The name jumped out to me, likely because here again France and Francis showed up. The name Francis means "Free Man" or "Frenchman", which I have looked up many times before. So, in Freeman I recognized Francis, almost immediately.
There are lots of cars and trucks on the highway with all sorts of names, logos, etc., so I am not saying it seemed super special to see Francis here. Odds are that I would pass something named Francis on any given day, and likely do many times without noticing. But, in this instance, the full name just kind of stuck with me, and I determined when I got home I would investigate.
The business obviously was a cabinet making business (based out of Lake Elmo, MN, it seems - we used to live in that town before we moved to our current farm almost 10 years ago now). I looked them up a little later that afternoon to see if there was a logo or anything that might explain why the full name stood out to me. Their website doesn't have any specific logo - just the name as I had seen it on the side of the truck.
I wondered if there was anything that might be interesting about 'cabinets'. The only two definitions I was familiar with had to deal with either furnishings like kitchen cabinets, or with a group of leaders, like the President's Cabinet. Maybe there was something else I would see on Etymonline.
Sure enough, there was.
Per Etymonline, cabinet is a French word, and its original archaic usage was not for kitchen cupboards but rather for something quite different. From the 1500s, the word meant:
"secret storehouse, treasure chamber; case for valuables," from French cabinet "small room"
OK, so this seemed a bit interesting to me given my current guess that has what is clearly a secret study or room that has extremely valuable records and artifacts in it (Stones, Plates, Swords, etc.). Reading further, cabinet is the diminutive of cabin, which means "small house or habitation".
At this point my interest is clearly piqued, as my guess is the location in France we are looking for is both a Study or Room of Records that also involves a small house - Tom Bombadil's House, to be exact.
Thus, in the word cabinet, we see a potential reference to both the Study/ Room of Records and also Tom's House - all in one French word.
I am not done yet, though.
Etymonline goes on to suggest that the word cabinet may have been influenced by the Italian word gabbinetto, which is apparently the diminutive of gabbia, which comes from the Latin cavea. Cavea is defined as "stall, stoop, cage, den for animals", and then is followed up with the important note to "see Cave", meaning to refer to the entry for Cave to understand Cavea more.
That's right - we are throwing a cave into the mix here as well.
William Tychonievich had added a comment on my post Grande-Riviere, France; Why not? defining the "room full of plates" that I had mentioned in the story of Joseph and Oliver as more specifically a cave, and tying this cave both the the Plates of his dream(or at least a story of a cave he included in the post recounting that dream), as well as the sword he saw in a brief vision more recently.
I had been looking into this just for a few minutes this afternoon, and I went over to William's blog, where I saw he had written another post called Etude Brute. In that post, after relaying a pun from Claire, he described a dream he had this past weekend of, what else, caves (he called them caverns, but I think they are mostly the same thing) that first had the Holy Family, followed by a cavern filled with records.
Anyway, I thought this was all pretty good: We have a house, a secret chamber containing valuables, and a cave, which have all been tied in some for or another to a potential location in France, all defined by this one French word cabinet. And this Cabinet "belongs" to Freeman, or Francis.
So, who is Francis?
This question goes back to the phrase Francis Scott Key for me, if not even earlier. If you recall, my youngest son (who again just seems to be unknowingly in on something here) asked me who wrote the Star Spangled Banner and I responded by saying that name, but very clearly hearing it as “France has got key” and having this really cause me to think. Now, in hearing this, I've realized that France, being a non-person, cannot 'have' a key in a really meaningful way, and so I might amend the phrase to also be read or heard as Francis got key. So, the key is in France, and Francis, who by one definition of his name (being a Frenchman) lives in France, is in possession of it.
And so, who is Francis that has this Key?
My answer, of course, is Tom Bombadil himself, or Ki-Abroam (Aule). It is his House and so the Key and all of these other valuable records and artifacts are under his protection.
This isn't a new thought, of course, in terms of the belief that Tom is involved. My guess has been for awhile now that the Tom's House is in France, and that there are important things there, such as the Sawtooth Stone. More recently this has expanded to the notion of a Study or larger set of Records, including Plates. I had thought through all of that before today.
The new thought here is that Tom is specifically represented by Francis, as named in these various little references or winks. Which at one level doesn't matter, I suppose, but on another, gives us one more little clue that there might be something to this. Let me briefly explain.
Francis, once again, means Free Man. Of all the Beings currently living in our world, this name or title is most suited to Tom Bombadil. One definition of free, per Etymonline, is "exempt from; not in bondage, acting of one's own will". To put this differently, and in a way that will help you see where I am going, to be free means to have no master - you can act as you wish.
Tom is described multiple times in this light - by himself, by Goldberry, by Gandalf, and others. Tom is the Master, and thus Free. In fact, Goldberry made sure to put it in terms the Hobbits could understand as Tom has never been 'caught'. - to be caught is to be captured, and to be captured is to be in bondage. Not free.
Tom Bombadil is the Master. No one has ever caught old Tom walking in the forest, wading in the water, leaping on the hill-tops under light and shadow. He has no fear. Tom Bombadil is master.
This is the definition of a Free Man, and I am suggesting the name Francis is another little wink that we have both the place in general (France) and the Being (Tom) where we might find the Key and other things beside it.
Oh, as one final addition, the "custom" in the business title had an additional layer of meaning for me, and turned my mind to William's vision of some instructions he received regarding a box to place his new Tarot cards in. The instructions involved placing his cards on a bedding of rosemary leaves in a small stone box with a lid. That is s pretty custom setup for those cards! While this can definitely be taken literally (I think a stone-box card holder would be pretty cool), there also might be a symbolic reference here, with the Tarot cards representing Plates, and the stone box with the lid representing the Cabinet one would find these Plates in. That is just my guess, though, and one that is also based on the thought that the Tarot cards' days are perhaps numbered, just like Dumbo's magic feather. Cards give way to Plates, in other words, in gaining knowledge and understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment