A Return to Rationality

I come to you now from the Waldhotel in Rieden, a few miles away from Hirshwald but right on the border of the forest that hides it.

Before anything else, I think I need to offer an apology for inflicting upon you that delusional tripe from the previous post. True, what happened in St. Petersinsel was a bit weird and I’m still a bit shaken by it (though that 30 year old Jura actually bore the brunt of it,) but talk of an evil that knows me seems, in retrospect, a tad sensationalist. I still can’t remember anything between closing the sub-cellar hatch behind me on the Wednesday night and waking up in a clearing in the woods near the hotel Friday noon, but I did take quite a bit of the ol’ dram with me so I can’t say I’m massively surprised. That might also go some way to explaining the various cuts, bruises, burns (on my right hand) and the severely stubbed toe I seemed to have acquired.

A quick side note, after seeing the state I was in upon my return the hotel refunded me the cost of my stay, waved my bill and payed for my cab to the airport. I’m sure I heard a little cheer as I got into the car and drove away.

So all I’ve got to show for the 36 hour(ish) blank is a collection of confused and frankly bizarre nightmares and a couple of sheets of rough notes, which provide some actually quite interesting ponder inducing oddities. I wondered whether or not to write them all up and post them but for the most part they are literally just lifeless notes listing features and a few choice phrases to be written up later. The first page is taken up with an anorexic description of the place. The most useful words here are “cave, pos. catacombs.” I mention the smooth floor, nooks containing used candles as well a couple of more prominent features like this “3rd chamber: Dome, stalagmite in middle, pos. carvings in limestone (trick of light?) defaced christian imagery on the walls.” There’s also what I can only assume is an attempt to map my progress. What starts as a line with a few splashed coming of periodically (I think representing other passages) becomes weighed down with shapes I’m guessing are rooms. What made me laugh was the way it all seemed to loop back on itself in places without repeating itself. There are a couple of instances where my route should have taken me back to earlier corridor, but doesn’t; these bits which increase in regularity as you follow the route are a mess of arrows and question marks that require a lot of time and some good light to figure out what you’re actually looking at. Clearly I was smashed.

Three sections really stick out. Mostly because they’re not in a strict note form but also because they of… well you’ll see.

“It’d been bugging me what was so different from the paths. The path I’m walking is obviously the “main” path by its size alone [which I list earlier as about 8 foot high by 6 foot across], but there was something that was niggling at me. Now I stand at a spacey cross roads and look at my notes, it’s all obvious. This main path is smooth, still bedrock, but smoothed, the other paths the rock is obviously worked but it’s not as smooth. Also there’s no dust or loose grit/ slag on this path like these is on the smaller ones. Do people still use this path, and have been using it for centuries?”

Makes a certain amount of sense considering the entrance isn’t blocked off and in a small hive of habitation. Or maybe the just used to do tours, though the notes don’t mention any of the electrical or safety equipment you’d expect on such a tour.

The next bit comes after I make a note of a side path bearing “CORAM DEO INFERI” on its mantle. My only guess is that knowing the word Inferi to mean “dead person/ people” [or "the dead" as I've now found out], for which I’ve got Harry Potter to thank, and guess Deo to be form of Deus (god), led me to assume that I would find graves or tombs down the passage. The phrase roughly translates into “the dead before god” and did indeed herald the path to tombs. I also mention a roughly chiseled almost graffiti like inscription which appears a couple of times along the passage “abyssus abyssum invocat ,” which apparent translates as “The deep calls the deep” or “hell calls unto hell,” if you want to inject a bit of style.”  Anyway, after a brief description of ranks of tombs in the walls and a few defaced inscriptions we get to the good stuff.

“I honestly don’t know what the fuck this is. The bodies near the entrance had crossed arms and a few trinkets, there was that guy with the massive golden crucifix poking out from beneath some sort of decayed cloth. These guys I’ve found towards the back are in carnage. One of two are laid out nicely but with no coverings or anything, most of them are face down with their heads away from the entrance (all the others have their heads towards the entrance and their feet towards the back of the ‘combs). Several of them are not laid out at all but, in some cases, chained in with limbs over flowing into the aisle. I’m no ME but most of them look like they were put through hell before their internment.

• many bones chipped, scored, fractured
• teeth often chipped
• a few bones broken- most have at least broken fingers
• skulls in much the same state as rest of skeleton
• some limbs obviously separated if not missing
• a few obvious decapitations
• A few with objects – crucifixes, cutlery etc – embedded in ribs or skull

“Some of the markings on the bones are a bit on the odd side. This might be a bit on the fantastic side but look up teeth marks when next at a computer. “

I really wish I could remember this stuff. That sounds too awesome to be true. That said, i think I’ll look up tooth marked bones, just to play it safe. Could you imagine?

after a few pages of smoothed bedrock, plain and fancy chambers, defaced engravings, religious latin statements and increasingly confused map work and slurred penmanship we arrive at the end of my records. It starts to get a bit odd here as in amongst the notes on the architecture I stat to mention things like “a faint stale breeze,” “feel like I’m being watched,” and my personal favourite “My echoes have gone.” Finally we arrive at this:

“This isn’t like the rest of the tunnels. Firstly there’s no sign that there was ever a door, even the hall leading here has a certain unfinished quality. The imagery here is different. It’s certainly like not christian, more bestial than that. And the lang (yes I actually left a word unfinished in what I can only assume was excitement as I continue on the next line with:)

“I think i recognise some of these symbols, at least they’re very similar to some of the things on the Hawk’s Tor Papers.

“The symbol? (scribble something similar to the recurring symbol)

“Some of the reliefs defy description, it’s almost like someone managed to find a way of manifesting dreams and nightmares. There is an inarguable surrealness to these images, bordering on the truly abstract at times, at yet it doesn’t challenge you. These things, they make perfect sense [yeah, or maybe you're drunk - taz] but are perfect nonsense. It’s almost like the artist has recognised the form of these things, not that I believe in form or quintessence or intrinsics beyond those we ourselves assign to any given phenomena, so perhaps what the artist did was to recognise and materialise the patterns by which w[trails of]“

To clarify, when I say it trails off I don’t mean I break down into some meandering rhetoric regarding the philosophy of art, I mean my writing literally trails of with a violent stroke, evolving from the final stroke of the W, that slashes its way across most of that final paragraph. Feel free to draw your own conclusions but personally I’m going for a simple sneezed and bumped head, lost torch, staggered drunkenly and blindly until I somehow emerged, noticeably worse for wear.

That’ll do for now. I’m still a bit worn down so I’ll fill you in on my plans for Hirschwald tomorrow.

Taz