“What was the name of Mars in The Martian Chronicles?” I desperately wondered as I woke this morning.
Such are the thoughts of LE in the quiet and cool dawn hours in our house.
Instinctively, I knew it was Tier. Or was it Teer? Or Tyr? Something like that. I have a newer edition of Chronicles down in my writing office, signed by the master, Mr. Bradbury, himself. But it would take too long to thumb through for corroboration. And the last time I read the collection was with my wife honeymoon clothes shopping all those years ago (all nine, that is).
So I had a mission this morning. In between balancing the checkbook, paying bills, and getting a to-do list for Saturday morning errands, I was furiously surfing the web for an answer.
Some things I knew already. For instance,
Mars is called the Red Planet, due to the prodigious amounts of iron oxide in its soil. Thus, most ancient cultures equated the blood red world with their gods of war. The Greeks called it Areos Aster, the Star of Ares. This developed into Stella Martis, the Star of Mars in Latin, as the Romans tended to assimilate much things Greek.
A brief search turned up the following names for the fourth planet:
Al-Mirrikh – Arabic
Al-Qahira – Arabic
Angaraka – Sanskrit
Bahram – Persian
Horus, or Heru-khuti – Egyptian
Ma’adim - Hebrew
Mangala – Hindu
Merih – Turkish
Merikh – Urdu
Nirgal or Nergel – Babylonian
Pahlavanu Siphr – Persian
Pyroeis – Greek
Most, but not all, are names for the culture’s god of war. One of the exceptions seems to be Ma’adim, the Hebrew word for Mars, which means “one who blushes.” The Greek Pyroeis means “fiery.”
Other names, whose derivation I don’t know, though some are variations of “fire star”, are:
Auqakuh – Quechua (Incan)
Harmakhis – Ancient Egyptian
Her Desher – Egyptian
Hrad – Armenian
Huo Hsing – Chinese
Kartikeya – Hindu
Kasei – Japanese
Labou – French
Maja – Nepali
Mamers – Oscan
Marte – Spanish
Mawrth – Welsh
Shalbatana – Akkadian
Simud – Sumerian
Tiu, Tiw – Old English (West Germanic)
Which leads me to modern fiction. In the great Edgar Rice Burroughs epics, of which I read a few as a kid, Mars is known as Barsoom. The Martians of C. S. Lewis’ theological science fiction works, which I also read twenty or so years back and should be on my re-read list, refer to their home world as Malacandra.
So, after maybe 45 minutes of research, I find some dude who says the Martians in Ray Bradbury’s work call their planet Tyr. Sounds right, but also sounds a little off. A few minutes later, I have a source who says that in the short story “Night Meeting,” the ghostly Martian tells Tomas Gomez that he calls his planet …
Tier.
I re-read the short story in my autographed copy and find no mention of the sort. But I do remember reading it in another copy of The Martian Chronicles while slouching about Nordstrom’s nine years back. I know that Bradbury has edited this book a few times over the years. Could he have edited out the reference to “Tier” in this short story?
Ah well. A mystery for another day. I’ve got work to do.
But first I reach behind me and thumb through my CDs. Yes! Here it is. Paranoid, by Black Sabbath. Track 3, “Planet Caravan.” Soon I’m listening to the jazzy stylings of Tony Iommi, with Ozzy singing about
The Crimson Eye … of Great God Mars …
Such are the thoughts of LE in the quiet and cool dawn hours in our house.
Instinctively, I knew it was Tier. Or was it Teer? Or Tyr? Something like that. I have a newer edition of Chronicles down in my writing office, signed by the master, Mr. Bradbury, himself. But it would take too long to thumb through for corroboration. And the last time I read the collection was with my wife honeymoon clothes shopping all those years ago (all nine, that is).
So I had a mission this morning. In between balancing the checkbook, paying bills, and getting a to-do list for Saturday morning errands, I was furiously surfing the web for an answer.
Some things I knew already. For instance,
Mars is called the Red Planet, due to the prodigious amounts of iron oxide in its soil. Thus, most ancient cultures equated the blood red world with their gods of war. The Greeks called it Areos Aster, the Star of Ares. This developed into Stella Martis, the Star of Mars in Latin, as the Romans tended to assimilate much things Greek.
A brief search turned up the following names for the fourth planet:
Al-Mirrikh – Arabic
Al-Qahira – Arabic
Angaraka – Sanskrit
Bahram – Persian
Horus, or Heru-khuti – Egyptian
Ma’adim - Hebrew
Mangala – Hindu
Merih – Turkish
Merikh – Urdu
Nirgal or Nergel – Babylonian
Pahlavanu Siphr – Persian
Pyroeis – Greek
Most, but not all, are names for the culture’s god of war. One of the exceptions seems to be Ma’adim, the Hebrew word for Mars, which means “one who blushes.” The Greek Pyroeis means “fiery.”
Other names, whose derivation I don’t know, though some are variations of “fire star”, are:
Auqakuh – Quechua (Incan)
Harmakhis – Ancient Egyptian
Her Desher – Egyptian
Hrad – Armenian
Huo Hsing – Chinese
Kartikeya – Hindu
Kasei – Japanese
Labou – French
Maja – Nepali
Mamers – Oscan
Marte – Spanish
Mawrth – Welsh
Shalbatana – Akkadian
Simud – Sumerian
Tiu, Tiw – Old English (West Germanic)
Which leads me to modern fiction. In the great Edgar Rice Burroughs epics, of which I read a few as a kid, Mars is known as Barsoom. The Martians of C. S. Lewis’ theological science fiction works, which I also read twenty or so years back and should be on my re-read list, refer to their home world as Malacandra.
So, after maybe 45 minutes of research, I find some dude who says the Martians in Ray Bradbury’s work call their planet Tyr. Sounds right, but also sounds a little off. A few minutes later, I have a source who says that in the short story “Night Meeting,” the ghostly Martian tells Tomas Gomez that he calls his planet …
Tier.
I re-read the short story in my autographed copy and find no mention of the sort. But I do remember reading it in another copy of The Martian Chronicles while slouching about Nordstrom’s nine years back. I know that Bradbury has edited this book a few times over the years. Could he have edited out the reference to “Tier” in this short story?
Ah well. A mystery for another day. I’ve got work to do.
But first I reach behind me and thumb through my CDs. Yes! Here it is. Paranoid, by Black Sabbath. Track 3, “Planet Caravan.” Soon I’m listening to the jazzy stylings of Tony Iommi, with Ozzy singing about
The Crimson Eye … of Great God Mars …
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