† “… 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 modeclass="underline" 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 planners paid to such matters, and was determined that his mountaintop city would embody the most advanced techniques and practices that he witnessed in the ‘empire of the Lumun-jani.’ But there is an additional detail, in the development of Hygieia’s myth, that may supply the clue to why ‘the Mad King’s’ reaction to what she stood for seems to have gone beyond the responsibility of a ruler, and to have been almost personaclass="underline" in the later eras of her worship, Hygieia also became the Roman goddess of the Moon. It is not beyond question, in other words, that Roman principles of public and private hygiene were interpreted by Oxmontrot (a Moon worshipper by birth and choice) as not simply a wise but a sacred policy, in Roman paganism, certainly, but more importantly (as Roman paganism was dying, by the time he became an auxiliary in their armies), in his own Moon faith. One of the many tragedies that resulted from the eventual domination of Broken by the cult of Kafra, is that this intimate connection between public hygiene and religion was lost, with, as we shall see, cataclysmic results.”
† obsese Gibbon writes, “Of this term the only immediately recognizable variation is, of course, obsessio, being an actual Latin term for a ‘siege.’ The adaptation of that term, however, to the meaning implied here — that is, the connection to a person who suffers from what the latest psychological writings of our own day would describe as (in words that reflect a Greek as well as a Latin etymology) an hysterical mania—is fascinating, and surely something we do not expect to find in a barbarian Germanic kingdom. And yet this is hardly the sole point at which we find discussions of either the primary (that is, the empirical) or the secondary (the theoretical) implications of such ideas, which have received a title for the collected activities they have inspired—psychology—some eight or nine hundred years after the period under consideration in this tale of Broken.” Gibbon does not indulge his frequent penchant for overstatement, here: like the earlier reference to Galen’s attempt to discover the medical meaning of dreams, this citation suggests a complexity of thought in Broken’s intellectual community — particularly before the death of the God-King Izairn — that was unique, and, obviously, far ahead of its time. —C.C.
† Plumpskeles Gibbon writes, “This is, according to my translator, a man of broad experience, simply a more colorful word for ‘latrines.’” We can only suppose that Gibbon knew the effect that the apparently literal translation of the word would have on the somewhat staid Burke: for Plumpskeles is another transitional word between Old High and modern German, the latter possessing Plumpsklos, or, quite literally, “shitholes,” as in holes cut for toilets, which for some reason were/are apparently referred to in pairs; hence the plural used by Isadora, as we have seen four latrine holes in the yard behind Berthe’s house. —C.C.