Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (33 page)
Read Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated Online
Authors: Robin Furth
DORFMAN, STAN
DORNING, JANE
See
DEAN, EDDIE
: DELTA FLIGHT 901 CHARACTERS
DOROTHY
See
WIZARD OF OZ
DOUGLAS, SUSY
See
DEAN, EDDIE
: DELTA FLIGHT 901 CHARACTERS
DRABNIK, CSABA
See
DEAN, HENRY
: HENRY DEAN’S KA-TET
DRAGONS
Dragons are mentioned numerous times in the Dark Tower series. In
The Waste Lands,
Roland tells his
tet
about a place he knew as a boy called DRAGON’S GRAVE. It was a bottomless crack in the earth, named for the great bursts of steam that erupted from it every thirty to forty days. Although BLAINE’S CRADLE in LUD was decorated with images of the GUARDIANS OF THE BEAM, at the corners of the building were hideous stone dragons. In the ruins of CANDLETON, in the WASTE LANDS beyond LUD, there were mutant birds that looked like young dragonlets. The Kingdom of DELAIN, in EASTAR’D BARONY, was known derisively as DRAGON’S LAIR, though we are never told why. In
Song of Susannah,
we learn that Roland’s grandfather, ALARIC, went to GARLAN to slay a dragon.
Since there are frequent references to dragons in the Dark Tower series, and since many important Mid-World buildings have dragon gargoyles, Constant Readers have always assumed that dragons once played an important role in Mid-World folklore. However, it is not until
Wind Through the Keyhole
that we learn more about Mid-World’s association with these legendary monsters.
Wind Through the Keyhole
’s initial mention of dragons happens within the first few pages. “Hile, Sir Throcken,” Roland says to the bumbler OY as he, EDDIE, SUSANNAH, and JAKE continue to walk along the PATH OF THE BEAM toward the RIVER WHYE. We soon learn that this saying comes from a book called
The Throcken and the Dragon,
which Roland’s mother read to him when he was a child. Later on, Roland recounts another childhood tale entitled “Wind Through the Keyhole,” in which the
ka
of the young hero, TIM STOUTHEART is intrinsically bound to the
ka
of these firebreathing reptiles.
(GENERAL):
III:37
(Dragon’s Grave),
III:331
(and Blaine’s Cradle),
IV:13, VI:197
(Alaric),
W:7
(The Throcken and the Dragon),
W:110, W:111, W:120, W:133
(sound of indrawn breath),
W:151
(Garlan; a bonfire of dragons)
; 160
(Tavares),
W:218
DRAGON OF THE FAGONARD:
In the folktale “The Wind Through the Keyhole” (recounted in the novel of the same name), the young hero TIM ROSS (aka TIM STOUTHEART) had his life profoundly changed by two different dragons. The first of these huge reptiles—the dragon that supposedly incinerated his father—proved to be a nothing but a lie spun by the murdering cull BERN KELLS. However, the second dragon was extremely real. In fact, it almost roasted Tim alive.
Tim’s encounter with a live dragon happened in the FAGONARD Swamp,
while the boy was pursuing the pretty but wicked SIGHE, ARMANEETA. Fluttering flirtatiously ahead of young Tim, Armaneeta led him onto a dangerously isolated tussock and left him there. Much to Tim’s horror, the tussock turned out to be the head of a submerged dragon.
If the dragon that Tim met in the Fagonard is anything to go by, Mid-World’s fire-breathing reptiles are extremely impressive creatures. Although by nature dragons like to submerge themselves in mud and silt, when agitated they can rise out of the water and stand on their back legs, a stance they can maintain by fanning their wings. (The sound resembles drying sheets snapping in a brisk wind.) When they roar, green-orange fire belches from their mouths, sizzling any nearby reeds (or nearby boys). When they breathe, the gill, located between their plated breasts, flutters as they pull in air to stoke the furnace in their guts.
Luckily for Tim, the dragon he meets doesn’t roast young boys on sight, and can be appeased by pleas and prayers. This is probably due to the fact that the MUDMEN of the Fagonard give her offerings. (Tim knows that the Fagonard dragon is female since she has a pink maiden’s-comb on her head.) Sadly, the Fagonard dragon was not destined to survive. After the STARKBLAST, Tim saw the dragon’s vast, plated corpse floating on its side in the ice-choked waters of the swamp. Although she had fought the starkblast’s cold with blasts of her own fiery breath, the storm took her just as it took everything else in the Fagonard.W:194–96
(195 pink maiden’t comb),
W:197
(firemaiden),
W:198, W:201, W:204
(appeasement),
W:206, W:218, W:222, W:256–57
DRAGON THAT KILLED JACK ROSS:
According to BIG KELLS, the pard of BIG ROSS, Jack Ross was burned to death by a she-dragon, probably one protecting an egg. However, as the story of “The Wind Through the Keyhole” progresses, we begin to realize that Big Kells was lying. According to the tax-collecting COVENANT MAN, not even a small dragon had nested close to civilization in almost a hundred years, never mind one as big as a house. Bern Kells was lying to hide the fact that he’d killed his partner in a jealous rage. He wanted Ross’s wife, NELL, for himself. W:110, W:111, W:112, W:115–16
(probably a she-dragon protecting her egg; sometimes swallow their fire and explode),
W:120, W: 133, W:144, W:151
(Garlan; a bonfire of dragons),
W:158, W:160, W:173
DRETTO, ’CIMI
See
BALAZAR, ENRICO
: BALAZAR’S MEN
DRUNK IN CELL
See
DEBARIA CHARACTERS
: SHERIFF’S OFFICE
DUGAN, BISHOP
See
CALLAHAN, FATHER DONALD FRANK
: CALLAHAN’S OTHER PAST ASSOCIATES
DUGARELLI, FRANK
See
DEAN, HENRY
: HENRY DEAN’S KA-TET
EAGLE GUARDIAN
EARNSHAW, DINKY
See
BREAKERS
EARP, WYATT
See
GUNSLINGERS
(OUR WORLD)
EAST DOWNE, WALKING WATERS OF
EAST STONEHAM CHARACTERS
EASTWOOD, CLINT
Clint Eastwood starred in a number of spaghetti Westerns, including
A Fistful of Dollars
and
For a Few Dollars More.
He also directed and starred in such great gothic Westerns as
Pale Rider
and
High Plains Drifter.
Roland looks a bit like Clint and is an even better shot.
III:182
ECHEVERRIA
See
CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS
: OTHER CHARACTERS
EDDIE
See
DEAN, EDDIE
EISENHART, MARGARET
EISENHART, TOM AND TESSA
See
CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS
: RANCHERS: EISENHART, VAUGHN
EISENHART, VAUGHN
See
CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS
: RANCHERS
EISENHART, VERNA
See
CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS
: ROONTS
ELD, ARTHUR (THE ELD, LINE OF ELD, HORN OF ELD)
Arthur Eld—ancient King of ALL-WORLD and MID-WORLD’s greatest mythical hero—was a warrior of the WHITE. Like the line of DESCHAIN, who were
descended from one of his forty jillies, the Eld was a Guardian of the DARK TOWER. Although history credits him with uniting the land, Arthur Eld’s original kingdom lay in the western part of Mid-World, in the baronies destroyed by FARSON. Despite the glory associated with it, Arthur Eld’s reign was a brutal time. In the days of Eld, people, not stuffy-guys, were sacrificed on Charyou Tree fires.
In story and tapestry, Arthur is often depicted as riding his white stallion, LLAMREI, and brandishing his great sword, EXCALIBUR. After his death and the dissolution of his kingdom, Arthur Eld’s horse remained the
sigul
of IN-WORLD, and its image decorated the pennons of GILEAD. Although in
Wizard and Glass
we were told that Arthur Eld’s unifying sword was entombed in a pyramid after the Eld’s death, in the final book of the Dark Tower series we discover that it must have been the hilt that was entombed, since Roland’s gun barrels were forged from the metal of that blade. As well as his guns, the young Roland carried another heirloom from the times of Eld—his ancestor’s horn. Unluckily for him, Roland let his friend CUTHBERT ALLGOOD blow the Horn of Eld at the battle of JERICHO HILL, and Roland left it on the battlefield where it tumbled from Cuthbert’s dead hand, an oversight which he later comes to regret.
All descendants of Arthur Eld, as well as their gunslinger-knights, are sworn to uphold the Way of the Eld (also known as the Way of Eld) at all costs. The Way of Eld designates the proper conduct of gunslingers. It refers to their rigorous physical and mental training as well as to their sense of honor and duty. According to the Way of Eld, gunslingers must help those in distress if it is within their power to do so. According to FATHER CALLAHAN’s books, they were forbidden to take reward.
Sometime during his long and eventful life, Arthur Eld must have had sexual relations with a demon of some sort, since the CRIMSON KING is also his descendant. This is not so surprising, since Mid-World is full of SPEAKING RINGS, LESSER DEMONS OF THE PRIM, and wily DEMON ELEMENTALS, all of whom are able to cast powerful
glammer.
In the final three books of the Dark Tower series, we see the two bloodlines of the Eld—of GAN and Gilead, and of the PRIM and the AM—reunited in the body of MORDRED DESCHAIN, son of two fathers and two mothers.
Although the human line of Eld serves the White, the demonic line of Eld serves the Outer Dark. Both bloodlines are obsessed with the Tower, which is their birthright, yet while the line of Deschain is sworn to preserve it, the Red King and his son—the
dan-tete,
or little king—have pledged to destroy it.
It seems likely that the Eld’s two bloodlines—destined to battle each other—have each developed their own distinct mythologies about their ancestor. While in her dream-version of CASTLE DISCORDIA’s BANQUETING HALL, SUSANNAH-MIO sees a screen, which depicts a heroic Arthur Eld charging through a swamp with three of his knight-gunslingers behind him, the corpse of the dangerous snake SAITA around his neck. Yet in the DIXIE PIG, a blasphemous tapestry depicts Arthur Eld and his court feasting on human flesh.
Not only do Arthur Eld’s two bloodlines present two different views of the Eld, but the people of Mid-World also seem to have two versions of their greatest hero. The mythical Eld was the first king to arise after the Prim receded, hence
he predated the time of the GREAT OLD ONES. The historical Arthur Eld lived approximately seven hundred years—or thirty generations—before Roland’s birth. Perhaps Mid-World’s King Arthur was, like the ARTHUR of our world, both the once and future king. Although born in an ancient world, he never died but only lay sleeping. After the Great Old Ones’ terrible disasters, his people needed him and so he returned.
IV:171
(picture in Travellers’ Rest. “ARGYOU NOT ABOUT THE HAND YOU ARE DEALT IN CARDS OR LIFE”),
IV:181, IV:183–84
(and Steven Deschain),
IV:194
(“he of the white horse . . .”),
IV:206
(Excalibur and the Affiliation),
IV:211
(tapestry in Seafront. Sword entombed in a pyramid),
IV:223
(40 gillies),
IV:251, IV:267–71, IV:302
(“fantastic pride” of his line),
IV:317
(Excalibur and crown of All-World),
IV:350, IV:360
(Jewels of Eld),
IV:379, IV:382, IV:508, IV:558
(Roland as Arthur Eld),
IV:563, IV:580, E:206, V:30–31, V:73, V:110
(line of Eld),
V:128
(line of),
V:153, V:156
(way of Eld),
V:162
(Eld’s way),
V:170
(horn),
V:171, V:172
(horn),
V:181
(way of Eld),
V:203, V:215
(line of),
V:216, V:236, V:238, V:240
(horn),
V:284
(horn only),
V:321, V:324, V:333, V:373, V:388, V:410, V:497, V:542, V:567, V:605, V:609, V:624, V:686, V:709, VI:15, VI:39, VI:110, VI:111
(Arthur Eld),
VI:135
(Lost Beasts of),
VI:177, VI:183, VI:197, VI:252, VI:371–73
(tapestry),
VII:26, VII:50, VII:51, VII:111, VII:168, VII:176, VII:199, VII:253, VII:322, VII:473, VII:499, VII:501, VII:512, VII:549, VII:608, VII:766, VII:780, VII:791, VII:799, VII:800, VII:801, VII:819
(horn),
VII:820, VII:821, VII:822, VII:825
(horn),
W:48, W:60, W:66, W:103, W:131, W:169, W:197, W:268
COUNCIL OF ELD:
See GILEAD CHARACTERS
ELD OF THE ELD:
Roland and his father Steven are the true descendants of Arthur Eld, hence they are the Eld of the Eld. W:60
ELD’S LAST FELLOWSHIP:
A tapestry located in the DIXIE PIG depicts Eld’s Last Fellowship. However, the feast it shows is a horrible parody of Eld and his knights’ final meal. Instead of eating meat and drinking wine, Eld, his wife, and his followers are shown to be eating human flesh and drinking human blood. VII:6, VII:8, VII:10, VII:26
(named),
VII:28
EXCALIBUR:
Like the blade carried by our world’s mythical King Arthur, Arthur Eld’s sword was called Excalibur. The barrels of Roland’s sandalwood-handled guns were cast from the metal of this blade. VII:608