hyperphosphorescent: "the Curies first used the word radioactive to describe the behaviour of uranium-like substances. Silvanus Thompson's concoction of the same phenomenon, hyperphosphorescence, thankfully never entered the English or any other language. But radioactivity had come to stay." (Reid,1974)
luminous silhouettes: "At night (The Curies) would occasionally return to their workroom, stand in the centre of its cold, hard bituminous floor, and look around at the bottles of liquids and capsules of crystals. As their eyes became accustomed to the dark they would begin to see the feebly luminous silhouettes of the containers glowing from the tables and makeshift shelves. They stood together and watched, and felt themselves to have reached great heights." Ibid.
welling: "when you visualize it in a state where the outer senses are under restraint, you are shaken by such terror that you think you are about to die. And then, suddenly at the mouth of the well the extraordinary green light begins to shine." (Corbin,1978)
millimicrocuries: The University of Missouri tested the springs, which have since disappeared, and found 2.57 millimicrocuries of radium per liter. For a complete analysis, see Fitzpatrick,1944.
white stones: "Like the ocean which rings the earth, and like the gates of the sun, the rock marks the boundary between this world and the world beyond; and it is white because that boundary is also the boundary of light and life." (Rowe,1977)
yew-green: The yew tree, or his branches, are symbolic of "sorrow, death, or resurrection."
wild son: "The threat of nuclear holocaust is the wild son of the spirit of science." (Perlman,1983)
"pig": Slang for a container used to transport toxic materials, usually radioactive pharmaceuticals.
entraining: "The dual-track approach, which can run on forever... demands no choice between the arms and arms control; the difference between preparing for war and pursuing peace is blurred almost to the vanishing point. Both tracks suggest that newer and better weapons will make us safer." (Chernus,1986)
Seahrimir's: A supernatural pig that, in the Hall of Odin, "provided the warriors with an unending supply of pork." (Gylfaginning )
tangled growth: "The thicket is a Great Mother symbol, particularly in connexion with the boar hunt; there the boar turns at bay for its last self-defence before its death, and as such is commonly met with in classical literature. It is a tangled growth of an almost impenetrable complexity which can be a refuge for wild animals, but can also be a last stronghold from which they attack their pursuers." (Layard,1975)
hell-dog: "The dog is often described mythologically as a healing and protecting escort into the Beyond. Thus the Egyptian dog-headed or jackal-headed god Anubis is the agent of resurrection; and among the Aztecs a yellow or red dog, Xolotl, brings the corpses in the kingdom of the dead back to life. In India, too, Shiva, the destroying god of death, is called Lord of the Dogs...And Virgil tells us in the Aeneid that the hell-dog Cerberus is actually the earth which devours corpses." (Von Franz,1986)
heads blindly: "Death in the grassblade / a dull / substance, heading blindly / for the bone." (D. Levertov. From, "Three Meditations.")