Natural World — winds that are named after the effect, benign or otherwise, on plants, animals, birds, insects, etc. Thus: the LENFEN, a breeze related to the island of Fellenstel, which every springtime carries young gossamer spiders to many different parts of the Archipelago. The WOTON is a wind that is said to hasten or ease the migratory passage of birds from south to north. Its companion or opposite wind, blowing a few months later, is called in the vernacular the NOTOW.
Anthropomorphism — winds which are described as having human characteristics: gentleness, jealousy, mischief-making, anger, mirth, pain, love, revenge, etc. Many of these winds are identified from folklore, or the oral tradition, and exist under a maze of different patois names. Some are related to necromancy (below). One area of learning is called Subjective Anthropomorphism, which collects data on the influence of winds on the human psyche: the föhn wind that causes depression, the sea breeze that promotes optimism and feelings of wealth, the lovers’ waft, and so on.
Necromancy — winds which by repute are the product of evil, of witches’ brew, of disastrous attempts to weave spells, of malign or failed attempts to make a deal with the devil. Notorious amongst these is a cold north-easterly hard blow occurring every five years or so in the Hetta Group of islands. Although this is conventionally sourced in the Faiandland mountains when there has been an unusual amount of snowfall, Hettans persist in believing that it is an accursed wind they call the GOORNAK. A woman being tortured on suspicion of witchery on the Hettan island of Goorn is said to have expired with a prolonged curse on her lips. Her dying gasp was a croak of hatred. It rose from her as an icy wind, froze to death every one of her persecutors, then swept northwards to the mountains of the mainland, where it is believed it lurks forever more. Even in the present day it is said that no one on Goorn will venture outdoors when the curse wind is blowing. The Academy has so far discovered and recorded more than one hundred different curse winds in the Archipelago. Naturally, most winds of this type are identified by islanders in the less developed regions of the Archipelago, and serious study of them involves detailed researches into folkloric matters. Many of the strangest and most evocative names for winds arise from necromantic sources: the COMBINER, the POISONER, the MANTRAP, the GARGLER, the ABYSS, and so on. These winds all have scientific names: for example, the Goornak is more correctly known as the FAIANDLAND BISE.
Scientific Observation — the study of storms, blizzards, smoke, gravitational influence, movement of sand or dust and the study of dunes, effects on oceanic currents, all as revealed by the passage of winds. Sandstorms are infrequent in the Archipelago, although they do occur in the Swirl. Unusually, the Swirl island group is close to the only part of Sudmaieure with a dry climate: the Qataari Peninsula. Winter blizzards sometimes affect the islands adjacent to the continental masses. Cross-faculty research can involve winds of other kinds. All over the Archipelago islanders welcome the summer wind known as the BREATH OF HOPE, which carries swarms of butterflies and ladybirds. Less welcome to the people of Paneron is the Stifler, a humid wind that brings the allergenic pollen of carp-weed bushes from nearby unpopulated islands.
Military History — winds commemorated by their seeming intervention in times of war: the gale that dispersed one attacking fleet, the sudden expiry of a prevailing westerly that becalmed another, the heavenly wind that drove marauding ships on to a reef, the unpredicted storm that prevented an invasive beach landing. Many navigation charts depict prevailing wind direction by incorporating a stylized figure directing the wind. Most of these symbols are ancient naval or military images: a schooner breasting waves, an archer aiming his bow, a whaler with his harpoon, and so on. The work of tabulating this material and cross-referencing it to military records that are often still secret, or locked away in archives in the north, is as yet hardly begun.
Navigation — every inhabited island or group of islands has created its own navigation charts of the seas, navigable passages, tidal surges, bays and shallows in its area. Each such chart or marine almanac contains information, often incorrect or distorted or based on guesswork, about the dominant winds in that region. However, these charts, almanacs and shipping logs also contain a wealth of vernacular first-hand accounts of great winds, sudden calms, bitter storms, as well as much documentary recording of the trade winds, the antitrades, the doldrums, the squalls, the headwinds.
Geography and Topography — the effects of equatorial heat and the creation of localized storm winds, mountainous islands with cliffs and ravines, the horse latitudes, Coriolis, the cooling of the poles, the temperate weather systems of high and low pressures, differential sea temperatures, the effects of the gravitational impact of the sun and the moon.
Esphoven Muy did not live to see the expansion of the Academy, because although she lived to a great age she departed from Aay in unexplained circumstances and never returned.
She was in her thirty-seventh year when the artist Dryd Bathurst arrived on Aay and set up a studio in the artists’ quarter of Aay Port. At this time the Academy was still based around her own house. Town records show that Bathurst was resident on the island for less than a year, but during that period he created three of his most celebrated paintings.
Two of them are huge canvases. The first is what many people consider to be the masterwork of his early period: The Raising of the Hopeless Dead. This is an apocalyptic vision of a mountainous landscape — once you know that Bathurst was on Aay when he painted the picture, it becomes obvious that the terrible peaks are based on Aay’s central range. In the painting, the mountains are being torn apart by a violent electric storm, with cascades of water, rock and liquid mud flooding down the slopes to engulf a fleeing population.
The second painting is no less epic and is held by some critics to be the greater of the two. Final Hour of the Relief Ship depicts a storm at sea: a sailing vessel is foundering amid gigantic waves, her sails torn into ribbons and two of her masts broken. A huge sea-serpent is apparently about to consume the passengers and crew leaping from the decks into the sea. Both of these major works are in the permanent collection of the Covenant Maritime Gallery, on the island of Muriseay.
The third painting from Bathurst’s Aay period was a portrait of Esphoven Muy herself, and its whereabouts is unknown to this day.
Although the original painting was never exhibited on Aay, colour reproductions based on Bathurst’s own print of it are familiar. It is on a significantly smaller scale than the massive oil paintings which were Bathurst’s usual stock in trade. The painting of Muy was executed in tempera, the subtle colours employed to render her as a stunningly attractive woman, her light clothes in suggestive disarray while a mocking wind teases at her hair. Her smile, and the expression in her eyes, leaves little doubt in the mind of the viewer about what her relationship with the painter must have been. The painting, called E. M. The Singer of Airs, is unique in Bathurst’s body of work: no other picture of his is so intimate, so sensual, so revealing of his love and passion.