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Map Of Arcanum
About
The Author
Gregor
Seamus Darton was born in 1801, the son of Captain Sean Palmer
Darton and his wife Maria. He died in the autumn of 1883,
after an extended convalescence in his home in Caladon.
Between 1801 and 1883, the great man lived…and he lived so
deeply, so wildly, and so well that he has given the word
"life" a new definition for generations to come. A
scholar and adventurer of the first water, all those who have
followed in his footsteps are very much is his debt.
It
is the first of Darton's works for which he has become most
famous. Forbidden Cities of the North recounts his great quest
to unveil the mysteries of Qintarra and Tulla, lands which
were so seldom visited by common men at the time that they
were sometimes thought to be fables. In an adventure which
took him over three years, Darton traveled from Caladon to
Qintarra and from Leahbo to Tulla on foot, unassisted by
conveyance magick…a feat which is still most difficult for
the modern traveler. The details of this journey produced a
book which has been in constant demand since its first
printing, nearly forty years ago.
In
the course of his lifetime, Darton translated 10 volumes of
elven lore, making available many ancient heroic cycles which
have inspired the novelists and poets of the present day. He
also made an effort to transcribe the songs of the desert
tribe known as the Kadisah into the common tongue, and this
was the work which was dearest to his heart. On the last
morning of his life he wrote the following verses in his
journals, words which provided such an apt summary of his
sojourn on Arcanum that they were inscribed on the door of his
tomb:
"Do
what thy spirit bids thee do.
From none expect applause;
But nobly live and nobly die
by none but self-made laws.
All
other Life is living Death,
an early taste of hell.
A coward's virtue covers him;
it leaves him but a shell."- Verses 37-38, from "
The
Kadisah" of Sir Gregor Seamus Darton
Here,
collected together, are excerpts from Forbidden Cities of the
North and other volumes in Darton's prodigious library of
work.