sapiens who were afflicted with microencephaly, a disorder in which the brain does not grow beyond a limited size, and the rest of the body follows suit proportionally. But what is particularly intriguing is the assertion that such “miniature humans” (nicknamed by their discoverers “hobbits,” for obvious if anatomically incorrect reasons) may also have been present in the Harz Mountains, a notion based on human migration patterns as well as the fact that fossils of “miniature dinosaurs”—close relatives of the brachiosaurs, but one- fiftieth the size of those familiar and enormous plant eaters — were discovered in the Harz range in 1998.
Could “miniature people” have existed in the same Harz Mountains as did these “miniature dinosaurs,” separated by the same interval that separates Homo sapiens from the larger dinosaurs? Again, such is no more than a suggestion that the narrator’s claims about the Bane are plausible, and an intriguing alternative to the more likely (but less innovative and, admittedly, less entertaining) explanation of genetic adaptation; although, at the same time, there is nothing to say that the two explanations are mutually exclusive. —C.C.
† “… Kafra …” Gibbon writes, “Their god Kafra is, as I have said, an interesting variation on such deities as Elagabalus [sometimes written Heliogabalus, in part to distinguish him from the Roman emperor Elagabalus] and Astarte, whose cults of worshippers became quite large and did indeed interpret physical perfection and material wealth as signs of divine favor. But in the case of Kafra, the evolution of certain of the more sensual and degenerate elements of those cults receives a decidedly Germanic treatment, with their elevation to a pragmatic and highly organized system of theocracy.” Kafra also demonstrates the generalized shift in the barbarian West away from religions that assigned a prominent place to a female figure (often a goddess of fertility), and toward both pagan and monotheist religions in which supreme authority was invested in a male figure. Certain superficial similarities between Kafra and Jesus are noteworthy (the facial features, the serene smile that is so often mentioned, and which purportedly reflects a benevolent nature), although Gibbon himself, ever anxious not to alienate Burke before the latter had even looked at the Manuscript, makes little mention of them. — C.C.
‡ “… the sacred Moon …” One fact concerning the identity of the Manuscript’s author, a fact that had apparently escaped Gibbon’s attention, is illuminating: in every instance, the narrator pays such respect to the word “moon” that the translator felt it appropriate to use the uppercase “M” throughout. The Broken dialect apparently had the equivalent of an upper case (although we, today, do not know what the written form of the language looked like), and it is possible that the narrator used it simply to show respect for the deity of the Bane, as modern publications use the upper case for the Christian “God” or the Muslim “Allah”; but it is not out of the question to hold that the usage means much more — means, in fact, that the narrator himself was likely a moon worshipper, a notion that presents intriguing possibilities as to his identity. —C.C.
†† “… the rocky Cat’s Paw.” Returning to the geography of the kingdom of Broken, we can infer that the somewhat smaller mountains north of the Tombs, unnamed in the Manuscript, are the Harz range, the highest point of which, as Gibbon says, is the mountain that has long been known as Brocken. This would make the river that the citizens of Broken called “the Meloderna” the modern Salle, the sources of which are in those same Harz Mountains. The middle and lower valley of the Salle was long surrounded by rich farmlands, although today (and we should perhaps be careful about drawing any superstitious inferences from this fact) much of the river is badly polluted, with the usual accompanying effects of industrial waste on the surrounding farmlands.
The sole remaining geographical mystery is the modern identity of the river referred to in the Manuscript as “the Cat’s Paw:” while there are several possible candidates between Brocken and the Thuringian Forest, it seems impossible to state with absolute certainty which of them the narrator is actually describing. —C.C.
† “… called the Groba …” On the surface, the connotation here would seem plain enough: groba is a Gothic term for “cave” as in a dwelling or den, and this council meets in just such a place, while its healers work in similar chambers, above. But when we come across such words (to say nothing of even more exotic personal and place names), we are also reminded of Gibbon’s statement that the language of the people of Broken, though basically a German dialect, had Eastern influences, the reasons for which we cannot be certan of, beyond noting the deep influence of Gothic, which apparently seemed “exotic” indeed — at least to Gibbon. And yet, the Groba system, structurally, is not exotic, at all; not for a Germanic tribe. Indeed, it more closely resembles the usual Germanic system of government — which most often featured elected officials, executives, and in many if not most instances, even elected kings — than does the government of Broken. The Groba also reflects, therefore, the type of traditional indigenous government that ruled the communities of the region between the Cat’s Paw and the Meloderna rivers before they were consolidated into Oxmontrot’s kingdom. In this way, we can see that words like “exotic” have very relative meanings, when it comes not only to the Manuscript, but even more especially to Gibbon’s comments. —C.C.
‡ “‘Ficksel!’” It is interesting to note that Gibbon did not choose to comment on this particular word: since there are vulgarities in modern German that closely resemble ficksel in both sound and meaning, one presumes that there must have been in Gibbon’s day, as well, and that the omission was made out of tact: a most peculiar tact, given both other accounts of various perverse behaviors that Gibbon seems not to have had any qualms about describing, and the general trend, in European literature of the late eighteenth century, toward the bawdiness and ribaldry that would provide much of the impetus behind the turn toward more reserved, even prudish, writing in the Victorian era.—C.C.
†† the names of the three Bane foragers Not for the first time, Gibbon speaks here of “the great frustration of not being given lingual tools sufficient to the task of picking apart the enormously colourful names of many of the characters in the Manuscript.” His inability was most often caused by the limited advances of scholarship in his day, but they were also, on occasion, the result of what Gibbon called “the almost unbalanced insistence of the man who translated the document and purveyed it to me [an interesting turn of phrase, since, especially in this context, it implies selling scandalous information of some sort] that he would not share his translational techniques, or part with the Broken Codex, for which I would gladly have paid as dearly as I did for the Manuscript itself.” But this rather peevish portion of his note is designed, one suspects, to make him look all the smarter for having come up with what he believed were solid explanations for the three foragers’ names: “It is essential to the drama to know all we can of these names,” he says truthfully, “as they are characters so very key to the story. The first, Keera, requires so little effort as to scarcely want mentioning; we still find the name in use (more often in the forms of Kira or Kyra) in the Scandinavian and Low Countries, as well as in Russia; and these nations took it, of course, from Greece, by way of Rome. The sole point of interest lies in the fact that it did not originate with the Greeks, but rather their longtime antagonists, the Persians; for it is but the feminine version of Cyrus, a name made most famous by Cyrus the Great, ruler of that people in the sixth century B.C. and the first to expand their state to truly imperial dimensions. The meaning of this storied name has been variously described as ‘of the sun’ and ‘far-sighted’: it seems, in this case, that the second of these interpretations was emphasized. And it is possible that Keera’s parents waited until she had begun to display her character and her several sensory gifts, before giving her a permanent name: various tribal cultures are known to practice such a style of naming (including, most importantly, several northern barbarian tribes), and even in our own nations of Europe, a name is not considered permanent until the child has been baptized, which most often occurs during infancy, but can occur later, a practice more common when names were thought to hold formative power over the individual offspring: a practice that Keera’s parents evidently embraced. These notions, of a northern influence on the name, and a delayed selection of the same, is supported by the styling of Keera’s brother, Veloc, although the thrust of this appellation is somewhat less apparent. Its first syllable seems to be a Broken approximation of valr, a term in Old Norse for ‘the dead’; whereas the second syllable is clearly (taken in context with the first syllable) the Broken styling of the old Norse demi-god, Loki (also Loci, Loge), half brother to Odin, master of mischief, shape-shifter, and sometimes noble friend to Man. It would seem that Veloc’s parents named him when they had already divined his dual nature, and either aimed to ward off the increasing influence of Loki on their son, or were paying homage to Loki in the hope that he would employ his benevolent side in assisting their troubling boy.”
But it is in trying to interpret the name Heldo-Bah that we observe Gibbon at his most imaginative, and even whimsical: “It is my contention,” he wrote, “that we [of the British Isles] may claim this
