Waythe (Scrye Mythology)

Among the Scrye peoples, Waythe (pronounced wayth; "death" or "to die") is the personification of death, serving as the protector of the dead, the keeper of their spirit, and a guide in Xabyss ("Hell" or "Netherworld"). He is portrayed as a winged angelic young man who appears before the living at the moment of death, and assists the souls as they cross the threshold to the spirit world.

A rarely alluded figure, he has appeared only in three canonical texts and one of the epigraphs to the Khyal Cycle, a work of the Una Ilek. He is also mentioned in a footnote in one of the works of Laias the Elder in the 1300s AD. Some of the Scrye believe that he has more than one form (a melnee), each of them linked with a specific type of death. One of the only instances in which Waythe actually appears in person is in the story of an individual named Morsan the Black, whose death is described in both the Khyal Cycle and the Laias' Prophecies. Waythe appears to the tribal leader to explain his visions of death and the afterlife and punishes him for the misdeeds committed against his tribe.

Later versions of Waythe in the Khyal Cycle refer to him by name rather than by his role as the one who sees the death of others. In the earliest known version, dated to around 500 BC, he is called Pemthe. In a later revision, the name of the figure has been changed to Thaymeenor (Thammeen, meaning "guide"). The text is not clear on the name change, which may be the result of confusion over Thaymeenor's exact title as the "one who sees the deaths".

In literature

According to the Sacred Scrolls of Detther composed by Wulfilak the Wolf-Father, a tribal elder during the fabled First Age of Ice (roughly 500 BC to 250 BC), as one of his first orders, Arihan created the Dreyvena, benevolent celestial intermediaries between Arihan himself (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include protectors and guides for humans, and servants of the gods. This included Waythe, and other personified concepts such as Mordil (fear and terror), Saek (sadness and misery), Knars (physical pain), Onaz (madness and insanity), Nilolo (sleep and dreams), Draqonos (vegeance and retribution), Bresha (isolation and separation), etc.

             - (translated into modern language) "...these spirits - daemons of hurt and impairment - were created out of necessity. The Second All-Father desired
             balance in his kingdom, and the spirits created out of fear would serve as a barrier to prevent the forces of evil from gaining entry into it. Then Arihan (the
             Wolf) gave them life, soul and purpose; He gave them a human form, and gave them a goal of protecting and serving humankind to an infinite degree."

In Khyal Cycle, one of the only works that feature Waythe, an abusive and merciless tribal leader by the name of Morsan the Black, begins to experience visions and episodes of hallucinations. They feature him dying painful and violent deaths over and over, including being staked through the heart, struck by lightning, and eaten by a pack of wolves. He begins to slowly break down into insanity as the visions get more and more and frequent and thus more and more violent. On the verge of committing suicide, he is visited by Waythe in a dreamlike state, as Waythe always visits those who are either near death or have reached the point of death. He tells him that his visions, and the reason he sees himself dying in painful and violent ways, were perpetrated by Waythe himself in order to punish him for his insolence against his tribe. Morsan begs for the visions to stop, and that he will be a good and faithful leader. Waythe knows Morsan is lying however, but simply says "Death has a way of knowing" before putting a hand on his shoulder and departing. Morsan is confused, but goes back to his tribe. For the rest of the day, he continues his abusive behavior, even to the point of ordering a fellow tribesman to be put to death simply because he looked better than him. However, before he gets his words out, his body begins to decay until he is reduced to blood and ash. This is because of Waythe touching his shoulder, "for all those who touch death are succumbed by its painful allure."

In art

Numerous pieces of artwork, both ancient and modern, have depicted Waythe in some form. The earliest dated example is a 4th-century BC relief discovered in Skaus Spela in the Northern Isles which shows a winged figure with a raven's head (identified as Waythe in later research) sitting beside a boat. A 9th-century AD Scrye poem, The Vision of Deirdre, refers to both Waythe and Saek ("Sadness") in the story of Deirdre's suicide. They appear to him in human form and teach him the "mysteries of peace". Waythe was also depicted in the 7th-century Orkneyinga saga and other religious sources as the carrier of tribal leader Einher the Wolf-Man, whose death was recorded in the sagas. In these stories, which are transcribed both through texts and modern (1600s-present) art portray Waythe as a solemn youth with "long, very straight raven-black hair, attired in a garb of blacks rimmed in golds that hung on his thin frame. His massive fluttering wings seemed rather to have been painted in, and not worn as a natural attribute of the body.