WITCHES OF WEIR

D'ANGELO, Dolores

- also known as Superior Sorrow; born 1902; parents Michael and Leonora (the Leonine Superior) nee Tedesco; husband Diego Rivera (not that Diego Rivera, though for the most part they did live in Mexico City); children: unknown (presumably none, though she and Diego did raise Virginia Mannering from roughly 1929/30 until circa early 1938);

- dark-haired, cow-eyed; affiliation: Anthean Sisterhood; became Superior in 1923 when eldest sister killed by Norma (presumed to be Rhea Sangati), who was in turn killed by youngest sister;

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MANNERING, Hush

- also known as Young Life; as per events preserved here, she claims to be a devil-cursed, perpetual 7-year old who has been 7 since she turned 17 and gave birth to her second child, a daughter this time, on the 25th of Tantalar (Mithramas Day) 5920 Year of the Dome (YD);

- in that version of her story she was born in 5903 (1903 AD) and was given the name of Pandora Mannering simply because Mannering means that, other than it had to be a man and a women, no one can state with any certainty the identity of her parents;

- in that regard, many believe Pandora's parents were Judge Warlock and Celeste Mannering;

If, as she believes, she was born Pandora Mannering and if she'd had triplet daughters instead of a solitary Sed-Son when she was 16, then the Witches of Weir would never have called the Simultaneous Summonings of 19/5920.

In that regard, the following BLOCKQUOTE sets the stage for virtually everything that has taken place in the PHANTACEA Mythos novels set in the Dome's 60th Century.

The Valley of the Visionaries, Spring 1920

It was exceedingly rare, though not entirely unheard of, for a woman to have two children, by separate pregnancies, within the same calendar year. Then again Pandora Mannering was literally bred and subsequently brought up to be that rarest of all individuals, -- the human mother of the Three Great Goddesses Reincarnate.

Except it had not worked out quite that way.

Her first child was a boy and, even though she was ready, willing and theoretically able to become pregnant next to immediately, there was no reason to believe her second issue would be any different.

The Anthean Sisterhood was taking no chances. It issued the Summoning of Weir!

-- from the first chapter of the 2002 Revision of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

- Hush is the tricky pixy who appears, under a number of names, on and off throughout the Heliodyssey Quintet of novels; over forty years later and physically little unchanged, she also shows up in some of the novels set in 1980/81; when she appears in public during 'Centauri Island' she goes by the name of Dorothy Dodgson;

In the following BLOCKQUOTE she has taken on the identity of General 'Huff & Puff' Jollity, the acknowledged leader of 'SOS -- The Sorority of Sausages'

It was a lot easier to pretend to be a fairy, something Antheans, and indeed most ordinary people, accepted as being at least marginally within the realm of possibility, than to try to explain what, who, she actually was. That she had been a seven year old since the age of seventeen, that she was the mother of two children, and that she suffered under a devil's doom, a devil that was also a seven year old, only she'd been one for close to six thousand years, was not particularly believable. Even though she had lived it, Hush still had difficulty believing it herself.

One of her residual girlish pleasures was dressing up. Right now for example she was wearing the grey uniform of an American Confederate army colonel tailored to her size. It came complete with a wide-brimmed hat and sabre, made of wood of course. To top the costume off she also wore an eye patch and was smoking a corn cob pipe. Puffing on it, -- she loved tobacco --, she paraded in front of her mostly stunned, statue-like troops. It was quite the group: eight humans besides herself and two psychopomps, one of whom, Granny Garuda, was much more than just that.

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

There's more on Hush in the June '97 Web-Publisher's Commentary and in the overview to 2002 Revision of 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'; synoptically speaking her 1st appearances in the the 1938 serials were recorded here and here; for a sampling other Hush-lynx from that time period click here or here or here; here's the 2007-latest Hush-link; there's an extended entry on her counterpart, Young Death, aka the Male Trickster, here;

NOTE 1: The uppermost image is a collage of drawings by John Tenniel and coloured by Fritz Kredel; I took them from my copy of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll (Random House Inc, 1946); the text on the left side reads: 'Hush Mannering as Tenniel's Alice' whereas the text on the right reads: 'Young Life'; the mouse-over reads: 'Collage of John Tenniel's Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, 1946 edition; scanned in and prepared on PHOTOSHOP by Jim McPherson, 2007'

NOTE 2: The mouse-over behind the lowermost image, which has been online since the late 90s reads: [HUSH MANNERING OFTEN LOOKS SOMETHING LIKE THIS, PAINTING BY VELAZQUEZ EXHIBITED IN VIENNA]

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WILDERWITCH

born? -- who knows, although she claims it was around Mithramas (Christmas) 5927 Year of the Dome (YD); sometimes called Cynthemis Dyana; parentage: unknown (probably the Dual Entities while Heliosophos was possessed by Bad Rhad (Ahriman, Rhadamanthys, Smiler) and the Mnemosyne 3-Thing while she was possessing Mariamne-Krepusyl, a Lazaremist);

Chronologically speaking, she made her first appearance in the PHANTACEA Mythos at the age of 10; it happened during the opening sequence of 'The Volsung Variations'; therein she's more commonly known as Wolfie than Witchie or Wildie; therein also we learn her, perhaps, biggest secret;

The Witch, as she's more often than not referred to in the later serials, possesses what she herself refers to as her 'fearsome soul-self', which is suggested in the main image to the right. Although a master illusionist like most upper level witches, she commonly looks like the upper image;

Doc Dark (Immanuel Dark, Gloriel's thought-widowed husband, who was once the supra Saint codenamed Mr Brilliant) has always maintained that Faceless Strife was Wilderwitch;

A member of 1980's Damnation Brigade (though she never officially belonged to the King's Own Crimefighters), prior to Limbo had one acknowledged child, a daughter (Fey Woman, Phaedra) born in 1946/7 by a unspecified father, whom she gave over to the Antediluvian Sisterhood of Flowery Anthea to be raised accordingly.

For almost 25 Years, from the events on Damnation Isle recounted in 'The Last of the Supranormals', which was set in December 1955, to those told at the beginning of 'The War of the Apocalyptics', which took place on November 30, 1980, she and her fellow members of the Damnation Brigade had their minds separated from their bodies.

Their minds, or spirits, drifted between-space in the vicinity of Damnation Isle while their bodies, hardened by Stopstone, stood in the back courtyard of the Palace of Replicated Versailles in Centurium, the central cavern of Temporis. As it happens, a statue reminiscent of the Witch stands to this day (1997) behind the main chateau at the real Versailles. I spotted it somewhat serendipitously when I was there in 1996.

There's more on the Witch in the Summer 2002 Web-Publisher's Commentary. There's also a spoilsport excerpt from 'War of the Apocalyptics' as to who the father of her daughter is in the synopsis to 'The Faerie Garden'. Her long-time and often strained relationship with Jervis Murray is remarked upon in the Summer 2002 instalment of Serendipity.

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Circa 2000 YD

Two of them were named, funnily enough, Jordan and Pusan. He was the musician of the two, the one who told the stories. She sang and danced. They were very much in love, these two. Their parents were against them marrying so they ran away. Their parents were pagans. They worshipped Mother Earth; not the three Great Gods, who were the only solid devils on the planet now that Dark Sedon was up there in the night’s sky being dark during the day.

Their mothers were more than merely pagans; they were Hecate-Hellions. That meant they belonged to the oldest Witch Sisterhood on either side of the Dome; one that was even older than that of Flowery Anthea. Which was named after Xuthros Hor’s wife, Hor being the Biblical Noah; not Thrygragos Lazareme’s highborn epitome of the Spring Season, of Life Itself.

They conjured up a pair of demons to go after them.

... from Pregame-Gambit: 'Sedon's Stooge', Chapter Seven of 'The Trigregos Gambit'

5476 Year of the Dome

Hecate (or Herta) was a pre-devic, reputedly Edenite deity. The Mother-Earth-worshipping, demon-welcoming – and oft-times demon-complicit – Hellion Sisterhood was so old it predated the Golden Age of Humanity. Morgan Abyss, the Death’s Head Master of Cabalarkon’s Weirdom hundreds of years ago, was a Hellion.

And so, from the depths he had read of her, was Melina nee Tethys Somata.

... from 'The 1000 Days of Disbelief'

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ATREIDES, Clymene (maiden name: Catreus)

- also known as 'Mystery Might'; maiden name: Catreus; older sister of Aerobe Heliopolis; mother of five children by Pelops (Pops Polyps) Atreides, -- of whom, by 1938, only youngest one, Laodice, was known to still be alive;

- philosophically a pro-demon, anti-devil, Mother Earth worshipping Hecate-Hellion but helped form the Athenan War Witches with her sister & was also a major mover behind the Outer Earth's version of the Korant Sisterhood (see also Hulga Volsung, Mata Avar, & Medea Annulis);

- as per below, essentially brought up her niece, Roxanne (Hot Rox, Living Ghost, Slipper) nee Heliopolis Kinesis, & her nephew's eventual wife, Argiope (Bright Face) nee Zeross Heliopolis, after their mothers died giving them birth;

- like her own Laodice, Hot Rox and Bright Face were Summoning Children who prominently featured throughout the 1938 Heliodyssey Quintet of novels; Clymene mostly appeared in 'Helioddity';

- long time friend & associate of Magister Joseph Mandam, Rhea Ararat Sangati, and Sedon St Synne; though trained as a Hellion, she acted as, and in effect became, the Korants' Superior or Mater on Outer Earth by 1937;

- connected to the Master Deva, Divine Coueranna of Apple Island (aka Myrionymous Kore -- meaning multiple names) and according to some, notably Kyprian Somata, may control one of her nastier aspects, namely Kore-Hel; her having Kore (she also of the many personalities) may have been why she was called Mystery Might;

- in January 1938 gave the Hellstone, Prison Pod, ringot or whatever it was containing Kore to her Summoning daughter Laodice for Lao's protection in Rome; what became of it, Kore inside it, after Lao went to Castle Nightmare, supplies much of the impetus behind 'Coueranna's Curse';

- presumably succeeded Norma the Deadly Druidess as the Hellions' Morrigan (their head honcho) after her death in 1923; the real Mother Superior of the Outer Earth's version of the Korant Sisterhood in 1938 and, along with husband Pelops, the Etocretans' spiritual leader;

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'What's this, mom?' wondered Pelops Atreides on the Aegean Island of Trigon as he bent over and picked up the flower. 'Don't tell me Agenor's finally managed to grow some black roses?' He showed it to his wife, who was holding a year old baby boy.

Clymene, who was a mother but not to the infant in her arms, took one look at the flower and crossed herself. 'Too small, Pops. But it's from the same family, -- from a sloe or blackthorn bush as a matter of fact. It came from up there.' She pointed up the slope of the small spiral peak known as Mt Harmonia.

'Nothing like that grows around here.'

'I didn't say it grew up there!'

-- from 'The Moloch Manoeuvres'

She's called Mystery Might because (Duhhh!) she has certain mysterious abilities. Has demonstrated these otherwise inexplicable talents of hers over the course of the preceding decades, make that. Doesn't any more but, whatever else she may have lost, she still has her smarts and all her witch-ways. Etocretan Extremists, as led by Agenor Heliopolis (who is her nephew, late sister Aerobe's son by equally late Belus Heliopolis), consider both her and Pops Polyps, husband Pelops, their mentors. Manoan Maenads are particularly indebted to Clymene.

As the person most responsible for bringing them up, Mystery's the main reason these young women can classify themselves as true witches. Include among these latter-day Hecate-Hellions Megaera nee Kinesis now Zeross, Artemis nee Zeross now Hyperenor, and the two recently turned seventeen year old Summoning Children, Agenor's sister, Roxanne now Kinesis, and Agenor's fiance, Argiope Zeross.

-- from the synopsis to 'Boss Bovines', the second chapter of 'Helioddity';

NOTE 1: As remarked in the February 1997 instalment of Serendipity, the representation of Vayu Maelstrom found in the synopsis of an early chapter of Apocalyptics is also taken from this Rubens painting

NOTE 2: As Clymene is aware (because she's often been to Apple Isle, on the Hidden Continent of Sedon's Head, and knows what's become of Cybele St Synne) the black flower Pelops finds is the symbol of Strife;

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