Streels of Urtah

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The Streels of Urtah is a location in the fantasy novels Shardik and Maia by Richard Adams.

Shardik

Shardik is a novel of the ancient struggle between good and evil, and some of the effects of faith on the behaviour of human beings. In it the The Streels of Urtah are depicted as a dreadful place where people who have done much evil are sent, without their knowledge, by God.

Guardians and Priests live near the Streels. Their job is to kill anyone who enters the Streels, since they believe only the evil are drawn to the Streels by God. Shardik descends into the Streels and remains there overnight, and the guardian attempts to kill him, but he escapes and leaves the Streels in the morning. It is understood that he must die, and that there is no reprieve, but it is suggested that his death will be redemptive and that he will accomplish the will of God in dying.

There is a strong suggestion of the Christian story of Christ's sacrificial death, even drawing perhaps on the account of the descent of Christ into the place of the dead. However, at all times, Shardik's identity is maintained in an ambiguous form; it is never explicitly stated that he was divine, but only that people believed it of him. The device gives a fascination to the plot, and in several other parts of the story, faith and belief in God are treated with a similar emphasis to that in Christianity. In effect, the story of Shardik, his life, his entry into and exit from the Streels, and his sacrificial death, strongly suggest that the author is imagining a mythical, prehistoric, pointer to the Christian story.

Maia

In Maia, Adams's other novel set in the Beklan Empire, the girl Occula also enters the Streels at the prompting of those nameless spirits who have impelled her throughout, to pursue and kill Fornis, the depraved and cruel ruler of Bekla, who has herself entered the Streels at the prompting of those same spirits. She does this by causing Fornis to stab herself, and she becomes aware that the Streels are for those who have committed crimes for which there is no forgiveness or redemption. Occula has herself entered the Streels and her life is therefore forfeit - deodand - she has to stay apart from the world for a long time to recover herself, tended by the priest, guardian of the Streels.

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