h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a friend who plays the part of a mayor at this Renaissance Faire I go to. A grand presence and a warm-hearted fellow, his character owns a place called 'the Rookery'

Gaiman uses the black birds of myth extensively in his series, and most of the references are based on myths and stories he has uncovered over the years.

The Sandman Annotations are very interesting to scan if you're perusing Sandman graphic novels for the second or third time. There is a wealth of information that Gaiman touches on. Everything from classic greco-roman literature to native american tales to Aesop's fables or Grim Fairy Tales. He places the reader's finger upon the pulse of humanity's creative spirit, and the annotations work sort of like a bibliography. If you want to learn more about where a certain reference comes from, chances are you'll find it there.

Sandman Annotations
http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~wald/sandman-index.html

Matthew is a curious creature. In a roundabout way, he's a crossover character from another DC comics title: "The Swamp Thing," which is actually another very good dark and moody series to explore if you like surreal explorations of consciousness. I personally don't think Swamp Thing is AS good as Gaiman's Sandman, but it is worthy of note. Gaiman obviously enjoyed the series, and incorporated Matthew into Sandman perhaps as a tip of the hat to his artistic peers.

According to the Annotations, the first time we see Matthew in the series is Issue 11, Page 9, Panel 4. This is part of the Doll's House storyline. You can learn a bit about his origins at the following link:

ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/people/wald/sandman/sandman.11

I don't know if the story of Matthew has been told yet from the perspective of The Dreaming, but there is a new series of graphic novels _called_ The Dreaming which are supervised by Gaiman. Although he doesn't write the stories himself, other artists and writers have picked up where he left off. Though the tales of the Endless seem to be off limits, they do talk about the large cast of supporting characters that surrounded Dream, and we get a glimpse of what happens to them after the Sandman series was over.

If Matthew's tale has not yet been told, I'm sure it will eventually. His origin is somewhere in the old Swamp Thing tales. I've never seen them personally.

Native American myths sometimes stage ravens and crows as the great tricksters of ancient legend. Many cultures saw black birds as dark and forboding creatures, sometimes initiating dread omens of war and famine. It was often considered a self-made curse to cause harm or death to a blackbird. They were messengers from unknown powerful sources. They came from some place no one understood, and they returned there.

Matthew is but the descendant of a mad hierarchy of legend and myth. He is the culmination of everything that came before him, just as the entire Sandman series is but the amalgamation and culmination of everything human storytelling has to offer.

Rooks were always mysterious, and often appeared as the outsider or observer of impending events. Like pariahs, they came on the scene to witness the events but rarely were directly involved themselves. Perhaps the fact most blackbirds are scavengers helped lead to this impression upon Man. The Rook waited patiently until the carnage was over, and then operated as the cleaning crew after the worst was over.

I did a quick search on the 'Net and found a couple pages that might shed more light on this. Perhaps a dissertation about ravens and crows in mythology would make a good topic for a h2g2 user page someday.


Raven mythology
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5366/index.html

Native American Raven Tales
http://www.seanet.com/~eldrbarry/rabb/rvn/rvn.htm

Raven's Aviary
http://www.shades-of-night.com/aviary/birdfict.html

The Night Raven or Eternal Teamster
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/stars.html

The Snow, the Crow and the Blood
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/snow.html

Ack! One of the problems with the forums is that there's no way to edit your messages. I started with one train of thought in the previous message but went off on a tangent and meant to go back to it. Then I forgot about it and now the first paragraph of the last diatribe has no relevance to the rest of it.

I'll try to rectify that now.

I have a friend who plays the part of a mayor at this Renaissance Faire I go to. A grand presence and a warm-hearted fellow, his character owns a place called 'the Rookery.' No one ever sees it. I mean it's just this idea the actor has that helps him round out his character. Physically, the actor has never been there. However, in his mind's eye he knows exactly what the place is like and what kinds of people are there. He has a seemingly endless number of stories he could tell you over a pint or two that take place at the Rookery. It's very real to him and he is a talented enough actor to make it real to you.

It's a dream. My friend can make this dream a part of your reality. He's really very good.

Now, the original word "rookery" means a breeding place for black birds, or any gregarious race of birds. Penguins, herons, crows, ravens, rooks, etc. To hear my friend explain it, this fictitious place where his character "roosts" when not at faire is a combination of pubs and brothels, where some of the most cunning thieves and cutthroats come and go. It's the perfect place to start a story, or end one for that matter.

One of Neil Gaiman's graphic novels is called "World's End" and the whole thing takes place in one of these kindsa places, where human beings throughout history congregate, and the cost to remain as well as the cost to find one's way back home from the World's End is to tell a story. Granted, there's no direct connection between my friend's Rookery and Gaiman's "World's End". However, my point is that human beings are very much like gregarious birds: they're very social animals but operate under customs and rules which may seem curious to an outsider.

In issue 40 of the Sandman series, Gaiman describes a scene in which a flock of blackbirds (I believe they're called a 'murder of crows') all congregate mysteriously in this clearing, and one crow is singled out in the center of the field. The other birds stand circled around him for much of a day, and they keep several feet of distance between themselves and this solitary bird.

The bird stands there and caws repeatedly. Sometimes the other birds respond, and this goes on for anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to much of a given day. Allegedly this is a rare occurrence. Very few human beings witness this because the blackbirds are very secretive about this mystery. Those humans who have witnessed it, have compared it to a human trial, because when the day has come and gone there are one of two outcomes that have been reported.

Either the entire flock of birds leave the clearing almost simultaneously as the sun sets, leaving the singled out rook alone and alive in the field to leave in the opposite direction, or as the sun sets they simultaneously swarm on the lone bird and tear him to ribbons with their beaks and claws.

That's a rookery to me. A place with its own set of rules that make little to no sense to an outsider. I find it interesting that in a way, The Dreaming is a rookery as well. Each manifestation of Dream is like a mysterious black bird. Matthew practically personifies every dream object or element that anyone has ever conjured up in their heads.

And h2g2.com is also kinda like a rookery. It's sort of a World's End. It's a place where people come from all over the world, and we read other people's slices of life and comment on them. Then we offer our own. Interesting how that is, eh?

BTW: There is a reason behind the parliament of rooks, but you have to read the series to find out for yourself. It's a secret. Shh! =) The Parliament of Rooks. Issue 40. I don't want to give the ending away.

Anyway, that's why I started the last message with that cryptic opening. I was going somewhere with it but got carried away on another tangent. LOL!

This is going to sort of off topic from the symbolism of the Rook, but you might find it interesting. Your friends description of the "Rookery" sounds very similar to a construct of the Science Fiction writer William Gibson. In his first book, "Neuromancer", there's a bar called "The Chatsubo" that is a popular gathering place for theives, crooks, mercernaries, data cowboys, etc. Like you said, it has its own set of rules that all those who frequent it seem to respect. It appears in several of his short stories and novels. There was even an internet newsgroup that surfaced called alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo (I think that's what it was, something similar anyway.) But it was forum where fans of Gibsons books could come and tell stories. But the stories always started in the Chatsubo, and many times the writers would incorporate events, or characters that others had written about into their own stories. It almost served as a MUD in that whenever you posted something to it, you did so as a character, usually describing your reaction to a story as if you were conversing with other characters in the bar. It was kind of like what you said of the bar in the Sandman series where you have to tell a story. There were some very, very good stories appearing there, and of course there were some bad ones. I heard a rumor once that Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash" started as a Chatsubo story, but that may be wrong.

Anyway, thanks for the great write up. You're a very good writer Zachsmind. I look forward to further dissertations.