In which the author turns to A Wizard of Earthsea to continue our discussion of the magic of True Names in fantasy literature.

Let Us Speak of Magic: Part the Fifth

Dear Reader,

Today we will be continuing our discussion of the Magic of True Names in Fantasy Literature. And I freely admit that I am quite excited to share with you the high art of Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.

Now, I had initially planned to cover Le Guin’s art in one letter, but laboring over her tapestry has revealed to me the folly of my ways: we’re in two letter territory, so consider this Part 1.

But before we turn to the book itself, let us borrow a little authority to elevate our subject, shall we?

Harold Bloom, who corresponded with but never met Le Guin, thought very highly of her as an author.

Indeed, the late great Yale literary critic once said, “Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time.” Though I have long disagreed with Bloom’s dismissal of Tolkien (an author whom Le Guin greatly admired herself), his praise is never lightly given.

And yes, the great critic is right: Le Guin’s work is high literature.

A Journey to Earthsea

In preparation for this letter, I revisited Le Guin’s little book (my 1984 copy is 183 pages long, maps and all) and read it from cover to cover. This was only the third time in my life I have done so. (The first time I was a child, and my father read it to me. The second I was in my twenties during a period when I was revisiting old loves.)

It is a strange to me that I have read this book so few times, when it has been so important to me. But I think that will change after this latest reading.

I mention that I read the whole book for this letter on True Names because that is what one must do to talk about this subject in A Wizard of Earthsea. We will be engaging the text from front to back, walking with our hero as he learns of magic and the deep meaning of names.

Let us be lavish with our quotations, shan’t we?

The Sparrowhawk

The name our hero bore as a child was Duny. This was his birth name, but not his true one. He was raised by his father on the Isle of Gont, but he first learned magic from his aunt.

It was an accident, really.

Duny overheard her say a rhyme that brought goats to her and so when the opportunity came, he yelled out the rhyme himself. And the goats came:

Witnessing this event, the aunt understood that Duny had power, for the goats had come at his call (one assumes that the rhyme contained their name for his power to take hold). So she agreed to teach him spells. And names. For it was names that he desired most, especially the names of birds:

That is how he came by his use-name, the name that he gave in place of his true name (which was not yet known when he was a child). It was the other children who first called him Sparrowhawk,

But his aunt was no wizard, no mage trained to wisdom and the responsibility of power:

She could not teach Duny what he needed most, for that another had to come, down from the mountains…

The Mage and His Name

Later on, around the age of twelve, Duny demonstrated his power to save his home from soldiers of an empire. It nearly cost him his life. But, a mage hearing of the boy’s deed of power, came down out of the forested mountains and saved him.

He declared that Duny needed his name. It was this mage, Ogion, who would give the Sparrowhawk his true name in a ceremony rich with the imagery of baptism (I owe this particular insight to one Alex J. Taylor, check out his instagram):

This is fascinating.

One might expect that a true name is something that you are born with – and maybe it is. But it isn’t something that anyone knows on their own (maybe the dragons are different, or the Old Powers – beware them both).

It seems that Ogion – because of his power and wisdom – perceived the truth of Duny’s being and so named him. Thus true names are no arbitrary devices that may be granted by accident or whim (as in the chronicles of the Black Company). They are found and bound up within the true being of the person or thing named.

The Weight of Asking and Giving

But that doesn’t mean that any mageborn need only look at someone or something carefully enough to discern their name. Ged himself runs into this problem when he’s ready to leave wizard school at Roke. He needs a true name to get by another wizard at the door which leads to difficulties:

The underlying assumption that Ged makes here – and this after completing his training as a wizard – is that he cannot learn someone else’s name unless it is given or discovered.

All he can do is ask (and that was the test all along).

There is a certain symmetry to this asking, for to gain access to the wizard school at Roke in the first place, Ged had to give his name, and it sobered him greatly at the time:

True names hold great power and they are shared only with those that you most trust and love – unless at dire need. But in Earthsea, it is not only the mortal races that have names…

Of the Being of Things

Knowing a true name is knowing something’s being – and everything that is has a name. (Some wizards disagree about those things that are of the Dark World – are they nameless or not? But more on that in the next letter.)

If true names are connected to the truest being of something, then magic is the true naming of something with power, a truth that once Ged understood drove him in his studies:

But sheer knowledge does not grant endless power, there are limits.

Of the Uses – and Consequences – of Power

Alright, it’s lore time and that means walls of text. Faint not at the trial, dear reader, for if you overcome, the treasure of understanding will be yours!

Gird thyself for glorious battle.

We’ll only briefly touch on Equilibrium here (which is also called the Balance and the Pattern earlier), but we’ll go more in depth in our next letter. For now, let’s get into this “limits” talk that the Master Namer of Roke shared with Ged.

Proximity and knowledge constrain even the greatest of powers. (Proximity is critical because, as we find out later on in the book, the Old Powers know a lot, perceiving names and peering into the future, but they are thankfully trapped on their isles. We don’t need to worry about them. Yet if such spirits of evil and malice could find a way, a way to reach out…)

But those are the practical boundaries, the ones that everyone runs into who seeks to do the raw work of magery. There are more subtle and important boundaries that must be learnt:

To change a thing is more than mere illusion, it is to change the true name. It must follow knowledge and serve need – wisdom and necessity, not arbitrary will, are the guiding principles of the wizardry of Roke as they seek to maintain and honor the Equilibrium of the world.

For to light a candle is to cast a shadow. And how terrible a shadow may be born of a wondrous light…

Here we must stay our words, dear reader for a time, indeed a seven-fold span of time.

In the next letter we will talk of pride and shadows, death and life, the silence and the word, and the hawk’s bright flight across the empty sky. Yes, we will travel with Ged to world’s end to the very coasts of death’s kingdom, all that we may understand the magic of true names in Earthsea.

Until we meet again,

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Best regards,

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Bryan