Analysing the Song of Pelinal, v1: On His Name

Since I’m a bit edging to write again, here is another series I will probably never finish! This time about the book “The Song of Pelinal”, starting off with the first volume, “On his name”

The first 6 volumes start with the same short editorial note:
>Volumes 1-6 are taken from the so-called Reman Manuscript located in the Imperial Library. It is a transcription of older fragments collected by an unknown scholar of the early Second Era. Beyond this, little is known of the original sources of these fragments, some of which appear to be from the same period (perhaps even from the same manuscript). But, as no scholarly consensus yet exists on dating these six fragments, no opinions will be offered here.

While this does not deal with the whole Pelinal myth, it does shed some light on the historical context of the text. We know that the myth takes place somewhere between 1E 242 and 1E 243, during the Slave Rebellion. The myth was only later collected in a single source (namely the Reman Manuscript), consisting of older material. This is pretty standard with real world stories, where they would have been composed sometimes after the event, and often not transcribed until centuries afterwards.
The textual composition is from sometime prior to the early Second Era, maybe even First Era, but the book itself doesn’t say anything about this. Volume 7, at least (which will be dealt with later), mentions that that scrap of paper possibly comes from the sixth century of the First Era, and it is much more fragmented than the first 6 volumes. It is possible that the story had survived as an oral tradition, but without the text in the language of writing (probably some earlier Cyrodiilic), it is hard to say.

On to the main text:
>That he took the name "Pelinal" was passing strange, no matter his later sobriquets, which were many. That was an Elvish name, and Pelinal was a scourge on that race, and not much given to irony. Perhaps his enemies named Pelinal of their own in their tongue, but that is doubtful, for it means "glorious knight", and he was neither to them.

We now know that Pelinal stands for “Prototype Extra-Liminal Interstitial Nirnian Assault Lattice”, which arguably is a retcon (but a cool one). However, it is still interesting to see that that name stuck around despite all the various nicknames and titles he got, which the text seems to imply. It is possible that, while the Ayleids and Pelinal himself weren’t a fan of it, the Nedes (and possibly the Divines as well) might have liked the irony of it. It is also possible that the Nedes used the Ayleid language as a sort of prestige language, similar to how Latin was used even by peoples who had a harder relation or attitude towards them (like the Franks) in our world.
It also mentions Pelinal’s massacre of the Elves, which the Song will deal with more later.

>Certainly, many others added to that name during his days in Tamriel: he was Pelinal the Whitestrake because of his left hand, made of a killing light;

This is probably the best known title of Pelinal. “Killing light” and “left hand” are interesting here. Killing light seems to imply magic, but there are no direct references to Pelinal using magic actively in battle, only his sword and mace. The fact that it is coupled with the left hand sparked other things in my mind, though, which are possibly (maybe) accidental, namely a possible connection to Sword-Singing.
Killing light is the hardest to pin-point exactly in this context. While some Sword-Singers are able to conjure swords from their soul, it is never directly stated that they actually shine. From “From the Memory Stone of Makela Leki”:
>it was alive. Alive with fire. It formed in my hand. Ablaze with power[.]

Now this might purely be metaphorical, but it could point towards actual light coming from the shehai.
The left hand is easier to place. There is a scene in “Lord Vivec’s Swordmeeting with Cyrus the Restless”, in which Cyrus receives a memory stone with Sword-Singer techniques from a Yokudan priest. With the stone under his pillow, Cyrus falls asleep, and awakes the next morning, now putting his sword in his left hand. It seems the left hand held importance for Sword-Singers.
Another reference to the left hand, but not in (direct) connection to Sword-Singing, namely from the 36 Lessons of Vivec. From Sermon 1:
>For I have crushed a world with my left hand,' he will say, 'but in my right hand is how it could have won against me. Love is under my will only.'

It seems to imply that the left hand is involved with destruction of things (which fits Pelinal really well). Another quote from the Sermons seems to enforce this. From Sermon 10:
>The evoker shall raise his left hand empty and open, to indicate he needs no weapons of his own. The coming forth is always hidden, so the evoker is always invisible or, better, in the skin of his enemies.

Pelinal does have a need of weapons, but yet again it seems to imply that the left hand is connected to destruction, this time a lot more subtle than in sermon 1.
I myself am hesitant to immediately yell “PELINAL = ANSEI”, and it is more likely that they share similar symbolism and themes. The left hand reference seems to be wider, at least (although the aforementioned swordmeeting seemed to imply Vivec had involvement with Yokuda).

After this short introduction into the symbolism of the left hand, let’s get back to the text at hand:
>he was Pelinal the Bloody, for he [drank] it in victory;

This shows a bit more gruesome side of Pelinal, and it might be a prelude to his madness, which has a whole volume for it. Square brackets are generally used in scholarly translations to indicate editorial editions, used when the text is either eligible, or if the construction used in the text is impossible to translate literally into the other language (i.e. “drank” is implied due to other things in the original language, but not in English/Tamrielic). It could be nothing, and simply used to imply the antiquity of the text, or it could imply something else. I rather go with the first one, but again, without the text in its actual language, it is impossible to say.

>he was Pelinal Insurgent, because he gave the crusades a face;

Pelinal was one of the most notable figures of the Slave Rebellion. A comment by MK implied that he ‘ate’ (the quotation marks were in the original comment) the other heroes, which could imply character merging, which is a common thing in texts originating from an oral tradition. This means that the feats of Pelinal were performed by multiple people, but, due to Pelinal being the prime figure, all these feats were attributed to him. This was mostly done in order to make a story easier to remember or better accessible. This excerpt seems to imply that Pelinal was indeed the primary figure, even more so than Alessia.

>he was Pelinal In Triumph, as the words eventually became synonymous, and men-at-arms gave thanks to the Eight when they saw his banner coming through war;

Pelinal was only defeated at the end of the Rebellion by Umaril, after basically performing a one-man genocide throughout Cyrodiil. Not good for the Ayleids, very good for the Nedes.
It is interesting to note that the text mentions the Eight Divines. This pantheon was only created after Alessia established the throne. Assuming these are THE eight Divines, it is interesting that Shezzar is absent, even before the whole Middle-Dawn mess started. Admittedly, this could be due to the retroactive effects of fucking with the god of Time.

>he was Pelinal the Blamer, for he was quick to admonish those allies of his that favored tactics that ran counter to his, that is, sword-theory;

As stated earlier, Pelinal was a wrecking ball. It is interesting to see that he was calmer with his allies, instead of outright starting a fight. There is no other mention of Sword-theory in TES that I could find, but it is clear that he means violent assault. Again, this is pretty much the Pelinal we know.

>and he was Pelinal the Third, though whether this was because some said he was a god guiser, who had incarnated twice before already, or that, simpler, he was the third vision given to Perrif, anon Alessia, in her prayers of liberation before he walked among the quarters of rebellion, is unknown.

This excerpt is interesting. It implies that Pelinal is both a Shezzarine (on which the text is extremely careful, avoiding any hard statement on it (see volume 5)), and one of the things the gods gave to Alessia before the Rebellion broke loose.
A lot of the Song implies Pelinal is a Shezzarine, as apart from this quote, it also mentions the Nordic allies of Alessia greeting him as Shor, a person being smothered by moths after saying that he was, and of course the shared madness he has with Aka (which will be dealt with later on). The text implies two other Shezzarines known to the Nedes then, of which one is probably Hans the Fox.
The Song seems to imply that Alessia had received visions of the future from the gods. Volume two mentions these visions, namely Freedom, Morihaus, and, finally, Pelinal. The text also mentions (and which will become more apparent in the analysis of the next volume) that Pelinal did not seem to exist at all before the Rebellion.

That concludes the first part of this analysis, next up: “On his Coming”.