Viritrilbia

> "*"Out of the molten quicksilver of the first star...""*
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**Viritrilbia**, also known as **Mercury** and **Thoth**, was the nearest planet to Arbol in the Field of Arbol, inside the orbit of Perelandra. Unlike most other planets such as Thulcandra, Malacandra, Glundandra, Lurga and Neruval, it has no moons. Viritrilbia does however have its own Eldila and Oyarsa like all the other planets. The Oyarsa of Viritribia was the lord of Meaning and the slayer of Argus.

In the Space Trilogy, the Low Worlds are newer worlds, and the Great Worlds are older, so Viritrilbia is a young world. It is unclear how it is intended to progress.

The planet is first referred to in *Out of the Silent Planet*, when Elwin Ransom looking at the inscriptions at Meldilorn on Malacandra sees depictions of the various planets. Viritrilbia is one of these:

> *The sun was there, unmistakably, at the centre of the disk: round this the concentric circles revolved. In the first and smallest of these was pictured a little ball, on which rode a winged figure something like Oyarsa, but holding what appeared to be a trumpet.*
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## Hnau

The canonical works say Viritrilbia has no Hnau of its own due to its intense heat. It is mentioned in passing in *That Hideous Strength*:

"*...she first sprang at Maleldil's bidding out of the molten quicksilver of the first star called Mercury on Earth, but Viritrilbia in Deep Heaven.*"
### Non-canon

Non-canon work, i.e. not by C.S. Lewis, related to The Space Trilogy suggests Viritrilbia may have some entities:

> *There are djinn-like creatures all over the universe, perhaps parallel evolutions to the ones in our ionosphere. These include much larger communities in the Solar System. The two biggest are in the Jupiter system and the Solar atmosphere, the one living in the Jovian ionosphere and radiation belts, and the other in the Solar corona, with a large sub-community on Mercury. These creatures have no known connection to Earthly djinn and would strike a human as like slightly more human eldila.*
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Whether or not these are Hnau is arguable. Some non-canon sources also say this is the homeworld of the great earth crawlers, who Elwin Ransom sees in the underland beneath the Fixed Island on Perelandra. If so that would make them the Hnau of Viritrilbia.

Another source says that the Oyarsa of Viritrilbia

> Focuses on knowledge and magic nullification.
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## Background

Not much was known about Mercury in the time of Lewis, and it has been strangely neglected by human probes in the time since. There have been a handful of orbiters and one crash, but no pictures sent from its surface.

Mercury is an airless world with no cloud cover and is the smallest of the true planets, other than Pluto which is no longer considered a planet. It is largely tidally locked, so barely rotates, being hot on one side and freezing on the other. It is ironically cooler than the surface of Venus, or Perelandra, which Lewis portrays as paradisaical. Due to its orbital eccentricity, it experiences the greatest temperature variations of any planet in the system.

Lewis' mention of "*the molten quicksilver of the first star*" refers back to mercury the metal, which is traditionally related to the same Roman god.

### Astrological significance

Somewhat like Gustav Holst's musical suite, *the Planets*, written just before WW1, Lewis' conception of the solar system owes as much to mediaeval astrology as modern astronomy. As such Viritrilbia would represent news and communication, but this is not spelt out fully. However, the inscription at Meldilorn on Malacandra hints at this with its '"*winged figure something like Oyarsa, but holding what appeared to be a trumpet*" which sounds similar to the god Mercury or Hermes and his role in classical mythology.

Mercury's associated metal is mercury, also known as quicksilver. This is associated with changeability. Its associated day is Wednesday, known as *Mecredi* in French.

## Quotations

> "Many of the pictures he could make nothing of. One that particularly puzzled him showed at the bottom a segment of a circle, behind and above which rose three-quarters of a disk divided into concentric rings. He thought it was a picture of the sun rising behind a hill; certainly the segment at the bottom was full of Malacandrian scenes – Oyarsa in Meldilorn, sorns on the mountain edge of the harandra [table-lands], and many other things both familiar to him and strange. He turned from it to examine the disk which rose behind it. It was not the sun. The sun was there, unmistakably, at the centre of the disk: round this the concentric circles revolved. In the first and smallest of these was pictured a little ball, on which rode a winged figure something like Oyarsa, but holding what appeared to be a trumpet. In the next, a similar ball carried another of the flaming figures. This one, instead of even the suggested face, had two bulges which after long inspection he decided were meant to be the udders or breasts of a female mammal. By this time he was quite sure that he was looking at a picture of the solar system. The first ball was Mercury, the second Venus – 'And what an extraordinary coincidence,' thought Ransom, 'that their mythology, like ours, associates some idea of the female with Venus.' The problem would have occupied him longer if a natural curiosity had not drawn his eyes on to the next ball which must represent the Earth. When he saw it, his whole mind stood still for a moment. The ball was there, but where the flame-like figure should have been, a deep depression of irregular shape had been cut as if to erase it. Once, then – but his speculations faltered and became silent before a series of unknowns...He looked at the next circle. Here there was no ball. Instead, the bottom of this circle touched the top of the big segment filled with Malacandrian scenes, so that Malacandra at this point touched the solar system and came out of it in perspective towards the spectator. Now that his mind had grasped the design, he was astonished at the vividness of it all. He stood back and drew a deep breath preparatory to tackling some of the mysteries in which he was engulfed. Malacandra, then, was Mars. The Earth – but at this point a sound of tapping or hammering, which had been going on for some time without gaining admission to his consciousness, became too insistent to be ignored." (*Out of the Silent Planet*)
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## References

1. ↑ *That Hideous Strength* p281 (1945 edition.)
2. ↑ http://www.windoffthehilltop.com/ink-ArbolRaces.html
3. ↑ https://fantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Oyarsa