† “… bearing a towel …” The latter is yet another word that may strike the modern audience as being anachronistic and contemporary, but which, it is worth noting, not only is in fact quite old, but has roots in the two languages that Gibbon and his translator of the Manuscript were both convinced made up the principal influences on the Broken dialect: Old High German (the antecedent word being dwahilla) and Gothic (thwahl). —C.C.
† Loreleh This is a variation on the ancient Germanic name Lorelei, the alteration in its final syllable accounted for by the vowel shift of Old High German. It connotes a “luring rock,” and is the Germanic variation of the Sirens’ Song, referring to a beautiful female spirit or spirits who sang from a rocky point in the Rhine, luring ships and sailors to wreckage and death. — C.C.
‡ “‘… is clubfooted …’” Most will be familiar with this condition, which is now quite correctable through surgery, but was once the incurable source of enormous humiliation, even for the great and admired, from the Roman emperor Claudius to Lord Byron. The Latin name for the condition—talipes equinovarus—is still the medically technical term, strangely, for it means “horse foot,” or “foot (and ankle) like a horse,” as it causes the ankle to be drawn upward like a horse’s foot, while the rest of the foot is bent inward, sometimes in an unsightly enough manner that it could be cause for severe mockery and even persecution in ancient and medieval societies. —C.C.
† Chen-lun As stated earlier, we can do little more than speculate as to any Hunnish names across which we run, explaining why Gibbon ignores the name. But if we do engage briefly in such speculation, we find that Chen-lun suggests some sort of Chinese influence, turning us back to the ancient theory of the relationship between the Huns and their supposed ancestors, the Xiongnu (against whom, primarily, the Chinese built their Great Wall). If we were forced to translate it into a modern Chinese dialect, for example, we would find a general meaning along the lines of “morning flower” (or “bright orchid,” more particularly); whereas, if required to translate the name into one of the principal modern Western descendants of Hunnish (or Hunnic) — for instance, Hungarian — we draw an almost complete blank. And, since “Morning Flower” and “Bright Orchid” are both suitable names for a princess drawn or descended from an important family, it seems safe to go with such a translation, for the purposes of understanding not only this particular mystery of the Manuscript, but also for the question of why Chen-lun seems to have features that are neither particularly Hunnish nor Chinese. In fact, we may well glean more from certain details of the “handmaiden’s” appearance, as explained in the text, than we do from her mistress’s name. —C.C.
‡ “… properly brewed wild hops …” There is much speculation that hops, having pseudo-narcotic properties, as explained earlier, were used first for medicinal purposes, and only later for beer; this would doubtless have given their original purpose a “proper” connotation, and aided in the understanding of the behavior of young people who imbibed great quantities of beer made with hops. —C.C.
† Ju The name of Chen-lun’s “handmaiden” (actually, one gets the feeling, her bodyguard) is another that appears — not surprisingly, by now — without note from Gibbon, and faces the same translational problems as that of Nuen and Chen-lun. Indeed we can learn more about this woman from the weapon she carries than from the name itself; for the only definite result we can find for the name Ju is a Chinese girl’s name connoting “chrysanthemum”: not a particularly apt term for this woman. On the other hand, it is true that combat knives of the type carried horizontally, as here, were specific to the “Black” or Western Huns who invaded northern Europe (in contrast to the Hephthalite or Eastern Huns, who relied more often on a single sword as they moved into areas to the south, regions we know as Turkey, Iran, and Hungary, among others). The appearance and names of both Chen-lun and Ju, therefore, are perhaps less important than this lone dagger — C.C.
‡ “… Lady Baster-kin’s shadow …” Here, Gibbon writes, “In more than one ancient culture, we find reference to the closest of servants, especially a woman’s, referred to as a ‘shadow,’ a term that evidently included some sort of protective role, and could be either a man or woman, though most often, of course, the latter.” This may or may not have something to do with our own familiar modern term — usually, now, a verb — to “shadow” someone, which originally was used in a protective, as well as a detective, sense. —C.C.
† Adelwulf Gibbon writes, “It is perhaps surprising, given how much they were feared — particularly in those northern European regions where the scarcity of food in winter has always made them a particular threat — that wolves have always figured prominently in the mythologies and nomenclatures of tribal-based nationalities. Adelwulf, for example, is plainly the Broken dialectic form of a name, common to all such areas, which translates as ‘noble wolf.’” What Gibbon could not have known was a stigma would eventually be attached to the modern form of this name, due, obviously, to a quite modern man who was enormously preoccupied with likening the troops and sailors of his fatherland to wolves, in the most sinister sense: Adolf Hitler. —C.C.
† “… alps …” Here is an ancient Germanic variation on a supernatural character that appears in almost every culture’s mythology since the beginnings of civilization, and that, in the West, is usually known by some variation on the Latin term incubus. The word alp itself is thought to be a German variation of “elf,” and indeed, the first legends concerning the alps told of creatures carrying out such mischief as was usually attributed, in Anglo-Saxon-Celtic mythology, to various kinds of elves, although very powerful and sinister kinds of elves. The emphasis here on a sexual component, on lying with human women and producing half-breed offspring, is where the alp myth swings back to the incubus model: one of the most famous half-human, half- spirit creatures in Western mythology, for instance, was and remains Merlin, the Arthurian sorcerer, who was said to have been fathered by an incubus. As for the alp and incubus myths themselves, their origins are obscure; but they are generally said to have been concocted to provide explanations for everything from “mystery” pregnancies (often the results of illicit sex, incest, or rape) to sleep apnea and night terrors.
A female form of the alp, the mareh (or mara, or mare, in other dialects), also existed; it is considered by some one root part of the word “nightmare.” —C.C.
† “‘marehs’” See note for p. 000, above. —C.C.
† “The Great Imitator” Caliphestros is employing terminology and classifications of illness that were well in advance of their use in the rest of Europe, likely due to his extensive travels: syphilis was indeed called “the Great Imitator” in many parts of the world, and for the reasons he cites. The great dangers associated with pursuing scientific investigation during his era in Europe would cost other scientific visionaries harsh treatment at the hands of the Catholic Church: small wonder so many advanced thinkers in these fields would either seclude themselves in monasteries and remote cities such as Broken, or would pursue the hermetic life in the wilderness. —C.C.
† the mang-bana See note for p. 000 —C.C.
† the Rhein The correct and ancient (as well as modern) Germanic spelling of “the Rhine,” the most famous river, along with the Danube, in Germany, not least because they made up the two borders, eastern and northern, across which Julius Caesar advised Rome never to try to send military forces: the great conqueror considered the land and the peoples too primitive to be worth any such ventures. (And, indeed, nearly all Roman emperors who disobeyed Caesar’s warning paid dearly, starting with the very first of them, Julius’s nephew and adopted son, Octavian, called Augustus when he took power.) This spelling of Rhein would have been so well known to scholars in the late eighteenth century that Gibbon thinks it unworthy of comment, for various dialects of German, and certainly the modern form, were languages almost as important as Latin for those who studied the history of ancient Europe. —C.C.
† heigenkeit Gibbon writes, “Here we again come upon a particularly striking example, not only of the linguistic inventiveness and adaptability of the Broken dialect, but of its rapid development and refinement from generation to generation, as well as of the attention paid by the rulers and responsible subjects of the unique kingdom to some of what were then the most advanced scientific and social concepts, especially in northern Europe. The closeness of the first portion of the word to our own ‘hygiene,’ which is based, as heigenkeit almost certainly was, on the name of the Greek, and later Roman, goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation, Hygieia [or, variously, Hygeia] demonstrates that Oxmontrot was deeply impressed by the attention Roman city
