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Almost Middle-earth
Many readers have noted the similarity in feel and scope between J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth and Andre Norton's Witch World (and some of her other created worlds). But whereas Tolkien built his worlds around the languages he devised for them, language plays only a very small role in Andre's stories.
When Simon Tregarth first enters the Witch World, he is challenged to learn the language spoken by the beautiful woman he rescues (Jaelithe, his future wife). The reader is spared a lengthy lesson in language and the story soon makes the transition through a narrational interlude in which Tregarth learns to speak with the people of his new world.
From that point onward, save for a few arcane incantations used to summon evil powers, everyone in Witch World seems to speak the same language. Even more odd, perhaps, is the almost total disconnect between the various place-names in the world and the language of the characters. The names have the typical "fantasy" feel to them, but they seldom strike the reader as being out-of-place or awkward. Norton's expositional skills intricately weave a sense of familiarity around names such as Ha Harc, Estcarp, Escore, and High Hallack.
Despite the absence of a linguistic perspective on Witch World, Norton provides the curious reader with a vast collection of anecdotes, asides (usually provided by the characters in their own thoughts), and historical data which flesh out the world.
Although only a few maps of Witch World have been published, enough geographical data is available for readers to track the stories across the landscape. Indeed, at least one map attempts to identify nearly every major point of interest in most of the Estcarp/Karsten/Escore stories.
Like Tolkien, Norton identified one of her continents (Estcarp) specifically with Europe. Unlike Tolkien, she specifically identified another continent (High Hallack) with North America. These identifications are not intended to be metaphorical, but rather simply show how Ms. Norton draws upon real history for inspiration. High Hallack is a younger land than Estcarp and Escore, but like Earth, the Witch World has survived a horrendous war or series of wars in which all of civilization was almost destroyed.
Both Middle-earth and the Witch World look forward because of the irreversible progress of time. In Middle-earth, Time is delayed in some regions by Elven magic. In the Witch World, time is a path which winds between gates. Hilarion, an adept who made a gate to another world, returned to his home with the help of Simon, Jaelithe, and Kaththea only to discover that a thousand years or more had passed since his departure.
Both Norton and Tolkien portray technology as an alternative to magic which is relied upon by "evil" creatures. Norton's technologists are the Kolder, survivors of an apocalyptic war from another world who attempt to conquer the Witch World. They ally themselves with the people of Alizon, who gladly take the Kolder technology and use it to brutally attack other nations, including Estcarp and High Hallack.
There are no Ents or Hobbits in Witch World, nor anything like Orcs, but the dark powers who trouble the good peoples -- especially in the earlier stories, when Ms. Norton was still exploring the potential for the Witch World, are so mysterious and so hostile that the reader almost feels their palpitating anger and hatred.
Many fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, craving more of the look and feel of Middle-earth, will find some satisfaction in reading Andre Norton's Witch World stories.
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Well, this is a pretty ambitious page. I cannot in one sitting define and describe all the cultures that one may encounter in the Witch World stories. But this list will grow as I update the site. I will also try to flesh out the descriptions with citations from the books, where appropriate.
The Old race
As best I can determine, these are the original or second-oldest inhabitants of the Witch World (after the Tor-Men of Tor Marsh). As the Old Race grew in power and gave birth to the Adepts, some members of the Old Race changed in nature, or were shaped by their progenitors, so that they no longer resembled their human ancestors.
- The Old Race In Escore
The Old Race all but obliterated itself in the great war of the ancient Adepts. There were several cities and many homesteads. The Adepts became great lords, building fortresses and towers in many cases. Some, like Loskeetha, simply created refuges for themselves where they could dwell with whatever creatures they felt a kinship toward. By the time Simon Tregarth's family arrived in Escore, there were very few members of the Old Race (of pure blood) left. Even the people of the Valley of the Green Silences were partially of some other kindred. The restoration of Ha Harc helped reinvigorate the Old Race, as well as the immigration of families from Karsten.
- The Old Race In Estcarp
It seems a majority of the Old Race of Escore fled across the mountains to settle in the land that became known as Estcarp. Most of them returned to their old lifestyles, farming and ranching. But they built several cities, the largest of which was Es City. Lormt seems to have been the most ancient of Estcarp's cities, close to the border that was forgotten. Eventually families migrated south across the mountains and settled in lands that later became Karsten. The Old Race of Estcarp welcomed the new peoples who settled in Gorm and Karsten, men who did not have a Talent in their blood, and who came to fear the Witches.
It was the Witches of Estcarp who saved this remnant of the Old Race. Their first great act was to raise the mountains between Estcarp and Escore. As in the Turning which destroyed the army of Pagar, Duke of Karsten, when it marched north against Estcarp, many of the early Witches must have spent themselves. But they founded the Place of Wisdom, a refuge where they could live in solitude and train new Witches. The leader of the Witches ruled Estcarp as the Great Guardian, commanding an army of soldiers who defended the borders as needed, while the Witches watched over their people against other threats.
According to THE MAGESTONE, which is a collaborative work, Lormt was founded by adepts of Escore who were of the Light. There is no mention of the Witches, but the story in Elsenar's journal seems intended to explain how the adepts destroyed themselves in a vain attempt to open a huge gate, thus leaving Estcarp under the protection of the Witches. The account does not agree with what we are told in THREE AGAINST THE WITCH WORLD, where supposedly Kaththea's familiar learned the entire story of Escore's rise and fall and related this to the Tregarth children.
However, having now re-read the earlier account, I can admit that it doesn't explicitly state that only the Witches left Escore. But one gets the impression from the early books that men never used the Power in Estcarp until Simon Tregarth showed up.
The Witches maintained that in order to use Power they must not give themselves to men (sexually). So their very attentiveness to the appearance of Talent among the girls of the Old Race led to a natural selectivity which was gradually breeding the Talent out of Estcarp's people. And though men of the Old Race could develop Talent, the Witches seem to have repressed it in the men of Estcarp and Karsten because the Adepts who had rent Escore were mostly men.
During their journey through Karsten, Simon and Koris discussed the history of the Old Race (as Koris knew it). The dwindling occurred faster in Karsten because the Old Race there bred true, whereas in Estcarp they intermarried to some extent with the Sulcar, who alone of the Witch World's races were able to produce offspring with the Old Race (without magical assistance). Of course, all the in intermarriages in the Dales might have been influenced by Sulcar blood, but this is not indicated.
- The Old Race In Arvon
Like the Old Race of Escore, those of Arvon delved deeply into the ways of Power, and some choosing the path of Dark brought on great tumults which nearly destroyed the Old Race and their creatures. But there was no great exodus from Arvon. The war had winners and losers, and many of the losers were driven into exile while the Four Clans retained a measure of power over their land. In time, some of the half-breeds, like the Were-riders, were allowed to return, and gradually a new social order began to emerge as Arvon adapted to the return of powerful creatures to its domain.
The Sulcar
- Sulcarkeep
Sulcarkeep is the only city ever mentioned among the Sulcar. It was built with the aid and blessing of the Witches of Estcarp about 100 years before Simon Tregarth entered the Witch World. More than just city, Sulcarkeep was a fortress intended to protect the families of these seaborne merchants and warriors in times of great peril. The harbor could contain many ships, on which the families normaly lived out their lives. Sulcarkeep was taken by the Kolder and destroyed by the Sulcar rather than allowed to fall into enemy hands.
The Sulcar came from another world in their ships. They were chased away by an alien race which had opened a gate into their world to escape some catastrophe. The Sulcar apparently tried to hunt down the aliens, who turned out to be more powerful than the Sulcar. Only a few ships escaped with the aid of an adept through a gate to Witch World.
- The Sea-Raiders of Escore
Kaththea Tregarth recognized the kinship of these barbaric raiders with the Sulcar allies of Estcarp when she encountered them on the far eastern shores of Escore. The Sulcar originally entered the Witch World through a gate in the far northern seas, but they appear to have dispersed in the course of their wanderings and lost contact with one or more groups. The Sea-Raiders of Escore were more primitive and warlike than Magnus Osberic's people, having little if any of the technology of Sulcarkeep.
Since no explanation is given for where these sea raiders came from, or what their relationship to the Sulcar might be, one could suppose they were descended from outcasts who fell away from Sulcar society, or perhaps were lost in storms, unable to navigate their way back to the main fleet in the first or second generation after the Sulcar entered Witch World.
The Falconers
- The People of Salzarat
This race originally entered the Witch World through some gate, fleeing danger in another world. They established the city or land of Salzarat, where an Adept or near-Adept, a woman of great power, enslaved them all. One man broke her spell long enough for the Falconers to imprison her and flee, leaving many of their comrades behind in permanent ensorcelment. Because of the domination and terror of a woman adept, the Falconers made their own women slaves, used only for breeding.
- The Eyrie and its Breeding Villages
The survivors of Salzarat fled aboard Sulcar ships and settled in the mountains between Estcarp and Karsten. The women and children were settled in villages which were closely guarded. Each year select men were sent from the Falconers' fortress, the Eyrie, to mate with the women but not to form permanent relationships with them. The children of these pairings were examined and, if found defective, killed. The boys would eventually be taken from their mothers and raised in the Eyrie, a vast mountain complex. The Falconers were closer to their hunting birds than they were to their women. Nonetheless, they formed an alliance with the Witches of Estcarp, riding with the Borderers of Estcarp, the soldiers used by the Witches to maintain Estcarp's security against non-magical threats.
- The Falconers in High Halleck
After the Turning, in which the mountains between Estcarp and Karsten were churned and raised up to destroy the army of Pagar, the Falconers were once again refugees. As the social order in Estcarp broke down due to the Witches' loss of political power, so too the social order among the Falconers was threatened. One group settled in High Halleck, merging with the people of two dales which were threatened by their neighbors. The resulting blend of cultures and blood produced a new alliance that also made the Falconers examine their old fears and prejudices.
The Dalesmen of High Halleck
The Dalesmen entered the Witch World through a gate of their own opening. They came in ordered clans, preceded by a miliatary order called The Brotherhood of the Sword. The clans marched north along the coast for some time, leaving behind them the gate they had passed through and whatever bitterness their past lives represented.
The Brotherhood of the Sword (which included some women) had scouted out the Dales, creating maps and marking areas which seemed dangerous to them, mostly places where ruins had been left behind by the people of Arvon. The clans agreed to parcel out the land by lot, but the results of the drawing were not satisfying to all the houses. Some of them fell to bartering with each other for better stakes. A few houses got what they wanted or land that was sufficient for their needs.
As the Dalesmen settled in their new home they established cities and abbeys. Their religion was centered around the Flame, whatever that should be. But it became mingled with other beliefs, so that only the Dames of the Abbeys preserved the old tradition. These "pagan" beliefs must have stemmed from experiences acquired in the ruins of the Old Race, or in encounters with them.
- The Northern Dales
- The Southern Dales
- The Trading Cities
There were at least five or six trading cities, at least of which were situated on the coast: Handelsburg, Vennesport, and Jorby. Komm High was a marketplace in northern High Halleck near Nordendale, possibly near Grimmerdale. Trevamper was an inland town or city located near Jorby (which was also called Jurby).
- The Abbeys
There was an abbey in Lethendale (possibly also called Landendale?). There was also Abbey Norstead, located in northern High Halleck. In "Dragonscale Silver" (a short story in SPELL OF THE WITCH WORLD) Dame Wirtha tells Elys she had once served in the House of Kantha Twice Born but does not give the location. I don't know if there were other abbeys. The Dames lived independently in a very cloistered life, but their abbeys became refuges for the wives and daughters of the Dale-lords whose families survived the invasion from Alizon.
Dame Wirtha says to Elys, "Also, Kantha Twice Born had the Old Learning herself in her time and her daughters are of a different thought than those of other abbeys."
Other Groups
- The Hounds of Alizon
The Hounds came through a gate to the Witch World like other races. They apparently were socially ordered like dogs, speaking of siblings as littermates, and basing their customs and family structures on lines similar to the customs associated with dogs and breeding.
In THE MAGESTONE we learn that the Alizonders were clannish and ruled by barons, who in turn elected a Lord Baron to lead their council and more-or-less govern the nation. Each baron raised the peculiar hounds they used for hunting men, and they paid great attention to their breeding programs. The Alizonders reckoned descent from various Lines, being families (packs) established by original immigrants from the home world (where, presumably, the greater part of the race was left to endure an ice age).
One family, the Line of Krevonel, was in fact descended from an adept of Escore, Elsenar, and through his descendants the Alizonders were genetically connected with the Old Race. Some inherited Elsenar's Talent, although it lay dormant for many generations.
- The Tor-Men of Tor Marsh
These are probably the oldest inhabitants of the lands west of Escore, if not of the Witch World itself.
- The Men of Gorm and Karsten
Koris of Gorm told Simon Tregarth that these men crossed the seas to settle along the coasts after the Old Race had settled in what became Estcarp. Another land to the south of Karsten, Var, is mentioned, but I don't know know much about it at this time.
Karsten's Old Race retreated eastward toward the mountains, not really in conflict with the new men, but not mingling much with them. Over the centuries warlords arose among the Karstenians who fought with each other until the Duchy was formed, perhaps by conquest. The power of the Dukes waned and ebbed according the strengths and needs of the warlords, who were often autonomous or close to it.
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