***SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't read the end of "Hob's Hog" yet, you probably won't want to read this post, as part of the ending of the chapter is revealed. Don't say I didn't warn you.***
(btw - I'm honestly not trying to tease this out - I just haven't had a lot of opportunities to sit down and work on this blog for more than a half-hour or so.)
***
Page 45, Paragraph 3:
I cry hot tears and try to say I'll do anything for Hob if he doesn't hurt me. I'll go away. I won't see the girl. I try to say all of this, but my mouth is full and I can't say anything. Hob takes me around the pigpen, in front of the white-skin hut, where there is light as from a little fire, and now I see his black face and his wooden horns, and see that there's blood on him.* As there is with me. Oh no.
Paragraph 4:
Now he lays me down, like a baby, on the prickly thing in front of the aurochs hut. I feel a lot of pokes on my back and legs, which is where I understand he's putting me on the hill of branches that I saw him make. Now he takes his hand off me. I lie on the hill of branches with nothing to hold me, and I try to get off, but I can't move. There's no strength. I don't have the strength. I can't move anything, just my hand to rub my neck.
Paragraph 5:
There's a hole in my neck, where liquid's coming out, where blood's coming out, which isn't stopping. Hob. Hob put a hand-axe to my neck while I wasn't paying attention [?]. Oh! All of my blood is coming out onto my belly, my neck, and the branch hill beneath me. I don't smell flowers. I smell nothing but blood.**
* And just who is Alan Moore trying to evoke with his depiction of Hob? (Dana Carvey voice) "Could it be... Satan?" Baphomet? Cernunnos? It's interesting to look at the history of the Horned God archetype in terms of this and speculate as to whether Moore had a particular deity in mind when he created this image. It's also interesting to note that "Old Hob" is apparently another term for the Devil.
**And that's almost never a good thing.
Showing posts with label crazy etymological theories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crazy etymological theories. Show all posts
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Monday, August 31, 2009
Page 20, Paragraphs 6 - 8; Page 21, Paragraph 1; Note
In which we first hear Hob referred to by that name.
***
Page 20, Paragraph 6:
Now I look beside her, across the reeds where the hut stands on the dirt rise, with the river aways off, behind the hut. In the river there are shapes moving (which I think are beavers) all around the river-huts they've made for themselves. "How is it that you smell like flowers?", I say.
Paragraph 7:
"There's a way to do it," she says, "to take the flowers' smell and make perfume out of it that you can put on your skin and hair." Now she looks away from me, toward the river. Her speech becomes quieter.
Paragraph 8:
"Hob* wants me to smell like flowers," she says, "so he can know where I've gone when he can't see me." She doesn't say anything more, and looks aways off. Now she tears up a little grass and puts it in her mouth. "I don't know of Hob," I say, and pull at the jerky with my teeth. She doesn't look at me yet, but lifts her hand and points with her finger at the hut. "That hut is Hob's," she says.
Page 21, Paragraph 1:
"I've seen Hob," I say. "He's a black-faced man with antlers on his head."
*According to my dictionary, hob is derived from the Middle English word Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. It means either (1) a hobgoblin or elf or (2) mischief or trouble. Hmmm...
***
Page 20, Paragraph 6:
Now I look beside her, across the reeds where the hut stands on the dirt rise, with the river aways off, behind the hut. In the river there are shapes moving (which I think are beavers) all around the river-huts they've made for themselves. "How is it that you smell like flowers?", I say.
Paragraph 7:
"There's a way to do it," she says, "to take the flowers' smell and make perfume out of it that you can put on your skin and hair." Now she looks away from me, toward the river. Her speech becomes quieter.
Paragraph 8:
"Hob* wants me to smell like flowers," she says, "so he can know where I've gone when he can't see me." She doesn't say anything more, and looks aways off. Now she tears up a little grass and puts it in her mouth. "I don't know of Hob," I say, and pull at the jerky with my teeth. She doesn't look at me yet, but lifts her hand and points with her finger at the hut. "That hut is Hob's," she says.
Page 21, Paragraph 1:
"I've seen Hob," I say. "He's a black-faced man with antlers on his head."
*According to my dictionary, hob is derived from the Middle English word Hobbe, a nickname for Robert. It means either (1) a hobgoblin or elf or (2) mischief or trouble. Hmmm...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Page 17, Paragraphs 6 - 8; Page 18, Paragraph 1; Notes
Page 17, Paragraph 6:
Noise. My spit tastes funny. I hear people talking to each other. One's big and old, from the sound of him, and the other's little. The little one is saying "Yes," and then something I can't hear, and then something about water. There's only a little light coming through my eyelids now, and that's good.
Paragraph 7:
Flowers - I smell a lot of flowers, as if it's not autumn now, but spring. I open my eyes and see a hut. One aurochs skin that the hut is made of is now lifted up, and someone comes out bent over, their hair long and bright with a strip of fur around it, and wrapped in skins to their knee. It's a girl by the look of her - no bigger than me. I sniff to smell her vagina*, and I smell nothing, only flowers, but I don't see any flowers - I just see the girl. I don't know whether she's a flower that looks like a girl, or a girl that smells like a flower.
Paragraph 8:
In between her hands she holds a little shape that's all grey. She walks away from the hut and away from me, down off the dirt rise and toward the river. She walks between the reeds but doesn't get sucked down, as she walks a path where the ground is dry. Now she's far away, so that I can't see her above the grass, and the smell of flowers isn't as strong now.
Page 18, Paragraph 1:
Now there's something moving by the hut, which I look back to. The white skin lifts up, and someone big comes out bent over, naked except for a belt and a feast-fur** that covers his penis. It's a man. It's a frightening man.
*My translation of "gill", because "gill" is derived from the Old Norse word gjolnar, meaning "lips", and the only part of the anatomy that has lips that is exclusively feminine is... the vagina.
**Whatever that is
Noise. My spit tastes funny. I hear people talking to each other. One's big and old, from the sound of him, and the other's little. The little one is saying "Yes," and then something I can't hear, and then something about water. There's only a little light coming through my eyelids now, and that's good.
Paragraph 7:
Flowers - I smell a lot of flowers, as if it's not autumn now, but spring. I open my eyes and see a hut. One aurochs skin that the hut is made of is now lifted up, and someone comes out bent over, their hair long and bright with a strip of fur around it, and wrapped in skins to their knee. It's a girl by the look of her - no bigger than me. I sniff to smell her vagina*, and I smell nothing, only flowers, but I don't see any flowers - I just see the girl. I don't know whether she's a flower that looks like a girl, or a girl that smells like a flower.
Paragraph 8:
In between her hands she holds a little shape that's all grey. She walks away from the hut and away from me, down off the dirt rise and toward the river. She walks between the reeds but doesn't get sucked down, as she walks a path where the ground is dry. Now she's far away, so that I can't see her above the grass, and the smell of flowers isn't as strong now.
Page 18, Paragraph 1:
Now there's something moving by the hut, which I look back to. The white skin lifts up, and someone big comes out bent over, naked except for a belt and a feast-fur** that covers his penis. It's a man. It's a frightening man.
*My translation of "gill", because "gill" is derived from the Old Norse word gjolnar, meaning "lips", and the only part of the anatomy that has lips that is exclusively feminine is... the vagina.
**Whatever that is
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