Gwydiona Symbolism

All ornamentation is symbolic, the opposite of Nuevamerican culture. The fylfot recurring in the design of a bronze chair is the Burning Wheel, the sun, Ynis, and all suns. The Wheel is Time, thermodynamic irreversibility. The interwoven vines in the same design are crisflowers, sacred to the Green Boy Aspect of God because they bloom during the first annual haygathering season. (The Gwydiona year lasts five standard years.) Fyflot and vines together mean Time the Destroyer and Regenerator.

Chair leather from the wild areas belongs to the autumnal Huntress Aspect. Linking the Huntress with the Green Boy recalls the Night Faces and also the Day Faces which are their other side. Because bronze is artificial, it conveys that mankind, by forming the framework, embodies the meaning and structure of the world. Because corroded bronze is green, it also signifies that every structure vanishes but into new life.

A dancer wears a bird costume at the Bird Maiden's time of year. On the Day of the River Child, the Bird Maiden met the child who was lost, carried him home and gave him her crown. This is a seasonal myth for the end of rains and floods, followed by sunlight and blossoms. The complicated tale includes a poem about the episode of the Riddling Tree.

There is a lot more, details impossible to remember on a single reading. Poul Anderson applies knowledge of Terrestrial myths and symbols and also considerable imagination to weave them into new patterns.