4 Plummels are the fringe feathers that line the outer edges of most owls’ wings. They are responsible for making us the quietest flyers on Earth. Plummels are made of the most delicate filaments of feathers.
5 Hordox, I was to learn, was the serpent spirit. There is also a constellation called Hordox that appears briefly at the end of the summer moons. Oddly enough, the Kielian snakes were mostly oblivious to this constellation, which I must assume is due to the fact that they don’t fly.
6 I would later write a book One Thousand Shades of Blue: An Analysis of the Spectral Coordinates of Kielian Snakes. It was considered a seminal work in spectroscopic studies.
7 “Kerplonken” is Krakish for the perhaps more familiar Hoolian word “yeep,” which means “wing locked.”
8 I would later learn that although a pine was in fact the safest place to be during a Snurl gale, it was the last tree one wanted to be in during a forest fire. As the flames burn, the sap begins to boil, and the tree can explode in a matter of minutes.
9 In my future weather studies, I would do extensive research on the architectural structure of the winds of gales, storms, hurricanes, and typhoons. “Gutter” is a term often used to describe the edging troughs of a variety of winds. My book Scuppers, Gutters, and Baggywrinkles: The Architecture of Storms became required reading for all members of the weather-interpretation chaw at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree.
10 A proper burial for a dead owl in the Northern Kingdoms consisted of burning the owl and then setting out the ashes on a sea wind. In the Southern Kingdoms, an owl’s body is transported to a high hollow in a pepper-gum tree, safe from scavengers, or can also be burned. Owls of the Southern Kingdoms are not particular about where or what kind of wind they release the ashes upon. I have made a codicil in my will that my ashes shall be transported to the Northern Kingdoms, preferably near the Bay of Fangs, for private reasons that I do not wish to disclose.
11 The Northern Kingdoms have different names for the seasons from the Southern Kingdoms. In the Southern Kingdoms, the seasons are named after the hues of the milkberries that grow on the vines of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree. There is the White Rain, which is winter, followed by the Silver Rain for spring. Then summer is the Golden Rain, and autumn, the Copper-Rose Rain. In the Northern Kingdoms, the seasons’ names are based on the condition of snow and ice. Soffen issen or “soft ice” is spring. Ny schnee is summer and literally means “no snow.” Autumn is liffen schmoo, or “light frost,” and winter is brikta schnee or “deep snow.” During winter, however, there are several more ways to describe snow depending on the kind it is and when it falls. Siypah schnee is snow that falls at dawn. Krepla schnee is snow that falls very fast and is blinding.
12 Years later while at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree, I spent many hours in the forge of the tree’s legendary blacksmith, Bubo, who had trained with Orf. My observations are collected in a small volume, The Spectrum of the Forge: Color Theory and Analysis.
13 Fire claws were considered not just dirty but the most dangerous of all weapons. With them, an owl can fight at close range while actually ripping and burning an opponent. However, they were not only injurious to the enemy, but over time they disfigure an owl’s talons. Orf would not permit fire claws to be made on Dark Fowl, and many blacksmiths refused to make them.
14 Filoplumes are very fine feathers beneath the covering feathers with a nearly invisible shaft. They are exceedingly sensitive to pressure and vibrations. These filos have the extraordinary ability to sense the location of the other feathers when an owl is in flight, so that subtle wing adjustments can be made as necessary.
15 It was the custom in the Northern Kingdoms for commanders in the military to be called by not simply their given names but the formal nomenclature of their species. Hence, “Strix Varia,” which is the species name for a Barred Owl. My own father was known as General Raskin Megascops Trichopsis. However, cadets are addressed by their given names followed by just the first part of their species name. Therefore, I would be known as “Cadet Lyze Megascops.”
16 There was a slight gasp here as the captain said this, as the Others were rarely mentioned except in conjunction with magpies who traded materials scavenged from their ruins. There were not many ruins in the Northern Kingdoms, so the concept of the Others was vague at best for many.
17 Erich Ludvigsen Pontoppidan was a Danish bishop who published the first description of a Short-eared Owl. In Latin, the word “Flammeus” means “fiery or flaming, the color of fire.” These owls are a ruddy plumage. They are not, however, by nature pompous, as Captain Ludvigsen was.
18 This was the same firthkin where, according to the Legends of Ga’Hoole, Queen Siv faced down her mortal enemy, Lord Arrin, who had wanted to abduct her egg, the egg of the first king of the Great Tree, good King Hoole. The owls from this region pride themselves on their ancient lineage and many claim to be able to trace their bloodlines back to Queen Siv and her mate, King H’rath, the monarchs of the Northern Kingdoms.
19 Nest-maid snakes had the capacity to extend their bodies and serve as tables when there was the space. In family hollows, which were small, they were rarely used in this way. But in institutional settings, the practice was often implemented as it was a very efficient way of dining.
20 Small owls such as Pygmy, Elf, and Northern Saw-whets, unlike the majority of owls, lack fringe feathers, or what we call plummels, to quiet their flight. They are inherently noisy fliers.
21 Bangle juice is unfermented bingle juice, thus without any alcohol. Grog keepers are notoriously lax about serving alcoholic beverages to cadets.
22 A transport vacuum is a method for transporting wounded owls or prisoners in flight. It is a windless chamber formed by four owls arranged in a diamond configuration. The transport vacuum was invented in the Northern Kingdoms and called a kronkenbot. It would not be used extensively in the Southern Kingdoms until the wars with the Pure Ones.
23 Great Horned Owls can attain speeds of up to forty leagues an hour. But Peregrine Falcons can fly twice that speed.
24 Extended scale plates (ESPs) are one of the most intriguing structures of a Kielian snake’s anatomy. They are not only connected with the snake’s ability to adjust its descent when diving from a high cliff, but also intricately involved with the muscles and nerves that control the head’s shaping mechanisms.
25 The organization of owl military divisions has always differed greatly from those of the Others. After extensive research in many of the volumes of the Others’ military history, I found that a division was composed of between ten thousand to twenty thousand soldiers with at least three brigades.
26 A “snaggle” is a Kielian snake term for a group of snakes numbering between six and twelve.
27 If the reader would like to learn more of my theories on owl-snake flight dynamics, I suggest he or she read the volume I coauthored with Hoke and Dylan: A Brief Analysis of the Dynamics of Kielian Snake-Owl Flight.
28 Octavia tells this story in a slightly different way. She claims that I went to her parents and said something to the effect that I promised that if they gave her to me, she would never have another lazy day in her life. She also leaves out the part of how she insulted me.
29 Wind Dynamics: An Exploration of the Shape and Structure of Airfoils. This is a slender volume I wrote, which involved a fascinating experiment where I “inked” the skies by dropping plumes dipped in ink into a variety of foil formations and, with the help of my colleagues at the Glauxian Brothers retreat, recorded patterns key to a foil’s structure.
30 When I arrived at the Great Ga’Hoole Tree many years later, I was the one who introduced cooked meats to the tree. Up until that time, fire and coals were only used for blacksmithing. When I became head of the weather-interpretation chaw, however, I insisted that all food be consumed raw when on weather missions. It was difficult to interpret weather with a bellyful of warm meat. It threw off one’s senses for such analysis.
31 Owl eyes are not spherical in shape like mos
t creatures but are elongated tubes. Owls have large pupils that collect all available light, giving us excellent eyesight in the dark.
32 In addition to the metal spikes, there were also metal loops. I would later learn that the spikes were called pitons and designed to dig into rock cracks, and the loops were called carabiners and used to link systems of rope in a sport the Others called “mountain climbing.”
33 This “trick” was something that Hoke had taught me. Many snakes, particularly in their immature years, can’t maintain head shape if struck in the midsection of their bodies. Thank Glaux it worked.
34 The calamus is the hollow feather shaft that attaches to the skin of a bird.
35 It is widely assumed that owls cannot see well during the day. This is false. Owls can see fine during the day, but very few creatures can see well when the noonday sun is reflecting off sheets of ice.
36 One might also consider the weapon of Patch’s paw to be somewhat ironic. For the paws of a snow leopard, though immense and powerful, are lined with fur for better traction on the ice. Thus, it has been said that snow leopards can deliver the “soft blow that kills.”
Kathryn Lasky, The Rise of a Legend
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