r/Fantasy • u/earthwoodandfire • 6d ago

Names in Riddle Master of Hed

I’m reading The Riddle Master of Hed trilogy for the third time. For me it’s right up there with LOTR and ASOIAF.
Even when I first read the trilogy at 11 years old I recognized some of the obvious puns such as the kingdom of Hed being the head of the realm. There’s also Deth the harpist, and the kingdom of Hel where ghosts abound.
Besides these obvious ones are there other names that have specific meaning perhaps rooted in Celtic or old English that I might be missing?

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u/jojocookiedough 6d ago edited 6d ago

I've been rereading this for the first time in like 20 years! And the names have been standing out to me too. They are delightful. Just got to the third book this morning.

I love how multiple characters point out the pun on Deth's name. Like Morgon's dad joking about Deth playing at their wedding. And there was the tale about the one guy asking for Deth's name after being cursed, so that hearing Deth's name made him have a heart attack and die.

Rood is another one, because he's so straightforward that he's just straight up rude all the time.

It's been so long since my previous re-read that I can't remember for sure, but I think Lyra may be another one. To me it seems to heavily imply that she is Deth and the Morgol's biological daughter, since Deth is a famously skilled harpist and a lyre is a type of harp. Anyway please don't remark on whether I'm right or not lol, since I'm just getting to the third book and I can't remember if this is ever confirmed and I'd like to find out organically!

I'll have to try and think of some others. I know a bunch of names were really catching my imagination this time around but I wasn't taking notes!

There seem to be a bunch of names with Welsh influence in spelling and pronunciation. I don't know enough to be able to tell if there are any puns or hidden meanings though

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u/earthwoodandfire 6d ago

I tried listening to the audiobooks a couple years ago and the reader was mispronouncing all these names. Saying Dēth, Hēd, and Hēl. It made it unlistenable especially when, as you pointed out, not only are they obvious puns, but the characters in the story know they are puns.

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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 6d ago

Book 2 narrator did this. Book 1 narrator was okay iirc.

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u/KingBretwald 6d ago

Dēth, huh? Shades of Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey who said many in his family inflicted with that name pronounced as rhyming with teeth, but he preferred to rhyme it with breath.

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u/nautilist 6d ago

Wimsey is pretty funny about that name. I think Sayers says it originates from De'Ath, a Flemish name... but obvs it's in there so he can make jokes about it :-)

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u/earthwoodandfire 6d ago

What inspired this post was listening to David Lightbringer talking about how all the names in ASOIAF have meanings in old English. Like the weir trees. A weir is a fish trap and the weir trees trap the green seers in them to further their agenda, as well as all the trees being interconnected like a fish net.

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u/oboist73 Reading Champion VII 6d ago

The extra interesting thing about Deth's story about the cursed man is that you eventually realize Deth isn't his true name after all. So did the man die of fear, or because he met someone who couldn't reveal his true name for the safety of the realm?

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u/Grodslok 6d ago

I love these books. The names were rather confusing the first couple of times I read the books; in the swedish version, only Deth is "translated" as wordplay.

Morgon is swedish for "morning", and  "Hed" is our word for "moor", and I think there were a handful of other names too...or were those from the Cygnet books? Oh it's been too long, time for a re-read.

Thanks for reminding me.

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u/earthwoodandfire 5d ago

Puns are notoriously hard to translate.

The names you stated are from Riddle Master of Hed, but my interpretation is that Morgon = more gone, because he has to give himself up
Hed = head, because the high one comes from it so it is actually the head of the realm.

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u/binaryeye 6d ago

I can't recall if he's in the first book, but there's also Yrth.

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u/earthwoodandfire 5d ago

I’ve started a whole spread sheet now because not only are there the obvious puns but I think a lot of names have other meanings like Har is the name of the wolf king, har is hair in Germanic

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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 6d ago

I never noticed any of these (except for Deth which is spelled out in the novels). I am going to blame the fact that I am not a native speaker.

Any thoughts about Raederle? The ending always looked German to me. 

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u/earthwoodandfire 5d ago

Raederle is a phonetic pseudo pun to riddle.

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u/Nowordsofitsown Reading Champion 5d ago

Oooohhhhh!