Dragaera

Grateful Dead in Fenario

David Silberstein davids at kithrup.com
Sun Feb 9 23:40:00 PST 2003

On Sat, 8 Feb 2003, H. T. wrote:

>
>>From: Steven Brust wrote:

>>>Mord,fal:Grim,stuff/gobble/cushion/engorge (this I have absolutely no 
>>>idea)
>>
>>Cumberland, if I recall correctly.  A stretch, I know.
>
>No, not bad... Grim = blues; when one is stuffed or engorged one is 
>cumbered....

Yet, examining the dictionary closer, I see that "fal" also means
"wall", and "Mord-fal" is indeed among the "Grim-wall" mountains, so I
don't think (although I am not sure) the "engorged" meaning was meant.

I also note that there is a Grimtail Fissure, which is perhaps meant
to stand for the Cumberland Gap, and yet I still don't quite see the
connection between "Cumberland" and "Grim(tail/wall)" (although I note
that the Hungarian for "tail" is "far", one letter away from "fal",
and "r" is phonemically similar to "l")

The county of Cumberland was named for the Duke of Cumberland, who
defeated the forces of the Scots Jacobite forces of Charles Stuart at
Culloden (16 April 1746).  Digging deeper into "Cumberland" itself, it
would appear to derive from "[...] the land of the Cumber" in the
toungue of the English and described the lands inhabited by the
British. The British gave themselves the name Combrogi (cives in
Latin) which meant 'Fellow Countrymen'. More modern forms of the name
are Cymry in welsh or Cumber in english. [...] CumberLand was used to
describe the land of Northern Reghed from the sixth century to almost
the present day." [1]

No links to "Grim(tail/wall)" there.

Going back to the song, I note that "Cumberland Blues" is about
mining. [2] Could the "Grim Wall" be the face of the mine itself,
that the workers hewed and hacked at?

I am baffled.  Botheration.


[1] http://www.zensurweb.com/darkage/cumbria.htm

[2] For some reason, I thought of Master Li, who in the carefree days
    of his youth sold Emperor Wen some shares in a mustard mine. [3]
    Which is neither here nor there, but I thought it was amusing.

[3] "I was trying to win a bet concerning the intelligence of
    emperors."