Sonnets in Waves: The Mythology

Background to “Sonnets in Waves”, or an attempt at writing mythology and creating linguistic as well as worldbuilding depth. Link to the Sonnets is at the end of the article.

Depth of darkness there once was so immense, none could see; none could hear; none could be; and none could become. Time nor growth hath existed in forms as we know them; not even death. But an ethereal mesh of memory, time and age glistened and brightly shone in the distance which was seemingly unattainable – formless and yet there, as if adrift upon the tides of the darkness.

On the other end, the fabric of darkness spun with great force and tumult; warping the nothingness and creating ripples that just barely grasped the ends of the mesh floating in the distance. The fuzzy ends of nothingness touched here and there upon the edges of memory of time of the ages, spewing out pieces of matter shining brightly against the dark canvass. These were then scattered; and there was more and more of them; and they formed beautiful shapes that lent their light to eternity – and to both the darkness of nothingness; and to the eternal mesh of memory of ages.

The light spread and filled every hollow part between the mesh of ethereal age and the fabric of darkness. Now the shapes, influenced by the energy of both that, which was, and that, which wasn’t, drawn light from the ethereal mesh of memory but were instantly drained by the mesh of darkness. This cycle created time, which would go ever on, and the light kept appearing and dying – eternally. The energy from the shapes – now dubbed steorran¹ – the light of which kept dying and appearing ever on, created strings and lines and connexions, and the steorran formed a bridge between the ethereal mesh of memory and time and ages, and connected it to the darkness. The bridge of steorran now shone so brightly with energy that kept flowing through it that the strength of light reverberated through the fabrics of darkness and eternal mesh of memory – playing on its edges as a bard would stroke the strings of a lute. The edges kept warping and entangling, giving rise to ripples that wound around the mesh and darkness.

There were pauses and there were ripples, and these kept repeating until both found their rhythm, and so time found its measure. Now time could grow things and kill them – as it did to the steorran hanging in the vortex of darkness and ethereum. The ripples, though, created vibrations and these spread – now in the form of sound, and kept ricocheting and reverberating through the mesh of memory and time and ages until they were swallowed whole by the darkness. This kept, as well, repeating ever on. Only sometimes, the ripple traveling around the edge of the ethereal circle sprung a little too wide, a little too far from the border – either to the eternal darkness, which swallowed it; or, more seldom, to the warped innards of memory, time and age.

And there was it endowed with each of these qualities, the ripple of energy now claiming shape or time or age or all. Now that’s how nature was created; the jolts of energy ever jumping out in unexpected ways and forms. But the darkness kept seizing some of them, and either plunged them into the void immediately after their conception or captured them eventually – after many cycles. This accumulation of light that perished fed the void and darkness, and eventually, from its concentration, what we may call shadows came to take shape. These were, contrary to the concepts and creations of the light, steorran, formless; devoid of light; and in their essence destructive, feeding on the dying light in ever-repeating cycles.

This created death, not in the heavens or cosmological environment of steorran, but rather in the nature. But the cycles and fusions of energy kept repeating, until not even the creations of the process remembered where they had been formed or had come from. And the ways of the energy, and the road to the void and darkness, and what happened there, were no longer known or perceived.

There came forms and jolts of energy over time, and its creations at first immediately passed over to the darkness, leaving behind only the forms of them that would create the clūd². The clūd was a protection for the new creations – protecting them from passing immediately into the darkness, and gifting them the illusion of what’s come to be called théön³ – the passing of time on the clūd, life.

Of life there were many forms, but first of them, sprouting from the clūd of théön, were the línde – trees⁴. And they would grow not far and wide, but would ever reach for the heights where the steorran hung, for línde admired their light and beauty and wanted to be ever closer in their presence. But they couldn’t grow for eternity, as the void would have them, but they would, at a certain point, crack and their parts would fall on the théön – giving way to grass and undergrowth, and so the Children of Línde could sprout again.

These cycles kept interrupting eternity, upholding the sense of time. At the will of the space, beams of light from the energy on the fringes of the ethereal mesh of memory, coming to a clash with the fabric of darkness, would descend upon the clūd either directly; or through the steorran; or falling steorran; – whereupon the contact with the þings, creations on théön, such as línde, would give way to new arrangements of light, memory, time and age.

In contact with the Children of Línde, the first þings, the light from the steorran would endow them with a part of the ethereal mesh of eternal light, energy, memory and time. But never all of it, for they would then become one with the ethereal mesh and energy and would cease to exist – both the steorran and the þings. Thus, no single þing would acquire the full extent of the ethereal mesh stored within steorran; so, each creation possessing what’s now become concyens⁵ (the endowment of the light of the steorran) would only know certain parts of eternity, of which much they would not remember, and only through passing of time might they unlock some of these parts; or they might never access them within themselves at all.

Now the Children of Línde leap forth to their second generation, some of them possessing concyens – and, within that, the ability to function independently from the théön, which harbours the essence of all other þings. Thus, their need for roots and connexion with théön is now diminished and they are able to function independently from théön and create their own realms – and they are called béorn, men. The Children of Línde not endowed with the “Gift” of the steorran would remain in their form, in connexion théön, without concyens; though, they remain in close connexion with the Gifted Ones – and they are, in a sense, one single form of being and creation.

Now the béorn (men) are either the direct descendants or kin to Línde; endowed with the light of steorran and, therefore, possessing concyens. Not all Children of Línde were blessed with the gift; thus, some of them remain in the realm of Trees.

And therefrom starts the tale of Hoté and his lynage, and thus we get the parallel between Men and Trees (Children of Línde).

There would be also other þings – with varying, but invariably lesser, endowment of the Gift of Concyens. These are more dependent on théön than béorn; thus, they are subject to the ethereal mesh of memory, time and age and have a varying and lesser ability to mould it or influence it; or act in contradiction with the ethereum.

The ethereum, or the fabric of ethereal age, was balanced by the fabric of darkness; and was separated from it still, though at times these came into contact, when the bridge was formed, in case of the þings falling through théön. And if they did fall through théön, they would become formless, but the energy would not be lost, only repurposed, and added to the fabric of darkness.

On théön, béorn and þings were the carriers of the light of steorran; but as some of them fell through théön and lost shape, they would become ever encompassed by the darkness and became an indivisible part of it – forming its matter, shapeless and formless; however, present. They would feed on the light of the steorran, and thus expand and occasionally take form. Béorn would, in the light of steorran, which they came seldom into, see them as horn’d creatures, the colour of their own blood. But that was not their real shape, for it was only what the light of steorran managed to reveal of them; for their darkness fed on the light, and their true form could never really be revealed, for there was none.

Still, the formless creatures possessed and were formed by energy of the darkness, and they could use the bridge, and they could feed on the light of steorran; at times plunging théön into deeper darkness. Thus, there was what we could call night and day, but it was not regular. The creatures became ever more insatiable, feeding on the light ever more, and slowly giving way to darkness by extinguishing the light of steorran one by one.

Soon, the formless creatures, now to béorn and þings revealed due to the light of steorran they had consumed as horn’d shadows of flame and abyss, became starved again, and kept looking for more light to consume on the other side of the bridge that connected the ethereum with darkness. They kept consuming steorran and the light thereof, until the whole world was plunged into darkness, and all þings and béorn and also théön itself would be thralls to the ever-spreading darkness.

The narrative of sonnets picks up at the moment when these hornéd devils cross the bridge and appear on the horizons of ethereum, now plunged in darkness and under their indirect dominion. The béorn, endowed with the light of the steorran, in part in the form of trees, in part as men, challenge this dominion of darkness lead by the first generation of the lynage of Hoté.

1. Starne, Sterne, n. star, XVII 8; the seven starnes, the Seven Stars, usually the Pleiades (cf. OE. seofon steorran, seofon-stierre), but here the seven 'planets' (Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Sun, Venus), XVII 423 (cf. 345). [ON. stjarna, earlier *stern-.]

2. Cloude, n.¹ clod of earth; under cloude, in the ground, XV b 31. [OE. clūd, mass of earth, or rock.]

3. The, v. to prosper, in as euer myght I the, so may I prosper, on my life, XVII 328. [OE. þēon.]

4. Lynde, n. lime-tree; (allit.) tree, V 108. [OE. línd(e).]).

5. Concyens, Conscience, n. conscience, IV b 15, VIII b 87, &c.; (personified) VIII b 6, &c. [OFr. conscience.]

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