Learning New Words with Lymond: F is for Fustic

Welcome back to Learning New Words with Lymond, a series of blog posts about word choice and storytelling in the works of Dorothy Dunnett, an internationally beloved historical novelist. Like Ellen Kushner, when I first read the Lymond Chronicles, my immediate reaction was "How did she just do that?"

Dorothy Dunnett, The Game of Kings

This project attempts to answer this question by analyzing Dunnett's use of rare and obscure words. What do these words mean in context? What do they reveal (or conceal) about character and plot? We continue our journey through The Game of Kings with words beginning with the letter 'f'...

feal 

"All right, but remember, although you've bought the rights of fuel, feal, and divot, I shan't be lying here like an upset sheep forever." p. 461 

Dunnett's recondite vocabulary functions like a camera obscura of the past: through the tiny hole of one now-obsolete word, we get a shadow-picture how and why that word was once common. At first sight, feal looks at first like it might simply be a misprint. It's not. Feal can be a noun, meaning a feudal tenant or vassal, or a payment to a feudal lord; an adjective, meaning faithful or constant; or a verb meaning to hide or conceal. And that's not getting into the possibilities that feal is, in older spellings of English, another way to write feel, fall, or fail! This particular sentence, spoken by Lymond to his brother Richard, has already come up once before, when I looked up the word divot, thinking that this had to be a new-to-me use of that word. And it was. "Feal and divot" comes from Scottish law: it is "a rural servitude, importing a right in the proprietor of the dominant tenement to cut and remove turf for fences or for thatching or covering houses or the like purposes, within the dominant lands." (OED).

 

fenestration

Something--hardly laughter--glimmered in the heavy eyes. "Neither do I. But the fenestration seems fairly extensive." p. 438 

The first thing that comes to mind when I see the word "fenestration" is the Defenestration of Prague, which involved the people of Bohemia tossing Habsburg officials out a window into a refuse-choked moat for failing to keep their promises. According to the dictionary, it can refer both to "the arrangement of windows in a building," and also "the process of becoming perforated; the formation of small holes." (OED) The first attested use of fenestration is nineteenth century, but since the word comes directly from the Latin word for window, fenestra, it's not inconceivable that it was in use earlier. I think I've looked up more words from these scenes where Richard Crawford tends his brother than any other part of the book--Dunnett does absolutely fascinating things with subtle revelations of character through language. "My injuries seem fairly extensive" and "the fenestration seems fairly extensive" are the statements of two very different men.

flamens

Lymond looked over his shoulder and back. "Spaniard? Behold," he quoted sadly, "my countenance and my colour. It's only Sweet Cicely awaiting the bees, and blushing in young modesty like a seraphim, two wings over the eyes, and the other four pinned with some some damnably hard knots: God save Flamens and keep all the knotless from high winds and short memories." p. 316 

Lymond, in temporary captivity to a group of Englishmen whom he tricked and soundly humiliated by pretending to be Spanish, proceeds to drive them to distraction by making ceaseless, subtle fun of them. He quotes King Herod's speech from the fifteenth- century Coventry Nativity play:

Behold my countenance and my colour,
Brighter than the sun in the middle of the day!
Where can you have a more greater succour,
Than to behold my person that is so gay;
My falchion and my fashion with my gorgeous array?

The reference to Sweet Cicely is partially explained by the site of Lymond's captivity--a kitchen garden; in Isaiah 6:2 the seraphim in cover their feet and faces with their wings and fly with the third set. In Roman culture, a Flamen is a priest of a god. Surely in this case, Lymond propitiates Momus, the god of ridicule, mentioned on the previous page. The rest of his  mockery is unfortunately lost on me; as far as I can tell from skimming the Spanish episode (pp 111-7, if you want to see for yourself), there is nothing that would make these particular words into the carefully aimed insult they undoubtedly are. If either the penultimate (God save Flamens) or final clause (keep all the knotless from high winds and short memories) are references to literature, they have thus far escaped me. Knotless, in any event, means "like a thread without knots, smoothly, without check or hindrance," in other words, the opposite of how Lymond's hapless opponents' plans have gone. (OED)

fleshers

The fleshers and brewers and smiths and weavers and skinners and saddlers and salters and cappers and masons and cutlers and fletchers and plasterers and armourers and porters and water carriers, and the one-eye man who had called at Bogle House selling fumigating pans. p. 138

A flesher is a Scottish word for a butcher. (OED) Names of historical occupations are such an evocative window into how people lived.

fossorial

But whatever happens, you have from these fossorial depths my unstinted gratitude and fondest applause. p. 304

A synonym for burrowing, used to describe an animal that burrows or is capable of doing so. Lymond's admiration and gratitude for the help of Christian Stewart, to whom he is speaking, goes a long way down.

frangible

A frangible and archaic courtesy reigned at Flaw Valleys. p. 378 

Frangible is a word I've seen before but have trouble remembering because it doesn't sound at all like its meaning, which is breakable, or capable of being broken; it can be used as an adjective or a noun. I was delighted to discover that it's an old word, dating back to at least the late fifteenth century, with roots in Old French. (OED) Not a load-bearing word, since the sentence would have much the same flavour if it were "A fragile and archaic courtesy reigned at Flaw Valleys," although breakable (frangible) is subtly different from easily broken (fragile). The sentence does start to change into something very different if one plays with alternatives for "archaic." A fragile and old-fashioned courtesy reigned at Flaw Valleys is something out of a comedy of manners, which this is decidedly not.

froissèes

The men watching, unable to breathe, heard the click and clash and slither of contes, froissées, beating and binding: saw first one man and then the other bring his art to the pitch of freeing his blade for the ultimate perfection, only to bow before the other's defence. p. 419

While froissées is the feminine past participle of the French verb froisser, which can mean "to take offence, to be hurt" or "to crumple or crease," it is clearly has another meaning here. As happened when I looked up contes, I am unable to identify the precise technique described--no joy from my beloved Oxford English Dictionary or a damnably AI-infested Google search. A quick word search of Mahon's English translation of L'Abbat's The Art of Fencing, or, the Use of the Small Sword (1735) and George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence (1599) turns up neither term. However, the Wikipedia article on martial arts manuals shows that there was a whole industry of seventeenth century Scottish fencing manuals. These are of course, a century too recent, but one assumes Dunnett had the linguistic facility and curiosity to consult early modern fechtbücher (fight books) in the original. Digging into them all goes beyond the scope of these posts, but hopefully, at some point, someone who is both a Dunnett fan and a practitioner of historic martial arts will investigate. In the meantime, one need not be able to follow the precise technical terminology of the duel between the Crawford brothers to appreciate the story it tells.

fustic

Sir Robert Bowes straightened, nodded, and surveyed the Master at leisure from fustic head to silver spurs. He smiled. "Is this the fellow?" p. 314

Fustic refers to a yellow dye made from the wood of either the Venetian sumac (Rhus cotinus) or Cladrastis (Chlorophora, Maclura) tinctoria. Those who are deep into their Dunnett will be delighted to learn that one of the earliest published uses of the word is by royal Latin tutor Roger Ascham in Toxophilus, the schole of shootinge (1545). (OED) We are told a few times that Lymond is very blond; Bill's Dunnett Blog has a recent post which gathers a number of physical descriptions of the character. Impossible that anything male should be as fair as that, memory whispers; there is a more than superficial resemblance between Lymond and Peter Wimsey. It interests me how often Dunnett uses action to described character, and how selectively she uses details of physical appearance. Descriptions of how characters speak are perhaps rarest of all. Without being told anything, we are shown that Bowes thinks he has the upper hand.

Spoiler: he doesn't.

A Note on Links

Because I work at a university, I have access to the subscription version of Oxford English Dictionary, and indeed the luxury of the online Oxford Reference series at my fingertips. As a matter of principle, I try to use and link to material that anyone can access when writing for public audiences. However, the OED has features--like the ability to explore the etymology, frequency, history of use, and meanings of words, that free online dictionaries simply don't have. Thus, I quote relevant bits of entries, and include open access links wherever possible, so that anyone who wants to do so can retrace my steps for themselves.

Learning New Words with Lymond: E is for Epopee

Welcome back to Learning New Words with Lymond, in which I blog my way through the rare and obscure words used by Dorothy Dunnett in The Game of Kings. Over the six books of the Lymond Chronicles, we follow the misadventures of the title character, Francis Crawford of Lymond, across the sixteenth century world, from Scotland to Russia. Dunnett is known for the beauty of her writing and notorious for the complexity of her language.

Dorothy Dunnett, The Game of Kings

In these posts, I explore Dunnett's many sesquipedalians. What do these words mean? Why do they make sense in context? How do they enhance our understanding and enjoyment of what is happening in the story? This occasional series wends its through the alphabet from A to Z.

We continue with words beginning with the letter 'e'...

eddish

The lids veiled Lymond's eyes as they disengaged. "Reaping the eddish. Try the other side next time." p. 416 

Eddish is the grass which remains after mowing or haying, so "reaping the eddish" is trying to cut down something that isn't there. An apt and biting comment from Lymond on his brother's failure to wound him during their duel. Unbeknownst to Richard, Lymond is protected by bandaging from a previous injury. A good fight scene isn't just exciting, it tells us something about the character of the fighters, and we learn so much about the brothers Crawford in this one.

eidelweiss

The last thing Janet saw was Sybilla's head, like eidelweiss on some black, mirrored tarn. p. 473

Sybilla, Lymond's mother, has beautiful white hair. Edelweiss (the extra 'i' seems to be a typo) is "an Alpine plant, Gnaphalium Leontopodium or Leontopodium alpinum, remarkable for its white flower, growing in rocky places, often scarcely accessible, on the Swiss mountains. Also attrib., as in edelweiss-lace." (OED)

encycsted

"And yet you rather expected Richard to read your mind, didn't you? You thought he pictured you encysted forever with pots and pans--A woman is. a worthy thing; they do the wash and do the wring. And so on. Whereas--" p. 355 

A literal or figurative way to describe something enclosed in a cyst, capsule, or bag. This is such a fun, wise conversation between Sybilla and her daughter-in-law, Mariotta, about the many ways husbands and wives can have a good relationship with one another.

enteere

Come, my friend, my brother most enteere; for thee I offered my blood in sacrifice; and all that. Except that it was Janet Beaton's blood. p. 460

The word can be an adjective meaning whole or complete, but when used of people it can also mean "wholly devoted to another, perfectly beloved." Later, it was used of friends or friendly conversation to mean "unreserved, familiar, intimate." Used by Lymond when speaking to Richard, as they make their peace with each other.  

enteric

"Oh my dear, Catherine has made enough martyrs without adding more. I shall tell Dandy you drained every drop and left in a state of enteric rapture: only remember to fib when you see him." p. 261

Sometimes, when reading Dunnett, I am convinced that Sybilla, Lymond's mother, and Honoria, Dowager Duchess of Denver (Lord Peter Wimsey's mother) would have got on like a house afire, innocent bystanders fleeing into the night, no survivors, et cetera. They have a similarly elliptical, even malapropistic, way of speaking. An enteric fever is typhoid; as a noun, the word is used to refer to a medication to treat diseases of the digestive tract; as an adjective, it relates to the intestines or digestive tract in general. Like her son, Sybilla can tell the truth in such a roundabout fashion that it sounds like a lie: as is revealed later in the book, if Richard had drunk Catherine Hunter's nostrum, he would indeed have become a martyr, and his stomach would have been in anything but raptures.

Epaminondas

"Do you think if you didn't clutch them to your chest like Epaminondas and his javelin, your affairs might be less ruinous?" p. 303

Epaminondas (419/411-362 BCE) was a Theban general and statesman, responsible both for freeing his city from the domination of Sparta and, in later historians' estimation, leaving it vulnerable to annihilation at the hands of Alexander the Great a few decades after his death. The javelin seems to be a reference to the account of his death given by the Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos:

He was also an able speaker, so that no Theban was a match for him in eloquence; nor was his language less pointed in brief replies than elegant in an elaborate speech. [At the battle of Mantinea, while his Boeotians were winning the day, he was mortally wounded by a javelin]: when he saw that if he drew out the iron head of the dart he would instantly die, he kept it in until they told him "that the Boeotians were victorious." "I have lived long enough," he then said, "for I die unconquered." The iron head was then extracted, and at once he died.

epopee

I should make a wonderful epopee, don't you think? p. 304

Christian Stewart is one of the few characters in Game of Kings around whom Lymond lets down his guard and one of the only ones in the entire series to not only return his verbal serves but even beat him at his own game. (Epaminondas and his javelin is her pointed comment on Lymond's dangerous habit of playing his cards close to his chest.) Lymond, who has spent the previous page dancing a desperate tarantella around explaining to her what is really going on with him, concludes with the truth and a bit of self-mockery. An epopee (pronounced, despite its French origins, exactly as it looks, eh-poh-pee) is an epic poem. Christian gives this the response it deserves.

escharotic

The carrying, escharotic voice was thick with sheer cold fury for half a dozen words, and then he had it controlled. p. 526

 An eschar is, according to the dictionary, a "a brown or black dry slough, resulting from the destruction of a living part, either by gangrene, by burn, or by caustics." (OED.) An escharotic is something that causes an eschar; in other words, it's a beautiful early modern synonym for caustic. Would this passage, which describes Lymond's tone of voice in the dramatic courtroom scene at the end of the book, land the same if the sentence began "the carrying, caustic voice...?" Or does using the word escharotic allow Dunnett to strengthen the sentence's euphonious series of c-sounds by slipping in two for the price of one? Caustic would do the same. Once again, I am made wildly curious about what Dunnett was reading to come up with some of these words. As of about 2010, escharotic occured 0.005 times per million words (OED).

ethological

"For all his ethological small talk," Lymond said. "You must decide on the data you have." p. 324

Much of the plot of Game of Kings hinges on Lymond attempting to capture the testimony necessary to prove his innocence, without explaining what he is doing or why. Ethological is a highfalutin' synonym for ethical; in John Stuart Mill, it also describes something "of or relating to the study or formation of human character." (OED) Ethology, delightfully, sometimes means "the portrayal of character by gestures; the representation of character through action," something at which Dunnett excels. (OED)

Eulenspiegel

She said tartly, "It doesn't help to find oneself bedevilled with persons making Eulenspiegel-like appearances. I live for the day when we can be formally introduced. Don't you think it would be better than coming to me like--" p. 302

I really should have recognized this one! Till Eulenspiegel is a figure from medieval German folklore, a trickster whose practical jokes expose his contemporaries' folly and hypocrisy. There's a fairly famous tone poem by Richard Strauss "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," which I recommend listening to if you don't know it.

exigent

Threave, pockmarked and exigent, hung above them. p. 342

Threave is a Scottish castle on a riverine island; while describing it as pockmarked makes sense (as Dunnett describes, it has been the site of decades of violence); I'm puzzled by what to make of exigent in this context. As a noun it means "a state of pressing need; a time of extreme necessity; a critical occasion, or one that requires immediate action or aid; an emergency, an extremity" (with related meanings or needs or quantifiable requirements); as an adjective, it can mean "necessary, requisite, needful" or "requiring immediate action or aid; pressing, urgent" or "requiring a great deal; demanding more than is reasonable; exacting" or "strongly desirous; much in need" (with or without the word of). (OED)

New Recipes of Summer

My goodness, summer went quickly! It was a season of delicious cooking and eating. Here is what I made, and also two recommendations for places to find new recipes to try.

1. If you're not a follower of the Woks of Life food blog, I highly recommend it! One of my favourite things I made this summer was their Asian Shrimp Salad. If you love cucumber, as I do, this will probably be to your taste (and the cucumber-averse could probably substitute peppers or another crunchy, watery vegetable). The recipe calls for using raw red onion, but I dislike raw onions in my salads, so I changed it by sauteing the onions, aromatics, and shrimp in the oil (rather than the just the shrimp, as instructed). I'd recommend making this change to the recipe.
2.  A small section of my cookbook collection is devoted to food from the United States, especially from New England. Erin French's two cookbooks are my favourites out of all of them. Her food often has an usual technique or combination ingredients--like a sweet cake made with parsnips and frosted with apricot-jam sweetened marscapone; or the Brown Sugar & Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Fruit, which my mom and I made twice in quick succession when I was home. I will remember it as something to make for future dinner parties. Fruit and meat are not a combination I often use and it tasted wonderful. The instructions for the glaze don't work as written--at least on parents' gas stove, it didn't need to boil for nearly as hard or as long as the instructions said. Provided you keep a sharp eye on the glaze, it's a pretty perfect recipe.
   

July

• Shiitake, Kimchi, and Pineapple Fried Rice from Stir Crazy by Ching He Huang
• Edamame Mapo Tofu from Stir Crazy by Ching He Huang
• Beef and Kimchi Water Chestnuts from Stir Crazy by Ching He Huang
• Leek, Chard, and Corn Flatbread from Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman

 August

• Asian Shrimp Salad from Woks of Life
• Sabzi per eedu (Parsi-style eggs on vegetables) from Masala by Mallika Basu
  
• Brown Sugar & Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Fruit from Big Heart, Little Stove by Erin French
• Lauryn's Hot-Sugar-Crust Peach Cake from Bake Smart by Samantha Seneviratne  

September

• Three Cup Tofu from Woks of Life
• Creamy Tomato Masala from Smitten Kitchen Keepers by Deb Perelman 
• Süddeutsche Lauchtore from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss
• Chicken Teriyaki with Green Peppers from Stir Crazy by Ching He Huang
• White Bean and Garlic Soup, from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant