Again Aelfinn and Eelfinn

[Caelan Arendor]

With great delight I have read the two volumes of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle—The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. For nearly ten years now, a worldwide readership has been waiting with eager anticipation for the third installment (The doors of Stone).

The reason I mention this here lies in the fact that Rothfuss’s work draws upon fairy myths (the mysterious world of the "fee"). Their world shows intriguing parallels to that of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn in The Wheel of Time. These beings, as well as the "fee" in the Kingskiller Chronicle are both cunning and treacherous: they offer gifts of immense value, yet not everyone is willing to pay the price. Within their realm they manipulate the very fabric of space and time, unpredictable in their actions, bound (sometimes-but not always) by bargains and riddles. Their strange laws and alien rules render them at least as dangerous as the Aes Sedai—even though they cannot channel.

Like many readers, I wonder whether their world is a parallel dimension to our own (existing in the same cosmic sector, but perhaps layered in multiple dimensions), or whether the special gateways—ter’angreal—function as wormholes to other star systems. Questions upon questions…