theodor_gylden | Recent Entries

German Ghosts and Ghost Stories: Accounts and Annotations from the Autumn of 1887

The Eater-of-Chains and Other Oneiric Entities: Dreams and Dream Lore in The Neath

The Significance of the Name in African and European Mythology (proscribed)

A Decomposing Deity: Dissecting the Correspondence (proscribed)

Septivalence in Correspondence Grammar (proscribed)

Tavern Demonology: Folk Wisdom from the Blind Helmsman

The Cosomology of Clay: Metaphysical Glosses on Loamsprach Verse

Further Loamsprach Glosses

The Fiddler's Fluke and Other Tales: Being a Survey of Neath-Songs from Wolfstack through Polythreme

On Specular and Speculative Travel (proscribed)

The Mountain of Youth: An Epic of the Elder Country

Comparative Soul Lore, with Notes from Flute Street: Pneuma, Hugr and Vital Essence (denounced)

Down and Down and North and Round: An Incunabulum on the People and Customs of Mutton Island

Phoebean, Cynthian, Luciferan: An Incunabulum on the Story Cycles of Hunter's Keep

A Theological Bestiary

Second City Hieroglyphs, Reproduced and Translated for the London Readership (proscribed)

The Fallen Horizon of Aten: A Theory of the Second City (proscribed)

Shrieks and Theosophistry: Regarding the Dancing Trees of Bullbone Island

The Journal of Neath Studies (underground)

The Attendants of Mr Sacks, or From the Mouths of Babes

As Tall as the Cavern Roof: Tales Told by a Salty Fabulist

Burn the Bat and Catch the Star: Following the Correspondence through Street Songs and Rhymes (proscribed)

On the Correspondence in the Manufacture of Puzzle-Damask (proscribed)

The Voice in the Fog: Some Notes on the Purpose of Polythremean Folk Music

The Affair of the Box: An Exposé (despised)

To the Mountains of Cheese: A Selection of the Songs of Ratkind

A Shrine of the Deep Blue Heaven: Evidence of Tengrism in the Fourth City

Reflections on the World Behind the Mirrors (proscribed)

The Feast of Masks and Other Fallen Traditions

Matters Unholy, Impossible, or Untrue: The Short Stories of T.E. Gylden

"The Pirate Poet" in Loamsprach and English

Customs of the Clay Quarters

( Profile )

( Bookshop )
( Floor-Plans )

Encompass me, my lover,
With your eyes' wide calm.
Though noonday shadows are assembling doom,
The sun remains when I remember them;
And death, if it should come,
Must fall like quiet snow from such clear skies.

Minutes we snatched from the unkind winds
Are grown into daffodils by the sea's
Edge, mocking its green miseries;
Yet I seek you hourly still, over
A new Atlantis loneliness, blind
As a restless needle held by the constant north we always have in mind.

- J.F. Hendry

( On Parabola )

[a collaborative document can be found here; use it to share your own quotes, correspondences, and speculations.]

'It's good luck, getting married [...] Your spouse is like a bright false-star: clear and steady, to steer you home.'
- the Salt-Scarred Navigator

Indeed.

"Now a word is twofold, viz. internall, and uttered; An internall word is a conception of the mind, and motion of the soul, which is made without a voice. As in dreams we seem to speak, and dispute with our selves, and whilest we are awake we run over a whole speech silently. But an uttered word hath a certain act in the voice, and properties of locution, and is brought forth with the breath of a man, with opening of his mouth, and with the speech of his tongue, in which nature hath coupled the corporeall voice, and speech to the mind, and understanding, making that a declarer, and interpreter of the conception of our intellect to the hearers, And of this we now speak. Words therefore are the fittest medium betwixt the speaker and the hearer, carrying with them not only the conception of the mind, but also the vertue of the speaker with a certain efficacy unto the hearers, and this oftentimes with so great a power, that oftentimes they change not only the hearers, but also other bodies, and things that have no life. Now those words are of greater efficacy then others, which represent greater things, as intellectuall, Celestiall, and supernaturall, as more expressly, so more misteriously."
- Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia libri III

"As you are of course aware, the Correspondence is a form of language. We are still investigating what form of person or creature actually used this language, and what concepts it can communicate. The Senior Reader had this outlandish idea that one could use it to speak with, ah, celestial entities."
- The Semi-Semiotic Fellow of the Department of _______

( Regarding the Bazaar, her beloved, and her children )

( A Collection )

"When you wake up - and you're about to wake up - throw the candle away. Let your scars heal. Forget all this stuff. For good. Right?

"Now then. I invoke the Spires, for the price. I invoke the Sea, for the cleansing. I invoke the God who Dreams, for the light..."

[This season, Theodor Gylden has sent you something of home: a card featuring the julenisse, yule-hob, and its yuletide goat laden with presents.

( Glaedelig Jul, says his handwriting like spikes of holly, og godt nytår. )]

Everything, I believe, is interconnected ... Fingerwork, the Gates of the Garden, the Eyes of Icarus, the Falling Cities. And so the Mysteries of Polythreme interconnect with Parabola's; they form themselves a parabola, an image mirrored unto itself. I've written before on my voyage to the Marches of the Mirror Country. Now I will write on my voyage across the zee.

First, let me begin in Fallen London. There I worked with an Implacable Detective, to discover a missing Medium -- and when I discovered her, I discovered that she, like me, had been Behind the Mirror. But she appeared possessed by it ... She sang in English and in Loamsprach, the language of the Clay. 'We will exist!' 'Clothed in jade and clothed in mud!' 'The king with a hundred hearts!' 'No flying thing, no thing that flies!' 'The garden gates, with faces locked ...' In her reflection, her hair and hands moved like the slithering of serpents.

That would not be the last I heard of the Serpent-Handed. In another, private case, I found that a novelist of the Neath and a poet of the Surface had both invoked that mirror image, independent of one another, inspired by their dreams. And thus I learned of a dream-entity that slithers through one's consciousness whenever one brings it to being by writing of it. I believe the Medium was touched by this entity. ~~I believe I may be touched, too~~

But enough of serpents. The Medium spoke of the king with a hundred hearts, and I did not know her meaning then, but I know it now. The King of a Hundred Hearts is the king of Polythreme -- its genius loci. In Polythreme, everything is animate. Stone screams, water begs. On the Grunting Fen, I speculated that all things share a soul, or spirit -- pneuma, as the Stoics conceived of pneuma, the breath of life and the form possessed even by the lifeless. I have come to believe that soul, that spirit, that pneuma, is the Hundreds'. Through the Hundreds, Polythreme lives and the Clay Men are born. I witnessed the birth of a Clay Man in Polythreme, one heart broken from many. Like men, the Hundreds dream. Like the author, like the poet, the King's dreams bring something into being, and that something is the Clay Men. Clothed in jade and clothed in mud, they will exist.

What of garden gate, with faces locked? Polythreme's priests speak of the garden and the mountain. There, too, is an interconnection, for it is said that in the Elder Country exists a great glowing mountain -- and it said that wherever death flees from, it flees from the Elder Country first, like the shadow fleeing light. There is a curious quality to the Neath. We die, but our deaths are a part of life such that we can live again. We dream, but we dream in common, as in a common reality. In Polythreme, even the lifeless have life. In Parabola, we wander a waking dream. One opens to the other, as through reflecting frames. I know they have a single source.

I do not yet know what, or how -- but in my dreams it shines with the Memory of Light.

With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,
Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly Vessel did I then espy
Come like a giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the bay she strode,
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.
This Ship was nought to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a Lover’s look;
This Ship to all the rest did I prefer:
When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where She comes the winds must stir:
On went She, and due north her journey took.

- William Wordsworth

'It is true of all of us, then, that we seek for Unity -- unity in mind and life. Some seek it in science and a life of knowledge; some seek it in religion and a life of faith; some seek it in human love and find it in the life of service to their fellows; some seek it in pleasure and the gratification of the senses' demands; some seek it in the harmonious development of all the facets of their being. Many the methods, right and wrong; many the terms under which the One is conceived, true and false--in a sense, to use the phraseology of a bygone system of philosophy, we are all, consciously or unconsciously, following paths that lead thither or paths that lead away, seekers in the quest of the Philosopher's Stone.'
- H. Stanley Redgrove

'MANY OF US YEARN FOR ... UNITY. TO BE SEPARATED AND MADE ALONE IS ... DIFFICULT. WE SORROW FOR OUR BROTHERS TITHED TO THE MAW THAT IS LONDON. BUT IT IS OUR NATURE TO LOVE. FOR THE KING WITH THE HUNDRED HEARTS BECAME SO BECAUSE OF THE LOVE OF ANOTHER.'
- a Clay Priest of Polythreme

'Love is a vital principle uniting, or seeking to unite two together.'
- St Augustine

[a personal registry.]

Diaktoros (Dazed Raven Advisor), for the minister and messenger.

Himinglæva (Cheerful Goldfish), for the wave that reflects the light of the sky.

Norðri, Suðri, Austri, and Vestri (Sulky Bats), for the winds.

Hylde (Haunted-looking Dog), for what can be found in a bookshop.

Tæppe (Slavering Dream-hound), for what comforts us when we dream and is gone by morning.

Nabu (Corresponding Ocelot), for the god of the stylus.

Askalaphos (Bifurcated Owl), for the dæmon of the underworld's orchards.

Wadjet (Hound of Heaven), for the sunsnake.

Keket (Grubby Kitten), for primordial darkness.

Bezalel (Unfinished Hat), for the rabbi.

[Theodor has given that rarest of gifts from Paulsen & Associates, booksellers -- books. Some are obscure, some are popular, some are curiously bound and curiously pointless. All of them smell of old ink and wonder.]

adam emet
The Game of Logic
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/610604862/the-game-of-logic-carroll-lewis-macmillan

apple
Royal Illuminated Book of Nursery Rhymes
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/816378355/theshipthatflew-via-yama-bato-fairy-tales

asclepius unbound
Chaldean Magic
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/909478358/chaldean-magic-first-uk-edition-london-samuel

asher wilsford
Picturesque Egypt
http://yama-bato.tumblr.com/post/535154502/front-cover-ebers-egypt-vo-i-source-ebers

bartholomaew
Manual on Shipsignalling
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/4093573740/shipsignalling

becquerel curie
Episodes of Insect Life
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/13465799312/episodes-of-insect-life-budgen-e-l-acheta

bel falkenrath
The Quiver of Love
http://yama-bato.tumblr.com/post/818537231/walter-crane-artist-british-1845-1915-the

cécile béringer
The Techno-Chemical Receipt Book
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/407497151/the-techno-chemical-receipt-book-1889-the-latest

commodore creazil
La Grande Danse Macabre
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/12169757904/la-grande-danse-macabre-des-hommes-et-des-femmes

crocifissa
Science and Art of Chess
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/2943001849/chess

delphina demmings
The Universe
http://northsuite.tumblr.com/post/14724285499

eris fnord
Poems
http://scrap.oldbookillustrations.com/post/374331801/sealmaiden-cobden-sanderson-binding-on-dante

gabriel flynn
Sibylline Oracles
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/14413611229/sibylline-oracles-opsopoeus-johannes-ed-in

helen demeter
Flowers of Paradise
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/356688581/flowers-of-paradise-by-reginald-francis

henrik paulsen
Book of Hours
http://ornamentedbeing.tumblr.com/post/14067014930

honoria marlowe
Golden Leaves
http://yama-bato.tumblr.com/post/5670230242/leighton-john-designer-style-publishers

israel salvador
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/1157193835/a-journey-to-the-centre-of-the-earth-verne-jules

laura riding
Old English Ballads
http://scrap.oldbookillustrations.com/post/14544643838/old-english-ballads-cover

lamp, lace, and pear
Little Ditties
http://scrap.oldbookillustrations.com/post/11108368926/little-ditties-cover

lin-sijan yujao
The Savage World Natural History
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/14821122697/the-savage-world-1889

louis plumb
Mathematical Magic
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/12476313639/mathematical-magic-or-the-wonders-that-may-be

midnight voyager
Japanese Fragments
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/354610431/japanese-fragments-with-facsimiles-of

narciso
Endymion
http://yama-bato.tumblr.com/post/590027435/indigodreams-keats-john-1795-1821-title

nathan attford
The Language and Poetry of Flowers
http://scrap.oldbookillustrations.com/post/620948341/language-flowers-cover

polly gorey
The Origin and Progress of Writing
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/6789712898/the-origin-and-progress-of-writing-as-well

scarlet fenwick
Glimpses in the Twilight
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/1109494701/ghoulnextdoor-rev-george-frederick-lee

thomas puz
The Hunting of the Snark
http://book-aesthete.tumblr.com/post/732061378/dodgson-charles-lutwidge-lewis-carroll-the

The Bespectacled Folklorist received a dispensation from the Dilmun Club, too, and has prepared a compendium of catalogued and cross-catalogued notes. You glimpse the demarcated pages.

Cryptopaleontological Notes. Research notes on the strange creatures of the Neath.
Sorrow-Spiders and Spider-Councils.
The Eater-of-Chains and the Inhabiter of Wolves.
The Thing in the Mirror and the 'Lords of London.'
The Wings of Thunder Bat and its Offspring.
Further Residents of the Labyrinth of Tigers.
The Vake.
The Rubbery Forms of Flute Street.
The Animates of Polythreme. (Including Clay Persons.)
Devils and Demons.
Creatures Capable of Discourse. (Cats, Rats, Ravens, Et Al.)

Prelapsarian Archaeological Notes. Research notes concerning cities before the fifth.
The First City. Speculated to be Nagar.
The Second City. Speculated to be Amarna.
The Third City. Speculated to be Hopelchén.
The Fourth City. Speculated to be Karakorum.
The Half-Stolen Flute Street.
The Bazaar, the Masters, and Their Practices.

Theosophistrical Notes. Research notes on matters of the spirit and the other side.
Imanuel Lundberg's Grand Theory of the Correspondence.
Other Theories of the Correspondence.
Madame Petrovsky's Secret Dogma and the Fifth Age of Civilisation.
Madame Petrovsky's Practical Pantheism.
The Works of Doctor Schlomo.
Parabola.
Speculative Travel. (Anarcho- or Otherwise)
London Dream Lore.
London Soul Lore.
Principles of Life and Death in the Neath.
Spirits and Spiritualism. (Beneath and Above.)
Magic and Magicians.

You also glimpse a glint of gold at his ear, that was not there before -- a zailor's charm against drowning. Superstitious.

Compare Notes with the Bespectacled Folklorist.

[all those researchers scurrying about the zee are bound to run into each other. use the comments to share content and chatter without spoiler tags.]

Yes! The Shifting Patterns of Bats on the Cavern roof may be Interpreted by SCIENCE to Forecast your Future! See Madame Shoshana's Most Accurate Predictions in the Gazette, irregularly.

1 - The Rat.
Class: Metamorphic.
Character: Dependable, hardworking, 'like our hardworking rat friends.' Pragmatic in approach. Practical and responsible. Stable and grounded. Reliable, above all.
Archetype: Investigator, Politician.
Good Luck: The heavy, geological pull of the rocks beneath us all.
Ill Luck: Macramé (in spite of a talent for it). Volcanoes. Crustless sandwiches, high tea taken too far.

2 - The Lovers.
Class: Metamorphic.
Character: Dependable -- a 'rock.'
Archetype: Scholar, Politician.
Good Luck: The colour mauve (when others wear it).
Ill Luck: Unknown.

3 - The Bat.
Class: Metamorphic.
Character: Nothing if not practical. Strong and wise. Pragmatic and well organised. 'Like the bats in their flocks above,' brings 'order to chaos.'
Archetype: Investigator, Scholar.
Good luck: Unknown.
Ill Luck: Rag-and-bone men. Rags. Bones.

4 - The Bear.
Class: Speleothemic.
Character: Enthusiastic in his or her interests. Intelligent and thoughtful. Secretive, 'like the mountain bears, which ... are not mythical at all.'
Archetype: Dreamer, Criminal.
Good Luck: A clove of garlic in the bath.
Ill Luck: Sawdust, especially in the corners of rooms and on the tops of tables.

5 - The Shepherd.
Class: Speleothemic.
Character: Ruled by logic. Fiercely intellectual. At home in the mountains of learning. 'A shepherd of ideas, perhaps.' Thoughtful.
Archetype: Gambler, Criminal.
Good Luck: Unknown.
Ill Luck: Taking hansom cabs in Spite. Traveling on foot in Veilgarden.

6 - The Crow.
Class: Speleothemic.
Character: Easily inspired and creative. Idealistic. Clever, cunning. Quick-witted, 'much like the crows themselves.' Prone to day-dreaming.
Archetype: Dreamer, Gambler.
Good Luck: A spotted handkerchief -- but tying knots in it will not aid memory.
Ill Luck: Cooking tapioca. (Caution advised with cocoa.)

7 - The Lady.
Class: Igneous.
Character: Charming, 'often the most charming person in the room.' Impulsive. Has strong feelings about most things. Appears positive, radiant with energy, 'like certain well-loved Ladies of our time.'
Archetype: Adventurer, Hedonist.
Good Luck: Unknown.
Ill Luck: Black umbrellas, especially in damp weather. The foxtrot or waltz, even when asked by a devil. Incriminating evidence and cool fireplaces.

8 - The Lantern.
Class: Igneous.
Character: Creative, devoted to a craft. Passionate and energetic. Spirited, shining, 'like the flame of a lantern in the dark.' Possessing an enthusiasm either warming or tiresome.
Archetype: Hedonist, Philanthropist.
Good Luck: Toadstools.
Ill Luck: Mosses and lichens. The colour maroon, especially on library wallpaper.

9 - The Cat.
Class: Igneous.
Character: Sometimes overly idealistic -- this is a good thing. Assertive and daring. Clever, 'quick and sharp as a cat.'
Archetype: Adventurer, Philanthropist.
Good Luck: Porridge (when chosen over toast).
Ill Luck: Jam on porridge or toast.

9 - The Rose.
Class: Glacial.
Character: Intuitive and insightful. Of delicate feelings and easily-bruised sensibilities, 'like rose petals.' Attractive towards others, and clever enough to make use of the fact. Empathetic towards all unfortunates.
Archetype: Artist, Assassin.
Good Luck: Unknown.
Ill Luck: Curtains of plum or burgundy. Velvet. Too much pepper in one's sauces.

11 - The Spider.
Class: Glacial.
Character: Embraces the life of the mind. Intuitive and romantic. Spins 'intricate webs of supposition and intrigue, much like the spider herself.' Sentimental, kind, sensitive, and enigmatic.
Archetype: Artist, Animal Enthusiast.
Good Luck: Respect towards match-sellers and penny-dreadful pedlars.
Ill Luck: (Presumably) disrespect towards match-sellers and penny-dreadful pedlars. A possibility of poison spikes in one's shoes.

12 - The Hunter.
Class: Glacial.
Character: Plagued with dreadful bad luck. Thrice cursed, 'just as Actaeon was cursed for his profanity.' Sensitive and romantic.
Archetype: Animal Enthusiast, Assassin.
Good Luck: Buckets of sand? Bedrest.
Ill Luck: High places, low places, zee-level places. Letters, strangers.

"It is so difficult for us to unlearn all we know of the nature of meteorological phenomena, so hard for us to look upon atmospheric changes as though we knew nothing of the laws that govern them, that we are disposed to treat such explanations of popular myths as I have given above, as fantastic and improbable.

But among the ancients all solutions of natural problems were tentative, and it is only after the failure of every attempt made to explain these phenomena on supernatural grounds that we have been driven to the discovery of the true interpretation. Yet among the vulgar a vast amount of mythology remains, and is used still to explain atmospheric mysteries. The other day a Yorkshire girl, when asked why she was not afraid of thunder, replied because it was only her Father's voice; what knew she of the rushing together of air to fill the vacuum caused by the transit of the electric fluid? to her the thunder-clap was the utterance of the Almighty." - Sabine Baring-Gould, The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition (1865)

"Even while I correct these sheets for press, a lecture by Professor Tyndall has been put into my hands, which I ought to have heard last 16th January, but was hindered by mischance; and which, I now find, completes, in two important particulars, the evidence of an instinctive truth in ancient symbolism; showing, first, that the Greek conception of an ætherial element pervading space is justified by the closest reasoning of modern physicists; and, secondly, that the blue of the sky, hitherto thought to be caused by watery vapour, is, indeed, reflected from the divided air itself; so that the bright blue of the eyes of Athena, and the deep blue of her ægis, prove to be accurate mythic expressions of natural phenomena which it is an uttermost triumph of recent science to have revealed.

Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine triumph more complete. To form, 'within an experimental tube, a bit of more perfect sky than the sky itself!' here is magic of the finest sort! singularly reversed from that of old time, which only asserted its competency to enclose in bottles elemental forces that were -- not of the sky." - John Ruskin, The Queen of the Air: A Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm (1869)

Compare, if you would: the discovery which prevents mythic sympathy, the discovery which is in itself mythic (or magic), myth as explanation from ignorance, myth as instinctive and symbolic truth.

Consider what is opposition and what is correspondence.

Recall what the thunder said.

A dream about the solstice

It's the longest night of the year. Snow coats the ground. Above you the stars shine still and bright, and as you stare into the sky, your breath mists the air. You're waiting for someone, you know. You clutch the lead of a sled in one hand -- ready to traipse off, into adventure.

They're coming soon. Wait. Warm yourself.

A dream about the past

You dream of the inside of a clocktower, gears revolving around you, your apron coated with grease. In the center of each wheel you glimpse a world, faraway and familiar.

You see your sisters' blurred and whirling hands and hear their counting-game. You see a sullen, sharp-featured boy, spectacles too large for his face. You see trees heavy with apple blossoms, and smell them, and feel the bark rough under your hands. A friend holds you on his shoulders, and he wobbles as you wave your arms. You laugh and laugh and laugh.

In that other world, a girl says she'll tell you your fortune. She draws the Fool. It even looks like you -- but what do you look like?

"Who are you?"

A dream about a voice

Ash drifts and dances around you, as though from a bonfire. Someone speaks.

"Hallo! I like your head. It was so quiet and lonesome, shut up in that watch ... but I waited. I waited and waited, because I wanted to stay. Won't you to give me some place to stay? I like your head ... Who are you?"

Gears turn; ash falls and snow falls; your fingers are covered in grease. "Who are you?"

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Theodor

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Annotations & Epistles

from the Desk of Theodor Gylden

Recent Entries

Publications

Theodor Gylden.

Lodgings: Premises At The Bazaar

The Constant North.

(no subject)

Joined.

On Celestial Language.

Putting the Pieces Together.

Prelapsarian Notes.

Free of the Name.

Glaedelig Jul.

Notes -- Parabola and Polythreme.

North.

We are all seekers in the quest of the Philosopher's Stone.

On Animals and Their Names.

Yuletide Treasure

Embarking on a Voyage of Scientific Discovery

Compiling a Chiropteromantic Resource ...

It was only her Father's voice.

Recurring Dreams - Christer