"The Uncharted Isle" by Clark Ashton Smith

11 months ago
27

I feel like this story could be readily adapted into an episode of the Twilight Zone...

Auckland is today the largest city in New Zealand, and was quite an important city even a hundred years ago.

Wellington of course is the capital of New Zealand, even was so at the time this story is set (it became so in 1865, and presumably this story is set in the late 19th or early 20th century, it isn't stated and isn't obvious).

Callao is a city in Peru, and today part of the Lima MSA. If it sounds vaguely familiar, it was the port of origin for the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947 by Thor Heyerdahl.

benison: a blessing

littoral: as a noun, a region lying along a shore

irremeable: offering no possibility of return

araucaria: a genus of evergreen coniferous trees once widespread during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. There are 20 extant species in New Caledonia, Norfolk Island, eastern Australia, New Guinea, Argentina, South Brazil, Chile and Paraguay. Sometimes known as the monkey puzzle tree.

armillary: if you do an image search you will recognize it instantly, but... an old astronomical instrument composed of rings showing the positions of important circles of the celestial sphere. There are apparently two accepted pronunciations for this word, including the one I used. If you expect it differently, just know I'm using the other accepted one.

Tyrian shades would be shades of purple (Tyre, an ancient city in the Levant, was famous in antiquity for its purple dyes)

heteroclitic: in this context, irregular; unusual; abnormal

pells: as a noun, rolls of parchment (specifically, one formerly used in the English Exchequer to record receipts and expenditures)

parapegm: engraved tablet, usually of brass

To follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/226/the-uncharted-isle

Right at minute 16, some heavy rain started up. The forecast was for rain in 3 or 4 hours from when I was recording, so it came unexpectedly early. But it turned out to be a brief shower, ceasing to be audible after just a minute or two. Hopefully it's not too distracting to the listener. (It's possible it may have rained a few hours later as well, as predicted, but by then I would have been long asleep.)

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