Epistle of Telgolous/
Epistle of Calbanurspaby
Hodie iam duobus vicibus aetatem Domini nostri Iesu Christi habeo et hominem ultimum video qui parvulus mecum fuit, Eldinum baptizatum in Asthaea, in cuius aquis Dolbarcideus Matrem nostram vidit. Mater mea ante quartum diem mortua est, quae usque ad horam ultimam suam fidem nostram a Domino recipere declinavit. Nomen suum Atharhaecygria fuit et in suo lecto iconem[1] Stigis falsi dei Symbaianorum tenens, spiritum suum dedit Celbalo, Ergo[2], Patri nostri. Theophilus[3] iuvenis hodie sedecim annos natus, ab aetate, qua intelligere potuit ad nostram pervenit curiam ut nos doctores eum instrueremus, et hodie loquitur lingua Ciceronis et lingua Homerica et iam paucos annos ei linguam Merinianorum doceo, si in voluntate Dei ut pugnent nobiscum. Telgolus, qui Christianus bonus est, licet superbia sua Christiana non sit. Quot Ulixes a domo sua aberat, tot annos in Cipto, in Egbarilae terris habitat cum duobus Christianis Tharcaeanis, Galidecio Mobaraepeoque. Ultimo mense misit ad me litteras, dicens mihi, quod iudex Tharcaeanus unum eum ad interrogandum vocavit, quod suspicaretur se esse Christianum, sed ille, qui intelligens est, fabulam de ortu falsorum deorum Tharcaeanorum recitavit. Et littera sua sic legitur.
Scriptum a Lympicyrge.
To you, the one most loved by the Lord[1], who educates all our brothers in the kingdoms of the Symbaians, Scelbonaspal, I speak to you[2] today to tell you about the days of your brothers on the other bank of the Bittulme, in Cipta . Know that, at first light, we have walked through the market, searching through the etaes[3] of salt. But before Lospidomus[4] ascended to the highest sky, he spread the gelcondus[5] and we entered the house of one of the merchants, who received us with love, who was called by the name of Coratabura and was an old man, with wrinkled skin and white hair, and his strength did not allow him to open the earth and look for salt, but he went to look for it in the wells that were near the shores of the sea, like you and I do, although he had learned this maneuver late[6]. The cold did not leave the market for two or three days and the good old man spent the afternoons telling us a story about the men of the skies[7] that described to them the how and why of the passing of the days.
According to Coratabura, many centuries before, when the sun and the moon did not exist, there was a young king of Pascrande, with the name of Iliobncon[8], and his brother, with the name of Ilcascon[9]. Walking through the eternal night they reached the Colus and the wood of some ash trees there made a boat and, when they could see the shore of Cendaloronay, they came across a small castle on the waters, made of sharp ice. And climbing onto its floor they met Imbidmus[10], who received them in his dwelling to eat. But Iliobncon liked the gold cutlery that adorned the man from sky's table and kept them in his clothes, thinking that he would not notice. But the men, whom the Tharcaians worship, see everything and turned Iliobncon's gatiort into fire, which burned his hands, causing him to release it. Imbidmus told Ilcascon that he knew that he had always wanted to reign over Pascrande and that, as a man from sky, he would grant him everything if he lifted the gatiort from the ground before his brother could. Then the young man, without thinking, took the fire gatiort and ran towards the boat. Then Imbidmus told Iliobncon, with his hands burning, that, if he wanted to recover his kingdom, he must recover it from the hands of his brother. Then he ran after his brother and Imbidmus took them to the sky and made them stars. And to this day the Tharcaians see Iliobncon, whom they call Ginit, pursue day after day his brother, Ilcascon, whom they call Lospidomus, to recover his light.
Then the old man lit the fire and Galidecius[11] broke a loaf of bread and gave each of them a piece to eat while he cooked part of the deer, which we had hunted the day before and took to the market to sell[12]. And at this time of day, Coratabura told us another story, in which a woman went with her two sons to hunt reindeer around Inamamaly. And while the child was sleeping and the mother was assembling the gartiorts[13], the brother went to hunt hares in the tundra, but when he was so far away that his mother could not see him, some wolves approached and, unceremoniously, devoured the child. Upon hearing the screams, her brother woke up and her mother went to the wolves, leaving the child and the weapons and, upon reaching the place where the wolves were with her son, they pounced on the woman and devoured her as well. Then the boy went to the wolves, but they had gone and left the remains of the bodies of his brother and mother. And the boy, full of pain and fury, went to look for the wolves with his mother's weapons. And Nergmus gave the boy the strength so that the wolves would not do the same to him and he killed the animals with the gartiorts. But the boy's fury was great and, without paying attention to the will of the man from the sky, he went to the pack from which they had come and killed all the wolves in it. And so he did, until he killed all the wolves in the Colus tundra. But Nergmus saw this and could not allow there to be no wolves, because otherwise no animal would kill the hares, which would be born ten by ten. Then he exchanged the boy's skin for the dead flesh of the wolves and exchanged his teeth for the fangs of the animals that were lying on the ground. He exchanged the child's fingers for the tips of the weapons and the man from sky wanted the child to live there and hunt the hares so that they would not have more sons than Imbidmus wanted. This is the beast that devours the inamamalecians of the tundra.
After telling us this, the old man removed the meat from the fire and, cutting it into parts, distributed it among us: he gave the first piece to Mobarepe[14], the second to me, the third to Galidecius and the fourth he took for himself. We ate right there and, after eating, we sat on the ground and Coratabura began another story saying that there were three snakes that crossed the waters of the sea: Identi[15], the one that remembers past events, Elga[16], the one who directs the things that happen, and Jeri[17], who goes before us in the things that will happen to us. The Tharcaians pray to them when they need to know the things that come to them or the things that happened. Calgmus went to them one day, because she wanted to know which races should eat which. Identi told her that those who walk on two feet were eaten by wolves and bears. Elga told her that those who walk on two feet killed hares and deer with sharp stones and sticks. And Jeri told her that those who walk on two feet would kill the wolves and the bears and that one day they would stop being eaten by them. But Calgmus feared that these would multiply and eat the rest of the animals, so she made the wolves tear off part of their meat, so that they would be smaller. She made the crows tear out their fangs and claws, until they could not cut. And she plucked all the hair from their bodies, so that the winds could calm them and make them need shelter and refuge, so that they would not be outside hunting all day.
After telling this, Coratabura prepared beds for us, but we were not yet exhausted, so when we returned I asked him to tell us another story and the old man, with great affability, continued with the last story of a dalgiacib[18] who lived in Farinte. These are animals whose flesh does not have an image, like water, and, like water, they can change, resembling the bodies of men. He used to steal the fish of merchants who returned from the sea to the city and one day, during a robbery, he murdered one of them. Then several Farintaians followed him and the beast entered the house of a woman who lived with her two twin sons. Upon entering, the residents saw that the animal had turned its skin into the same as that of the children and, not knowing what to do, they decided to kill the three children. And they would have done so, but the mother, who was smart, told them she could tell which were her sons and which was the impersonator. Thus, the woman told the three children to play a gapsitbier[19]. The first played a beautiful melody, the second played a different one, but when they reached the third, he repeated the same melody as the first. Then the woman told the three children to sing. The first did nothing, the second sang a beautiful melody, but when he reached the third, he repeated the same melody as the second. Then the mother told the Farintaians that the merchant's murderer was the third child, because at first he copied the melody that was played with the gapsitbier, thinking that the mother had taught the son a melody, but the child who sings was deaf, so this third child could not be this son and, secondly, he copied the melody that the other child was singing, thinking that the mother had taught him another melody, but the child who playes the gapsitbier was mute, therefore what this third child could not be, this son.
This was the last story that Coratabura told us and, although we had spent several days in his house without anything happening to us, on the fourth day a man arrived, who wanted to buy the meat of our deer, because he had heard in the market that I was talking about how good our salt was; and I went with him to his cart and there he made me meet his father. Then the man said, «Some of the city told us that they had heard you talk about your salt and so we went to the market, where they told us that it is true, that it was the best salt of all that they sold there; This is why I brought you here, so that you could talk to us and show us how good it is.» But I knew that he wanted to deceive us and that is why I told him «This salt is the best, because the men from sky brought it[20], it is the one that adorns the waves and the same one that brought us to this ground." This salt fell on the waters before there were all beings. This joined together over the centuries until mountains were born, rising above the waters. Little by little the salt cooled and turned white, like the hair of the animals. This became the floors beneath us. But the salt that fell on the salt that had turned into snow cut it, separated one from the other, and from these pieces came the first bears, the first owls, the first wolves, the first hares. And from among the foam and salt of the sea two beautiful men were born, Gelgmus and Nergmus, both with golden hair and bright eyes. They scraped his skin with their fingers and from the salt that fell into the waters another black-haired man was born, Rospomus, who touched the snow on the ground with his hands and from this a white-haired woman, Etaste[21], was born. She stood up, parts of her flesh falling out onto the snow, from which two twin brothers were born, a man and a woman, Imbidmus and Calgmus. Then these two took pieces of snow from the ground and with these they molded a deer, the size of which was like that of the trees. All the men in the sky fed on her milk, who called her by the name of Tasacalba[22], and all the creatures on the snow, until one day a group of wolves approached the deer and, in a shower of teeth, and bitten, they killed her and tore her flesh to pieces. His flesh fell on the snow and was bathed by the waters of the sea, it was divided into smaller pieces and these became the first of the Tharcaians.»
This writing is directed towards Scebonaspal[23], in Thargathe, from Calbanurmspaby.
[a] An ascy (avskíαs), an ancient religious statuette that represented a Symbaian deity.
[b] Celbalus, Latinization of Kelbáloys, a word that the Symbaians used to translate Dominus. Ergus, for its part, is the Latinization of Ergôys, the masculine definite of érga (“god”), the word that the Symbains used to translate Deus.
[c] Zêiφals in Symbaians . He was the son of Slatiel of Telmither.
[1] To refer to God, Telgolous uses the word Inama, “King”, following the Symbaian Christian tradition in which Kelbáloys (“king”, “lord”) is used as a synonym for Dominus.
[2] In the original: gogad. Due to the constant contact of centuries, between wars and exchanges, the Tharcaian was already at that time full of symbaianisms, such as the verb gogatis; However, the Epistle of Telgolous has a number of these loanwords (such as gogatis, pariktis, dar, fal, isu, sgureg) that were not so common among the native Tharcaians, especially during that period of isolationism, except among the Tharcaians Christianized, who had been maintaining constant contact with the Symbaians for a long time.
[3] oitæ, clay amphora of Tharcic-Merínic origin.
[4] The Tharcaian god of sun.
[5] gelkondo, cold wind in Tharcaia that came from the north.
[6] This entire story is actually in code, so that the Tharcaian censors would not understand what Telgolous wanted to communicate to Lumpicurx. When he says that they had been walking through the market "through the etaes of salt" he means that they were walking through the community of Christians, inspecting them. “Salt” is the metaphor to refer to these, shortened to the evangelical metaphor of light and salt. The gelcondus is a metaphor to refer to the Tharcaian generals, who were patrolling Cipta. This is why Telgolous and his companions entered the house of a “salt merchant”, that is, they took refuge from the generals in the house of a Christian from Cipta. This Christian, Coratabura, is a man of pagan origin who has converted to Christianity when he was old, according to what Telgolous says. He did not open the earth to look for salt, but rather looked for it in the deposits near the sea, “like us.” This means that he had not learned the faith from his upbringing, from the land, but rather he had learned it as an adult, like Telgolus and Lumpicurx, through others (they left salt on the land through the waters of the sea).
[7] With “men of the skies”, krilasi udæs, Telgolous was referring to the Tharcaian deities. This expression made sense to the censors because the Tharcaian precisely conceived of their gods as “men” who lived in sky. The word udmu ("god") itself came from the Tharcic-Merinic *ud(a)-mu, composed of the roots *ud(a), “sky,” and *mu, “person.” Telgolous also used this expression to avoid using udmu, due to its pagan meaning and to avoid falling into the recognition of polytheism.
[8] Illøbnkom, “he who seeks the light.
[9] Ilkaskom, “he who steals the light.”
[10] Imbidmo, Tharcaian god of life and death.
[11] One of Telgolous' companions.
[12] The deer was clearly food that Telgolous and his companions brought to the Christians of the community, which they began to eat before it rotted. However, this part contains an inconsistency for the censors, since it is strange that they ate a deer that they had destined for trade, having salt available to preserve it.
[13] gartjort, Tharcaian hunting spear.
[14] The other of Telgolous' companions.
[15] Identi, "she who knows".
[16] Elga, "she who runs".
[17] Jeri,"she who goes".
[18] dalgjakib, “water skin”. They are mythological creatures capable of changing shape. They committed crimes such as robbery, murder and child kidnapping. These beings were used by the Tharcaians to explain the disappearances of children that were never explained. In the same way, they also served to explain those cases in which it was discovered that an innocent person was convicted of a crime that he had not committed, understanding that the true perpetrator was a dalgiacib who had taken the form of the condemned. The description below, like the other descriptions in the epistle, is due to the fact that Telgolous also sought to inform Lumpicurx of the myths of the Tharcaians, which were not known to the Symbaians.
[19] gapsidbjer, Tharcaian wooden flute.
[20] This fragment is also written in code, which is understood from the fact that it is introduced by an adversative conjunction, dar, which is out of harmony with the calm atmosphere that was being discussed. The man who comes to buy meat is a Tharcaian general, who came to look for Telgelous because he had heard him speaking in Symbaian and took him to a judge, whom he referred to as "his father." By “he had heard in the market” he means that someone from the Christian community of Cipta had betrayed him. With “the man said he wanted to hear me talk about our salt” Telgolous means that the judge had told him to speak in Symbaian, in order to sentence him. But Telgolous, instead, decides to tell him the Tharcaian cosmogonic myth with the aim of making him believe that he was Tharcaian and pagan. Although for the censor it is somewhat implausible that Telgolous-Calbanurmspaby would have described the creation myth in such detail to the client, understanding that he would omit details because it is something known to all Tharcaians, the function of this description is, again, to inform Lumpicurx of this myth. The letter ends this myth because Telgolous did not see it necessary by assuming that Lumpicurx would understand that the judge had believed him, since if not, the epistolist would not be alive to be able to write the letter.
[21] Etaste, Tharcaian goddess of the earth.
[22] Tasakalba, “she who gives to everyone”.
[23] Skelbonaspal, “wolf eyes.” It is the Tharcaian name with which Telgolous addresses Lumpicurx incognito. It is the literal translation of "Lumpicurgo", which means "wolf eyes" in Symbaian.