Notes to the White Ship – Part 1 of “The Lance: Ashkelon”
This annotation remains a work in progress… last updated 27 October, 2015
Page 1
Frame 1
Three women (a typical motif in mythological tales – Thompson A123.1.1. ), an elder, an initiate and a novice in this case to an order of some kind, they appear to have been given the task of watching over this watchtower in the desert… It seems odd that they are not in the tower, the watch tower becoming a tower that is watched, rather than a tower that you watch from…
They discuss sentinels of light that have come from somewhere else, and hidden themselves here beneath the watchtower. And something that smells like the sea* having moved through the space.
By the tower are massive Hammer, or T-shaped ritual stones or pillars that resemble the ones found at Göbekli Tepe.
*This can be seen as perhaps related to a conversation had by two ancient creatures in the epilogue to “Severed Head Cult”.
Frames 2 & 3
The elder amongst the women has left her companions to enter the tower which we can see is build beside a pit of some kind, suggesting there is more below the tower.
Page 2-5
The woman descends into the earth (Thompson F100) uttering magic words (Similar to the Summerian for The power of the sun, and fire) and spitting on a cone pod from a Cedar Tree* which bursts into flame to light her way. As she descend further we see even more of the T-shaped pillars, but unlike the ones above ground, these are cyclopean in scale.
In flashback we see a group of people who have led a white bull into the caves and the forest of stone pillars. There a huge dark figure looms out of the pit. Dark Buzur; rather than the common arabic word for seed (often applied to children), or the first name of the captain of Utnatapitshim’s ship in the mesopotamian flood myth, this refers to Summerian BUZUR – God of the Deep Mines (God Who Solves Secrets).
*The cedar is a tree of ritual as well as practical significance, historically speaking, to the people of the Levant. Much as the Ash was to the Norse people.
Page 6
Keepers of the House (of the Brethren of Ashkelon) at Dresden discuss a private painting commission (that resembles the tower from the previous pages, but as a ruin, a T-shaped stone remains in the foreground) with a 48 year old Scottish Orientalist Painter. The exhibition room is laden with paintings and sculpture as was the style of certain salons of the period, each seemingly referencing some myth or demonstration of Chaoskamph lore. The painting appears in no other collection, nor any notes or location data. The House at Dresden was lost to the allied bombing of the city on Valentines day 101 years later
…
Page 8
Harry and Ruth at the Brethren Meeting House in Oxford.
In the quad outside there appears a statue of Bellerophon defeating the Chimera, offspring of Echidna.
“She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay”
– Hesiod, Theogeny (trans. HEW)
Page 9
Hven, the place where early astronomer Tycho Brae lived and worked. There is a story of Tycho Brae owning a Moose that could count by tapping its hoof, and that he received a letter from a member of the aristocracy who had heard of this and wished to purchase the animal. It is said Tycho Brae replied explaining that his moose could not only count, but liked to get drunk, and during one such drunken outing had unfortunately fallen down the stairs of the castle and broken its neck.
Perhaps this is what Ruth was referencing in panel 2/3.
Page 11
Harry wonders why the chess pieces are tipped over…
During the Great War, particularly in early 1917, British aircraft squadrons flying open-cockpit biplanes were losing around two hundred aviators a month most with little more than a couple of moths training, and where a British pilot’s life expectancy was apparently eleven days. The tipping of chairs or the leaving of empty chairs in the mess or meeting spaces of these pilots was a mark of respect for those shot down with whom you may have shared the previous evenings meal or breakfast that day.
Father Mac might be enacting some kind of version of this. It perhaps suggests something of his character, a man who is not willing to hide from the cost of his work, and the effect that work has on others (i.e. leaving a record of the deaths of his “agents” all about his work space).
Page 18
Panels 2, 3 and 4… Possibly a bit soapbox-y, but lets face it, some of those people rendered in all there self-esteem issue/anger fuelled glory in Panel 3 would have a hard time getting their head around that there beloved aryan St George (as would Shakespeare’s Henry V no doubt) in fact being a Turk (some others say due to the fair hair in many of the depictions perhaps Darian, i.e. Iranian) who spoke Greek (his name is Greek also, and as stated later in the book, means farmer), he was born to a Syrian mother and a Turk father, and born in Roman occupied Syria Palaestina. He then perhaps fought at the front of an Italian (Roman) army, and his most talked of exploit (the dragon) was supposed (in some versions of the tale) happened in Africa (Libya), and he was eventually martyred in Diospolis, Palestine.
Not a foot was set by this guy in the UK, let alone England (lets face it, England as a concept wouldn’t even exist for another half a millennium).
But lets face it, the majority of jingoist racist bigots who rally behind the flag in this manner are pretty delusional or probably adverse to reading, so, do I care that they might feel confused or upset about this? No not really.
Maybe an Alfred the Great day would be a better option for them, but again, that might take a bit of reading to get their head around why, and so its not likely to happen is it. But I digress.
Page 20/21
These two pages echo in various degrees events that have no doubt happened again and again, in various cultures, echoing in turn the symbolic persecutions and destructions of culture in the various Culture Hero led Chaoskamph stories that have come down to us. Read the words, substituting modern political figures, and perhaps the word Palace toward the bottom of page 20, with Towers, and you have a very resonant set of images.
…
Further reading:
Motifs in Folklore – Thompson
Mesopotamian Mythology