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Miscellaneous Tidbits

(Unknown)
- Birgitte in Conversation: Maerion == Maid Marion
- Sammael == Napoleon? Sammael is described as a great militarist. He is short. His symbol is the golden bee, same as Napoleon.
- Yin-Yang symbol/Ancient Aes Sedai symbol:
He also spoke for quite some time on the splitting of the One Power into male and female halves,
and on the disharmony produced when they don't work together.. this came across as one of the core elements in
the origin of WoT.
[re: Yin/Yang - leaving out the little dots in the
symbol is an intentional representation of the lack of harmony between
male/female Power in RandLand]
Contributed by: Emmet O'Brien, Dublin talk, 11/93
- The sword forms: It's research (books, not doing), and the forms
come from Japanese swordfighting and some European fencing, before the
advent of well-designed and well-made guns made swords obsolete. He
mentioned one book in particular, but I can't remember the title.
Contributed by: Matthew Hunter and others, at a signing
- Tolkien:
- Wolf-brother -- a moosh of various myths from Europe, Native Americans, and Australian Aborigines. -- America OnLine conference, 10/94
- Stones/Go -- The game of Stones is based on the Asian game Go.
- Tower of Genjhei -- There is a Japanese novel called The Tale of Genji. It is generally considered
the first piece of work which qualifies as a novel, as the genre is defined today. Note the name's similarity
to the Tower of Genjhei in tWoT. It was written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century Japan.
- Millenarianism (is this a word?): The End of The World will come at the end of the millennium, or so some
folks say. The year in Randland is pretty much congruent with that used in the West of our own world.
Galldrian of Cairhien was assassinated in 998 NE. Since then, one winter has passed (taking us to 999) and
most of the next year. The Feast of Lights that scandalized Perrin so much (in LoC) marks the last day of the
old year; the Battle at Dumai's Wells takes place some days after that, and so must be early in 1000 NE.
Tarmon Gaidon is coming soon, folks! -- Don Harlow
- Gholam = Golem, from Jewish folklore: The Gholam (or Golem, pronounced goy-lehm) dates back to the
Kabbalah, the ancient book of Jewish Mysticism. The most famous legend dates back to 14th century Prague,
where a famous rabbi, Rabbi Loeb, shaped clay into a man-shape (very biblical), and then inscribed the name of
G-d, in Hebrew HASHEM, on its forehead, granting it life. The Golem did menial tasks and the like for Loeb,
but the longer it lived, it grew in size and consequently in strength (and, for that matter in "lustiness,"
for it was flesh and blood, if shaped from clay initially). When the Golem grew to an awesome size, Loeb felt
threatened by it, and attempted to destroy it by erasing the first letter in HASHEM, changing it to SHAM,
Hebrew for death. Loeb succeeded, but was subsequently killed by the collapse of the creature into a big pile
of clay (dust to dust...). -- Contributed by: Stewart Bushman
- Aelfinn/Eelfinn: The Elves/Faerie/Sidhe of Celtic mythology. The Sidhe were vulnerable to iron ("iron to
bind"), and liked music ("music to daze"). There were two subgroups of Faeries, but I am blanking on their
names, and what the difference is. Further input on this topic is welcome.
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This page was last modified on (03-Feb-1998, 03:07). Illustrations © 1989-1996 by Tor Books.
This FAQ compiled by Pam Korda
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and converted to HTML by Matthew Hunter
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