Of Starfish - SCP Foundation

Dedicated to the most precious little ones.

xexnoncores

Of Starfish by xexnoncores

The following is a fragment of an ancient Finnfolk crystal etching, unearthed in 651 BCE by a Finnfolk diaspora group in the Northern Mediterranean Sea. It is theorized to have been created before the First Sealing War1, with thaumic-dating placing its origins at around roughly 6100-5900 BCE. Most likely to be part of a poem, it is one of the oldest examples of Finnfolk language and culture before its shaping by Mitheric influences into the forms we know today.

If you are reading this and not familiar with typical lens of historical poetic analysis, it is advised to first contact Dr. Molly Hussie at Site-212A to check on the date of available workshops, then to read this poem once without footnotes, and again with them for the best experience.

Count their arms: I shall give blessings for each

One stroke of my scales

Two liftings out of the life-water2

Three offerings of seaweed, for a hungry mouth

Four scallop shells to the working limbs, but let the mating arm3 rest

And five pearls4 to the sucker feet who number greater than the singing stars

Brighter than the shining moon

The moon, moon

This moon, our moon5, weeping in our waters

Shrouding my tiny thin-armed children.

Oh, if only my womb were as numerous

As the great piles you lay upon!

If only the clouds above

Could let me swallow you all.

And yet, despite my sorrows, I must follow this path

Of these waving ones, throughout their life of stones6

Following where the waves shatter them

All of their bodies, as the shore-water smooths.

Where will you go when you die?

Will you go where the sharks do?

The great many colorful fish?

How I wish I knew, knew, knew

Knew the little life-names7 of each of you8

Knew how many kin in your great squirming reefs.

I wish I was as numerous as sand on the ocean floor

As numerous as hagfish9 to a whale’s carcass

Carcass, carcass, you all rush to the carcass

One carcass of yours I shall forever hold to my breast.

Infinite and eternal, your five arms waving

Arms, arms, arms

May your arms guide my wandering

Into the great abyss

Beneath these wet underskies10

That we call home

Footnotes

1. Taking place from 3100 BCE to 3000 BCE.

2. Uncertain translation and meaning, word seems to be compounded unusually from “life”, “sea” and “water” in the original text. Possible precursor to modern portmanteaus as seen in English and other Germanic descended languages.

3. Oral traditions throughout Finnfolk history have superstitiously assigned reproductive importance to only a single arm of most starfish species, even though, in actuality, they reproduce with all of them. It is currently unknown how deeply this belief persists in their modern, scientifically rigorous societies.

4. Five pearls as a cultural symbol seems to be present in most time periods of Finnfolk civilization. Modern iconography posits their significance similar to the romantic connotation of diamond rings in many areas of different human cultures, but it is uncertain if that same meaning is carried within this poem.

5. Fivefold repetition here and in other tercets of this poem suggest intentional anaphora instead of an accidental clustering of words, marking this poetic device as the earliest developed by pre-Mitheric Finnfolk, at least according to records known by the Foundation.

6. Most likely a precursor to the modern Finnfolk phrase “of rocks, like starfish”, roughly translating in meaning to “these two objects are closely related to each other in some manner, usually by virtue of physical characteristics”, similar to the English idiom “like father, like son”. It is currently unknown why this connotation developed; the most likely explanation is the hard, calcified remains of dead starfish being likened to stones.

7. Uncertain translation. Literal translation is “life carvings”—“carvings” was translated to “names” due to context clues and greater poetic impact.

8. Rhyming does not occur in the original translation; Finnfolk poetry did not express this trait until several decades after the First Sealing War’s end.

9. Literal translation: “fish which coughs slime”.

10. Uncertain meaning; literal translation is “second sea beneath us”. Most likely referring to the regular sky, but could also have greater theistic connotations. Currently, little is concretely known about whether pre-Mitheric Finnfolk believed in any kind of afterlife/higher plane of existence, or if their naturalistic beliefs lended themselves to believing that nature as it appeared to them existed instead as cycles of reincarnation and rebirth.