Thursday 15 November 2012

Life After Ys II


Pursued by a combination of malice and Christianity, Nemeta must stop practising witchcraft. Hiding in the woods, she no longer even chants to the Three because:

"That could have disturbed the inhabitants, who sacrificed to spirits of wood and water and to whom Ys was a tale of doom." (Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), p. 394)

I am trying if possible to find the moment at which the Three cease to be worshiped and also to ascertain Who else is being worshiped then. There is Christ but there are also "...spirits of wood and water..."

So far - by page 394 of 504 -, neither Nemeta's father, former centurion, prefect, King and curial, now tribune, nor any other Roman authority knows that she has committed infanticide. That would be a more substantial charge against her and would also make it more difficult for Gratillonius to defend her. For the reader, she has become a more sympathetic character despite the horror of the child sacrifice.

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