From: morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (The Elmo of the Lamp)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.info
Subject: SANDMAN: Annotation 38
Summary: cool russian tale
Keywords: sandman annotation
Date: 14 Dec 92 06:35:28 GMT
Reply-To: morrow@physics.rice.edu
Followup-To: rec.arts.comics.misc
Organization: Scheherezade Stories Inc


	Since I'll be gone over the holidays, it's best if folks send me
corrections and additions directly via e-mail, so I won't miss posted 
comments.
	Sorry if the text gets a bit florid below; I got carried away with
my own prose style, as often happens.

                         The Annotated Sandman
    
               Edited and largely written by Greg Morrow
      
                         Issue 38:  "The Hunt"
             Neil Gaiman, Duncan Eagleson, and Vince Locke

                First story in anthology _Convergences_
                  Not yet reprinted in any other form

Disclaimer:  Sandman and all related characters are copyrights and trademarks
of DC Comics Inc.  Sandman and this annotation are intended for mature
audiences only.

Notice:  Commentaries and additional information should go to
morrow@physics.rice.edu (Internet) or morrow@fnal.BITNET.  This material is
posted by the editor directly to rec.arts.comics and COMICS-L, and is licensed
to appear on Compu$erve and GEnie.  It is also available via anonymous ftp
from theory.lcs.mit.edu in pub/wald/sandman.  Please contact the editor if you 
see this material on any other forum.  Reproduction in any form without 
permission of the editor (as agent for the contributors) is forbidden.

Themes:  _Convergences_ is about storytelling, as is _Sandman_ overall.  In
particular, _Convergences_ tells tales where the storyteller becomes the 
story, and where reality intersects with story and with fantasy.  And, it
may be noted, dreams are where reality and fiction converge.
	A common thread among the stories is the intersection (or 
convergence) of characters with their own divergent lives.  Another is the 
passage from the familiar to the unfamiliar, as happens to the central 
character in each story.  Also, in each tale, the central character is not
a native to the Dreaming but visits a portion of it in the process of the
tale.  One may also note the role of time in each tale, encompassing some
aspect of the past, the present, and the future.
	In "The Hunt", Vassily passes from the comfort of his forest to the
unknown outside world, and, indeed, from the Old World into the New.  The 
past is seen in the tale of long ago, the present in the telling of the tale, 
and the future in Celeste's relationship with Christopher.
	Value plays an important, if ambiguous, role in "The Hunt".  To
various characters, value is in dreams; the eye of the beholder, or of the
dreamer; or in experience.  All these disparate ideas converge in the final 
word on the subject:  a woman who "knew the value of things" but we are not
told how value could be known; perhaps we are to believe that value may be
defined in all these ways.

Page 1 panel 1:  Old Country:  Immigrants to America are often portrayed as
referring to their original homeland as the Old Country.
	Palaver:  From Portuguese palavra (originally from Latin, of
course), meaning talk, conversation, particularly at length or with little
content.
	Panel 3-4:  Chrissakes:  Christ's sake.  The Christian religion
holds that it is a sin to take their god's name in vain, although this is a
sin observed more often in the breach than in the keeping.  It is also a
tradition that the holy name has power over those with magic in their
blood.
	It is perhaps marginally worth noting that the storyteller and the
audience in this story have not appeared before or since.
	Panel 5:  Asafoetida:  A highly scented gum resin with a bitter acrid 
taste obtained from the roots of several plants of the genus _Ferula_ found in
Central Asia.  Some species of _Ferula_ are found in the Mediterranean area
as well, but these are not noted as yielding asafoetida.  The plants are 
typically tall with divided leaves.  _Ferula_ are umbelliferous, related to
carrots, celery, parsnips, and herbs such as parsley.
	(I got that with five minutes and a dictionary.  Does anyone have
the slightly clue what it -means-? :-)
	Burial at a crossroads is traditionally a method of ensuring that
the undead do not rise again to torment the living.
	Panel 6:  MTV:  An American cable network with affiliated networks
around the world that primarily plays music videos.

Page 2:  Real forests, true bears, true wolves:  Akin to Platonic forms,
the creatures and places in stories are the true essence of the creature or
place, without the rounded-off corners or the compromises required of
things that exist.  A wolf such as you might meet is hardly more than a
dog who has not forgotten how to hunt; a wolf such as you might hear about
is a shaggy beast, born to the hunt, little more than hunger and fangs
and burning eyes, a creature who might someday hunt you.

Page 3 panel 1:  True folk:  see above.
	Panel 2:  We infer that the taleteller's name is also Vassily.
	Panel 4:  The gypsies, or Romany, as they are said to call
themselves, are a nomadic European people of a common stock.  In tales, they 
are fortune-tellers, traders, and thieves; bewitching beauties who
may steal a man's eye while their cousin steals his purse, or his babe.
Heed a gypsy's warning, and beware the curse of a gypsy wisewoman.

Page 4 panel 1:  Note Vassily's eyes, which here suggest the vertical
pupils of a cat.
	Panel 5:  Note Vassily's skill in hunting.
	Panel 8:  Koschei:  From the _Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore,
and Symbols_ (Jobes, 1961), Koschei is an evil, immortal Slavic spirit with
a secret weakness (presumably that he kept his life in his heart), finally 
slain by a hero.  He is compared to the Shinto spirit-snake Koshi, the
Minotaur of Greek myth, and Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent of Norse myth.
Koshchei appears in James Branch Cabell's work (apparently in a work called
_Jurgen_, if I read Lance's note correctly).
	No refs on the Cloak of Night.  The Drum Inescapable also appears
in _Books of Magic_ (Where, David?).  A wyvern is a draconian creature; one
guards the center of the Dreaming.  Yggdrasil is the World Oak of Norse
myth.  In hunts, assistants beating drums are often sent to drive quarry
before them so that the huntsmen may slay them with less of a chase; thus,
the significance of the Drum Inescapable.

Page 5 panel 2:  Gaje':  From context, the Romany word for outsider.
	Panel 5:  Here, "The People" is likely distinct from "True Folk"
and possibly akin to "The Family" of page 1 panel 1.
	Panel 9:  Value's in Dreams:  A convergence.

Page 6 panel 3:  Pskoff:  (Also Pskov) A lake and a city in the European
part of Russia.  Vyatka:  Former name of Kirov, another city in the European 
part of Russia.
	Panel 7:  The gypsy is not reacting to Vassily's hands, which are
normal as far as I can tell, but to what she sees in his eyes.
	Panel 8:  The gypsy is making the sign against the evil eye with
her left hand, and what I think is a sign against the devil with her right.

Page 7 panel 5-6:  I have no idea what the small bone carved into the shape
of a small bone means.  Perhaps a charm of some sort?  The wooden
finger-ring makes its second appearance.
	Panel 7:  Celeste:  From Latin meaning "heavenly".  Michael
Jackson:  A pop star whose popularity with teen culture waxes and wanes in
an unpredictable fashion; also noted for his eccentric habits and his
extensive plastic surgery.

Page 8 panel 1-2:  Vassily did not slay the peddler woman, nor was she
eaten by a beast, nor was her pack taken by bandits.  Who, then, killed
her?  Perhaps Vassily's father?
	Panel 4:  Forest is home to ghouls and ogres:  Ironic, considering 
what transpires in the inn.
	Panel 5:  Note the book.

Page 9 panel 1-3:  It is traditional for heroes to be beset by monsters
while on the road, and the villainous innkeeper is a staple of the genre.
	Panel 7:  Note the valuable lesson.
	Panel 8:  Considering that the inn's fare was characterized as
"poor" on the preceeding page, are we to infer that Vassily -ate- the
villainous innkeeper?

Page 10 panel 1:  This is certainly Lucien, Dream's factotum and librarian,
among other duties.
	Panel 2:  Note the remark on the definition of value.
	Panel 6:  This may very well be the traditional tale of Koshchei.

Page 11 panel 3-5:  The old man believes in fairies, is more than a century 
and a half in age, and can rip his granddaughter's throat out with his
teeth.  The storyteller becomes the story.
	Post-modern:  At least one definition proclaims this to be a style
which consciously uses complex forms with allusion to historic styles.  Its
application to this story, or to _Sandman_ as a whole, is left as an
exercise to the literary critics.
	Panel 6:  Raven:  Possibly Lucien has employed one of Dream's
earlier raven-companions to aid him.

Page 13 panel 5:  Note Vassily's teeth, as well as his eyes.

Page 14 panel 7:  Again, "The People".

Page 15:  Baba Yaga is a witch from traditional Russian tales.  She has
iron teeth, lives in a hut which has chicken legs, and flies across the
night sky in a mortar which she drives with a pestle.  She is a great
sorceress and, for the most part, evil.  Baba Yaga, or a facsimile thereof, 
appears in _Books of Magic_.

Page 17 panel 2:  Trust the story-teller:  Contemplate this, too, as you
contemplate the depth of this tale.  If the story-teller tells you not to
trust him, may you trust his word in this?
	Panel 3:  Scented powder was used to cover up body odor in eras
past when folk did not bathe often.
	Panel 4:  The moon, it is said, drives men mad when it hangs full
and red in the sky like a bloated leech.

Page 18 panel 4:  Cold iron traditionally has power over those with magic
in their blood (particularly the Faerie folk).
	Panel 7:  True Death:  A storyteller's death, as above, or a death
final enough to snuff the soul with the body?  Or perhaps The People may
pass through more than one kind of death, since the gypsy woman's death was
not notable enough to be called the True Death.

Page 19 panel 2:  There are rules to magic, and to the Dreaming, and one of
them apparently holds that Lucien cannot steal, but may only purchase.
	Panel 5:  The continents indeed do move, as the scientists say, 
although this could not be known to Vassily.  In any case, the continents
have been roughly in their current shapes for many millions of years, so
the last thief Lucien refers to could not have been an ordinary human.
	Panel 7:  Dwarrow, nightgaunt:  No refs, though the one suggests
the dwarves (dvergar, in Old Icelandic) of Norse myth, while the other
is generic indeed and may refer to many of the fay folk.  Again note 
Vassily's teeth and eyes.

Page 20 panel 7:  Newfound habit:  Ordinarily, it takes two occurrences to
mark a "habit", but Dream may be indulging in sarcasm.  Note also that he
is dressed in what appears to be formal wear; prior to his capture, he
always dressed in clothing appropriate to the highest stratum of society
and to his audience.

Page 21 panel 3:  Dream is not unsympathetic to the young man, for he is
as besotted by romance.  Dream's realm is one of imagination, and Dream
takes precedence over Desire when the object of desire is constructed from
imagination, as in Vassily's case.
	Panel 5:  The Merrie Comedie of the Redemption of Doctor Faustus,
by Christopher Marlowe:  Marlowe's most famous work concerns the fall of
Doctor Faustus, who sought a long life at the cost of his soul.  This is
clearly a sequel, one which Marlowe may in fact have planned but never
written.  Recall that Lucien's library is a library of works never
completed.

Page 22 panel 1:  I am told by ladyfriends of mine that menstruation is
often accompanied by dreams of blood, though that is certainly not the only
possible cause for this dream.
	Panel 6:  Tokay:  An aromatic wine, made in the region around the
town of the same name in Hungary.

Page 23 panel 2:  Finally, a hint into the nature of The People; a clan of
shapechangers or lycanthropes.
	Panel 3:  An adequate description of the mating rituals of a
variety of mammalian carnivores.
	Panel 5:  Sexist:  I'm not sure what Celeste means here, but then
I'm a male.  One may note that the Duke's daughter did -not- scream or
faint upon finding strange men in her bedroom; one may also note that
Vassily's wife was, at least once, a better hunter than he.

Page 24 panel 2:  Novaya Zemlya:  Two islands north of the Russian
mainland, inside the Arctic Circle.  The islands are virtually uninhabited, 
so I doubt Celeste is seriously claiming that The People are from there;
probably she just named the first Russian wilderness that came to mind.
	Panel 4-5:  Celeste is manifestly wrong about the story, as the
storyteller is right (and lit-crits be damned!)
	Panel 6:  Another reference to value.  Note the grandfather's eyes
are the same as Vassily's.  The storyteller becomes the story.

Release history:             
Version 1.0 released 13 Dec 92

Contributors include:
	Lance Smith (lsmith@cs.umn.edu) reported Koshchei's significance.
	The Theme Team consulted on the literary deconstruction of
_Convergences_, and consisted of:
		David Pautler (pautler@ils.nwu.edu)
		Lance Smith (lsmith@cs.umn.edu)
		Enrique Conty (jester@ihlpm.att.com)
		Chuck Jordan (jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu)
		Andrew Moran (andrew@cs.chalmers.se)
		Deborah Ginsberg (debg@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu)
		Robert A. Carlin (carlinra@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu)
		Soren Petersen (speterse@peruvian.utah.edu)
-- 
"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."             
--George Santayana                                                             
  
elmo (morrow@physics.rice.edu,morrow@fnal.fnal.gov)



--
-Brian V. Hughes
	     "If you could care less, then why don't you?"