Scorner's Seat
"I hold this Seat till with transmuting howl
I fair the scum-wort that before was foul,
And close the circles of our cyclic day:
The Eco-log and eke the sarco-phay."
Timeline of Events
The story spans approximately twenty-four hours, from one night to the following evening.
Narrative Structure
Frame Device: Harvester Reports
The story is punctuated by three "Harvester Reports"—external assessments written by outsiders who study Kyklopolis from afar. This creates a double perspective:
| Internal (Fiction) | External (Reports) |
|---|---|
| Immersive, present-tense experience | Analytical, past-tense assessment |
| Accepts the town's mythology | Reveals the mythology as constructed |
| Grendel as supernatural monster | "Engenders belief in a local Devil" |
| The Scorner's howl as miracle | "We are almost certain it is an audio trick" |
| Pollution as natural challenge | Pollution as deliberately maintained |
The Second Harvester Report (mid-story) is particularly devastating: it reveals that there is no natural pollution at all. The Pottawattamie Purification Locks cleanse the river sixty kilometers upstream; Kyklopolis's filth is entirely self-inflicted through the Bicycle Factory's toxic waste. The town has become "a religious fossil of the old Pollution-Purification rite."
Verse Interludes
- Scorner 33 (first): Describes the Scorner's act—holding the Seat until the transmuting howl
- Scorner 33 (second): Acknowledges the paradox: "never quite to kill our filthy friend"
- Scorner 34: Questions the cycle itself: "How'd we get in it? How to get out?"
The progression from confident assertion to existential questioning mirrors the story's arc.
Three-Part Structure
The narrative divides naturally into three movements:
I. Underground (Night)
Sewer Seven, darkness, phosphorescence. The world of work, danger, and budding love. Grendel lurks. The party binds the eight companions. Ends with Grendel's attack at dawn.
II. Surface (Day)
Kyklopolis revealed in daylight: its intricate ecology, its Scorner, its daily routines. John Legacy's house: the blessing and the theological critique. Ends with Legacy's death.
III. Transformation (Afternoon–Evening)
The transmuting howl, the four fates fulfilled, Circle's escape. Movement from stasis to rupture. Ends with running into the World.
Scene-by-Scene Analysis
I. Sewer Seven
Underground, nightThe story opens with an external "Harvester Report" describing Kyklopolis as a closed religious enclave of "Wheelies" and "Boaters" that practices a mysterious annual transmutation of euglena algae. We then enter Sewer SevenSewer SevenPossibly echoes Dante's Seventh CircleWhere Roger and Circle work; where Grendel lurks; where the party occurs. The "womb" of the city's renewal., where Roger Meta and Circle Shannon work their boats in the phosphorescent darkness.
Circle warns Roger that Grendel, the sewer monster descended from CainCainGenesis 4: the first murdererGrendel is "of the race of Cain" and murdered Cain to take his Mark. The Mark now protects Grendel from being killed., is nearby. She reveals that she knows Roger is one of four heirs to John Legacy, whose death will permit new births in the strictly population-controlled town. She declares herself Roger's companion: "I do not wish to remain a hopeless and empty woman forever."
The scene establishes the story's central tensions: the closed cycle of Kyklopolis versus the desire to escape it; the mystery of the transmutation; and the lurking presence of Grendel as both threat and necessary element of the system.
II. The Party
Sewer Seven, shelf of rockThe six other young people—Charley GoodfishCharley GoodfishGoodfish: suggests bounty of the watersBeekeeper, "honey and wax man" with "staying qualities." Becomes the Constant Townsman—the one who remains., Harker Skybroom, Jaspers Rerun, and their companions Carol BluesnailCarol BluesnailCarol: Latin "song." Bluesnail: imaginative compoundCompanion of Charley Goodfish. Brings onions to the party. Her name evokes the humble creatures that serve the cycle., Twicechild Newleaf, and Velma Green—descend through a hatch to join Roger and Circle for an underground feast. The methane-gas sewer ghosts attend as well, serving as "mentors and guardians" to the workers.
The potluck meal includes cloud-cloverCloud-Clover (Sky-Manna)"Cloud" + "clover"; explicitly called "sky-manna"Tiny edible particles precipitated from air pollution by sky-sweeps. Too light to fall naturally. Manna from heaven recycled from smog. (sky-manna), euglena bread, honey wine, and a "providential fish" cooked over flames fueled by the ghosts passing through a candle. The eight pledge an "eight-way friendship forever" and agree to visit John Legacy together to receive his birth blessingBirth Blessing (Belly Blessing)A "blessing" to enable "birth"A fertility benediction from a dying person. Maintains population balance: one death = one birth. Echoes patriarchal blessings in Genesis. fairly.
This scene acts as a communion ritual, binding the protagonists together before their fates diverge. The presence of the ghosts and the symbolic foods (manna from heaven, bread from transmuted algae) prefigure the religious dimensions of the coming sacrifice.
III. Grendel's Attack
Sewer Seven, near loading banksAs Roger and Circle pole their boats toward the surface, Grendel seizes Roger's boat with hands "twice as wide as a man's height." Roger attempts to give Circle his birth blessing and resign his life, but she refuses: "I go with you if you go." She attacks Grendel with a fish spear.
Grendel releases them with underwater laughter—"a guffaw that rotted the marrow." Roger realizes: "Mine is another of the four fates then." The monster is saving him for something else.
This encounter establishes that Grendel is not merely a beast but a participant in the town's fate-system. His selectivity—he takes only designated victims—reveals the ritual nature of what seems like random predation.
IV. Morning in Kyklopolis
Surface, daytimeRoger and Circle emerge into daylight for the first time together, seeing each other's faces by sunlight. The narrative describes the town's intricate ecology: children carrying Night CharleysNight Charleys (and Honey Buckets)Folksy personification of chamber potsChamber pots and waste pails. Nothing is wasted in Kyklopolis. The quaint names add humor to unpleasant necessities. (chamber pots) to the night-soil men; "Green Children" planting sprigs in fresh muck; sheep and bees grazing rooftop clover; bicycles the only vehicles; one thousand fountains aerating the water.
They observe the Scorner in his pagoda-like Scorner's SeatScorner's SeatPsalm 1:1: "seat of the scornful"The high structure where the Scorner rules and eventually dies. Both throne and altar—absolute power paid by absolute sacrifice., issuing stern decrees to reduce grass space in favor of more efficient clovers. With Harker Skybroom, they ascend in a hydrogen balloon to observe the sky-sweepsSky-Sweeps"Sweepers of the sky"Balloon-mounted mechanisms that clean the air and harvest cloud-clover from transmuted smog. Human control of nature taken to extremes. cleansing the deliberately polluted air.
A Harvester Report interlude reveals the truth: there is no natural pollution. The filth is deliberately maintained by toxic waste from the Bicycle Factory and a "rogue euglena" that chokes the waters. Kyklopolis has become "a religious fossil of the old Pollution-Purification rite."
V. John Legacy's House
Small house, interiorThe eight companions find John Legacy (formerly John Laketurner) bundled on the floor like a "belligerent buffoon," having overturned his bed in refusal to die in it. He reveals that he telepathically planted the knowledge of their heirship in their minds.
Legacy offers his diagnosis of the town's error: "Pollution, you see, is an overabundance of death: it cannot be cured by commanding an underabundance of life." Despite the strict one-death-one-birth rule, he gives the birth blessing to all four couples, declaring them all fertile.
When Harker protests that his death only makes room for one birth, Legacy replies that the "four different fates" will make it "work out even." Then he dies, turning blue. The couples depart to conceive.
VI. The Transmutation
Throughout KyklopolisThat afternoon, the Scorner's "witless, soulless, hopeless howl" begins—the sound of a man "breaking up in body and brain and spirit." This death-cry is the audio trigger that causes the annual mutation of the euglena algae from oxygen-robber to oxygen-producer.
While most of the town rushes joyfully to watch the waters transform, Roger and Circle retire to their sewer home. Harker and Twicechild are "frozen in a white-faced fear." But Charley and Carol go "gladly to the viewing, as good citizens should," and Jaspers runs to the river "in feverish eagerness."
The waters become "fragrant as new-mown hay," teeming with minnows, turtles, and frogs. For six months the waters will burgeon with life; then they will "choke and die again."
VII. The Four Fates
Various locationsThe prophecy of the "Four Fates" song is fulfilled:
One be the Constant Townsman deft,
The Pilgrim one, and one the Scorner,
And one a dazzled man who left
His wife a Grendel-widow mourner.
Jaspers Rerun, the "dazzled man," plunges into the renewed waters and is immediately swallowed by Grendel. His widow Velma Green is "almost happy and very proud."
Harker Skybroom, the gentle balloon man, is seized by the townspeople and dragged to become the new Scorner—destined to become "stern and inhuman" for one year, then die.
Roger Meta is identified as the Pilgrim. He leaps the Circle StonesCircle StonesEchoes megalithic stone circlesTen thousand stone wheels forming the city's barrier. Lethal lightning strikes anyone who crosses—except the yearly Pilgrim., the lightning holding its bolt for this once-yearly passage, and vanishes into the World.
Charley Goodfish remains as the Constant Townsman.
But Circle Shannon refuses to accept the cycle. She gives her "extra" birth blessings to two young women she passes, then leaps the barrier herself. The lightning "froze, it almost grinned, it parted, it struck and split three circle stones; but it left Circle Shannon unscathed." She declares: "Wherever it begins, it ends right here," and runs into the World after Roger, pregnant with new life.
Character Profiles
Name Etymology
| Name | Etymology | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Roger Meta | Roger: "fame-spear" / "message received" Meta: Greek "beyond" |
Destined to go beyond the circle; carries the message as Pilgrim |
| Circle Shannon | Circle: Latin circulus Shannon: Irish goddess Sionann, "possessor of wisdom" |
Born of the circle; brings wisdom/flow to break it |
| Charley Goodfish | Charley: familiar form of Charles Goodfish: abundant fish |
"Staying qualities"—remains with the burgeoning waters |
| Harker Skybroom | Harker: "one who watches" Skybroom: "broom for the sky" |
Sky-sweeper ironically made to sweep society clean as Scorner |
| Jaspers Rerun | Jasper: "treasurer" (one of the Magi) Rerun: "to run again" |
A "rerun" of all previous Grendel-victims; the recurring sacrifice |
| Carol Bluesnail | Carol: Latin "song" Bluesnail: imaginative compound |
Humble creature serving the cycle; brings onions to the feast |
| Twicechild Newleaf | Twicechild: "born twice" Newleaf: fresh growth |
Suggests renewal; the fowler who is blind underground |
| Velma Green | Velma: possibly "will-helmet" Green: fertility, growth |
Becomes "Grendel-widow mourner"—proud of the sacrifice |
| John Legacy | John: Hebrew "God is gracious" Legacy: Latin "gift by will" |
His role is to die and leave behind; prepares the way |
| Grendel | Old English: possibly "grinder" or "storm" | The Beowulf monster; scapegoated sin contained not eliminated |
| Kyklopolis | Greek kyklos (circle) + polis (city) | Circle City / Cycle City—the form determines the act |
Locations
Map of Kyklopolis showing the circular city, the Pottawattamie Purification Locks upstream, and the polluted outflow downstream.
Kyklopolis
The "Circle City"—a closed religious enclave that arose after the Panic Past. Self-sufficient and isolated, it deliberately maintains pollution in order to ritually purify it. Population is fixed; no one enters or leaves except the yearly Pilgrim.
Sewer Seven
The seventh sewer tunnel, where Roger and Circle work. Contains the muck-ridges, scum-wort algae, floating scum islands, methane ghosts, and—in the depths—Grendel's domain. The "womb" of the city's renewal.
The Scorner's Seat
A pagoda-like structure on poles at the highest point of the city, grazed by three mountain goats. The Scorner receives reports here, issues decrees, and eventually dies with the transmuting howl. Both throne and altar.
The Circle Stones
Ten thousand stone wheels (plus river buoys) forming the city's boundary. Unmortared but lethal—anyone who leaps them is vaporized by lightning, except the yearly Pilgrim. When Circle Shannon escapes, three stones are split.
The Bicycle Factory
Kyklopolis's only industry. Produces bicycles, windmills, and hydrogen (via electrolysis). Also produces "massive toxic waste" through an "inefficient metallurgic operation"—the source of the city's deliberate pollution.
John Legacy's House
A small house with a lone kid grazing its roof. Where John Legacy waits to die and give the birth blessing. His bed is overturned; he refuses to die in it or fearfully. The site of his theological critique.
Pottawattamie Purification Locks
High-tech purification facility sixty kilometers upstream. "The river runs clear from the locks to the very borders of Kyklopolis"—proving that the city's pollution is self-inflicted, not environmental necessity.
The Countryside and World
Everything beyond the Circle Stones. Kyklopolitans regard it with studied indifference—what they see from balloons is "unregistered or quickly forgotten." The Pilgrim vanishes into it; Circle Shannon runs toward it.
Cross-section of Sewer Seven showing the hatch, iron ladder, shelf of rock, boats, and Grendel's domain in the depths.
The Ecology of Kyklopolis
The annual rhythm of deliberate pollution, daily purification, the Scorner's transmuting howl, and the six-month burgeoning.
The Pollution-Purification Cycle
The city's ecological system operates on an annual rhythm:
Phase 1: Pollution (Summer, ~6 months)
- Bicycle Factory releases toxic waste into water and air
- "Rogue euglena" blooms, acting as oxygen-robber
- Waters become anoxic; fish die; sewers fill with scum-wort
- Air fills with smog requiring constant sky-sweeps
Phase 2: Daily Purification (Year-round)
- Sewer workers harvest muck, snails, slugs on muck-ridges
- 1,000 fountains aerate water via pedal-power
- Muck-men extract fertile precipitate; additive men treat water
- Balloons spray smog, creating cloud-clover (sky-manna)
- Sky-cattle (midges) graze cloud-clover; birds eat midges; fowlers catch birds
Phase 3: Annual Transmutation (Once yearly)
- The Scorner breaks after one year, emits "transmuting howl"
- Audio frequency triggers euglena reversal: oxygen-robber → oxygen-producer
- Waters become "fragrant as new-mown hay"
- Fish, turtles, frogs burgeon for six months
Phase 4: Burgeoning (Winter, ~6 months)
- Waters teem with life; harvests of fish and euglena bread
- Then waters "choke and die again" as summer returns
- New Scorner installed; cycle repeats
The Outputs
Despite (or because of) its grotesque methods, Kyklopolis produces: clean water (downstream after transmutation), fertile precipitate for crops, euglena bread, fish harvests, cloud-clover, honey, eggs, and goat products. Nothing is wasted. The question is whether the human cost—one Scorner, one Grendel-victim, countless crushed spirits—is justified.
Governance
Scorner
Kyklopolis is ruled by an absolute autocrat called the Scorner. His powers include:
- Rights of life and death over all inhabitants
- Control over air, water, muck-spreading, crops, grazing
- Authority over the euglena and all algae
- Jurisdiction over "the river and its divergencies"
- Enforcement of population count (one death = one birth)
Selection
Following the old Scorner's death, the townspeople collectively look around until "all be looking at the same man." The chosen one may protest but will inevitably serve. The selection appears mystical but is really communal consensus made manifest.
Term
The Scorner serves "a year and a day"—a traditional folkloric period. During this time he must become "stern and inhuman," scorning "all normal human sentiment." Even a gentle man like Harker Skybroom will be transformed: "it is said that he had been a gentle and rather slow-witted man until his office possessed him."
Death
No Scorner survives his term. The psychological pressure of absolute power combined with enforced cruelty causes the ruler to "break to pieces, being unable to bend." His death manifests as the "transmuting howl"—the scream that triggers the euglena reversal. His corpse is then divided among the quarters of the town as fertilizer.
Ideology
Only the Scorner understands (instinctively) that purifying the river and serving the town are "the same" purpose. He holds two contradictory ideas: that the river exists to serve humans, and that humans exist to serve the river. This paradox is what makes the job unendurable—and what makes the town work.
The Sacred King Pattern
The Frazerian Pattern
| Stage | Sacred King (Frazer) | The Scorner (Lafferty) |
|---|---|---|
| Selection | King embodies land's fertility | "All be looking at the same man" |
| Enthronement | Bound by taboos and constraints | "Autocrat, the absolute ruler" |
| Constraint | Must remain pure/powerful | "Stern and inhuman," "unable to bend" |
| Fixed Term | Reigns for fixed period | "A year and a day" |
| Death | Must die ritually | "Breaking up in body and brain and spirit" |
| Fertility Release | Death releases fertility into land | The "transmuting howl" purifies the waters |
| Succession | Successor immediately chosen | Harker seized and dragged to the Seat |
Lafferty's Innovation
Lafferty adds two elements not found in Frazer:
1. The Howl as Mechanism: The Scorner's death-cry is not merely symbolic but literally triggers the ecological reversal. The "transmuting howl" is "a compounded wave (probably within the auditory range)"—the suffering made effectual, the scream weaponized for renewal.
2. The Grendel Addition: The monster is "counterpart, destroyer and absorber of the Scorner." Usually Grendel devours the dying Scorner; when he doesn't, the body is dismembered and distributed as fertilizer. Either way, the ruler's flesh feeds the system. Grendel is the Scorner's shadow-self: both are necessary evils, both consume humans, both serve fertility.
"To keep the town constant and continuing it was necessary that the Scorner be very stern, that he scorn all normal human sentiment."
Biblical Allusions
| Reference | Source | Act in Story |
|---|---|---|
| The Scorner's Seat | Psalm 1:1 ("seat of the scornful") | The title itself flips the biblical warning. Where Psalm 1 says the blessed man does not sit in the seat of the scornful, Kyklopolis requires someone to occupy it. |
| Cain and the Mark | Genesis 4:1–16 | Grendel descends from Cain, murdered Cain, and inherited his protective mark. The prohibition against killing Cain now applies to the monster. The first murder echoes eternally. |
| Behemoth | Job 40:15–24 | Grendel's gullet is compared to Behemoth'sBehemothHebrew: "great beast" or "beast of beasts"From Job: a primeval monster only God can overcome. Emphasizes Grendel's monstrous scale.—the primeval beast only God can overcome. The people cannot kill Grendel; only divine intervention could. |
| Manna from Heaven | Exodus 16 | Cloud-clover is explicitly called "sky-manna"—food falling from above that sustains the community. Pollution transmuted to nourishment echoes divine provision. |
| Patriarchal Blessing | Genesis 27, 48–49 | John Legacy's "birth blessing" given before death echoes Isaac blessing Jacob, Jacob blessing his sons—the dying transmitting life to the next generation. |
| John the Baptist | Gospel accounts | John Legacy prepares the way for new life, then dies. His role is to decrease so others may increase. The name "John" reinforces this. |
The Theological Paradox
Kyklopolis has institutionalized what scripture condemns. They sit in the seat of the scornful. They tolerate a monster protected by God's own mark. They command an "underabundance of life" to cure pollution—inverting John Legacy's insight that pollution is really an "overabundance of death." Their religion is genuine but inverted, faithful but fossilized.
Literary Allusions
Beowulf
The primary literary source is the Old English epic. Lafferty's Grendel inherits nearly every trait of his namesake:
- Descended from Cain's cursed line
- Dwells in foul waters (the mere / the sewer)
- Attacks at night
- Devours warriors/men exclusively
- Has a missing piece—in Beowulf, Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm; here, "one joint of one finger" has been missing "for fifteen hundred years"
But Lafferty's Grendel is never defeated. He's integrated into the system—a pet monster, fed annually, essential to the ritual. Where Beowulf is about heroic victory over chaos, "Scorner's Seat" is about accommodation with chaos.
Frazer's Golden Bough
The anthropological framework of sacred kingship permeates the story. The Scorner is the "King of the Wood" who must die so the land may live. The "yearly transmutation" echoes Frazer's dying-and-rising gods (Attis, Adonis, Osiris). The townspeople's joy at the Scorner's breaking mirrors the ritual celebration of the god's death.
Dante's Inferno
Sewer Seven may echo the Seventh Circle of Hell, which contains the violent submerged in a river of blood and is guarded by the Minotaur. The methane ghosts, the subterranean darkness, and the monster in the depths all suggest an infernal geography—Kyklopolis as a kind of purgatory where suffering leads to renewal.
The Nero Legend
The national hymn's reference to NeroNero (fiddling while Rome burned)Roman Emperor, AD 37–68The hymn implies that during the ecological collapse, no one even fiddled—there was no response at all. Kyklopolis's founders took action. fiddling positions Kyklopolis as a response to civilizational failure. When the world burned, "nor Nero to fiddle"—no one did even that much. The founders took action where Rome's rulers famously did not.
Themes
The Cycle as Prison
Kyklopolis's greatest achievement is also its trap. The pollution-purification cycle, the one-death-one-birth rule, the yearly sacrifice of the Scorner—all began as adaptive responses to catastrophe but have ossified into ritual. The town has become, as the Harvester Report notes, "a religious fossil." John Legacy diagnoses the error: they treat an overabundance of death with an underabundance of life. Circle Shannon's escape suggests that breaking the cycle, not perfecting it, is the path to genuine renewal.
Transmutation of the Abject
Everything in Kyklopolis depends on transforming waste into sustenance: sewage into fish food, smog into manna, excrement into fertilizer, the Scorner's corpse into crop nutrients, suffering into the howl that purifies. The story asks whether this alchemy justifies its costs—and whether, at some point, the "transmutation" becomes merely a rationalization for unnecessary cruelty.
The Necessary Monster
Both Grendel and the Scorner are "necessary evils"—figures of horror that the community tolerates because they serve the system. Grendel devours the surplus; the Scorner enforces the strictures. Each year one man must become a monster (the Scorner) and another must feed one (Grendel). The question is whether any system that requires monsters is worth preserving.
Escape vs. Endurance
The story offers two responses to a flawed system: Charley Goodfish's "staying qualities" and Roger Meta's flight. Most citizens endure; the four fates mostly reproduce the existing pattern (Townsman, Scorner, Victim). Only Circle Shannon truly escapes—and she does so by breaking rules, surviving what should kill her, and running toward uncertainty rather than cyclical safety.
Fertility and Death
The birth blessing can only be given by one about to die. Conception requires a preceding death. The Scorner's corpse fertilizes crops. The story is obsessed with the biological truth that life feeds on death—but questions whether this truth must be institutionalized, made ritual, enforced with lightning barriers and monsters.
Quotations Index
Key quotations organized by theme and speaker.
The Harvester Reports
"I hold this Seat till with transmuting howl / I fair the scum-wort that before was foul, / And close the circles of our cyclic day: / The Eco-log and eke the sarco-phay."
—Scorner Number 33
The epigraph poem describing the Scorner's act.
"To wash the water and to scrub the air / This be our part and everlasting share: / But never quite to kill our filthy friend / Or, purpose gone, we come to empty end."
—Scorner Number 33
Second poem, acknowledging that the pollution must never be fully eliminated.
"Round and round, be we lord or lout? / How'd we get in it? How to get out? / Who be the Circle's nearest kin? / Where oh where does the wheel begin?"
—Scorner Number 34
The new Scorner's verse, questioning the cycle's origins and escape.
John Legacy's Theology
"Pollution, you see, is an overabundance of death: it cannot be cured by commanding an underabundance of life. We commit that error in Circle City."
—John Legacy
His diagnosis of the town's fundamental error, spoken as he dies.
"I might not die at all... I may transmute instead. Today is the day of the great transmuting. What shall I transmute into, a great frog?"
—John Legacy
His defiant humor in the face of death.
The Four Fates Song
"One be the Constant Townsman deft, / The Pilgrim one, and one the Scorner, / And one a dazzled man who left / His wife a Grendel-widow mourner."
—Folk Song
The prophecy that predicts the fates of the four heirs.
The National Hymn
"The World a dark smoker, nor Nero to fiddle; / We drew us a Circle and lived in the middle."
—National Hymn of Kyklopolis
The founding myth: when civilization burned, they took action.
On the Scorner
"The Scorner was the autocrat, the absolute ruler of the town for his life in office. No other town had quite the same arrangement. To keep the town constant and continuing it was necessary that the Scorner be very stern, that he scorn all normal human sentiment."
—Narrator
The essential description of the Scorner's act.
"A man was breaking up in body and brain and spirit: a solitary and impassioned man, too stern to bend, he had to break."
—Narrator
The Scorner's death, the inevitable consequence of the role.
On Grendel
"Grendel, who had once been completely human, was of the race of Cain. Moreover, Grendel was not only the descendant but also the murderer of the murderous Cain. He had disregarded the Mark of Cain and had killed its bearer. Then the Mark of Cain was transferred to Grendel himself. It was prohibited to kill him; it was prohibited by God to kill him."
—Narrator
The theological justification for tolerating the monster.
Circle Shannon's Escape
"My nearest kin is already quickening within me, and my other nearest kin is half a kilometer ahead. I run into countryside and world. I run after him."
—Circle Shannon
Her final declaration as she breaks the cycle.
"Wherever it begins, it ends right here."
—Circle Shannon
Her pronouncement on the cycle as she survives the lightning.
Roger and Circle
"I cannot reach you, Circle... but I give you the blessing from here. My life goes now. Replace it."
—Roger Meta
His attempted sacrifice when Grendel seizes his boat.
"No... I go with you if you go."
—Circle Shannon
Her refusal to accept Roger's death, attacking Grendel instead.
Glossary of Terms and Allusions
Diagram Index
Analytical diagrams for "Scorner's Seat," showing the story's structures and systems.
Glossary Table
Complete glossary of allusions and terms in tabular format.
The Dying God: The Frazerian Pattern
The Scorner's ritual cycle mapped against Frazer's sacred-king pattern, showing selection, enthronement, constraint, breaking, death, and the disposition of the body.
Cross-Section of Sewer Seven
The underground world where Roger and Circle work: ceiling, air, surface, mid-water, and depths with Grendel's domain.
Map of Kyklopolis and Environs
The circular city with its ring of stones, the clear river from upstream, the patches and factory, and the polluted outflow.
The Pollution-Purification Cycle
The annual rhythm: pollution phase, daily purification, annual transmutation via the Scorner's howl, and the six-month burgeoning.
The Four Heirs and Their Fates
The relationships between the Scorner, the four heirs (Roger, Charley, Harker, Jaspers), their companions, and Grendel.