Knight Notes: Disiri

This post explores the identity of Disiri and her role in the WK’s themes.

Disiri, like most characters in the WK, is based on multiple sources. And Able’s pursuit of her has multiple meanings. GW uses mythology, legend, Kabbalah and Christianity in developing this theme.

Disiri in Arthurian Legend and Mythological Terms

Disiri’s Arthurian counterpart is the Lady of the Lake.  In some stories, the Lady took Lancelot to live in her fairy world for some time to protect him.  In the WK, Disiri takes both the Real Able and Able/Art to Aelfrice.

As MAD identified in his WKC, Disiri may be associated with the Dis of Norse mythology.

Disiri’s Celtic/British counterpart is Brigid.  Brigid was the patroness of poets, smiths and sacred wells. This fits very well with the events of the WK:

• Disiri tells Able the story of Weland the Smith and the forging of Eterne.
• Eterne is found in a deep well.
• The “names on the wind” that Able hears near the end of The Knight include many poets and writers of the medieval period.

I think Disiri’s counterpart from Greek mythology may be Eurydice. This might be another example of GW moving syllables around and tweaking spelling to hide an identity. If you move the syllables Eurydice becomes “Diceeury”, which sounds somewhat like Disiri.  Eurydice was a dryad or nymph, and linked to the legend of Orpheus. Disiri refers to herself early in The Knight as a dryad. Able is also a representation of Orpheus, and his bowstring is an allusion to the Lyre of Orpheus.  Orpheus and Eurydice end up together in the underworld, which is consistent with the ending of the WK.

Disiri as Beatrice

The WK is strongly influenced by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Art Ormsby’s wandering in the woods at the beginning of the WK is like Dante’s wandering in the wilds at the beginning of the Comedy. Able sees a the castle in the sky he wants to pursue, and gets lost. Similarly, Dante loses his way in a dark wood while trying to get to salvation at the beginning of the Inferno. The six sided castle of Skai reminds me of the seven sided Castle in Limbo where the virtuous pagans live in relative peace and comfort.

One of Dante’s guides in the Comedy is Beatrice, who was based on a woman he knew in real life. She is an idealized feminine, and helps him to achieve the Beatific vision, or union with God. Beatrice sends Dante his first guide, the poet Virgil. Disiri has a somewhat similar role in the WK as Beatrice in the Divine Comedy.  Able loves Disiri, as Dante loved Beatrice. They are the ideal feminine for both, and something that draws the characters onwards towards a resolution.

Disiri and Color, Plant and Animal Symbolism

Green, Yellow and the Language of Flowers

Disiri has green skin and hair, and yellow eyes. I think this has multiple meanings in traditional color symbolism and the Kabbalah color scheme. Green alone, and sometimes green and yellow together (depending on what Kabbalah website I read) are the colors of the Sefirot Binah. Binah is associated with the feminine and wisdom.

While green is considered a positive color, yellow often has negative associations in Western culture. Yellow can be the color of cowardice. It can be the color of deceit (“yellow journalism”).  Yellow has a negative meaning in plant symbolism and the “Language of Flowers.” Yellow roses are sometimes associated with betrayal and treachery. Yellow carnations can mean rejection. The yellow Marigold can mean pain or grief (think Lynnet). Disiri’s actions, at times, seem to represent infidelity or betrayal of Able. Morcaine questions whether Disiri is faithful to Able (at Redhall in “Morcaine and More Magic”) and Able seems to acknowledge that she is not.

The Eyes of a Leopard

Able describes Disiri as having eyes like a leopard in Chapter 7 of The Knight. A leopard was one of three beasts that threatened Dante in the opening chapters of the Inferno, and is portrayed negatively there. There are other sources that suggest that the leopard was viewed negatively in the Christian tradition, and associated with sin.

Disiri is relatively unconcerned with the lives of Able’s friends, acknowledging she cannot love them the way Able loves them. She does not come to his aid when he is imprisoned, and her affection seems fickle at times. Able describes her as “hard and dangerous” near the end of The Knight.

Disiri’s Color Transformation

At the end of the WK, Disiri drinks Able’s blood (red), and loses her yellow coloring. Her eyes change to green, and her skin takes on normal human skin tones.  The vanishing of the yellow is consistent with this being a positive transformation. The color green is associated with life and hope in the Christian tradition, and maybe that’s what her new eyes are to signify.

The Mystical Union of Kabbalah

Able and Disiri are a representation of the mystical union in the Kabbalah between YHWH and the Shekhinah. The achievement of this union is signalled by the reconciliation of the Men and Women of Celidon in the union of many of the protagonists.  This reconciliation was accomplished in a mystical way by Able’s achievement of the Holy Grail and the Golden Fleece when he entered the Room of Lost Loves. I previously associated the Spiny Orange tree with the Sefirot Yesod. Yesod’s colors in Kabbalah are understood to be orange (again, in at least some websites. There is some inconsistency).  Yesod is also associated with the sexual organs.

Disiri as the Bride of Christ

Finally, and consistent with the Christian Allegory, Able is a representation of Christ in the WK. Disiri, in turn, represents the Church, or humanity. He is the Bridegroom and she is the Bride. Like Disiri, humanity in the Christian tradition is fickle, unfaithful, and inconstant. Man must partake of Jesus’ flesh and blood to have eternal life, as Disiri must drink from Able for the Aelf to develop further in accord with the Most High God and Kulili’s plan.  And like Psyche drank ambrosia to have immortality and a true relationship with Cupid.  Able and Disiri will share this water of life with those in Aelfrice.

I will close this post with the image used to illustrate a passage from Revelation associated with the Bride. Dawn in Aelfrice?

Joseph Martin Kronheim, illustration of Revelation 22:17 (public domain).

Knight Notes: The Knight, Chapters 2-3

Chapters 2 & 3: The Ruined Town and Spiny Orange

Summary

In these chapters Able travels from Bluestone Island to Irringsmouth. He then ventures into the wilderness and meets Bold Berthold. Berthold takes him to the ruins of the village of Griffinsford. These chapters serve to educate Able, and the reader, about the land of Celidon, the world of Mythgarthr, and the cosmology of the WK universe.

First, Able learns about spiny orange (SO), and that his cutting a SO branch (which becomes his bow) apparently triggered his capture by the Moss Aelf.  I think Disiri acted opportunistically when her Mossmen presented him as a prisoner. The real Able had (apparently) died recently, and they needed a replacement.  It was probably the Most High God  that allowed/caused Art Ormsby to travel to Mythgarthr from Earth as his agent.

Second, we learn about the external threats to Celidon, the Osterlings and the Frost Giants. The Osterlings destroyed Bluestone Castle, slew Duke Indign, and burned part of Irringsmouth.  The Osterlings have an uncanny quality, gorging on flesh to regain their lost humanity. This may be related to their sacrifice to the dragons. They are almost undergoing a devolution, or dehumanization due to their evil acts.

The Frost Giants raid northern Celidon during colder weather, killing many and carrying off prisoners into slavery. The Angrborn are party based on the Jotuns of Norse Myths.  GW uses names for them, like Thrym, that come from Norse legends. In behavior and personality they seem closer to the brutal, stupid giants of the Jack the Giant Killer stories.  I think there is probably one other basis for the never loved giants, but it’s too sad to talk about, and I am not going to bring it up in this blog series.

Third, Berthold begins Able’s education about the WK cosmology. There are seven worlds. Skai is the world above Mythgarthr, where the Castle is. Aelfrice is the world below, where the Aelf live. This system is roughly based on the nine worlds of Norse legend. It also reminds me of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Elysion reminds me of the Comedy’s Empyrean level.

Able’s Bowstring

Able’s bowstring, given by Parka, is related to the lives of people from America. In the opening sentences of Chapter 2, the voices of the string are apparently already speaking to him, as it will do throughout the WK. The bowstring’s mythological counterpart may, in part, be Mimir’s head from Norse legend.  Odin carried around the head, and it allegedly spoke to him of knowledge of other worlds.

It may also be related to the Norse concept of magic, or Seidr, meaning sorcery. According to Wikipedia, seidr can be translated as “cord” or “string.”  A related concept is “galdr” or the casting of spells.  Galdr is related to the word “sing” and Able describes the bowstring as singing at times.

I think the bowstring is also a reference to Ariadne’s string from the legend of Theseus.  Theseus uses the string to find his way out of the lair of the Minotaur.  The minotaur is killed by sword, but in Pindar’s version, Theseus strangled it.  In The Wizard, Setr is strangled by Able’s bowstring, at the hands of Vil.

Additionally, the string is also an allusion to the Lyre of Orpheus. Several times during The Wizard Able describes the string as singing underneath his fingers. Orpheus is one of the Greek heroes Able is playing in this drama. Disiri is his love Eurydice, one of her many identities in the WK (there is a post focusing on Disiri near the end of this series).

Finally, the bowstring may be GW’s tribute to his readers. Its made up of lives of people in America, from a variety of backgrounds.  Maybe its a meta-commentary on how its his readers that truly empower his stories.

The Three Seeds

The Jack the Giant Killer and Jack and the Beanstalk legends are repeatedly alluded to throughout the WK.  The SO seeds are in part, the magic beans of the Beanstalk legend. Able returning to Griffinsford with the SO seeds is like Jack coming home without the cow or the gold. Able plants the seeds, and his adventures follow shortly thereafter. He later makes his lance from a spiny orange tree.

Time Travel

Able sees his future self watching him on Bluestone Island. Michael (Chapter 44, The Knight) later confirms that this is older self, and that the older Sir Able “called him” to Mythgarthr. In The Wizard, it appears to be stated that Able viewed himself on Bluestone Island after drinking from Mimir’s well in Skai. This may be a reference to time having a cyclical nature.  Time will be referenced again later in the WK.

The Blue Boar

This was Duke Indign’s badge.  I discussed the apparent Elizabethan era reference in the prior post on Edmund Spenser and The Faerie Queene.

Bold Berthold and Family

Berthold has been permanently handicapped by his injuries from the Frost Giants. By the end of Chapter 3 he thinks Art/Able is the real Able. We learn that the real Able had gone away years ago, and that Mag was their mother. At the end of Chapter 3, Able implies that Parka giving him this name and his finding Berthold was the Most High God’s way of helping this particular family.

We later learn from Mag (in The Wizard) that Bold Berthold and his father had led the resistance to the Dragons efforts to get Griffinsford to abandon their faith in the gods of Skai.  Griffinsford was a battle ground in their efforts to overturn the cosmology of the WK.

Berthold is playing a variety of roles from literature and mythology. Primarily, he is the Merlin figure of the WK, based on T.H. White’s Merlin of The Once and Future King.  He is old and frail at the beginning of the WK, but becomes young at the end. White’s Merlin also aged backward in time.

A minor role is that of Gilbert Whitehand, one of Robin Hood’s Merry Men. Gilbert is a minor figure. In one version of the story, he acted as a foster father to the orphaned Robin Hood. That role and the name similarity (Berthold/Gilbert) lead me to believe that he is also Gilbert. Like the Arthurian legend, I believe that GW is using at least one character from the WK to allude to every named figure in the Robin Hood mythology.

Place Names

Celidon

This is the name of the kingdom Able arrives in. I agree with MAD  that this is an adaptation of Caledonia, which was a name the Romans gave to Scotland.  There is a Scottish flavor to much of the WK.  Some historians believe that the King Arthur legend had a Scottish origin.  The Norse people also settled and controlled parts of Scotland for extended periods during the Middle Ages. Celidon has a “sea blue” flag, and Scotland has a flag where blue is the dominant color.

There was a mythological river “Celadon” that Hercules crossed during one of his labors. Given that Able seems to be partly based on Hercules legend, this may be an example of GW using a single name to reference multiple ideas, legends, etc.

Irring River & Irringsmouth: Color Symbolism

MAD suggested that these names might be based on the Irren, a river in Germany. Given the other Scottish references (Celidon, Scaur, etc.), I am going to propose that Irren is based on the River Irvine of Scotland.  One support for this is that the word Irvine/Irving has been thought  to have its origins in the Brythonic word “irafon” meaning “green water.”   This would track with GW’s past use of RBG primary color symbolism. Once again we have a blue-green-red trinity: Bluestone Castle and the Green Water river.  We meet a Sir Ravd of Redhall in the next chapter.  In my prior post on color symbolism, I have suggested that the blue-green pairing used in the Sun books is actually a red, blue, and green trinity, which are the primary colors in the RBG color system. The three primaries make white, which can be associated with the divine or the Holy Trinity.

Additionally, the Griffin river flows into the Irring, and the Griffin is white colored in the WK.

Parka’s Cave, Bluestone Castle and Bluestone Island

I assumed that GW was alluding to something from literature or mythology with Bluestone Island.  It stumped me for a long time. However, I think that these locations are actually allusions to Tintagel Castle, which is on Tintagel Island, and Merlin’s Cave, also there.

Tintagel Island is connected by a strip of land to the mainland, like Bluestone Island. There is a ruined medieval castle on Tintagel, and archaeologists have found artifacts there dating back to the Roman period in British history.   Tintagel Island is also strongly associated with the Arthurian legend in various works, including those of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Sir Thomas Malory.  I think GW has one additional source for Bluestone Island, which I will discuss in the post about Ulfa and Toug.

In Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, a long series of poems about King Arthur, an infant Arthur arrives on the waves and is gathered up by Merlin at this sea cave on Tintagel Island.  Since GW is acknowledging nearly every well known literary exploration of the King Arthur legend in the WK, it seems appropriate that he give a nod to this work by Alfred Tennyson. There are plenty of nice photos on the web of the island and the cave.

So I think the use of the word “Bluestone” was a clue to lead a reader to the Merlin’s Cave story.  Stonehenge may be the most famous structure in the world associated with bluestone, and in some legends Merlin built it using his magic.

Christian Allegory

Able’s first human contact in Celidon is with two fishermen, Scaur and an unnamed brother. Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew were among the first of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus, and were both fishermen.  MAD, in his WKC, says that “Scaur” is based on a Scottish word (“skerry”) for a rock in the sea.  Jesus gave Simon his more famous name, Peter, which means “Rock.”  Able meeting a fisherman named Scaur/Rock is another hint by GW that this is a Christian Allegory, and Able is playing a Christ like role.

While I have suggested that Berthold is partly based on Merlin of the Arthurian legends, I think Berthold may also be intended to be a version of the James the Just of the Bible.  The Bible references Jesus having one or more brothers, (a James is identified sometimes) though scholars and theologians have not conclusively agreed whether these were cousins, step-brothers, half-brothers, etc. A James becomes an important figure in the early church after Christ’s ascension, and Berthold is apparently an important military figure in Celidon after Able leaves (e.g. he slays King Schildstarr of the giants).  James the Just is allegedly stoned to death, and dies from a head wound. Berthold says he suffered his critical head injury from a stone thrown by the giants.

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Knight Notes: So What’s It All About?

In previous posts I’ve identified influences in the WK and some of the themes GW explores.  But what’s the overall purpose?  The WK can be read in various ways, and in varying depths:

• Its a boy meets girl, boy loses girls, boy gets girl back narrative. Able’s pursuit of Disiri is the central thread of the story.
• Its Joseph Campbell “hero’s journey.” Able is a representation of the “Hero with a Thousand Faces“, and this is GW’s version of the mono myth.
• Its GW’s tribute/acknowledgement/homage to some of his and our culture’s prominent literary and cultural influences: Lord Dunsany, Sir Walter Scott, George MacDonald, T.H. White, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Tennyson, Edmund Spenser, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, movies about King Arthur, etc.
• Not only is it his version of the monomyth, but GW also weaves into the WK the actual stories of famous heroes, including Lancelot, Heracles, Odysseus, Theseus, Beowulf, Perseus, Bellerophon, Cadmus, Oedipus, Orpheus, Jack the Giant Killer, Robin Hood, and maybe others.  The name of the world Able visits, Mythgarthr, could arguably be translated as “Myth World”, or a land inhabited by living myths.
• At a deeper level, the WK is a Christian allegory, somewhat like Pilgrim’s Progress, the Divine Comedy or C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Able is a distant echo of Christ who undergoes a process of theosis and serves as an agent of a higher power to set right a broken world. GW uses Greek, Norse and other mythologies, and Arthurian legends, to code the elements of the allegory into his tale.  The events Able experiences and people he meets match up with the events and people from the story of Jesus in the Gospels and other books the New Testament. Please note that the allusions to events in the New Testament in the WK don’t happen in the same chronological order that they do in the Gospel stories.
• At its most mystic level, the WK is a parable of Men and Women, our mutual estrangement, and the hope of reconciliation.  GW alludes to and uses the Divine Comedy, Greek mythology, the Kabbalah, and color symbolism in communicating this theme.
• Finally, there are faint traces of GW’s biography in the WK.  The War with Osterland is partly based on the Korean War, similar to what he did with The Book of the New Sun.

All of the above are true, but the story can be enjoyed by a reader who only perceives the first few levels. Its the “rereading with pleasure” that allowed me to discover the remaining themes.

This is an incredibly dense book, with each character representing mulitple allusions to folklore, mythology and literature.  I don’t expect a reader to agree with everything I propose. But I would encourage a new or young reader of GW to hold the image of a layer cake in their mind when reading his books. There are usually multiple stories or narratives stacked on top of each other, like the different levels of a layer cake.  If you find yourself strongly disagreeing with another reader’s theory of a GW book, consider the possibility that you are both right.

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