Low Worlds

The **Low Worlds** are the nearest to Arbol in Deep Heaven. They are Viritrilbia, Perelandra, Thulcandra and Malacandra, i.e. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. These are the rocky, warm worlds of the Field of Arbol.

Dr. Elwin Ransom visits three of the Low Worlds in person, apart from Viritrilbia, but he is told about others by the Oyarsa. They are rocky worlds with Hnau, warm and inhabited. The Earth has Sulva as its moon, and there are two Malacandrian moons. Beyond Malacandra is the domain of the dancers before the threshold and the Great Worlds.

## Background

When he makes it to Meldilorn, the home of Malacandra's Oyarsa. In Meldilorn, Ransom meets a 'pfifltriggi' who tells him of the beautiful houses and artwork his race make in their native forests. Ransom then is led to Oyarsa and a long-awaited conversation begins. In the course of this conversation it is explained that there are *Oyéresu* (the plural) for each of the planets in our solar system; in the four Low Worlds, which have organic life (intelligent and non-intelligent), the local Oyarsa is responsible for that life. The ruler of Earth (Thulcandra, "the silent planet"), has become bent and has been restricted to Thulcandra, after "great war," by the *Oyéresu* and the authority of Maleldil, the ruler of the universe. Ransom is ashamed at how little he can tell Oyarsa about Earth and how foolish he and other humans seem to Oyarsa.

Two of these worlds are covered in oceans, with nearly all of Perelandra's surface being oceanic, and most of Thulcandra's. Malacandra retains small seas on its surface, presumably a remnant of once greater ocean(s), going back to the time that The Bent One of Earth attacked the planet.

## Names

* **Viritrilbia** (Mercury)
* **Perelandra** (Venus).
* **Thulcandra** (Earth, aka Tellus or Terra)
	+ Thulcandra's Moon, **Sulva**
* **Malacandra** (Mars)
	+ Malacandrian moons (not named individually, but which would be Phobos and Deimos)

## 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."