Rhymes
Small rhyming prophecies serve to guide the protagonists throughout the series. Science Fiction author and filker Julia Ecklar has set these rhyming prophecies to music, and the resulting song won the 1997 Pegasus Award for Best Sorcery Song.
This is one, which is often quoted in parts as they become relevant to the story:
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.
Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Six Signs the circle, and the grail gone before.
Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold
Played to wake the Sleepers, oldest of the old;
Power from the greenwitch, lost beneath the sea;
All shall find the light at last, silver on the tree.
This second rhyme only refers to events in The Grey King and Silver on the Tree:
On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the light shall have the harp of gold.
By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.
When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.
Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.
(The last two lines are in Welsh and are translated in the book into English as "The mountains are singing / and the lady comes". The grammar of these lines in Welsh is unorthodox.)
Read more about this topic: The Dark Is Rising Sequence
Famous quotes containing the word rhymes:
“Like a French poem is life; being only perfect in structure
When with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“Always polite, fastidiously dressed in a linen duster and mask, he used to leave behind facetious rhymes signed “Black Bart, Po—8,” in mail and express boxes after he had finished rifling them.”
—For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)