Confession time, science fiction is not my thing, instead the unpredictability of real life continues to fascinate in both fiction and non. And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. "I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered 'on the grounds' -- it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather -- but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the Moskoe-strm itself without accident ;although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray ;but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion -- heaving, boiling, hissing -- gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents. contact, home | stories | poetry | timeline | gallery | site map | contact, Copyright 2005-2023 Design215 Inc., All Rights Reserved. Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the slope; but our farther descent was by no means proportionate. When I am reading and a book title is mentioned, I like to check and see if it is a real book. I no longer hesitated what to do. Really incredible action-packed story. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. ably into the surging water of the hurricane whipped Maelstrom. I must have been delirious -- for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming -- one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return -- and we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point. Tim Johnston's newest novel is THE CURRENT (2019, Algonquin). biography The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven. When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity ;but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts ;the noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks ;and when the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it appearedto me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the largest ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. descent noun (A WAY DOWN) [ C ] a way down, such as a path, or an act of coming down: A steep descent from the peak brings you to a meadow. Its name in Norse is Moskstraumen or Moske-stroom. I attracted my brothers attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do. The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less steep. To see what your friends thought of this book, A Descent into the Maelstrom - an Edgar Allan Poe Short Story. I knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all ;so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask. by Edgar Allan Poe (published 1845) Print Version The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways ; nor are the models that we Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. I shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of the ague. The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what I saw. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. I resolved to lash myself securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. summaries The Dragon's Descent by Laurice Elehwany Molinari 9780310735632 (Paperback, 2017) Delivery UK delivery is usually within 12 to 14 working days. It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell you occurred. It's been several years since I read this but I remember it felt flat: Poe simply tells a story and makes no effort to up the terror or to create tension. Artist: DEFEATED SANITY. The sailor of A Descent is similar to both these characters, and so, before his descent, he seems [column 2:] unaware that as the storys epigraphical quotation from Large stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is t A Descent into the Maelstrm is one of his least known and most underrated tales, and I probably wouldn't have read it if I weren't such a big fan of his works. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. The little cliff, upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge this little cliff arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Poe is a wonder and an amazement to me. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for capital. We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. Of foam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks. You really see and hear the fellows drawn into the eye of the storm and you feel the rage of the elements. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. It popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS to feature entirely true-3D graphics. "It may look like boasting -- but what I tell you is truth -- I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene or of the wild bewildering sense ofthe novelwhich confounds the beholder. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss. The story begins in the North Sea off the Norwegian coast, with a seemingly old man telling the narrator about a harrowing experience he had among the nearby whirlpools. timeline Edgar Allan Poe's short story "A Descent into the Maelstrm" (1841), brought the term maelstrom, meaning strong whirlpool, into the English language. A whirlpool is a body of rotating water produced by opposing currents or a current running into an obstacle. Small whirlpools form when a bath or a sink is draining. It was on the tenth day of July, 18__, a day which the people of this part of the world will never forget -- for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens. I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene. Everything was in its place but my own mind as it tried hard to wander the streets of Boston in its desperate attempt to figure out a way to celebrate this man's literary genius. the submarine's descent After only an hour of flight, the pilot announced our descent. when it is unpleasant or unwanted: The descent of dozens of motorcycles terrified local residents. "There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original station. As it is myself who now tell you this tale -- as you see that I did escape -- and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther to say -- I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. I love that this is based on an actual whirlpool in Norway. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation. The first was, that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. A boat picked me up -- exhausted from fatigue -- and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror. descent noun (RELATION) [ U ] the state or fact of being related to a particular person or group of people who lived in the past: She's a woman of mixed / French descent. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there washere nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. 2. a downward inclination or slope. When I could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. I dragged my watch from its fob. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. These would have been of great assistance at such times, in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing but, somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into the danger for, after all is said and done, itwasa horrible danger, and that is the truth. Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself, in some measure, of the seas. The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this subject with an old school-master of the district; and it was from him that I learned the use of the words cylinder and sphere. He explained to me although I have forgotten the explanation how what I observed was, in fact, the natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments and showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. Descent is a noun that means the act of moving downward ( descending ), a downward movement, or downward movement in general. The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term thechoppingcharacter of the ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and made for home. a descent into the maelstrm, edgar allan poes vertiginous short story of being swept into a huge and terrible whirlpool by a raging hurricane that the oldest seaman in norway never experienced was transformed into a musical dance/theatre piece by philip glass and collaborators, dancer/choreographer molissa fenley, set designer eamon darcy But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around -- and that one glance was all sufficient. Descent TV Movie 2005 PG 1 h 30 m IMDb RATING 3.4 /10 1K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 0:58 1 Video 40 Photos Action Drama Sci-Fi When the Ring of Fire starts heating up with an unprecedented amount of volcanic activity a team of scientists are gathered to prevent a global catastrophe. The film follows six women who enter a cave system and struggle to survive against the humanoid creatures inside. We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. This was most unusual -- something that had never happened to us before -- and I began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction -- as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. And how they unfortunately didn't. Poe really turned a natural phenomenon into something terrifying: really great example of a man-vs-nature story. As we approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge. What great skill! Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly ;but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose -- up -- up -- as if into the sky. I attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do. Be the first to contribute! the fall of the house of usher: silencea fable: the masque of the red death. Inspired by the Moskstraumen, tidal eddies and whirlpools in northern Norway which are real, the story is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances -- just us death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain. * The Maelstrom is a vortex of water off the coast of Norway that whirls and drags objects to the rocky bottom of the sea. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. "Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us a great distance down the slope ;but our farther descent was by no means proportionate. No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. Joseph Glanville. Perhaps it is significant, in this connection, that the man who tells the narrator his story had his black hair turned white by the shock of his experiences. In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the vortex. Director Terry Cunningham Writer Michael Konyves Stars The fact that he does not blame his brother for what he does proves his moral character and love for his siblings. Harry a dval la descente qui mne au lac. The mans fob watch a testament to mans ability to measure and regulate time mysteriously stops during his encounter with this unstoppable force of nature. -- These are the words of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Is it just that: the force of nature, what we might following Edmund Burke label the Sublime, the terror and awe of something in the natural world that is bigger and more powerful than man? Each moment added to its speed -- to its headlong impetuosity. "In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. It was until today's afternoon that I found out that I do not only own a copy of Poe's most tales, but that I also already have started reading one of his less appreciated not-so-short-stories. The story is told by an Old Norwegian fisherman to a tourist at the top of a very tall mountain. "Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing. bookstore | Wed love your help. He will survive, but only just and with his hair showing how his narrow escape has prematurely aged him. Be the first to contribute! Powerful story that makes the whirlpool feel cosmic in its elemental terror. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us ;but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off -- the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety. Dissent can be a noun meaning disagreement, When I find a Poe Im not crazy about, I find my judgement is rather harsh. The boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. The first was, that, as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descentthe second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the //
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