NPPF: Commentary 5 (notes) Lines 433-434

[Jasper Fidget]

> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
> Behalf Of bekah

> 
> Commentary notes to Lines 433-434
> "To the...sea Which we had visited in thirty-three"
> 

Just some more stuff in this Commentary:

p. 205
"the Zemblan Revolution broke out (May 1, 1958)"

May Day.

p. 205
"ineffectual attempt to return to Zembla"

The way *back* to Zembla proves impossible.

p. 208
"Harfar Baron of Shalksbore"

King Harald Harfager of Norway, called Fairhair, from Snorri's Heimskringla.
He fought with Hake, son of Gandalf (!), who was one of the kings after the
death of Halfdan the Black.  Other kings included Hogne and Frode (heh),
sons of Eystein (yup), king of Hedemark.  The settlement of Iceland was a
result of Harald's wars, so another reference to the expansion of
civilization westward ho.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/heim/index.htm

p. 213
"the /narstran/, a hellish hall where the souls of murderers were tortured
under a constant drizzle of drake venom coming down from the foggy vault"

The word narstran comes from Old Norse "nar" for corpse (as in narwhal) and
the Slavic "stran" for land, so Land of the Dead, probably a variation of
"Nastrond" for "Corpse-Strand" (also Land of the Dead) as found in the
Poetic Edda (Vol. 1, Voluspo):

38. A hall I saw, | far from the sun,
On Nastrond it stands, | and the doors face north,
Venom drops | through the smoke-vent down,
For around the walls | do serpents wind.

39. I saw there wading | through rivers wild
Treacherous men | and murderers too,
And workers of ill | with the wives of men;
There Nithhogg sucked | the blood of the slain,
And the wolf tore men; | would you know yet more?

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe03.htm

The reference is also found in the Lokasenna section of the Poetic Edda:

"And after that Loki hid himself in Franang's waterfall in the guise of a
salmon, and there the gods took him. He was bound with the bowels of his son
Vali, but his son Narfi was changed to a wolf. Skathi took a poison-snake
and fastened it up over Loki's face, and the poison dropped thereon. Sigyn,
Loki's wife, sat there and held a shell under the poison, but when the shell
was full she bore away the poison, and meanwhile the poison dropped on Loki.
Then he struggled so hard that the whole earth shook therewith; and now that
is called an earthquake."

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/poe/poe10.htm

Jasper Fidget