In this series, I’ll be working my way through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea works and analyzing her prose chapter by chapter. Spoilers follow.
The Bones of the Earth
Length: 13 pages
Setting: Gont
This one is short and sweet. Here Le Guin gives us a view into Ged’s wizardly heritage and to the legendary day that Ogion saved Gont Port.
But of course in a very Ogion-fashion, he didn’t stop an earthquake, not alone anyway. Ogion’s master Dulse sacrificed himself, went into the bones of the Earth to calm the mountain and stop the quake using magic learned from his teacher, a woman called Ard from outside the tradition of Roke.
It’s a simple story, and Ogion’s ending at Re Albi mirrors Tenar’s return to Re Albi at the end of Tehanu.
“The Bones of the Earth” (and the other stories in this book) follows Tehanu‘s lead in calling us to question the orthodox positions of Roke. Were the Old Powers that Tenar served in the Tombs of Atuan, the powers of the dark places and the earth, innately evil or were they simply something outside the easy, patterned teachings of Roke?
I think, in some fashion, Le Guin is sewing in a deeper mystery to her world by refusing the strict division Ged is taught at Roke.
Tomorrow, we’re on the High Marsh. Until next time.
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