unless he takes refuge in a colder climate, Frosty and a young girl who he befr...
Conan the Barbarian(1982) - As a young boy, Conan witnesses the murder of his village and parents. Enslaved by the marauders, Conan escapes and vows revenge. Teamed with a warrior woman, magician, and thief, he wrecks havoc on Thulsa Doom and his cult, who were responsible for the atrocities committed so many years ago.
Dr. Strange(1978) - Dr. Steven Strange, the Marvel Comics magician/superhero created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, made his long-awaited screen debut in this 1978 TV pilot film. Peter Hooten certainly fills the costume as Strange, while Sir John Mills plays the doctor's sorcerer shaman "The Ancient One" with an...
Bogus.(1996) - Albert Franklin (Haley Joel Osment) is the son of stage magician Lorraine Franklin, and has learned to do a few magic tricks of his own. However, when his mother dies and he is sent to live with his aunt Harriet (Whoopi Goldberg), it becomes clear that for him the boundary between stage magic and th...
Penn and Teller Get Killed(1989) - When the two comedian/magicians appear on a talk show, Penn talks about how exciting it would be to live a life in danger. Now somebody wants to make his wish come true, but who?
Highlander III: The Final Dimension(1994) - In feudal Japan, Connor McLeod, the immortal highlander, seeks out an immortal master of illusion in order to learn the magician's art. He is unknowingly followed by an evil immortal, Kane, who want Connor's head. They fight and Connor gets away while Kane is trapped in a cave. Now in the present Co...
Young Harry Houdini(1987) - This biographical movie depicts the youth of the magician Harry Houdini (1874 - 1926). As a boy his name was Eric Weiss and his father wanted him to become a locksmith. But he ran away and joined the traveling show of Dr. Grimaldi, where he learned the tricks of a magician and a little mystery from...
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom(1985) - 1 hr. 15 min. A young magician, on his perilous quest to regain his lost kingdom, challenges the dark power of the realm's most feared evil sorcerer with the help of a great warrior.
Metalstorm The Destruction Of Jared Syn(1983) - It's the science fiction battle of the ages with giant cyclopes and intergalactic magicians in this futuristic adventure set on the desert planet of Lemuria. A miner and his daughter Dhyana (Kelly Preston) fall prey to the evil dictator Jader-Syn's reign of terror. Dogen, (Jeffrey Byron) the brave p...
Rough Magic(1997) - Director Clare Peploe (wife of Bernardo Bertolucci) adapted this blend of noir mystery and magical realism from the story Miss Shumway Waves a Wand by James Hadley Chase. Bridget Fonda stars as Myra Shumway, an apprentice to a magician (Kenneth Mars) in 1952 Los Angeles. Myra is unhappily engaged to...
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II(2002) - Now that Frollo is gone, Quasimodo rings the bell with the help of his new friend and Esmeralda's and Phoebus' little son, Zephyr. But when Quasi stops by a traveling circus owned by evil magician Sarousch, he falls for Madellaine, Sarouch's assistant. But greedy Sarousch forces Madellaine to help h...
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad(1958) - Sinbad, prince of Baghdad and sailor of the seven seas, journeys to the island of Colossa to save his future wife Princess Parisa who was shrunken by the evil magician Sokurah and encounters mythical creatures.
Disney's Magic In The Magic Kingdom(1988) - This 1988 Disney special aired on NBC. Hosted by George Burns, the special featured appearances by noted magicians including Siegfried And Roy, the Pendragons and Lance Burton, among others, all performing illusions at Orlando, Florida's Magic Kingdom.
Abra Cadabra(1983) - A space boy who resides with his pet dog, cat and magician father in outer space comes to earth pursuing a couple of villains who have stolen the magic pipe from the cosmic maze. Along the way, he becomes involved with the daughter of the mayor of Yellow Town.
The Magus(1968) - A teacher on a Greek island becomes involved in bizarre mind-games with the island's magus (magician) and a beautiful young woman.
Asterix Conquers America(1994) - The Gallic hero and his sidekick journey to the New World to rescue the magician who protects their village.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1367/Detective_Conan_Movie_08__Magician_of_the_Silver_Sky -- Adventure, Mystery, Comedy, Police, Shounen
https://myanimelist.net/anime/36760/Detective_Conan__The_Magician_of_Starlight -- Space
https://myanimelist.net/manga/15436/Magician
https://myanimelist.net/manga/43427/Persona_4_The_Magician
https://myanimelist.net/manga/57821/Isekai_Cheat_Magician
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) ::: 7.1/10 -- G | 1h 57min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy | 13 December 1971 (USA) -- An apprentice witch, three kids and a cynical magician conman search for the missing component to a magic spell to be used in the defense of Britain in World War II. Directors: Robert Stevenson, Ward Kimball (uncredited) Writers:
Deception ::: TV-PG | 41min | Crime, Drama, Mystery | TV Series (2018) -- A famed magician uses his skills of deception to assist the FBI in solving high-profile cases. Creator: Chris Fedak
Excalibur (1981) ::: 7.4/10 -- PG | 2h 20min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy | 10 April 1981 (USA) -- Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart. Director: John Boorman Writers: Thomas Malory (book), Rospo Pallenberg (adaptation) | 2 more credits
Frosty the Snowman (1969) ::: 7.3/10 -- TV-G | 25min | Animation, Family, Fantasy | TV Movie 7 December 1969 -- A living snowman and a little girl struggle to elude a greedy magician who is after the snowman's magic hat. Directors: Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr. Writer: Romeo Muller
Guzaarish (2010) ::: 7.4/10 -- PG | 2h 6min | Drama | 19 November 2010 (India) -- A paralyzed Magician-turned-RJ files a Petition in Court seeking permission to end his life. Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali Writers: Sanjay Leela Bhansali (screenplay), Bhavani Iyer (dialogue) | 3 more
Houdini (1953) ::: 6.9/10 -- Approved | 1h 46min | Biography, Drama | 2 July 1953 (USA) -- From his beginnings as a "wildman" carnival act to the internationally famous feat of escaping from a locked trunk in an ice-jammed river, the great Harry Houdini emerged as the world's most captivating magician and escape artist. Director: George Marshall Writers:
Is Anybody There? (2008) ::: 6.7/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 34min | Drama | 15 May 2009 (USA) -- A lonely boy who lives in his parents' home for the elderly explores his obsession with the afterlife through his friendship with an aging magician. Director: John Crowley Writer:
Jonathan Creek ::: TV-MA | 1h | Comedy, Crime, Drama | TV Series (19972016) Working from his home in a converted windmill, Jonathan Creek is a magician with a natural ability for solving puzzles. He soon puts this ability to the use of solving impossible crimes and mysterious murders. Stars: Alan Davies, Caroline Quentin, Stuart Milligan Available on Amazon
Penn & Teller: Fool Us ::: TV-PG | 1h | Comedy, Game-Show, Mystery | TV Series (2011 ) -- Aspiring magicians from all over the world perform their best tricks to try and fool Penn and Teller, the world-famous magician duo. If the two can not guess how the trick was done, the "fooler" gets to be on their Las Vegas magic show. Creators:
Prospero's Books (1991) ::: 6.9/10 -- R | 2h 4min | Drama, Fantasy | 30 August 1991 (UK) -- The magician Prospero attempts to stop his daughter's affair with an enemy. Director: Peter Greenaway Writers: William Shakespeare (play), Peter Greenaway Stars:
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973) ::: 6.8/10 -- G | 1h 45min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy | 25 January 1974 (UK) -- Sinbad and the vizier of Marabia, followed by evil magician Koura, seek the three golden tablets that can gain them access to the ancient temple of the Oracle of All Knowledge. Director: Gordon Hessler Writers:
The Illusionist (2006) ::: 7.6/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 50min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery | 1 September 2006 (USA) -- In turn-of-the-century Vienna, a magician uses his abilities to secure the love of a woman far above his social standing. Director: Neil Burger Writers: Neil Burger (screenplay), Steven Millhauser (short story "Eisenheim the
The Immigrant (2013) ::: 6.6/10 -- R | 2h | Drama, Romance | 23 May 2014 (USA) -- 1921. An innocent immigrant woman is tricked into a life of burlesque and vaudeville until a dazzling magician tries to save her and reunite her with her sister who is being held in the confines of Ellis Island. Director: James Gray Writers:
The Magician (2006) ::: 7.4/10 -- Hokkabaz (original title) -- The Magician Poster Failed magician Iskender decides to do a tour to save his career, but has to bring his grumpy and senile father along. The tour is quite unexpectedly interrupted when a bride actually disappears from the stage. Directors: Ali Taner Baltaci, Cem Yilmaz Writer: Cem Yilmaz
The Magicians ::: TV-14 | 1h | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery | TV Series (20152020) -- After being recruited to a secretive academy, a group of students discover that the magic they read about as children is very real-and more dangerous than they ever imagined. Creators:
The Magicians ::: TV-14 | 1h | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery | TV Series (2015-2020) Episode Guide 65 episodes The Magicians Poster -- After being recruited to a secretive academy, a group of students discover that the magic they read about as children is very real-and more dangerous than they ever imagined. Creators:
The Prestige (2006) ::: 8.5/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 10min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 20 October 2006 (USA) -- After a tragic accident, two stage magicians engage in a battle to create the ultimate illusion while sacrificing everything they have to outwit each other. Director: Christopher Nolan Writers:
The Raven (1963) ::: 6.6/10 -- G | 1h 26min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror | 25 January 1963 (USA) -- A magician, who has been turned into a raven, turns to a former sorcerer for help. Director: Roger Corman Writers: Richard Matheson (screenplay), Edgar Allan Poe (poem)
Travelers and Magicians (2003) ::: 7.4/10 -- Travellers & Magicians (original title) -- Travelers and Magicians Poster The two men embark on parallel, if separate, journeys. Their yearning is a common one--for a better and different life. Dondup, delayed by the timeless pace of his village, is forced to ... S Director: Khyentse Norbu Writer: Khyentse Norbu
https://i-am-the-king-of-magicians.fandom.com
https://magician.fandom.com
https://themagicians.fandom.com
https://magician.fandom.com/
https://allods.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://animanga.fandom.com/wiki/Isekai_Cheat_Magician
https://animanga.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://arrow.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician
https://blackhaze.fandom.com/wiki/Magicians
https://blackhaze.fandom.com/wiki/Magician's_Tower
https://characters.fandom.com/wiki/Ace_Cooper_-_The_Magician
https://characters.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Jack_(The_Magician)
https://characters.fandom.com/wiki/Magician's_Hat
https://comics.fandom.com/wiki/The_Young_Magician
https://danball.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_(Stick_Ranger)
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Arrow_(TV_Series)_Episode:_The_Magician
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/White_Magician
https://demonssouls.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://doctorwho.fandom.com/cy/wiki/The_Magician's_Apprentice_(stori_deledu)
https://dragonica.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://dreamfiction.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Otter_Magician_Sammy_characters
https://dreamfiction.fandom.com/wiki/Otter_Magician_Sammy
https://dreamfiction.fandom.com/wiki/The_Return_of_Floral_Magician_Mary_Bell
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_(Online)
https://enciclopedie.fandom.com/wiki/Harry_Houdini:_magicianul_care_a_vrut_s
https://eq2.fandom.com/wiki/Magician's_Intelligence
https://everquest.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://fantasy-life.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://flyff.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://flyff.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Armor
https://gokukoku-no-brynhildr.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://guildopedia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians
https://hanna-barbera.fandom.com/wiki/Yogi_Bear_and_the_Cranky_Magician
https://how-i-met-your-mother.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Code_-_Part_One
https://how-i-met-your-mother.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Code_-_Part_Two
https://i-am-the-king-of-magicians.fandom.com/wiki/
https://i-am-the-king-of-magicians.fandom.com/wiki/I_Am_The_King_Of_Magicians_Wiki
https://i-am-the-king-of-magicians.fandom.com/wiki/Local_Sitemap
https://irisonline.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://kubera.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://kubera.fandom.com/wiki/Magicians
https://list.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Jack_(The_Magician)
https://list.fandom.com/wiki/Faceless_(The_Magician)
https://lupin.fandom.com/wiki/Return_of_the_Magician
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Adat
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Cantera
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Chapter_525
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Chapters
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Characters
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Duwei
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Edan
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Edermask
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Enzu
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Ethermask
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Forest_Magic
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Forest's_Calm
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Generate/Location
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Generate/Magic
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Iremi
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Janus
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Lano
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Local_Sitemap
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Lydia
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Wiki
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Wiki:Administrators
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Wiki:Community_Portal
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Wiki:Layout_Guide
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Wiki:Sandbox
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Marie
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Protection_of_the_Forest
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Ryce
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Serae_Kim
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Spirit_Summoning
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/The_Eye
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/Theodore
https://magician.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seal
https://magicians-quest.fandom.com/wiki/
https://magi.fandom.com/wiki/Magicians
https://maoyu.fandom.com/wiki/Female_Magician
https://maoyu.fandom.com/wiki/Maoyuu_Maou_Yuusha_Side-Story:_The_Sleepy_Female_Magician
https://maplestory.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://mdcd.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Persona_4_The_Magician
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://mima.fandom.com/wiki/Magicians
https://mythus.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://narnia.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Nephew
https://negima.fandom.com/wiki/Mahou_Sensei_Negima!_The_First_Class:_The_Child_Teacher_is_a_Magician!
https://ninjago.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://overgeared.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Magician
https://overgeared.fandom.com/wiki/Legendary_Great_Magician_(Quest)
https://rappelz.fandom.com/wiki/Chaos_Magician
https://rappelz.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Magician
https://rappelz.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://rappelz.fandom.com/wiki/Magician_Costumes
https://riordan.fandom.com/wiki/Demigods_&_Magicians
https://solo-leveling.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_Magicians
https://super-villain.fandom.com/wiki/Raptor_XII_(The_Magician)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Alison_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Dalek_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Demon_Magician
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Jac_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Ryan_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/School_girl_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Supreme_Dalek_(The_Magician's_Apprentice)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Crumbling_Magician_(audio_story)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician_(comic_story)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Apprentice
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Apprentice_(TV_story)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Apprentice:_What_We_Know_So_Far_(webcast)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Oath_(audio_story)
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_TARDIS
https://television.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians
https://thehouseofthedead.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Affiliates
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Alice_Quinn
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Arjun_Gupta
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Blog:Recent_posts
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Brakebills_University
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Brittany_Curran
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_Blackspire
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_Whitespire
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Circumstances
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Community
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Deities
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Deweys
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Disciplines
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Eliot_Waugh
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Fairies
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Fairy_Dust
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Fen
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Fillorians
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Hale_Appleman
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Henry_Fogg
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/High_Council
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Humans
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Jade_Tailor
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Jane_Chatwin's_Pocket_Watch
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Jason_Ralph
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/John_McNamara
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Josh_Hoberman
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Julia_Wicker
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Kady_Orloff-Diaz
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Leo_Blade
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Lev_Grossman
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Library_of_the_Neitherlands
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Local_Sitemap
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Magic
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Margo_Hanson
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Mirror_Realm
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Olivia_Taylor_Dudley
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Order_of_the_Library_of_the_Neitherlands
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Penny_Adiyodi
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Penny_Adiyodi/Timeline_23
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Plaxco
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Quentin_Coldwater
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Questing_Creatures
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Rick_Worthy
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Sera_Gamble
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Seven_Golden_Keys
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Siphon
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Spells
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Stella_Maeve
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Summer_Bishil
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Tesla_Flexion
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician_King
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians:_Alice's_Story
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magician's_Land
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians:_New_Class
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(series)
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_Trilogy
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)/Season_Five
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)/Season_Four
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)/Season_One
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)/Season_Three
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_(TV_series)/Season_Two
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_Wiki
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_Wiki:Administrators
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_Wiki:Manual_of_Style
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magicians_Wiki:Moderators
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Travelers
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Trevor_Einhorn
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Underworld
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Underworld_Metro_Card
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Universe
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Vampires
https://themagicians.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolves
https://toarumajutsunoindex.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://toarumajutsunoindex.fandom.com/wiki/Magician-Esper_Hybrid
https://valkyriesky.fandom.com/wiki/Magician's_Metamorphosis
https://wubbzy.fandom.com/wiki/Moo_Moo_the_Magician
https://xenonline.fandom.com/wiki/Magician
https://ycm.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Magician_Girl_of_Chaos
100-man no Inochi no Ue ni Ore wa Tatteiru -- -- Maho Film -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Game Drama Fantasy Shounen -- 100-man no Inochi no Ue ni Ore wa Tatteiru 100-man no Inochi no Ue ni Ore wa Tatteiru -- Yotsuya Yuusuke along with his classmates Shindou Iu and Hakozaki Kusue have been transported to a strange and unknown world inhabited by mythological creatures. As soon as they arrive, they meet somebody calling himself the Game Master who then grants them a time-limited quest. To aid them in this quest, he also bestows Shindou and Hakozaki with the roles of a Magician and a Warrior while Yotsuya is randomly granted the role of... a Farmer?! -- -- This is how a hectic life of adventuring began for three students who now have no choice, but to complete random quests for several phases in the fantasy world if they want to stay alive and protect the real world from the demons and monsters they encounter. -- -- (Source: MU) -- 147,868 6.43
Akazukin Chacha -- -- Gallop -- 74 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy Magic Romance Shoujo -- Akazukin Chacha Akazukin Chacha -- Akazukin Chacha is the story of a young magical girl (Mahō Shōjo) named Chacha. Living with her guardian in a cottage on Mochi-mochi mountain is Seravi, who is her teacher and also the fictional world's greatest magician. Chacha is clumsy in casting her spells because, throughout the anime, when she summons something, it often turns out to be something that she didn't mean to cast, for example, spiders (kumo) instead of a cloud (also kumo). At times in the anime when she and her friends are in trouble, however, her spells do work. Living on the same mountain is a boy gifted with enormous strength named Riiya. It is described that Riiya came from a family of werewolves who can instantly change into a wolf whenever they want. Quite far from Mochi-mochi mountain lies Urizuri mountain. Dorothy, also a well known magician in her land, lives in a castle on Urizuri mountain. Living with her is Shiine, her student. Shiine is adept when it comes to casting spells. He is a young wizard and most of his knowledge about magic was taught to him by Dorothy. -- -- The first 2 seasons were originally created by the anime team. Most of the stories in season 3 are based on the manga. -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- 12,257 7.38
Blood Lad -- -- Brain's Base -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Demons Seinen Supernatural Vampire -- Blood Lad Blood Lad -- Staz Charlie Blood is a powerful vampire who rules the Eastern district of Demon World. According to rumors, he is a bloodthirsty and merciless monster, but in reality, Staz is just an otaku obsessed with Japanese culture and completely uninterested in human blood. Leaving the management of his territory to his underlings, Staz spends his days lazing around, indulging in anime, manga, and games. -- -- When Fuyumi Yanagi, a Japanese girl, accidentally wanders through a portal leading into the demon world, Staz is overjoyed. But just as he is starting to feel an unusual attraction to her, his territory is attacked, resulting in Fuyumi's untimely death. She turns into a wandering ghost and the crestfallen Staz vows to resurrect her as this would mean being able to travel to the human world, something he has always dreamed of. -- -- Blood Lad follows Staz and Fuyumi, soon joined by the spatial magician Bell and the half-werewolf Wolf, as they travel to find a magic that can bring humans back to life. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- 554,443 7.32
Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card -- -- Madhouse -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Fantasy Magic Romance Shoujo -- Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card -- For this year's Nadeshiko Festival, Sakura Kinomoto's elementary school class is presenting a play. She will portray a princess who struggles to respond to the love confession of the neighboring country's prince. Sakura empathizes with her character all too well, since she herself still owes an answer to the boy who confessed his love for her four months ago. -- -- When cousins Shaoran and Meiling Li return from Hong Kong to pay a surprise visit to their friends in Japan, Sakura receives further encouragement to finally declare her feelings. However, she is repeatedly distracted by a presence reminiscent of a Clow Card as well as unexplained disappearances around town. -- -- Eventually, Sakura learns of another of Clow Reed's creations—the "Nothing"—which was formerly sealed away beneath the magician's old house. It has power equal to all 52 cards Sakura possesses, and furthermore, it wants to take those cards away from her! Objects, space, and people disappear from Tomoeda with each card that is stolen. Sakura sets out to capture the Nothing so everything will return to normal, but what must she sacrifice in the process? -- -- Movie - Jul 15, 2000 -- 97,928 8.22
Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- "Alpha Stigma" are known to be eyes that can analyze all types of magic. However, they are more infamously known as cursed eyes that can only bring destruction and death to others. -- -- Ryner Lute, a talented mage and also an Alpha Stigma bearer, was once a student of the Roland Empire's Magician Academy, an elite school dedicated to training magicians for military purposes. However, after many of his classmates died in a war, he makes an oath to make the nation a more orderly and peaceful place, with fellow survivor and best friend, Sion Astal. -- -- Now that Sion is the the king of Roland, he orders Ryner to search for useful relics that will aid the nation. Together with Ferris Eris, a beautiful and highly skilled swordswoman, Ryner goes on a journey to search for relics of legendary heroes from the past, and also uncover the secrets behind his cursed eyes. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 250,632 7.59
Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- "Alpha Stigma" are known to be eyes that can analyze all types of magic. However, they are more infamously known as cursed eyes that can only bring destruction and death to others. -- -- Ryner Lute, a talented mage and also an Alpha Stigma bearer, was once a student of the Roland Empire's Magician Academy, an elite school dedicated to training magicians for military purposes. However, after many of his classmates died in a war, he makes an oath to make the nation a more orderly and peaceful place, with fellow survivor and best friend, Sion Astal. -- -- Now that Sion is the the king of Roland, he orders Ryner to search for useful relics that will aid the nation. Together with Ferris Eris, a beautiful and highly skilled swordswoman, Ryner goes on a journey to search for relics of legendary heroes from the past, and also uncover the secrets behind his cursed eyes. -- -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 250,632 7.59
Detective Conan Movie 08: Magician of the Silver Sky -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Mystery Comedy Police Shounen -- Detective Conan Movie 08: Magician of the Silver Sky Detective Conan Movie 08: Magician of the Silver Sky -- Once again, Kaitou Kid crosses swords with Conan Edogawa in this annual installment of the Detective Conan movie franchise. After receiving a letter from the thief, famous actress Juri Maki seeks the help of private detective Kogorou Mouri to protect the Star Sapphire—the "Jewel of Destiny," said to represent faith, fate, and hope. Thinking he has deciphered Kid's riddle, Kogorou personally shows up to the newly constructed space theater where Juri is acting in the play "Josephine" in order to catch Kid in the act. -- -- The next day, Conan and the gang are invited by Juri to her holiday home, to celebrate the thwarting of Kid's plan and the success of the play. However, their triumph crumbles when a murder occurs during the flight there. Although unintentional, this sets off a series of events that escalate to catastrophic results. Conan and Kid, unlikely allies that they are, must work together to save both their friends and every other passenger aboard the plane. -- -- Movie - Apr 17, 2004 -- 44,589 8.10
Detective Conan: The Magician of Starlight -- -- D & D Pictures -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Space -- Detective Conan: The Magician of Starlight Detective Conan: The Magician of Starlight -- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has planned a huge exhibition to present current progress in space exploration, as well as showcase a set of large, beautiful celestial jewels. But then, a message arrives from infamous Kaitou Kid, who plans to steal the treasure. Conan and the Detective Boys are brought in as added security. Everything is going well... until the power cuts out. With limited time, Conan and company must protect the jewels from Kaitou Kid. -- Movie - ??? ??, 2012 -- 2,088 6.53
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Die Neue These - Seiran 1 -- -- Production I.G -- 4 eps -- Novel -- Action Drama Military Sci-Fi Space -- Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Die Neue These - Seiran 1 Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu: Die Neue These - Seiran 1 -- The Free Planets Alliance's invasion of the Galactic Empire has failed after supply mismanagement led to heavy losses. Unwilling to abort the expedition despite being greatly outnumbered, Fleet Admiral Lazar Lobos orders the remaining Alliance fleets to gather in the Amritsar Starzone for a final stand against the incoming counterattack. -- -- Strategic genius Fleet Admiral Reinhard von Lohengramm leads the Imperial forces into this decisive battle with an overwhelming advantage. However, his rival, tactical magician Vice Admiral Yang Wen-li of the Alliance, once again makes up for the incompetence of his superiors and stages a narrow escape for himself and his fellow soldiers. Though both Reinhard and Yang are displeased with the outcome—the former for his imperfect victory and the latter for the tremendous casualties—their attention must turn to the bubbling political unrest on both sides of the galaxy. -- -- Movie - Sep 27, 2019 -- 18,508 7.97
Grancrest Senki -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Drama Fantasy Romance -- Grancrest Senki Grancrest Senki -- The continent of Atlatan once again finds itself devoured by the flames of war after a horrific event known as the Great Hall Tragedy. What was supposed to be a joyful occasion that would establish peace between the Fantasia Union and the Factory Alliance, the marriage of Sir Alexis Douse and Lady Marrine Kreische, was instead a tragedy. As the bride and groom walked down the aisle, the ceremony was suddenly interrupted by a powerful convergence of "Chaos," a dark energy from another dimension that corrupts the land and brings forth monsters and demons into the world. From within that energy appeared the Demon Lord of Diabolos, an evil being who instantly murdered the archdukes of both factions, shattering any hope for peace between them. -- -- Having failed to prevent this disaster, Siluca Meletes, an Alliance mage, is traveling through the Chaos-infested countryside to study under a master magician. When she is intercepted by a group of soldiers working with the Federation, Siluca is rescued by Theo Cornaro, a young warrior carrying a mysterious "Crest," a magical symbol that gives its wielder the ability to banish Chaos. Bearing no allegiance to a specific domain, Theo hopes to attain the rank of Lord so that he can liberate his home town of Sistina from its tyrannical ruler and the Chaos spreading within it. Impressed by his noble goal, Siluca enters into a magical contract with Theo, and the two embark on a journey to restore balance to their war-torn land. -- -- 221,418 7.24
Grancrest Senki -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Drama Fantasy Romance -- Grancrest Senki Grancrest Senki -- The continent of Atlatan once again finds itself devoured by the flames of war after a horrific event known as the Great Hall Tragedy. What was supposed to be a joyful occasion that would establish peace between the Fantasia Union and the Factory Alliance, the marriage of Sir Alexis Douse and Lady Marrine Kreische, was instead a tragedy. As the bride and groom walked down the aisle, the ceremony was suddenly interrupted by a powerful convergence of "Chaos," a dark energy from another dimension that corrupts the land and brings forth monsters and demons into the world. From within that energy appeared the Demon Lord of Diabolos, an evil being who instantly murdered the archdukes of both factions, shattering any hope for peace between them. -- -- Having failed to prevent this disaster, Siluca Meletes, an Alliance mage, is traveling through the Chaos-infested countryside to study under a master magician. When she is intercepted by a group of soldiers working with the Federation, Siluca is rescued by Theo Cornaro, a young warrior carrying a mysterious "Crest," a magical symbol that gives its wielder the ability to banish Chaos. Bearing no allegiance to a specific domain, Theo hopes to attain the rank of Lord so that he can liberate his home town of Sistina from its tyrannical ruler and the Chaos spreading within it. Impressed by his noble goal, Siluca enters into a magical contract with Theo, and the two embark on a journey to restore balance to their war-torn land. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 221,418 7.24
Hanyou no Yashahime: Sengoku Otogizoushi - Ni no Shou -- -- - -- ? eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Comedy Historical Demons Supernatural Magic Fantasy -- Hanyou no Yashahime: Sengoku Otogizoushi - Ni no Shou Hanyou no Yashahime: Sengoku Otogizoushi - Ni no Shou -- Second season of Hanyou no Yashahime: Sengoku Otogizoushi. -- TV - ??? ??, ???? -- 9,028 N/A -- -- Jewelpet -- -- Studio Comet -- 52 eps -- Original -- Fantasy Magic Shoujo -- Jewelpet Jewelpet -- When what looks to be a cluster of shooting stars appear in the sky, Rinko Kougyoku and her friend Minami each make a wish. -- -- What the girls truly saw were not stars, but 'Jewel Charms' falling to the Earth. These charms were created by three magicians in a magical world names Jewel Land, each housing one of its many native Jewelpets. Although these creatures are free to roam the world in their original form, the magicians sometimes turn them into charms so that they can be carried around with great ease. Most Jewelpets don't find this troublesome, but once a mischievous bunny by the name of Ruby feels overly claustrophobic, she devises her escape. -- -- One day, the magicians decide to move the Jewelpets, and task a pelican with delivering them to the Dream Forest. All is well until a strong gust of wind disorients the bird, who then drops all of the charms that he was carrying. Instead of heading towards the Dream Forest, all the Jewelpets but Ruby fall to Rinko’s home city on Earth. Someone must go and retrieve them all, and as Ruby was the worst-behaved of the bunch, she is given the task of going to Earth. -- -- When Ruby reaches Earth in the form of a red Jewel Charm, she falls into Rinko’s water glass, and thus begins a rather unexpected adventure. Rinko, Minami, and Ruby form an alliance to search and gather all of the fallen charms, encountering strange creatures and tons of helpful allies along the way. Will they be able to succesfully bring the Jewelpets home safely, or is Earth full of more danger than they had expected? -- 8,999 6.65
Hataraku Maou-sama! 2nd Season -- -- - -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Demons Supernatural Romance Fantasy -- Hataraku Maou-sama! 2nd Season Hataraku Maou-sama! 2nd Season -- Second season of Hataraku Maou-sama! -- TV - ??? ??, ???? -- 98,137 N/A -- -- Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card -- -- Madhouse -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Fantasy Magic Romance Shoujo -- Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: Fuuin Sareta Card -- For this year's Nadeshiko Festival, Sakura Kinomoto's elementary school class is presenting a play. She will portray a princess who struggles to respond to the love confession of the neighboring country's prince. Sakura empathizes with her character all too well, since she herself still owes an answer to the boy who confessed his love for her four months ago. -- -- When cousins Shaoran and Meiling Li return from Hong Kong to pay a surprise visit to their friends in Japan, Sakura receives further encouragement to finally declare her feelings. However, she is repeatedly distracted by a presence reminiscent of a Clow Card as well as unexplained disappearances around town. -- -- Eventually, Sakura learns of another of Clow Reed's creations—the "Nothing"—which was formerly sealed away beneath the magician's old house. It has power equal to all 52 cards Sakura possesses, and furthermore, it wants to take those cards away from her! Objects, space, and people disappear from Tomoeda with each card that is stolen. Sakura sets out to capture the Nothing so everything will return to normal, but what must she sacrifice in the process? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Geneon Entertainment USA, Nelvana -- Movie - Jul 15, 2000 -- 97,928 8.22
Hatena☆Illusion -- -- Children's Playground Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Supernatural Romance Ecchi -- Hatena☆Illusion Hatena☆Illusion -- Years ago, many magical "Artifacts" were stolen and scattered throughout the world. They fell into the hands of people who were not supposed to know of their existence, causing misfortune to those who abused their power. The Hoshisato family of magicians has special access to the Artifacts, and they take it upon themselves to return them to their rightful place. -- -- Despite her inexperience, Kana "Hatena" Hoshisato wishes to aid her parents Mamoru and Maeve in their quest, doing her best to improve. Meanwhile, her childhood friend Makoto Shiranui has come to their mansion to study magic under her father's tutelage as part of a promise they made years ago. Hatena is excited to see her friend again, only to be utterly disappointed when the person she thought to be a girl all these years turns out to be a boy, leading to a bitter reunion. -- -- Before long, Makoto comes to know of the Artifacts and the true identities of the magicians he admires. Unfazed, he continues to strive to fulfill his promises and stay true to why he learns magic—to ease the sadness of people around him and, most importantly, to become a person worthy of being Hatena's partner. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 31,182 5.37
High School DxD OVA -- -- TNK -- 2 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Demons Ecchi Romance School -- High School DxD OVA High School DxD OVA -- #1: Oppai, Minorimasu! (Episode 13) -- A rumor is going about the school about how girls are disappearing and coming back ill and with their breast size decreased. -- -- #2: Oppai, Motomemasu! (Episode 14) -- While observing how the others do their jobs so they can do theirs better, Issei and Asia go with Rias to see if a coffin is cursed. During the investigation Issei is possessed by an Egyptian magician named Unas, It just so happens that Unas is just as perverted as Issei. Unas will only leave Issei's body if they can release Unas from the curse placed on him by a devil that Unas tried to make his bride. -- OVA - Sep 6, 2012 -- 219,629 7.29
Isekai Cheat Magician -- -- Encourage Films -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Fantasy -- Isekai Cheat Magician Isekai Cheat Magician -- Regular high schooler Taichi Nishimura and his childhood friend, Rin Azuma, are on their way to school one ordinary morning. Suddenly, a glowing light envelops them, transporting them to a fantasy world full of magical creatures. -- -- Upon their arrival, Taichi and Rin are threatened by a beast. They are promptly saved by a group of adventurers, who advise the pair that traveling unarmed and inexperienced makes them vulnerable to the recently increasing monster attacks. Taichi and Rin are directed to the Guild, where they can determine their magical aptitude and register as adventurers. However, the test they take reveals an unprecedented result: Taichi and Rin possess extraordinary powers that far surpass the standard mage, instantly transforming them from typical high school students to the ultimate cheat magicians. -- -- Taichi and Rin learn to grasp the full extent of their powers and familiarize themselves with their new world. However, while the duo seeks to uncover the reason behind their transportation and a possible way back to their original world, unexpected trouble lurks in the shadows. -- -- 203,921 5.37
Jewelpet Twinkle☆ -- -- Studio Comet -- 52 eps -- Original -- Fantasy Magic School Shoujo -- Jewelpet Twinkle☆ Jewelpet Twinkle☆ -- In Jewel Land, Jewelpets, creatures who has the natural ability to use magic lived in harmony with the Witches, attending the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn to use magic with their Jewel Eyes. However for Ruby, a white Japanese Hare whose magic sometimes fail, is appointed to go to the Human World to search for her partner. But when she used the card the magicians gave her, she was sent to the Human World by accident. In the Human World, A girl named Akari Sakura met her on the beach on her way to school. At first, Akari can't understand her due to her Jewel Land Language until Ruby took a special candy so she could speak and understand human language. As the day passes, Ruby knew about her problems and later apologized. A Jewel Charm appeared on Akari's hand and she realized it that she's chosen by Ruby to be her partner. After that, she decided to enter the Jewel Star Grand Prix, on the prize is that any wish that they wanted will be granted. Will she be the Next Jewel Star and her wish be granted in the end? Or It'll just end in one big disaster... -- -- (Source: Wikipedia) -- TV - Apr 3, 2010 -- 8,832 7.38
Maburaho -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Ecchi Harem Magic Romance School -- Maburaho Maburaho -- In the world of Maburaho, everyone is born with the ability to use magic and are thus labeled magicians. However, the magical ability of each person is not equal. The number of times you can use magic determines the amount of respect you receive, and since one’s magical power is determined at birth by traits and genetics, those who have a bloodline stemming from famous magicians are highly sought after. -- -- Having the lowest magic count in Aoi Academy, Kazuki Shikimori is looked down upon by his classmates and seen as a nearly worthless magician. However, his bloodline consists of many great magicians throughout the ages, meaning that while he may not be a great magician, his offspring could be. This leads to him being sought after by three different young women: Yuna Miyama, a transfer student who declares herself his wife upon arrival, Rin Kamishiro, a prideful swordswoman of a traditional family who wants to kill him so she will be free to pursue her own desires, and Kuriko Kazetsubaki, a member of an influential family who bluntly tries to seduce him for his genes. -- -- Now he has to deal with not only the jealousy of all the guys in his school, but also various women chasing after him! -- 86,894 6.79
Macademi Wasshoi! -- -- Zexcs -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Ecchi Fantasy Romance School Supernatural -- Macademi Wasshoi! Macademi Wasshoi! -- Magician's Academy revolves around Takuto Hasegawa, who attends a magic academy that is not marked on any map. During a summoning spell exam, he accidentally creates a girl named Tanarotte, who happens to hold enough magical power to destroy his country, but fortunately Tanarotte professes undying loyalty (and love) to her "creator." -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Oct 6, 2008 -- 39,416 6.96
Made in Abyss 2 -- -- - -- ? eps -- Web manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery Drama Fantasy -- Made in Abyss 2 Made in Abyss 2 -- Directly after the events of Made in Abyss Movie 3: Dawn of the Deep Soul, the third installment of Made in Abyss covers the adventure of Reg, Riko, and Nanachi in the Sixth Layer, The Capital of the Unreturned. -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 87,566 N/AMaburaho -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Drama Ecchi Harem Magic Romance School -- Maburaho Maburaho -- In the world of Maburaho, everyone is born with the ability to use magic and are thus labeled magicians. However, the magical ability of each person is not equal. The number of times you can use magic determines the amount of respect you receive, and since one’s magical power is determined at birth by traits and genetics, those who have a bloodline stemming from famous magicians are highly sought after. -- -- Having the lowest magic count in Aoi Academy, Kazuki Shikimori is looked down upon by his classmates and seen as a nearly worthless magician. However, his bloodline consists of many great magicians throughout the ages, meaning that while he may not be a great magician, his offspring could be. This leads to him being sought after by three different young women: Yuna Miyama, a transfer student who declares herself his wife upon arrival, Rin Kamishiro, a prideful swordswoman of a traditional family who wants to kill him so she will be free to pursue her own desires, and Kuriko Kazetsubaki, a member of an influential family who bluntly tries to seduce him for his genes. -- -- Now he has to deal with not only the jealousy of all the guys in his school, but also various women chasing after him! -- 86,894 6.79
Magic Kaito 1412 -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Romance Shounen -- Magic Kaito 1412 Magic Kaito 1412 -- Eight years after the mysterious death of his father, Kaito Kuroba, a slightly mischievous but otherwise ordinary teenager, discovers a shocking secret: the Phantom Thief Kaito Kid—also known as "The Magician Under the Moonlight"—was none other than his own father. The former thief was murdered by a criminal organization seeking a mythical stone called the Pandora Gem, said to shed a tear with the passing of the Valley Comet that comes every ten thousand years. When the tear is consumed, the gem supposedly grants immortality. -- -- Vowing to bring those responsible for his father's death to justice, Kaito dons the Phantom Thief's disguise, stealing priceless jewels night after night to find the Pandora Gem before his enemies can use the power for themselves. -- -- 98,515 7.87
Magic Kaito -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Romance Shounen -- Magic Kaito Magic Kaito -- Magic is not real—everyone knows that. When performed by a true expert, however, magic possesses the ability to amaze and wonder its audience. Kaito Kuroba, son of world-famous stage magician Touichi Kuroba, is no stranger to this fact. Well-versed in the arts of deception and misdirection, Kaito frequently disrupts the lives of those around him with flashy tricks and pranks. But when Kaito accidentally stumbles upon a hidden passage in his home, he discovers a secret that may well have been the cause of his father's death eight years ago—the dove-white outfit of Kid the Phantom Thief. Wanting to find out more about his father, Kaito dons the outfit and searches for the Pandora Gem that is said to grant immortality. However, he is not the only one after the gem—the organization responsible for his father's death is also hot on his tail! -- -- Magic Kaito follows the rebirth of Kaitou Kid, phantom thief of the night. Utilizing his dummies, disguises, and signature card gun, Kaito sets out to steal the world's most precious jewels, uncovering the truth behind his father's death and the rumored Pandora Gem along the way. -- -- Special - Apr 17, 2010 -- 57,983 7.80
Magi: The Kingdom of Magic -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Magi: The Kingdom of Magic Magi: The Kingdom of Magic -- After celebrating their victory against Al-Thamen, Aladdin and his friends depart the land of Sindria. With the end of the battle, however, comes the time for each of them to go their separate ways. Hakuryuu and Kougyoku are ordered to go back to their home country, the Kou Empire. Meanwhile Aladdin announces he needs to head for Magnostadt—a mysterious country ruled by magicians—to investigate the mysterious events occurring in this new kingdom and become more proficient in magic. For their part, encouraged by Aladdin's words, Alibaba and Morgiana also set off in pursuit of their own goals: training and going to her homeland, respectively. -- -- Magi: The Kingdom of Magic follows these friends as they all go about their separate adventures, each facing their own challenges. However, a new threat begins to rise as a great war looms over the horizon... -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 665,463 8.26
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic -- -- A-1 Pictures -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Magic Shounen -- Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic -- Dispersed around the world, there are several bizarre labyrinths hiding incredible treasures within them. These mysterious places, known as "Dungeons," are said to be the work of Magi, a class of rare magicians, who also help people build their empires by guiding them to a dungeon. Djinns, supernatural beings that rule over the labyrinths, grant successful conquerors access to their immense power and choose them as potential king candidates to rule the world. -- -- Having spent life in isolation, Aladdin, a kind and young magician, is eager to explore the world upon finally leaving his home behind. He begins his journey only accompanied by his mentor Ugo—a djinn that Aladdin can summon with his flute. However, Aladdin soon becomes friends with the courageous Alibaba Saluja after causing the destruction of a local merchant's supply cart. In order to pay for the damages, Alibaba suggests that they attempt to conquer the nearest dungeon, taking the first step in an epic adventure that will decide the fate of the world itself. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 807,447 8.06
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei -- -- Madhouse -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Romance School Sci-Fi Supernatural -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei -- In the dawn of the 21st century, magic, long thought to be folklore and fairy tales, has become a systematized technology and is taught as a technical skill. In First High School, the institution for magicians, students are segregated into two groups based on their entrance exam scores: "Blooms," those who receive high scores, are assigned to the First Course, while "Weeds" are reserve students assigned to the Second Course. -- -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei follows the siblings, Tatsuya and Miyuki Shiba, who are enrolled in First High School. Upon taking the exam, the prodigious Miyuki is placed in the First Course, while Tatsuya is relegated to the Second Course. Though his practical test scores and status as a "Weed" show him to be magically inept, he possesses extraordinary technical knowledge, physical combat capabilities, and unique magic techniques—making Tatsuya the irregular at a magical high school. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 798,705 7.50
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen -- -- 8bit -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Sci-Fi Supernatural Magic Romance School -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen -- Following the events of "Scorched Halloween," the world is introduced to a terrifyingly powerful Strategic class magician. In an effort to uncover the identity of this person, the United States of the North American Continent (USNA) dispatches the most powerful asset in its arsenal to Japan on a covert mission—the elite magician unit "Stars" and its commander, Angie Sirius. -- -- At First High School, Tatsuya Shiba and his friends are having a farewell party for Shizuku Kitayama, who is leaving to study abroad in the USNA as part of an exchange program. In her place, the group welcomes the beautiful Angelina "Lina" Kudou Shields. Around the same time, Tatsuya is informed about the USNA's plan to uncover his true identity. -- -- Elsewhere in Tokyo, numerous reports arise of seemingly random bodies found drained of blood. Dubbed as the works of a vampire, it does not take long for Tatsuya to connect the dots and realize that it is almost impossible for the timing of these events to be mere coincidences. -- -- 219,123 7.28
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen -- -- 8bit -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Sci-Fi Supernatural Magic Romance School -- Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei: Raihousha-hen -- Following the events of "Scorched Halloween," the world is introduced to a terrifyingly powerful Strategic class magician. In an effort to uncover the identity of this person, the United States of the North American Continent (USNA) dispatches the most powerful asset in its arsenal to Japan on a covert mission—the elite magician unit "Stars" and its commander, Angie Sirius. -- -- At First High School, Tatsuya Shiba and his friends are having a farewell party for Shizuku Kitayama, who is leaving to study abroad in the USNA as part of an exchange program. In her place, the group welcomes the beautiful Angelina "Lina" Kudou Shields. Around the same time, Tatsuya is informed about the USNA's plan to uncover his true identity. -- -- Elsewhere in Tokyo, numerous reports arise of seemingly random bodies found drained of blood. Dubbed as the works of a vampire, it does not take long for Tatsuya to connect the dots and realize that it is almost impossible for the timing of these events to be mere coincidences. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 219,123 7.28
Mahou Sensou -- -- Madhouse -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Fantasy Magic -- Mahou Sensou Mahou Sensou -- The world as we know it is actually just half the story, as Takeshi Nanase finds out abruptly one summer morning. On his way to kendo practice, Takeshi comes across an unconscious girl in a uniform he doesn't recognize. Takeshi does the decent thing and saves her, and in return the girl wakes up and accidentally turns him into a magic-user. -- -- As Takeshi finds out, there is the world he lives in and the world of magic users. Most magic users just want to peacefully coexist with non-magicians, but there are some with bigger ambitions. Mui Aiba is a magician enrolled in the Subaru Magic Academy, where magic users can learn to control and channel their powers and how to live in peace with regular humans. After his fateful encounter with Mui, Takeshi and his newly magician friends Kurumi Isoshima and Kazumi Ida decide to enroll in the Magic Academy as well. -- -- All three friends have different reasons for fighting on, whether they're fighting to escape the past or catch up to the future. They wield different kinds of powers, which they must learn to harness in order to fight off the Ghost Trailers, a group of magicians who are willing to use violence to assert their superiority over humans. -- -- Pursued by the Ghost Trailers, Takeshi and his friends must train to become stronger, face the leader of the Trailers, and prevent the beginning of the Second Great Magic War. -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Jan 10, 2014 -- 209,000 6.01
Mahoutsukai Precure! -- -- Toei Animation -- 50 eps -- Original -- Action Slice of Life Magic Fantasy School Shoujo -- Mahoutsukai Precure! Mahoutsukai Precure! -- In the human realm, witches and wizards seem to be mere creations of fantasy. Ever the adventurous teenager, Mirai Asahina sets out to disprove this notion by following the tracks of a peculiar shooting star that had fallen the night before. Sure enough, Mirai soon has a chance encounter with Liko—a clumsy witch apprentice who hails from the Magic World, a colorful realm inhabited by magicians. -- -- As if by fate, the appearance of strange villains forces Mirai and Liko to join hands. In doing so, they unleash their strength as a pair of legendary magicians—the "Maho Girls Precure!" Now gifted with unbelievable power, the unlikely duo embarks on an adventure filled with magical spells and powerful gemstones. Along the way, the two girls discover the hidden marvels that tie their individual worlds together. -- -- 9,869 7.10
Majutsushi Orphen -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Demons Fantasy Magic -- Majutsushi Orphen Majutsushi Orphen -- Six years ago at the magic school known as the Tower of Fang, a grave accident happened involving the magical sword Baltanders and the magic user Azali. Unable to control the sword's power, Azali was transformed into the shape of a great dragon who since that day became known as Bloody August. Krilancelo, a young magician at the Tower who cared greatly for Azali found much to his disgust that the elders of the Tower of Fang were less than willing to save Azali and wanted rather to pretend the accident never happened. Angered by their stand, Krilanceloa swore that he would find a way to return Azali to her former self. Thus he forsook the name Krilancelo and declared himself Orphen, leaving the Tower and his magical studies behind to wander the world... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 36,924 7.16
Mamotte! Lollipop -- -- Studio Comet -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Magic Romance Shoujo -- Mamotte! Lollipop Mamotte! Lollipop -- Nina, thinking it was a lolly, swallows an object called "Crystal Pearl". But the candy turns out to be a test for the magicians. To retrieve the crystal, a special medicine has to be made so now Zero and Ichii, the magicians, have to protect her from others while waiting for the medicine to be completed. -- -- (Source: ANN, edited) -- TV - Jul 2, 2006 -- 20,706 6.66
Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e -- -- SILVER LINK. -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Demons Magic Fantasy School -- Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e -- Second half of Maou Gakuin no Futekigousha: Shijou Saikyou no Maou no Shiso, Tensei shite Shison-tachi no Gakkou e Kayou 2nd Season. -- TV - ??? ??, ???? -- 12,937 N/A -- -- Gokudou-kun Manyuuki -- -- Trans Arts -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy Magic -- Gokudou-kun Manyuuki Gokudou-kun Manyuuki -- It all starts when Gokudou steals a pouch from a fortuneteller, thinking that it contains a gem. Instead, it turns out to be a rock, from which emerges Djinn. The genie grants Gokudou the standard three wishes, but our anti-hero doesn't think heavily about his wishes. Gokudou does get his wishes, though not exactly in the fashion that he expected. The best thing he gets out of his wishes is Honou no Maken, a magical sword that enables its owner to do fire attacks and it can be summoned from anywhere in the world. -- -- Even with an enchanted sword, Gokudou doesn't get much respect. He gets turned into a woman by Djinn, who is also a shapeshifter. He is followed by Rubette La Late, a potential love interest who is more interested in adventure, karaoke and outperforming Gokudou. He gets whapped on the head a lot, especially by the fortuneteller who reappears throughout the series just to plague Gokudou it seems. Later in the series, he gets another sidekick, a former evil magician named Prince, who is more handsome and a better womanizer than Gokudou. -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Media Blasters -- 12,895 7.46
Meiji Tokyo Renka -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Harem Historical Supernatural Romance Shoujo -- Meiji Tokyo Renka Meiji Tokyo Renka -- Mei Ayazuki is just your ordinary, everyday high-school girl. That is until one night, when the moon is full and red, she’s transported through time to the Meiji Period by Charlie, a self-proclaimed magician. -- -- She ends up in a strange, Meiji-era ‘Tokyo’ where the existence of ghosts is accepted. Led by Charlie, she finally arrives at the Rokumeikan. There, waiting for her to arrive, are the historical figures Ougai Mori, Shunsou Hishida, Otojirou Kawakami, Kyouka Izumi, Gorou Fujita, Yakumo Koizumi, and Tousuke Iwasaki. -- -- Whilst interacting with these men, she discovers she is a Tamayori - someone who can see ghosts - a skill that is highly valued in the Meiji Period. Due to these powers, her relationship with the men begins to change… As she gets to know these handsome men in a new era she just can’t get used to, a love begins to grow within her. -- -- Will Mei be able to return to her time? What will become of her love - a love that crosses the boundaries of time and space? -- -- (Source: Honey's Anime) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 34,827 6.94
Mi Yu Xing Zhe -- -- Thundray -- 12 eps -- Web manga -- Mystery Psychological Thriller -- Mi Yu Xing Zhe Mi Yu Xing Zhe -- A magician, a female doctor, a gangster, an archaeology professor, a policewoman, a drug dealer, a businessman... Such a random group of people find themselves trapped on a desolate island when they wake up from sleep one day. They are surrounded by tribes, mutant viruses, and countless life and death situations on this mysterious island. What will they do to survive and escape? -- ONA - Feb 3, 2018 -- 12,901 7.41
Quanzhi Fashi -- -- Shanghai Foch Film Culture Investment -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Action Fantasy Magic School -- Quanzhi Fashi Quanzhi Fashi -- The aloof high schooler Mo Fan has found himself in a universe similar yet distinctly different from his own mundane one; it's a place where magic has replaced the essence of science. Here, the most capable students are taught to master the wonders of spellworking to fend off large devastating beasts that lurk in the forests surrounding the city. -- -- Like his previous life, Mo Fan remains the son of a poor laborer and the older step-brother to a crippled sister. Despite these disadvantages, he dreams of attending a magic school to become a magician—a highly respected and lucrative trade—in order to repay his father for his hard work. -- -- Mo Fan is accepted into a renowned magic institution. However, rumors spread about his poverty and lack of magical ability, labeling him as the laughing stock of the school. Nonetheless, Mo Fan manages to harness not only the powerful fire element, but also the rare lightning element! Now armed with dual abilities, what dangerous encounters will the versatile mage face? -- -- ONA - Sep 2, 2016 -- 88,810 7.27
Queen's Blade: Grimoire -- -- Arms, Asread -- 2 eps -- Other -- Action Adventure Ecchi Fantasy -- Queen's Blade: Grimoire Queen's Blade: Grimoire -- The story takes place after the wandering warrior Leina's championship has ended. The royal court's magician Alicia uses black magic and opens a doorway to another dimension. From that door, a rabbit lures Alicia into another dimension called Melfairland. Melfairland is holding a tournament of its own to award out a Queen's Blade, and Alicia enters the tournament in order to find a way to return to her own world. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Jan 29, 2016 -- 9,209 6.17
Rental Magica -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Mystery Supernatural Fantasy -- Rental Magica Rental Magica -- Due to his father's disappearance, Itsuki Iba has to take over the family business: a magician dispatch service. Their family employs countless magicians and other supernatural beings in order to send them out to help those who need magical assistance. As a leader, Itsuki now has to be tough, commanding, and reliable, but there's one problem, he's a coward. Also, in order to run a successful business, he must connect with his employees, which is more difficult than it seems due to his personality. But not only does he have to deal with his own employees, he also has to deal with those who threaten the family business. -- -- (Source: CrunchyRoll) -- 55,380 7.05
Rental Magica -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Mystery Supernatural Fantasy -- Rental Magica Rental Magica -- Due to his father's disappearance, Itsuki Iba has to take over the family business: a magician dispatch service. Their family employs countless magicians and other supernatural beings in order to send them out to help those who need magical assistance. As a leader, Itsuki now has to be tough, commanding, and reliable, but there's one problem, he's a coward. Also, in order to run a successful business, he must connect with his employees, which is more difficult than it seems due to his personality. But not only does he have to deal with his own employees, he also has to deal with those who threaten the family business. -- -- (Source: CrunchyRoll) -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- 55,380 7.05
Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Fantasy School -- Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records -- The Alzano Empire is home to one of the most distinguished magic schools in the world: the Alzano Imperial Magic Academy. Here, ambitious young students undergo training to become competent magicians. Sistine Fibel—a stern noble girl—and her bright-eyed best friend Rumia Tingel attend the Academy, determined to cultivate their magical skills. -- -- However, their world is thrown for a loop when their favorite teacher suddenly retires and the enigmatic Glenn Radars replaces him. His lazy and indifferent attitude toward life and magic quickly puts him at odds with his class. What's more, nefarious forces hidden within the empire's walls start to become active, and Sistine, Rumia, and Glenn find themselves caught up in their schemes. -- -- Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records follows Sistine, who is captivated by a mysterious floating Sky Castle; Rumia, who is haunted by a troubled past; and Glenn, who may be more than meets the eye. Though completely different on the surface, they are inexplicably bound together by a thread of fate. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 506,868 7.18
Slayers -- -- E&G Films -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy -- Slayers Slayers -- Powerful, avaricious sorceress Lina Inverse travels around the world, stealing treasures from bandits who cross her path. Her latest victims, a band of thieves, wait in ambush in a forest, thirsting for revenge. When Lina is about to effortlessly pummel her would-be attackers, the swordsman Gourry Gabriev suddenly announces his presence. Assuming Lina to be a damsel in distress, the foolish yet magnanimous man confronts the brigands in order to rescue her. After defeating them posthaste, the oblivious cavalier decides to escort Lina to Atlas City. Though not very keen on this idea, she ends up accepting his offer. -- -- However, without realizing it, Lina has chanced upon a mighty magical item among her most recent spoils. Now two mysterious men are hunting the young magician and her self-proclaimed guardian to obtain this powerful object for apparently nefarious purposes. This way they begin their adventure, one where the fate of the world itself may be at stake. -- -- 119,032 7.75
Slayers -- -- E&G Films -- 26 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Demons Magic Fantasy -- Slayers Slayers -- Powerful, avaricious sorceress Lina Inverse travels around the world, stealing treasures from bandits who cross her path. Her latest victims, a band of thieves, wait in ambush in a forest, thirsting for revenge. When Lina is about to effortlessly pummel her would-be attackers, the swordsman Gourry Gabriev suddenly announces his presence. Assuming Lina to be a damsel in distress, the foolish yet magnanimous man confronts the brigands in order to rescue her. After defeating them posthaste, the oblivious cavalier decides to escort Lina to Atlas City. Though not very keen on this idea, she ends up accepting his offer. -- -- However, without realizing it, Lina has chanced upon a mighty magical item among her most recent spoils. Now two mysterious men are hunting the young magician and her self-proclaimed guardian to obtain this powerful object for apparently nefarious purposes. This way they begin their adventure, one where the fate of the world itself may be at stake. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Enoki Films, Funimation -- 119,032 7.75
Slayers Special -- -- J.C.Staff -- 3 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Supernatural Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Slayers Special Slayers Special -- In these three self-contained half-hour stories, Lina Inverse and her partner, Naga The Serpent, take on a variety of jobs for quick cash, food, and/or their own skins. The first episode, "The Scary Chimera Plan," pits them against a lunatic magician who intends to use Lina to create a fearsome, spell-slinging monster. Then, in "Jeffry's Knighthood," they're hired by an overprotective mother to see that her son - a young man barely capable of holding a sword - becomes a respected knight, by "helping" him fight off the marauding soldiers terrorizing the area. Finally, "Mirror, Mirror" puts the two in a race to hunt down and capture (for bounty, of course) a rogue sorceror who's found an ancient artifact that can create loyal duplicates of anything or anyone, including his enemies. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- OVA - Jul 25, 1996 -- 17,252 7.37
Slayers Special -- -- J.C.Staff -- 3 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Supernatural Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Slayers Special Slayers Special -- In these three self-contained half-hour stories, Lina Inverse and her partner, Naga The Serpent, take on a variety of jobs for quick cash, food, and/or their own skins. The first episode, "The Scary Chimera Plan," pits them against a lunatic magician who intends to use Lina to create a fearsome, spell-slinging monster. Then, in "Jeffry's Knighthood," they're hired by an overprotective mother to see that her son - a young man barely capable of holding a sword - becomes a respected knight, by "helping" him fight off the marauding soldiers terrorizing the area. Finally, "Mirror, Mirror" puts the two in a race to hunt down and capture (for bounty, of course) a rogue sorceror who's found an ancient artifact that can create loyal duplicates of anything or anyone, including his enemies. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Jul 25, 1996 -- 17,252 7.37
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 -- -- DR Movie, Kinema Citrus -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Drama Fantasy -- Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 -- Second season of Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari. -- TV - Oct ??, 2021 -- 251,232 N/ADensetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- "Alpha Stigma" are known to be eyes that can analyze all types of magic. However, they are more infamously known as cursed eyes that can only bring destruction and death to others. -- -- Ryner Lute, a talented mage and also an Alpha Stigma bearer, was once a student of the Roland Empire's Magician Academy, an elite school dedicated to training magicians for military purposes. However, after many of his classmates died in a war, he makes an oath to make the nation a more orderly and peaceful place, with fellow survivor and best friend, Sion Astal. -- -- Now that Sion is the the king of Roland, he orders Ryner to search for useful relics that will aid the nation. Together with Ferris Eris, a beautiful and highly skilled swordswoman, Ryner goes on a journey to search for relics of legendary heroes from the past, and also uncover the secrets behind his cursed eyes. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 250,632 7.59
Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 -- -- DR Movie, Kinema Citrus -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Drama Fantasy -- Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 -- Second season of Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari. -- TV - Oct ??, 2021 -- 251,232 N/ADensetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- -- Zexcs -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu -- "Alpha Stigma" are known to be eyes that can analyze all types of magic. However, they are more infamously known as cursed eyes that can only bring destruction and death to others. -- -- Ryner Lute, a talented mage and also an Alpha Stigma bearer, was once a student of the Roland Empire's Magician Academy, an elite school dedicated to training magicians for military purposes. However, after many of his classmates died in a war, he makes an oath to make the nation a more orderly and peaceful place, with fellow survivor and best friend, Sion Astal. -- -- Now that Sion is the the king of Roland, he orders Ryner to search for useful relics that will aid the nation. Together with Ferris Eris, a beautiful and highly skilled swordswoman, Ryner goes on a journey to search for relics of legendary heroes from the past, and also uncover the secrets behind his cursed eyes. -- -- TV - Jul 2, 2010 -- 250,632 7.59
Tejina-senpai -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Ecchi School Seinen -- Tejina-senpai Tejina-senpai -- Starting his new term at Tanenashi High School, an unmotivated freshman searches for a club that requires minimal participation to suit his needs. He then comes across the magic clubroom, and inside is a cute upperclassman practicing her magic tricks. Suffering from stage fright that causes her to slip up in her acts, she has a tendency to end up in the most embarrassing situations. Despite having little interest in a club run by an incapable magician, the freshman finds himself involved as a new member, experiencing all sorts of awkward moments with his eccentric mentor. -- -- 185,401 6.46
Toaru Majutsu no Index -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Sci-Fi Super Power -- Toaru Majutsu no Index Toaru Majutsu no Index -- Academy City, Japan, is at the forefront of science. Besides being 30 years ahead of the world technologically, more than three-fourths of this peculiar city's population consists of students developing their psychic abilities as espers in various institutions. Among these students is Touma Kamijou, a high school boy with the lowest psychic rank of zero, but with a mysterious power no scientist can understand: "Imagine Breaker," which allows him to negate other supernatural abilities. -- -- This, however, doesn't affect Kamijou's life in the least as he plays his role as a regular teenager; that is, until he meets the strange Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a young girl who has memorized the entirety of the forbidden grimoires, and now a dangerous organization is hunting Index down. With several magicians looking to harm the girl, Kamijou will defend his new companion at all costs as he discovers a strange new realm of the supernatural. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 657,035 7.42
Toaru Majutsu no Index II -- -- J.C.Staff -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Sci-Fi Super Power -- Toaru Majutsu no Index II Toaru Majutsu no Index II -- As tensions between the world of magic and Academy City continues to rise, Touma Kamijou and his hand of negation must face off against both esper and magician in order to protect the lives of those around him. Of course, he is not alone in his fight; whether by his side or out of sight, allies and enemies both old and new will enter the fray to help him. -- -- Toaru Majutsu no Index II continues the story of action and comedy, as the scale of Touma and his allies' battle grows ever larger. A conflict is slowly brewing on the horizon, and magic and science will cross paths once again in the war to come. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 379,139 7.59
Tsubasa Chronicle -- -- Bee Train -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Magic Romance Supernatural Shounen -- Tsubasa Chronicle Tsubasa Chronicle -- During an excavation at the mysterious ruins in Clow Country, Syaoran discovers his childhood friend Princess Sakura appear on the site with wings that disperse into many feathers. As the feather's disappear to different dimensions, so does Sakura's memory. In attempts to save Sakura's life and restore her memory, Syaoran travels through to another world to find a solution. There's only one thing left he can do. Travel through to different dimensions to collect Sakura's feathers. Helping out with the quest is Kurogane, an exiled ninja from Japan Country who wishes to return to his world, the runaway magician, Fay, who desires to jump between each world never to return to his own and the white meat-bun shaped creature, Mokona. -- 199,139 7.54
Tsubasa Chronicle -- -- Bee Train -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy Magic Romance Supernatural Shounen -- Tsubasa Chronicle Tsubasa Chronicle -- During an excavation at the mysterious ruins in Clow Country, Syaoran discovers his childhood friend Princess Sakura appear on the site with wings that disperse into many feathers. As the feather's disappear to different dimensions, so does Sakura's memory. In attempts to save Sakura's life and restore her memory, Syaoran travels through to another world to find a solution. There's only one thing left he can do. Travel through to different dimensions to collect Sakura's feathers. Helping out with the quest is Kurogane, an exiled ninja from Japan Country who wishes to return to his world, the runaway magician, Fay, who desires to jump between each world never to return to his own and the white meat-bun shaped creature, Mokona. -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 199,139 7.54
Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou -- -- Nomad -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Magic -- Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou -- Life hasn't been fair to Koyomi Morishita. Even though she's in high school, she's so short that everyone assumes she's still in grade school. The boys and girls in her school tease her mercilessly, and she's not exactly graceful either. On the other hand, she's still better off than Yumiko, who has a magician trying to kill her. Or at least Koyomi was until their paths crossed! -- -- Fortunately, salvation arrives in the form of master mage and graduate student Misa Anehara, who agrees to take Koyomi under her wing in learning the new style of magic, which breaks enchantment down into sequences of code. That'll be quite a task, given that so far Koyomi's talent seems to consist of making washbasins randomly fall out of the sky. But if it was easy, it wouldn't be magic, would it? -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- 22,876 6.46
Youjo Senki Movie -- -- Nut -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Action Military Magic -- Youjo Senki Movie Youjo Senki Movie -- With its armies sweeping across the continent, the Empire seems unstoppable. After securing victory over the remnants of the Republic's army, the Empire's ultimate victory is finally within reach. However, dark clouds are gathering in the East. The communist-led Russy Federation is mustering troops on its western border, preparing to enter the war. Supported by a detachment of Allied volunteer magicians—among whom is Mary Sioux, the daughter of a soldier killed by Tanya Degurechaff—the Federation is determined to spread the communist creed and bring the Empire to its knees. -- -- Meanwhile, Tanya and her battalion return to the imperial capital from the southern front. Upon their arrival, they are tasked with investigating troop movements on the border with the Federation. Any escalation of violence at this point may lead to new conflicts, plunging the world into a devastating global war. -- -- Will the Empire eventually emerge victorious from its struggle, or will it crumble in the face of superior enemies and radically different ideologies? -- -- Movie - Feb 8, 2019 -- 170,545 8.26
Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho -- -- White Fox -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Magic Fantasy -- Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho -- In a world of constant war between humans and witches, there exist the "beastfallen"—cursed humans born with the appearance and strength of an animal. Their physical prowess and bestial nature cause them to be feared and shunned by both humans and witches. As a result, many beastfallen become sellswords, making their living through hunting witches. -- -- Despite the enmity between the races, a lighthearted witch named Zero enlists a beastfallen whom she refers to as "Mercenary" to act as her protector. He travels with Zero and Albus, a young magician, on their search for the Grimoire of Zero: a powerful spell book that could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. During their journey, his inner kindness is revealed as he starts to show compassion and sympathy towards humans and witches alike, and the unlikely companions grow together. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 206,628 7.09
Zero no Tsukaima -- -- J.C.Staff -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Harem Comedy Magic Romance Ecchi Fantasy School -- Zero no Tsukaima Zero no Tsukaima -- Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière is a self-absorbed mage in a world of wands, cloaks, and royalty. Although she studies at Tristain Academy, a prestigious school for magicians, she has a major problem: Louise is unable to cast magic properly, earning her the nickname of "Louise the Zero" from her classmates. -- -- When the first year students are required to perform a summoning ritual, Louise's summoning results in a catastrophic explosion! Everyone deems this to be yet another failure, but when the smoke clears, a boy named Saito Hiraga appears. Now Louise's familiar, Saito is treated as a slave, forced to clean her clothes and eat off the ground. But when an unfamiliar brand is found etched on Saito's hand from the summoning ritual, it is believed to be the mark of a powerful familiar named Gandalfr. -- -- Wild, adventurous, and explosive, Zero no Tsukaima follows Saito as he comes to terms with his new life and as Louise proves that there is more to her than her nickname suggests. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA, Sentai Filmworks -- 668,146 7.31
Alan Watson (magician)
Al Baker (magician)
Alcofrisbas, the Master Magician
Alexander (magician)
Ali Bongo (magician)
Anton the Magician
A Wager Between Two Magicians, or Jealous of Myself
Ben Bradshaw (magician)
Ben Hart (magician)
Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed
Canterbury Magicians
Chandu the Magician
Channing Pollock (magician)
Charles Jordan (magician)
Chris Cox (magician)
Chris Cross (magician)
Chris Kenner (magician)
Dan and Dave (magicians)
Dan White (magician)
Daryl (magician)
David Abbott (magician)
David Nixon (magician)
Detective Conan: Magician of the Silver Sky
Dick Brooks (magician)
Draft:Javed Khan (magician)
Draft:Ray Anderson (magician)
Dynamo (magician)
Dynamo: Magician Impossible
Fantasio (magician)
Flashing Swords! 4: Barbarians and Black Magicians
Floral Magician Mary Bell
Frank Garcia (magician)
Fred Keating (magician)
Fruit Pie the Magician
Gazzo (magician)
Greg Wood (magician)
Harry Collins (magician)
HTC Magician
I'm Not a Magician
International Brotherhood of Magicians
International Magicians Society
Jamie Allan (magician)
Jesus the Magician
Joel Ward (magician)
John Archer (magician)
John Cassidy (magician)
John Milner (magician)
John Ramsay (magician)
List of Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed episodes
List of magicians
List of magicians in film
List of The Magicians (American TV series) episodes
List of The Magicians (British TV series) episodes
List of The Magicians characters
Lists of The Magicians episodes
Little Magician
Lu Chen (magician)
Magic Christian (magician)
Magician
Magician's Academy
Magician's assistant
Magician's Hat
Magician's Lantern
Magician's palm
Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times
Magician Among the Spirits
Magician (fantasy)
Magician (Feist novel)
Magician from Mars
Magician Lord
Magician (Marvel Comics)
Magicians (2007 film)
Magicians Association of Korea
Magicians Guild of America
Magicians of the Gods
Magician (song)
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Magician (video game)
Mandrake the Magician
Mario and the Magician
Mark Wilson (magician)
Mathemagician
Matt Wayne (magician)
Pacific Coast Association of Magicians
Peter Kane (magician)
Peter Warlock (magician)
P. James (magician)
Pyramid of the Magician
Ramesseum magician's box
Return of the Magician
Richard Turner (magician)
Rich Ferguson (magician)
Rovi (magician)
Society of American Magicians
Steve Cohen (magician)
Talma (magician)
Teller (magician)
The Black Magician
The Mad Magician
The Magician's Apprentice
The Magician's Apprentice (Doctor Who)
The Magician's Birthday
The Magician's Cavern
The Magician's Code
The Magician's Hat (film)
The Magician's House
The Magician's Land
The Magician's Nephew
The Magician's Private Library
The Magician (1898 film)
The Magician (1949 film)
The Magician (1958 film)
The Magician (2006 film)
The Magician (2015 film)
The Magician (album)
The Magician (American TV series)
The Magician (French TV series)
The Magician (Maugham novel)
The Magician (musician)
The Magician of Lublin (film)
The Magicians' Guild
The Magicians (American TV series)
The Magicians (British TV series)
The Magicians (Grossman novel)
The Magicians of Love
The Magician (Tarot card)
The Magician Trilogy
The Magic Magicians
The Morning of the Magicians
The Twa Magicians
Tom Stone (magician)
Topas (magician)
Travellers and Magicians
Trust Issues with Magicians
William Marriott (magician)



convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favorites
Savitri -- Savitri extended toc
Savitri Section Map -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa - Aurobindo - Ramakrishna - Maharshi - Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School - Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration - Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - study
subjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null - Savitri - SA O TAOC - SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel - TLD - TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs


change css options:
change font "color":
change "background-color":
change "font-family":
change "padding":
change "table font size":
last updated: 2022-05-04 14:28:47
106830 site hits