Randomly Assorted Words

I’ve recently been enchanted by the movie Bridge to Terabithia. I’m not going to go on a rant about how great I think it is, but I ordered the DVD, original book and movie companion book the day after I saw it, which expresses the gravity of my fondness for it (and my impulsive buying habits).

In addition to that, I did some research on the name ‘Terabithia’. I already wrote about this on the A Place For Us forums, but I thought I’d also post them here because I thought the results were rather interesting, and maybe Terabithia fans will come across it here (also, it’s a good enough reason to do a blog post). There’s also a treat for Myst fans at the end, so those of you who fall into that category; keep reading!

So let’s start our journey through the history of the name Terabithia. The author of the book on which the movie is based, Katherine Paterson, says on her website that, when she had nearly finished the book, she discovered that she probably unconsciously copied the name from the island called Terebinthia, from C. S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third (or fifth depending on which numbering convention is used) book in the Narnia series. In the book, a sickness on the island prevented Prince Caspian and his men from going ashore.

Interestingly, in Paterson’s book it is noted that Leslie, who named Terabithia, is very fond of Narnia herself. It’s probable that Lewis in turn got the name from the biblical terebinth tree. This is just one of the many biblical references and metaphors in the Chronicles of Narnia. The tree referred to as the terebinth actually exists, under the scientific name of pistacia palaestina. Note the Palastine reference for now.

Now for some lessons in etymology. The word terebinth originates from the Middle English terebinthe, from the Old French terebinte, from the Latin terebinthus, from the Greek terebinthos. Now the Greek suffix -inthos is used to refer to places (for example labyrinthos, place of axes; the first labyrinth was a palace full of axes).

Disappointingly, tereb does not bear any meaning in Greek, or any other language that I could find. However, it is an ancient name for a place now known as Tel el-Athrib, near Aleppo in Syria, now an archaeological site. Notice the Palestine connection here. In fact, there was once a part of Syria that was specifically called Palaestina; the Holy Land. The area of Aleppo is also said to be one of the oldest inhabited places on earth.

Going from these facts, the Greek terebinthos could mean “tereb-place”: the place Tereb. If this would truly be what the word Terabithia originates from, it might mean it is the Holy Land, as well as one of the earliest homes to man.

There is another interpretation of the name Terabithia. The Latin terra refers to earth, place or land, and there’s the English Bithiah, from Hebrew batya, meaning “daughter of god”. As such Terrabithiah or Terabithia is the land of the daughter of God. For those who have seen the movie or read the book, that should seem quite fitting.

The land of the daughter of God, the Holy Land, and the origin of man. I guess my work here is done. Of course I don’t really believe that these explanations are very plausible or intentionally crafted by the author or anyone involved, and there are a lot of gaps and guesses, but I still thought it interested that I ended up with these explanations.

Now for the part the Myst fans have all been waiting for. I went into the A Place For Us chat today and met someone who had played some of the Myst games and seemed to have been quite into it for a while. He told me a fun story, which I’ll quote here:

when we were kids we use to have this game where atrus would leav notes in the garden
and then we’d have to do what the notes said to save cathrine
it was good fun
i don’t think the puzzles i made up were very good though.
actually what i’d do is i had this tape recorder
because my voice was so high, i sounded nothing like atrus
so what we did was you know how those tape recorders have a slow thing
to slow your voice down
we slowed it down to make it sound deep, and it was so hilarious
so yeah, it was either a note or a recorded message, then then u had to go and find all these things in the park

I thought that was fun. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!