The Red Wyvern - Katharine Kerr [181]
AURA The field of electromagnetic energy that permeates and emanates from every living being.
AVER (Dev.) A river.
BARA (Elv.) An enclitic that indicates that the preceding adjective in an elvish agglutinated word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as can+bara+melim = Rough River (rough+name marker+river).
BEL (Dev.) The chief god of the Deverry pantheon.
BEL (Elv.) An enclitic, similar in function to bara, except that it indicates that a preceding verb is the name of the following element in the agglutinated term, as in Darabeldal, Flowing Lake.
BLUE LIGHT Another name for the etheric plane (q.v.).
BODY OF LIGHT An artificial thought-form (q. v.) constructed by a dweomer-master to allow him or her to travel through the inner planes of existence.
BRIGGA (Dev.) Loose wool trousers worn by men and boys.
BROCH (Dev.) A squat tower in which people live. Originally, in the homeland, these towers had one big fireplace in the center of the ground floor and a number of booths or tiny roomlets up the sides, but by the time of our narrative, this ancient style has given way to regular floors with hearths and chimneys on either side of the structure.
CADVRIDOC (Dev.) A war leader. Not a general in the modern sense, the cadvridoc is supposed to take the advice and counsel of the noble-born lords under him, but his is the right of final decision.
CAPTAIN (trans. of the Dev. pendaely.) The second in command, after the lord himself, of a noble’s warband. An interesting point is that the word taely (the root or unmutated form of -daely,) can mean either a warband or a family depending on context.
CONABER (Elv.) A musical instrument similar to the panpipe but of even more limited range.
CWM (Dev.) A valley.
DAL (Elv.) A lake.
DUN (Dev.) A fort.
DWEOMER (trans. of Dev. dwunddaevad.) In its strict sense, a system of magic aimed at personal enlightenment through harmony with the natural universe in all its planes and manifestations; in the popular sense, magic, sorcery.
ELCYION LACAR (Dev.) The elves; literally, the “bright spirits,” or “Bright Fey.”
ENGLYN (Welsh, pl. englynion.) A metrical form, consisting of a three-line stanza, each stanza having seven syllables, though an extra syllable can be added to any given line. All lines have end rhymes as well. In Deverry at the time of which we write, this form was so much the rule that its name would translate merely as “short poem,” hence my use of the corresponding Welsh term to give it some definition.
ENSORCEL To produce an effect similar to hypnosis by direct manipulation of a person’s aura. (True hypnosis manipulates the victim’s consciousness only and thus is more easily resisted.)
ETHERIC The plane of existence directly “above” the physical. With its magnetic substance and currents, it holds physical matter in an invisible matrix and is the true source of what we call “life.”
ETHERIC DOUBLE The true being of a person, the electromagnetic structure that holds the body together and that is the actual seat of consciousness.
FOLA (Elv.) An enclitic that shows the noun preceding it in an agglutinated Elvish word is the name of the element following the enclitic, as in Corafolamelim, Owl River.
GEIS A taboo, usually a prohibition against doing something. Breaking geis results in ritual pollution and the disfavor if not active enmity of the gods. In societies that truly believe in geis, a person who breaks it usually dies fairly quickly, either of morbid depression or some unconsciously self-inflicted “accident,” unless he or she makes ritual amends.
GERTHDDYN (Dev.) Literally, a “music man,” a wandering minstrel and entertainer of much lower status than a true bard.
GREAT ONES Spirits, once human but now disincarnate, who exist on an unknowably high plane of existence and who have dedicated themselves to the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings. They are also known to the Buddhists as Boddhisattvas.