Kalagrim Handwriting Class

As I promised [1]  in the previous post it's handwriting class today.

The idea of writing that spirals is one that has been part of the storyworld from the early drafts but except for noting it in a few places nobody mentioned it much.

After all why would they? Everyone in Kalagrim knows that writing spirals outwards and it's likely that they would think our own habit of writing in straight rows to be very cumbersome.

To be totally honest I'm still uncertain about what role the kind of handwriting will play but needs must as the muse drives and this is why I sometimes get notes of epic battles and at other times you get handwriting notes. [2]


Keen eyed readers will already have noted that the symbols, when used in the proper order, form a rather loose representation of the holy crocodile [3]
The big reason for this is that the church, in curious parallel with our own world, has long taken the dual posts of educators and priests.  
Also the vast amount of books written for and by members of the church means that the symbols shown have filtered down to the common folk outside the organisation.

	Much like the treble cleff in our music this symbol, known as the tail, is used to denote the start of a piece or written work.  As the writing of Kalagrim sprials outwards this symbol is often illuminated in some way that is pleasing to the eye although this is by no means a hard and fast rule. It is essentially there to take up space until there is enough room in the spiral to include the script.
This symbol is known as the fin and it's purpose is to indicate a change in subject or to highlight a particular point of interest to the reader.  The bars in the middle of the symbol are, in these modern days, used as bullet points but have their origin in the uprising as part of a secret code which is now sadly lost to the mists of time [4] that was used to indicate a concealed message in the missive.
	A curious device here it is known as the mouth and it signals the end of the conversation. However if the recipient has a reply then the new section will start with a mouth and ending with the tail. Thus giving the impression that the two are speaking to each other. The new reciever repeats the process, which adds a third crocodile to the conversation.
Our final symbol is the closed mouth of the crocodile. It's presence signifies that the conversation is over and no further discussion shall be entered into about whatever subjects have been raised in the series of letters.  Variations of this symbol have shown it being depicted with fangs, teeth, tears and dripping blood although these methods of decoration are generally the province of the very young but are occasionally used by older writers in order to indicate the current mood. It is also worth noting that, in the many books that are written and available in Kalagrim it is very common to find this symbol at the end of a chapter.

We see here an example of Kalagrim script being used in a pair of wartime letters.  Although it is written in English the actual script more closely follows the hieroglyphics of Egypt.[5]

Notes:

1. or, rather more accurately, threatened
2. With any luck I'll strike loony theory next time. It's a bit of a crapshoot really
3. A divine beast that is slated to undergo drastic changes.  I'm leaning in the direction of the Sarcosuchus or similar prehistoric beastie.
4. Also because the secret code is not going to come up in the book no matter how much the muse begs.  It's bad enough that I'm making notes about writing!
5. and I don't have any Hieroglyphic fonts handy.  For those of you who are interested the font that I used is called 1610 Cancellaresca