The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)(93)
MYTHS
KER-YS
When I was looking for a setting for Book Two, I wondered where to go after Paradise. Two choices presented themselves: a utopia or a hell. Ker-Ys is a bit of both.
Ker-Ys itself is a myth, but I based my description of it loosely on Mont Saint-Michel, an island commune off the coast of France, accessible by a strip of land only exposed by low tide. As noted in the novel, the legend gives different names given for Dahut (or Ahes). In addition, the king’s name is alternately given as Gralon, Granlon, or Gradlon (the version “Grand L’Un” is my own invention). Gradlon the Great was a popular hero of many Celtic myths from the fifth century; Saint Guinole (aka Saint Winwaloe) also lived during that time. But the story of Ker-Ys likely originated much later, near the end of the fifteenth century, after which it was told and retold in various different versions, including Emile Souvestre’s 1844 Foyer breton.
Ker-Ys is not the only lost land in Celtic lore: Lyonesse and Cantr’er Gwaelod are similar legends. Interestingly, during both the fifth and the fifteenth centuries, two geological events took place that might have inspired these stories. Between 400 and 500 A.D., rising sea levels flooded a great island off the Cornish Peninsula, turning it into an archipelago now called the Isles of Scilly. And in the fifteenth century, Europe was under the frozen spell of the Little Ice Age, where glacial expansion lowered sea levels again. These real-life events may have given rise to tales of sunken cities.
THE ORACLE AT BOEOTIA
The story of Trophonius also has several versions. Some say he was a hero, others that he was a demon, still others than he was a god. In one origin story, he and his brother built Apollo’s temple at Delphi—in another, the two siblings robbed a king’s treasury. The second version is the one I used. Either way, Trophonius disappeared into a cavern at Lebadea to become a chthonic being.
His cavern and his cult were described in detail by Pausanias, the great second-century geographer. Unfortunately, the primary documents were lost, and his words survive only through a fifteenth-century copy filled with errors. Still, the ritual by which petitioners would seek knowledge seems terrifying—so much so that “to descend into the cave of Trophonius” was another way of saying “to be frightened out of one’s wits.”
After making sacrifices and drinking the sacred waters, one would enter into a narrow hole in the ground, with a feeling akin to being buried alive. There, afraid and alone, the petitioner would be given a glimpse of the future, after which they would be spit out of the earth. The priests would then carry the gibbering victim to the temple and seat him on the Mnemosyne Throne, where his ramblings would be recorded and shaped into prophecy before they were forgotten.
Pausanias also mentioned the two mythic rivers—the Lethe and the Mnemosyne—that bubbled up in springs beside the cavern. Here geography shades to myth; though the Herkyna River is fed by springs in the area, the Lethe and the Mnemosyne are most commonly found in Hades, as in Plato’s Myth of Er.
HISTORY
DONALD CROWHURST’S LAST VOYAGE
In 1968, Donald Crowhurst set out from England on a trimaran called Teignmouth Electron, in the hopes of winning a single-handed race around the world. At first, he seemed a long shot: his boat was untested, he was competing against much more experienced sailors, and he’d had a string of personal and business failures to date. Still, he was certain he could win—in fact, he had to win. His debts left no other option.
Surprisingly, he reported record speeds sailing south toward the Horn and soon became a media darling; after six months, as competitors dropped out of the race through choice or circumstance, he became a sure thing. Welcome parties were planned, grand ceremonies and parades—and an inspection of his logbooks, of course, just to make sure everything was on the level. All of that was set aside when the Teignmouth Electron was found drifting in the Sargasso Sea, abandoned without sign of a storm or struggle.
The ship’s clock was missing, along with one of his logbooks—likely, the one in which he’d recorded the fake version of his journey: the version where he raced around the world at record-breaking speeds. Review of the books left behind pointed to Crowhurst’s probable fate—suicide after eight months of solitude and pressure—though as in any mysterious disappearance, some people are certain he survived.
Either way, his logbooks show a descent into madness and despair, countered by an odd certainty that he had unlocked the secrets of the universe. References to “the game” and becoming a “cosmic being” are taken from those passages. For readers interested in further information, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, by Tomalin and Hall, was invaluable to me.
THE THIRD VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN JAMES COOK
Nearly two hundred years before Crowhurst, another famous mariner set out on his own final voyage. By 1776, Captain James Cook had circumnavigated the globe twice. Hailed as a hero, he’d been made a fellow of the Royal Society and was given an honorary retirement by the royal navy as well as the Copley Gold medal.
Certainly he’d come a long way from his apprenticeship days, and no one would have blamed him for taking his retirement. But something drove him back to sea. Perhaps it was his ambition, which he said led him “not only farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go.” On this voyage, though, Cook went too far.
By all accounts, he’d been a fair and beloved leader, but something changed between his second and third voyages. Though he was greeted warmly upon his arrival in Hawaii, he wore out his welcome rather quickly with his irrational behavior and demands. When a group of frustrated Hawaiians stole one of Cook’s small boats, Cook himself marched up to the king of Hawaii and attempted to hold him as ransom for the return of the cutter. The Hawaiians fought back, and Cook was struck and killed in the fray.