Chapter 1 In the Dark Time

THIS IS THE FIRST PAGE of the Book of the Dark, written some six hundred years ago in Berila, on Enlad:

"After Elfarran and Morred perished and the Isle¹ of Solea sank beneath the sea, the Council of the Wise governed for the child Serriadh until he took the throne. His reign² was bright but brief. The kings who followed him in Enlad were seven, and their realm increased in peace and wealth. Then the dragons came to raid among the western lands, and wizards went out in vain against them. King Akambar moved the court from Berila in Enlad to the City of Havnor, whence he sent out his fleet against invaders³ from the Kargad Lands and drove them back into the East. But still they sent raiding ships even as far as the Inmost Sea. Of the fourteen Kings of Havnor the last was Maharion, who made peace both with the dragons and the Kargs, but at great cost. And after the Ring of the Runes was broken, and Erreth-Akbe died with the great dragon, and Maharion the Brave was killed by treachery, it seemed that no good thing happened in the Archipelago.
"Many claimed Maharion's throne, but none could keep it, and the quarrels of the claimants divided all loyalties⁴. No commonwealth⁵ was left and no justice, only the will of the wealthy. Men of noble houses, merchants, and pirates, any who could hire soldiers and wizards called himself a lord, claiming lands and cities as his property. The warlords made those they conquered slaves, and those they hired were in truth slaves, having only their masters to safeguard them from rival warlords seizing the lands, and sea-pirates raiding the ports, and bands and hordes⁶ of lawless, miserable⁷ men dispossessed of their living, driven by hunger to raid and rob."

The Book of the Dark, written late in the time it tells of, is a compilation⁸ of self-contradictory histories, partial biographies, and garbled⁹ legends. But it's the best of the records that survived the dark years. Wanting praise, not history, the warlords burnt the books in which the poor and powerless might learn what power is.
But when the lore¹⁰-books of a wizard came into a warlord's hands he was likely to treat them with caution, locking them away to keep them harmless or giving them to a wizard in his hire to do with as he wished. In the margins¹¹ of the spells and word lists and in the endpapers of these books of lore a wizard or his prentice might record a plague, a famine, a raid, a change of masters, along with the spells worked in such events and their success or unsuccess. Such random¹² records reveal a clear moment here and there, though all between those moments is darkness. They are like glimpses of a lighted ship far out at sea, in darkness, in the rain.
And there are songs, old lays and ballads¹³ from small islands and from the quiet uplands of Havnor, that tell the story of those years.
Havnor Great Port is the city at the heart of the world, white-towered above its bay; on the tallest tower the sword of Erreth-Akbe catches the first and last of daylight. Through that city passes all the trade and commerce and learning and craft of Earthsea, a wealth not hoarded¹⁴. There the King sits, having returned after the healing of the Ring, in sign of healing. And in that city, in these latter days, men and women of the islands speak with dragons, in sign of change.
But Havnor is also the Great Isle, a broad, rich land; and in the villages inland from the port, the farmlands of the slopes of Mount Onn, nothing ever changes much. There a song worth singing is likely to be sung again. There old men at the tavern¹⁵ talk of Morred as if they had known him when they too were young and heroes. There girls walking out to fetch the cows home tell stories of the women of the Hand, who are forgotten everywhere else in the world, even on Roke, but remembered among those silent, sunlit roads and fields and in the kitchens by the hearths¹⁶ where housewives work and talk.
In the time of the kings, mages gathered in the court of Enlad and later in the court of Havnor to counsel the king and take counsel together, using their arts to pursue goals they agreed were good. But in the dark years, wizards sold their skills to the highest bidder¹⁷, pitting their powers one against the other in duels¹⁸ and combats of sorcery, careless of the evils they did, or worse than careless. Plagues and famines, the failure of springs of water, summers with no rain and years with no summer, the birth of sickly and monstrous¹⁹ young to sheep and cattle, the birth of sickly and monstrous children to the people of the isles-all these things were charged to the practices of wizards and witches, and all too often rightly so.
So it became dangerous to practice sorcery, except under the protection of a strong warlord; and even then, if a wizard met up with one whose powers were greater than his own, he might be destroyed. And if a wizard let down his guard among the common folk, they too might destroy him if they could, seeing him as the source of the worst evils they suffered, a malign²⁰ being. In those years, in the minds of most people, all magic was black.
It was then that village sorcery, and above all women's witchery, came into the ill repute that has clung to it since. Witches paid dearly for practicing the arts they thought of as their own. The care of pregnant beasts and women, birthing, teaching the songs and rites²¹, the fertility and order of field and garden, the building and care of the house and its furniture, the mining of ores and metals-these great things had always been in the charge of women. A rich lore of spells and charms to ensure the good outcome of such undertakings²² was shared among the witches. But when things went wrong at the birth, or in the field, that would be the witches' fault. And things went wrong more often than right, with the wizards warring, using poisons and curses recklessly to gain immediate²³ advantage without thought for what followed after. They brought drought and storm, blights²⁴ and fires and sicknesses across the land, and the village witch was punished for them. She didn't know why her charm of healing caused the wound to gangrene, why the child she brought into the world was imbecile, why her blessing²⁶ seemed to burn the seed in the furrows²⁷ and blight²⁵ the apple on the tree. But for these ills, somebody had to be to blame: and the witch or sorcerer was there, right there in the village or the town, not off in the warlord's castle or fort, not protected by armed men and spells of defense²⁸. Sorcerers and witches were drowned in the poisoned wells, burned in the withered²⁹ fields, buried alive to make the dead earth rich again.
So the practice of their lore and the teaching of it had become perilous³⁰. Those who undertook it were often those already outcast, crippled, deranged³¹, without family, old-women and men who had little to lose. The wise man and wise woman, trusted and held in reverence³², gave way to the stock figures of the shuffling³³, impotent village sorcerer with his trickeries, the hag-witch with her potions used in aid of lust³⁴, jealousy³⁵, and malice³⁶. And a child's gift for magic became a thing to dread³⁷ and hide.
This is a tale of those times. Some of it is taken from the Book of the Dark, and some comes from Havnor, from the upland farms of Onn and the woodlands of Faliern. A story may be pieced together from such scraps³⁸ and fragments, and though it will be an airy quilt, half made of hearsay³⁹ and half of guesswork, yet it may be true enough. It's a tale of the Founding of Roke, and if the Masters of Roke say it didn't happen so, let them tell us how it happened otherwise. For a cloud hangs over the time when Roke first became the Isle of the Wise, and it may be that the wise men put it there.

1 isle   

n.小岛，岛

参考例句：

• He is from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.他来自爱尔兰海的马恩岛。
• The boat left for the paradise isle of Bali.小船驶向天堂一般的巴厘岛。

2 reign   

n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势

参考例句：

• The reign of Queen Elizabeth lapped over into the seventeenth century.伊丽莎白王朝延至17世纪。
• The reign of Zhu Yuanzhang lasted about 31 years.朱元璋统治了大约三十一年。

3 invaders   

入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They prepared to repel the invaders. 他们准备赶走侵略军。
• The family has traced its ancestry to the Norman invaders. 这个家族将自己的世系追溯到诺曼征服者。

4 loyalties   

n.忠诚( loyalty的名词复数 )；忠心；忠于…感情；要忠于…的强烈感情

参考例句：

• an intricate network of loyalties and relationships 忠诚与义气构成的盘根错节的网络
• Rows with one's in-laws often create divided loyalties. 与姻亲之间的矛盾常常让人两面为难。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

6 hordes   

n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落

参考例句：

• There are always hordes of tourists here in the summer. 夏天这里总有成群结队的游客。
• Hordes of journalists jostled for position outside the conference hall. 大群记者在会堂外争抢位置。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

8 compilation   

n.编译，编辑

参考例句：

• One of the first steps taken was the compilation of a report.首先采取的步骤之一是写一份报告。
• The compilation of such diagrams,is of lasting value for astronomy.绘制这样的图对天文学有永恒的价值。

9 garbled   

adj.（指信息）混乱的，引起误解的v.对（事实）歪曲，对（文章等）断章取义，窜改( garble的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He gave a garbled account of what had happened. 他对所发生事情的叙述含混不清。
• The Coastguard needs to decipher garbled messages in a few minutes. 海岸警卫队需要在几分钟内解读这些含混不清的信息。 来自辞典例句

10 lore   

n.传说；学问，经验，知识

参考例句：

• I will seek and question him of his lore.我倒要找上他，向他讨教他的渊博的学问。
• Early peoples passed on plant and animal lore through legend.早期人类通过传说传递有关植物和动物的知识。

11 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

12 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

13 ballads   

民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴

参考例句：

• She belted out ballads and hillbilly songs one after another all evening. 她整晚一个接一个地大唱民谣和乡村小调。
• She taught him to read and even to sing two or three little ballads,accompanying him on her old piano. 她教他读书，还教他唱两三首民谣，弹着她的旧钢琴为他伴奏。

14 hoarded   

v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• It owned great properties and often hoarded huge treasures. 它拥有庞大的财产，同时往往窖藏巨额的财宝。 来自辞典例句
• Sylvia among them, good-naturedly applaud so much long-hoarded treasure of useless knowing. 西尔维亚也在他们中间，为那些长期珍藏的无用知识，友好地、起劲地鼓掌。 来自互联网

15 tavern   

n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店

参考例句：

• There is a tavern at the corner of the street.街道的拐角处有一家酒馆。
• Philip always went to the tavern,with a sense of pleasure.菲利浦总是心情愉快地来到这家酒菜馆。

16 hearths   

壁炉前的地板，炉床，壁炉边( hearth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The soldiers longed for their own hearths. 战士想家。
• In the hearths the fires down and the meat stopped cooking. 在壁炉的火平息和肉停止做饭。

17 bidder   

n.(拍卖时的)出价人，报价人，投标人

参考例句：

• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder.电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。
• The bidder withdrew his bid after submission of his bid.投标者在投标之后撤销了投标书。

18 duels   

n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争

参考例句：

• That's where I usually fight my duels. 我经常在那儿进行决斗。” 来自英语晨读30分（初三）
• Hyde Park also became a favourite place for duels. 海德公园也成了决斗的好地方。 来自辞典例句

19 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

20 malign   

adj.有害的；恶性的；恶意的；v.诽谤，诬蔑

参考例句：

• It was easy to see why the cartoonists regularly portrayed him as a malign cherub.难怪漫画家总是把他画成一个邪恶的小天使。
• She likes to malign innocent persons.她爱诋毁那些清白的人。

21 rites   

仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to administer the last rites to sb 给某人举行临终圣事
• He is interested in mystic rites and ceremonies. 他对神秘的仪式感兴趣。

22 undertakings   

企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务

参考例句：

• The principle of diligence and frugality applies to all undertakings. 勤俭节约的原则适用于一切事业。
• Such undertakings require the precise planning and foresight of military operations. 此举要求军事上战役中所需要的准确布置和预见。

23 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

24 blights   

使凋萎( blight的第三人称单数 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害

参考例句：

• The crops suffered from frequent blights. 农作物经常遭受病虫害。
• New England was accustomed to didacticism in its literature, and unmitigated didacticism blights the novel. 新英格兰习惯于在文学里说教，可是一味说教，小说就要完蛋。

25 blight   

n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残

参考例句：

• The apple crop was wiped out by blight.枯萎病使苹果全无收成。
• There is a blight on all his efforts.他的一切努力都遭到挫折。

26 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

27 furrows   

n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• I could tell from the deep furrows in her forehead that she was very disturbed by the news. 从她额头深深的皱纹上，我可以看出她听了这个消息非常不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dirt bike trails crisscrossed the grassy furrows. 越野摩托车的轮迹纵横交错地布满条条草沟。 来自辞典例句

28 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

29 withered   

adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

30 perilous   

adj.危险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• The journey through the jungle was perilous.穿过丛林的旅行充满了危险。
• We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.历经一连串危机，我们如今已安然无恙。

31 deranged   

adj.疯狂的

参考例句：

• Traffic was stopped by a deranged man shouting at the sky.一名狂叫的疯子阻塞了交通。
• A deranged man shot and killed 14 people.一个精神失常的男子开枪打死了14人。

32 reverence   

n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• We reverence tradition but will not be fettered by it.我们尊重传统，但不被传统所束缚。

33 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

34 lust   

n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望

参考例句：

• He was filled with lust for power.他内心充满了对权力的渴望。
• Sensing the explorer's lust for gold, the chief wisely presented gold ornaments as gifts.酋长觉察出探险者们垂涎黄金的欲念，就聪明地把金饰品作为礼物赠送给他们。

35 jealousy   

n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌

参考例句：

• Some women have a disposition to jealousy.有些女人生性爱妒忌。
• I can't support your jealousy any longer.我再也无法忍受你的嫉妒了。

36 malice   

n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋

参考例句：

• I detected a suggestion of malice in his remarks.我觉察出他说的话略带恶意。
• There was a strong current of malice in many of his portraits.他的许多肖像画中都透着一股强烈的怨恨。

37 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

38 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

39 hearsay   

n.谣传，风闻

参考例句：

• They started to piece the story together from hearsay.他们开始根据传闻把事情的经过一点点拼湊起来。
• You are only supposing this on hearsay.You have no proof.你只是根据传闻想像而已，并没有证据。