EHPS 8.3.4: Ancients and the 'walking-away ceremony'
From Part 8: Elvin Traditions and Language; Chapter 8.3: Elvin Traditions: Then and Now
[A/N: Written for Day Five: Culture of @kotlc-worldbuilding-week!
CW: Discussion of death and funeral customs, as well as what may be considered ritualised suicide (<- for people coming here from the Silm/LOTR space, this was somewhat inspired by the idea of elves fading/just lying down to die/etc, so thinking along similar lines)]
[Transcript
[Mentally projected image of a carved stone set on a grassy green behind taller grasses, bearing the following inscription—]
This marks the Place of Farewell of MIRA CALLIDES Skilled of hand Sharp of speech Loved by all Sorely missed
/end transcript]
Ancients and the 'walking-away ceremony' [excerpt from EHPS (Talle, 9954)]
Many among the readers will have distant Ancient relations, but few of us will have ever attended a ceremony of walking away. It is nowadays a very little-known practice to the general elvin populace, but common among the Ancients by their own admission. To ‘walk away’ is, put simply, for an Ancient to cast their life in elvin society aside and walk into remote places (such as unexplored woodland or deserts, or seashores, or even snowy alpine places), never to return.
Research on this practice was done through interviews with the friends and kin of one who had walked away, and the above image of a Marked Place of Farewell was graciously provided by an interviewee, Norene Vacker, from her memory of attending the recent (9894 EY [1894 CE]) walking-away ceremony for Mira Callides (celebrated Emissary and wife of Former Councillor Fallon Vacker).
As has been well-documented medically (see: Lyrmena Dempsey and Alerro Kilmen’s Age and Reason: a Study of Ancient Minds, Mentalities and Behaviours (8972 EY [972 CE])), Ancient minds are stronger and less penetrable than those of younger elves, but the onset of Ancientness also generally shows a declining in exploring new developments in the elvin world, as well as reluctance to engage with elvin society beyond a small domestic sphere (perhaps spouse and children). This has led to the ultimate disappearance of many Ancients from the elvin world, and quite likely to their deaths.
Nowadays, the criteria one must meet in order to walk away are stringent. One must be of at least 7000 years of age, and be able to demonstrate at least five centuries of minimal involvement with elvin society and politics. For Ancients who have reached the state of mind which usually prompts walking away, these requirements are easily met.
After this, a probe of the mind is conducted; the party interviewed for finding out these specifications, Chief Mentalist Quinlin Sonden, declined to comment further on the exact specifications, citing that they were ‘classified, and besides overly jargonistic’ (Quinlin Sonden, interviewed by Cadence Talle, 9906 EY [1906 CE]). It is only once these are met that a ceremony is permitted, and an Emissary of undisclosed but specific experience must be present at the ceremony to sever the registry pendant of the Ancient wishing to depart.
However, before the (admittedly ancient) advent of the Registry, no such formal requirements needed to be met, and there is some evidence (see: Orem Vacker’s Illusion and the Records of the Lost Years) that the ceremony may well date to the Lost Years and before.
In an interview conducted with Norene Vacker (by Cadence Talle, 9912 EY [1912 CE]), Lady Norene shared the specifics of the ceremony of walking-away. The ceremony takes place from ‘daybreak of a day to moonrise on the day after that’, and begins with the Ancient who is departing calling together the invited kin and friends to an open place near the place into which they intend to walk away. Then the Ancient must ritually state their intention, and be given the following traditional blessing to depart:
May the Sun guide your day, and the Moon light your night, May the Stars ever keep you within their sight. May you walk to a peace greater than you have now, May you now to bid you farewell us allow.
After this declaration, the rest of the day is generally spent in feasting on food brought by the attendees from their homes (many prefer using old elvin vegetables over gnomish produce in the making of this feast). Then, dancing and revelry follows until midnight, when all are bid to sit by a bonfire, and begin speaking their last words to the departing Ancient. The departing Ancient must respond in kind to the words spoken, and this exchange must end on the next dawn.
Upon this dawn begins the departing Ancient’s Day of Silence. On this day, none are to speak to the Ancient, and they are given an opportunity to reconsider their withdrawal from elvin society. Then, as the sun begins to set, the Ancient must return to their farewelling party and confirm once again that they wish to walk away. A refusal is permitted, and results in the Ancient being taken back to their home. Three days later (this being the period during which the Ancient can change their mind again and decide to depart after all), a Celebration of Staying is supposed to take place. However, should the Ancient confirm their decision to depart, the final part of the ceremony begins.
In this ceremony, the Ancient must divest themselves of any personal possessions they have brought with them, and accept instead the parting gifts given to them by their farewelling party. A robe of muted colour (grey or green are common), some kind of fruit or waybread, bottled starlight, some manner of basic healing agent, as well as something that might be used as support or weapon (such as a staff), are among the gifts that must be given—when the state of the Ancient is taken into account, these gifts are hardly ever much help in prolonging their life upon departing. In the modern ceremony, an additional step of severing the Ancient’s registry pendant has been added.
During the final moments of the ceremony, at the time ‘when the moon has almost risen and the last flushes of daylight are starting to fade from the sky’, the Ancient must speak their Farewell:
I go now to walk upon the untouched earth, Dearest of kinsfolk and dearest friends, To walk ‘neath the Sun and the Moon and the stars, From here to wherever this world ends. My thanks for your gifts and your prayers for me: Go now, let me walk away and be free.
And with this, they depart. The Place of Farewell is marked by the farewelling party on the following dawn, often by a carved stone as shown above, with an inscription giving brief details of the departed elf’s life and person; the severed registry pendant is usually buried beneath it to record these places (which are often only accessible through single-use leaping crystals designed for the purpose by the departing Ancient—due to this, many Places of Farewell of elves departed before the use of registry pendants is unknown).
However, plants befitting the region of departure were also planted in funereal patterns (see 8.3.3) according to older accounts, likely in order to mirror elvin funerals and acknowledge that walking away often means death in a very short period of time after that.
[Calling once again for taglist updates if needed, since it's been A While.]