The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul
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The Fivefold Pathway of the Soul, written by Ordol, is one of the (fictional) primary religious texts for the southern cultures in Lois McMaster Bujold's fantasy novels The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt. This entry outlines and speculates on the contents of that book based on background from Bujold's three books in this fictional realm. The Fivefold Pathway does not exist as an independent book; although a fanfictional version existed at one time on the Bujold fansite, http://www.dendarii.com/, that text seems to have disappeared.
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[edit] Pantheon
[edit] The Daughter
Season: Spring
Primary color: Blue
Theological sign: Forehead/brain
Symbolizes:
The Daughter represents birth and life, symbolized by the opening of the new year.
[edit] The Mother
Season: Summer
Primary color: Green
Theological sign: Belly/womb
The Mother represents health and healing.
[edit] The Son
Season: Fall/Autumn
Primary colors: Red/Gold
Theological sign:Heart
The Son represents friendship, the outdoors, animals, and hunting.
[edit] The Father
Season: Winter
Primary color: Grey
Theological sign: Groin/genitals
Symbolizes: Closure, death, justice
The Father represents closure and "deaths in good season," (CC, Ch. 2) as typically symbolized by the closing of the year.
[edit] The Bastard
Season: None. While the other four gods' feast days are the start of their respective seasons, the Bastard's feast day is "that intercalary holiday inserted every two years after Mother's Midsummer to prevent the calendar's precessing from its proper seasons" (CC p. 221), corresponding to our February 29. The Bastard is sometimes referred to as the 'god of the Unseason'.
Primary color: White
Theological sign: Mouth/tongue as well as the thumb
Symbolizes: Disasters, bastards, orphans, executioners, "and a whole purseful of other dirty jobs." (CC, Ch. 2)
The Bastard represents balance and all things out of season. The Bastard has power over demons that occasionally leak into the world.
[edit] Creation
The story of how the world came to be is outlined in chapter three of Paladin of Souls. Essentially, the World-Soul could not perceive itself, and so split itself in two to be able to see itself. This split created the Father and the Mother. In their love, they created the Daughter and the Son, and split the seasons up among themselves.
Later, a great demon-lord was granted a soul by a saint of the Mother, and then took up service in the Mother's name, to banish all other demons from the world of matter. He was finally slain, but the Bastard was born of his union with the Mother, though the precise way in which this happened is unclear. From him, the Bastard inherited control of all the demons he had overcome.
[edit] Aspects of Worship
[edit] Churches and structures
Churches are typically built with a four-lobed footprint, reminiscent of a four-leaf clover, with a lobe each dedicated to the Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter. Each lobe is of equal size, as the gods are equal. A second building, typically a tower, is built behind the Mother's lobe as a place of worship for the Bastard.
[edit] The Fivefold Religion in Everyday Life
[edit] Signing
The Sign of the Five is a small ritual performed whenever the Gods are invoked. The signs are usually made with the thumb, first, and second fingers of the right hand briefly touching the forehead, mouth, belly, and groin before spreading the opened hand over the heart. (cf. The Sign of the Cross.)
[edit] Meals
Prayers are typically offered both at the beginning and at the end of a meal.
[edit] Birth
[edit] Dedication
Around their 12th or 13th years, male children of nobility are typically inducted into the Order of the Son, or the Order of the Daughter. The former is the larger, and is analogous to a standing army. It is primarily concerned with the external security of the relevant kingdom. The Daughter's Order is smaller and more concerned with internal security, particularly in protecting travelers on the roads.
Misfits of various sorts sometimes feel Called into the service of the Bastard.
[edit] Marriage
[edit] Death
At the deceased's funeral, acolytes of each of the Orders, dressed in their God's colors, bring animals of their God's colors forward, one by one. Whichever God has taken the deceased's Soul into His/Her heaven has their divine animal make some sign that the God has taken the deceased's soul.
The Father generally takes the soul of fathers, or men of equal paternal duty (for instance, a childless lord who has cared so well for his people, often in the Father's name). Sometimes families don't find out that their sons or brothers even had children until the funeral.
The Mother generally takes the soul of mothers, or people who have served in her duty, as gardeners and the like.
The Daughter takes childless women and girls, and childless soldiers in her Order.
The Son takes childless men and boys, and childless soldiers in his Order.
The Bastard takes everyone else. Notably, all those who died in the commission of death magic belong to the Bastard. So do all homosexuals - regardless of whether they might also qualify for selection by one of the other gods.[citation needed]
[edit] Seasonal Ceremonies
The quarterly changes in season are accompanied by ceremonies honoring the god of the upcoming season. This is also typically when the church gathers its quarterly donations from the local populace.
[edit] Winter to Spring
An old man, dressed in the colors of the Father of Winter, leads a young maiden, dressed as the Daughter of Spring, to the local church for a service of change. On the journey, the Father is pelted with balls of wool mimicking snowballs. It is considered a bad omen when real snowballs can be used. Traditionally, young women touch the skirts of the "Daughter" as she passes for good luck in finding a husband in the next year. Once at the church, the avatar of the Father cleans off the central hearth and withdraws. Then, the avatar of the Daughter sparks a new fire for the new year.
[edit] Spring to Summer
[edit] Summer to Fall
[edit] Fall to Winter
[edit] Sainthood
Living saints of each of the five gods exist, and typically have the power of second sight i.e., vision in the spirit realm. They are known to each other by their own aura (which they cannot see, themselves), and do not reveal themselves otherwise (with very few exceptions). Frequently, they have been given a task by one or another of the gods, and their sainthood only remains in effect until the task has been performed. Others have been granted minor powers (a magistrate will "occasionally" be able to recognize when someone is telling the truth; a midwife will have special healing skills) which remain with them for some time. Former saints evidently remain recognizable, if only because of their demeanor.
In The Curse of Chalion, Cazaril becomes, temporarily, a saint of both the Daughter and the Bastard. Another important character, Umegat, is a saint of the Bastard until the tools of his mission are destroyed and he himself is badly hurt.
The Dowager Royina, Ista, was at one time a saint of the Mother, but failed in her task at that time (a task which Cazaril finished successfully), and in Paladin of Souls, her argument with the gods ends with her becoming a very temporary saint of the Father, and a more permanent saint of the Bastard, with a lifetime mission.
