this is in part a copy/paste from my previous post, but i think there might be something going on with the path of chains that merits more investigation...
Celean:
“Someday I will go there and learn it. I will go everywhere, and I will learn all the Ketans there are. I will learn the hidden ways of the ribbon and the chain and of the moving pool. I will learn the paths of joy and passion and restraint. I will have all of them.”
u/tp3000 once commented:
Isnt there a group of tehlin priest called the chainers? I remember seeing them on the deck of cards but my memory is shot.
Indeed. See card image here.
this is from the midwinter pageant:
Grey-robed priests followed along beside the wagon, ringing bells and chanting. Many of them wore the heavy iron chains of penitent priests. The sound of the voices and the bells, the chanting and the chains mingled to make a sort of music.
There are about ~30 mentions of chains in NOTW/WMF. More than half are from the Tehlu-Encanis chapter.
But Tehlu chained him tightly to the wheel, hammering the links together, sealing them tighter than any lock.
Encanis strained against the chains, his body arching upward as he pulled against them. Where the iron touched his skin it felt like knives and needles and nails, like the searing pain of frost, like the sting of a hundred biting flies.
Interestingly, the iron wheel apparently rings like a bell when Encanis lies:
"Your road is very short, Encanis. But you may still choose a side on which to travel."
Encanis laughed. "You will give me the same choice you give the cattle? Yes then, I will cross to yourside of the path, I regret and rep—"
The wheel rung again, like a great bell tolling long and deep. Encanis threw his body tight against the chains again and the sound of his scream shook the earth and shattered stones for half a mile in each direction.
When the sounds of wheel and scream had faded, Encanis hung panting and shaking from his chains.
"I told you to speak no lie, Encanis," Tehlu said, pitiless.
"My path then!" Encanis shrieked.
This line may also be significant:
Encanis screamed in fury and in disbelief, for though he was forced back onto the burning wheel, and though he felt the strength of Tehlu was greater than chains he had broken, he saw Tehlu was burning in the flames.
So far we've got:
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The midwinter pageant penitent priests carrying chains and pulling a cart Tehlu is riding on.
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A card showing a Tehlin penitent priest (we at least think it's a priest?) called a "Chainer" carrying The Book of the Path, which has a wheel on the cover.
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Tehlu chaining Encanis to an iron wheel and coercing him to tell the truth.
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Vashet, whose name means The Spinning Wheel and The Hammer.
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The Adem, at least in Haert, who speak of "iron worth striking."
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Tehlu, who hits people, including Encanis, with his hammer to make them repent and drive demons from them.
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The moment when Tehlu hits Encanis with his hammer, and the hammer breaks:
And thus it was that at the end of Felling Tehlu caught Encanis. He leaped on the demon and struck him with his forge hammer. Encanis fell like a stone, but Tehlu's hammer shattered and lay in the dust of the road.
- An Adem path called (presumably) the path of the chain.
The school in Haert seems to involve some level of pain and struggle. Vashet puts Kvothe through a test of resolve with the willow switch, and he observes that many of the Adem mercenaries have scars from the sword tree leaves. Is it necessary to suffer to learn the Lethani?
And, if yes, is it possible that the schools that follow the path of the Chain use a technique similar to some degree to the Tehlu-Encanis story? You're bound to a (spining?) wheel, forced to learn to tell the truth, and the goal is to either figure out how to endure the chains or overcome them...?
u/qoou also noted a while back these similarities between Encanis' binding and Kvothe's binding under the iron law:
Where the iron touched his skin it felt like knives and needles and nails, like the searing pain of frost, like the sting of a hundred biting flies. Encanis thrashed on the wheel and began to howl as the iron burned and bit and froze him.
compare to:
The grim man ignored me and turned to one of the constables. “Bind him.” One of the constables drew out a length of clattering iron chain. [...]
Everyone at Anker’s watched as I was bound hand and foot in chains. [...] They marched me the long way back to Imre. Over Stonebridge and down the flat expanse of the great stone road. All the way the winter wind chilled the iron around my hands and feet until it burned and bit and froze my skin.
Both of them were bound with iron. (It's still TBD what relationship this may has to Haliax's binding Ferula (fehr+ule) and/or Chronicler's binding Bast.)
A few more things, related to fire:
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Tehlu and Encanis burned together in a pit.
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The harvest festival involves burning effigies of shamblemen.
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Back in the day, arcanists (and apparently folks with red hair) used to be burned at the stake for things like consortation.
It had been a hundred years sinceanyone had been burned for Consortation or Unnatural Arts, but the laws were still there.
which is what Kvothe is charged with:
“Kvothe, Arliden’s son,” he read aloud to the room, his voice clear and strong. “In the sight of these witnesses I bind you to stand to your own account before the iron law. You are charged with Consortation with Demonic Powers, Malicious Use of Unnatural Arts, Unprovoked Assault, and Malfeasance.”
Dal, later:
Dal gave a humorless chuckle. “That was a brush with the old days, wasn’t it?” He shook his head. “Consortation with Demons. Good lord.”
and Kvothe gets out of it by using the Hempen Verse:
there’s two lines in the Book of the Path, and if you can read them out loud in the old Tema only priests know, then the iron law says you get treated like a priest. That means a Commonwealth judge can’t do a damn thing to you. If you read those lines, your case has to be decided by the church courts.”
“Those two lines are called the hempen verse, because if you know them, you can keep yourself from getting strung up. The church courts can’t hang a man, you see.
Submitted March 29, 2019 at 11:08PM by loratcha https://ift.tt/2HNX9se
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