Irrgarten
Irrgarten is a Heart's Realm in the Dreaming associated with wandering.
Overview
Where the winding trods cross and come together, there you find Irrgarten. This realm is the source and center of dreams of wandering along tangled, branching paths. Whether those paths are the corridors of a stony labyrinth, the threads of a cat's cradle, or the overgrown trails of the forest bramble, they are all faces of the Irrgarten. All who come here intentionally to seek trodcraft or other wisdom must face the possibility that they may never find their way out again. Individuals unlucky enough to find their way here accidentally are doomed, unless they have both luck and wit on their side.
The Irrgarten itself is a vast, apparently circular maze formed by narrow pathways between tall, dense hedges. These hedge walls, or "Brambles," have grown wild throughout most of the maze, becoming thorny canopies overhead or even blocking of paths entirely. A number of Dreamers have commented on the fact that, while the hedges are uniformly green and luxuriant, nothing else can grow in the Irrgarten. The pathways and occasional clearings between the walls are covered only with a fine, white dust. More than barren, this dust is actively poisonous to plants and other living things.
Each path of the corridors of the Irrgarten maze is a trod that weaves into the dominion from elsewhere and weaves back out again. Up and down the corridors, Dreamers and lost chimerical creatures wander, searching for the Eye of the Dance, the legendary chamber at the center of the labyrinth where all the secrets of the Dreaming are kept safe. It is said that within the Eye are unique books, written in the easily forgotten language of Deep Dreams, that contain keys to Arcadia. It is also said that at the center of this chamber is a bottomless, circular well, the waters of which grant the Siochain their immortality and all others bits and freedom from Banality. If anyone has found the Eye of the Dance, no one has admitted it in public. More likely, the tangled trods of the Irrgarten have been knotted together by the Shattering to form an impassable knot that never goes anywhere but never ends.
Escapes from the Labyrinth
The weaving corridors of the maze can take a traveler to any point within the Dreaming short of Arcadia itself, if they are willing to take the time and effort to explore (or fortunate enough to have a good teacher).
On the other hand, according to dream lore, if a traveler could somehow find their way outside the labyrinth without weaving into another realm, they would face a limitless white desert, blasted and featureless. Perhaps it is lucky that no one who has come to the Irrgarten has managed to find (or make) such an exit. All who have tried have found only endless branching corridors and have gone mad with frustration, have given up, or are searching still. Since the Irrgarten Brambles themselves appear to grow quickly in the white dust, it is quite possible that the labyrinth itself is spreading to fill the outer desert.
It is possible to cut, climb, or burn the Brambles in order to "cheat" or take shortcuts through the maze. This approach is perfectly acceptable to the Irrgarten, and even the obscenely fast-growing hedges need time to erase the signs of the destruction wrought by generations of lost and desperate Dreamers. The realm is pitted with deep scars, burned patches, and jagged "tunnels" through the Brambles. Most of these modifications seem to make the Irrgarten more confusing and difficult to navigate.
Legendary Framework
The Hearthland of the Eiluned, Irrgarten is one of the great enigmas of the faerie world, and one of the places where only faeries can see the truth. Essentially, the Irrgarten is the writhing coils of the World Serpent, the convoluted pathways at the belly of the beast, the knotted heart of the world that lies at the center and crossroads of all the trods.
It is the Labyrinth, but it is not a place of evil or madness. From the changeling perspective, it is not a fallen part of the world. Rather, the knot work and interwoven geometry hare represents the weavework of Dán itself: the eye of the knitting needle of fate. This is the Cat's Cradle. As the place-that-is-the-convergence-of-trods, the Irrgarten is best described by the trod formations that most effectively lead to it: Hopscotch, the Labyrinth of Daedalus, the Hedge Maze (and its spontaneously generated ghost-cousins the Crop Circles). At the center of the Irrgarten lies a bottomless well, from which anything, external or interior, may be drawn up into the Labyrinth.
While the various sorcerers, trodcrafters, and wayfarers who occasionally pass through the Irrgarten are certainly renowned in their own circles, they are also transitory denizens of the realm at best. Visitors who remain often go mad after a time, joining one of the various apocalyptic cults that have formed among the labyrinth wanderers. Others simply walk until they waste away. According to the mythologies of these labyrinth cults, there was, at one time, a minotaur near the secret room at the center of the maze. If so, it is clearly a creature to be feared, as most of the wanderers appear to be terrified of encountering it and flee at the slightest sign that it is near.
Enigmas
- The Cat in the Cradle
- The Wolfen Masque
References
- CTD. Dreams and Nightmares, pp. 81-83.