by Robin Furth
AGE OF MAGIC/AGE OF MACHINES: According to the ancient history of Mid-World, the universe spun from Gan’s navel, but Gan himself arose from the magical soup of creation called the PRIM. Eventually, the magical tide of the Prim receded, but it left on the shores of the mundane worlds the demons and spirits which human beings occasionally encounter, as well as the Dark Tower and the Beams, which hold the multiverse together. Although the Prim left enough magic to uphold both Tower and Beams for eternity (and enough demons and spirits to give mankind trouble for ages to come), human beings suffered a great loss of faith and sought to replace the magical Beams with manufactured machinery. Unfortunately, machines—like the men who make them—are mortal. Hence, the Age of Magic began the universe, but it seems likely that the Age of Machines will end it. VI:108–12
AIM TIME LIKE A GUN (TO AIM TIME LIKE A GUN): To time-travel, but to do so with a specific date in mind. V:116
AIM WITH THE EYE, SHOOT WITH THE MIND, KILL WITH THE HEART: This is the essence of the gunslinger litany, or what a gunslinger must learn to do to become an accomplished killer. V:110
ALL MY GODS ON THE HILL: This is the equivalent of Oh my God! When Roland ulters this phrase, he thumps his forehead with his reduced right hand. W:14
ALL THINGS SERVE KA AND FOLLOW THE BEAM: A phrase similar to ALL THINGS SERVE THE BEAM. In other words, all things work in harmony with the greater tides of fate. V:706
ALL THINGS SERVE THE BEAM: All things work in harmony with the greater tides of fate. All events serve a greater purpose, even if we can’t understand what that purpose might be. V:93, VI:266, VII:304
ALL-A-GLOW: This is a Mid-World term for the imaginative and magical kingdom which children inhabit. VII:23
ALLEYO (PLANNING ALLEYO): Someone who is planning alleyo is planning to run away. V:395
ALLURE: The name given to a castle wall-walk. VI:103
ALTERNATE (OR ALTERNATIVE) AMERICAS: Many levels of the Dark Tower contain versions of the United States, but each version is unique. Hence, when I refer to the many incarnations of America (the versions that are similar to the one found on KEYSTONE EARTH but which are not exactly the same), I use this term. See MULTIPLE AMERICAS, below
ALWAYS CON YOUR VANTAGE: This was Cort’s rule. In other words, always stop and examine your whereabouts. VII:778
AMERICA-SIDE: When our tet-mates use the term “America-side,” they are usually referring to New York City, the metropolis where Eddie, Jake, and Susannah lived before entering Mid-World. However, this term could just as easily refer to part of the United States in any of the MULTIPLE AMERICAS. VII:758
AMMIES (WHITE AMMIES): Nurses. W:36
AMOCO: In Mid-World, AMOCO: LEAD FREE is a legend of unknown meaning. Roland once met a hermit who gained a religious following by placing an Amoco gasoline hose between his legs and preaching wild, guttural, sullen sermons. Amoco became the totem of a thunder god who was worshipped with a half-mad slaughter of sheep. I:154
AND MAY YOU HAVE TWICE THE NUMBER: See MAY YOUR DAYS BE LONG UPON THE EARTH, below
**ANIMALS THAT TALK BE TOUGH: Don’t eat anything that can answer you back. Their flesh isn’t pleasant.
ANTI-TODASH: According to Roland and Eddie, the heightened reality of our world is like an anti-todash force. Our world exists at the heart of the Beam, probably because Stephen King, the creator of Mid-World and the Beams, lives here. VI:265
ANY RO’: Anyhow. V:407, VI:33, VII:239
AR’EE READY?: Are you ready? W:12
ARGYOU NOT ABOUT THE HAND YOU ARE DELT IN CARDS OR IN LIFE: This pithy phrase was written on a sign in the Travellers’ Rest. IV:171
ARTYFAX: Artifacts, usually left by the Old People of Mid-World. W:64, W:170
ASSUME MAKES AN ASS OUT OF U AND ME: This particular phrase comes from Eddie Dean of New York. Basically, it means that if you assume something, there’s a good chance that you’ll be proven wrong, and in an embarrassing fashion. V:583
ASTIN: Roland’s pronunciation of the word aspirin. II:98, II:102, V:104, VI:209, VII:41
ATTEND ME: See MID-WORLD GESTURES
AUTO-CARRIAGE: A car. V:518
AVEN-CAR: See entry in HIGH SPEECH
AYE: Yes. Can be used at the end of a sentence. For example, take heed, aye? V:161, W:13
AY-YI: An explanation of surprise or shock. Like “Oh my God” or “JEEZ.” W:47
BABY-BUNTING RHYME:
Baby-bunting, baby-dear,
Baby, bring your berries here.
Chussit, chissit, chassit!
Bring enough to fill your basket.
When Roland was a little boy, his mother sang this song to him. Chussit, chissit, chassit are the High Speech words for the numbers seventeen, eighteen, and NINETEEN. VII:23
BAD TIMES ARE ON HORSEBACK: Bad times are coming quickly. I:163
BAG-FOLKEN: Bag-people. Unfortunately, many bag-people sleep rough in the cities of our world. VI:80
BAH AND BOLT: The bah is a crossbow. (It shoots bolts instead of arrows.) Like the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis, Roland’s old friend Jamie DeCurry favored bah and bolt. V:20, V:204, V:324
BAH-BO: A bah-bo is a baby. It is a term of endearment. VII:149, VII:487
BANNOCK: Bannocks are herd beasts. They look like buffalo. VII:734, VII:745
BARN RUSTIES: See RUSTIES, below
BARREL OF THE BEAM (HEART OF THE BEAM): The energy that flows through the center of the Beam. If you are caught in the barrel of the Beam, you are in the heart of that ceaseless, powerful current. Your hair will probably be standing on end! VI:265, VI:269
BARREL-SHOOTERS: A type of gun. Vaughn Eisenhart owns two of them. Roland and his childhood friends called these firearms barrel-shooters because of their oversize cylinders. Unlike the cylinders of many other handguns, the cylinder of a barrel-shooter must be revolved by hand after each shot. V:319
BASTED IN A HOT OAST: A Mid-World saying which basically means “our goose is cooked.” Roland likes to use it. VII:195
BATTLES THAT LAST FIVE MINUTES SPAWN LEGENDS THAT LIVE A THOUSAND YEARS: This is one of Roland’s sayings. VII:5
BEAM BREAKERS: The Beam Breakers are powerful psychics who were kidnapped by the Crimson King and brought to End-World. The Red King stationed them in the DEVAR-TOI—a kind of luxurious prison—and set them to the task of destroying the Beams and bringing down the Dark Tower. Although a few of the Breakers rebel against their fate, most of them are pretty comfortable doing their job. Sad but true. See BREAKERS (BEAM BREAKERS), in CHARACTERS
BEAMQUAKE: A Beamquake feels like an earthquake, but it is a tremor felt in all of the worlds. A Beamquake takes place when one of the Tower’s support Beams snaps. See also AVEN KAL, in HIGH SPEECH. VI:14
BEANS, BEANS, THE MUSICAL FRUIT. THE MORE YOU EAT, THE MORE YOU TOOT: We have this saying in our world too. The raven Zoltan was very fond of it. I:16
BEFORE VICTORY COMES TEMPTATION. AND THE GREATER THE VICTORY TO WIN, THE GREATER THE TEMPTATION TO WITHSTAND: This was one of Vannay’s sayings. He called it “the one rule with no exceptions.” VII:589, VII:601
BEHOLD YE, THE RETURN OF THE WHITE! AFTER EVIL WAYS AND EVIL DAYS, THE WHITE COMES AGAIN! BE OF GOOD HEART AND HOLD UP YOUR HEAD, FOR YE HAVE LIVED TO SEE THE WHEEL OF KA BEGIN TO TURN ONCE MORE: Aunt Talitha of River Crossing utters this pronouncement. III:232
BIDE: Where you bide is where you live. W:38, W:66
BIG CHARLIE WIND: The Big Charlie Wind is a death wind. Mercy, from River Crossing, refers to the Big Charlie Wind that “came and almost blew the steeple off the church.” III:248
BIG-HAT STOCK: Good, threaded stock. IV:206
BIG SKY DADDY: Some tribes of slow mutants call God “Big Sky Daddy.” V:475
BILL OF CIRCULATION: A Bill of Circulation is a warrant or order. Often, a Bill of Circulation is an order to get out of town. W:45
BILLY-BUMBLER (BUMBLER, THROCKEN): A billy-bumbler (also called a throcken) looks like a cross between a raccoon, a woodchuck, and a dachshund. Bumblers’
eyes are gold-black and they wag their little corkscrew tails like dogs. Bumblers are intelligent. In the days they lived with men, they could parrot the words they heard, and some could even count and add. Few wild ones seem to remember how to speak, although Jake’s pet, Oy, does. Originally, Bumblers were bred to keep down vermin, including the nasty Grandfather Fleas. They were also kept to predict the coming of STARKBLASTS. If Oy is anything to go by, they are devoted to those they love and fiercely protective of them. According to the ferryman Bix, bumblers’ ability to predict starkblasts is their BRIGHT, or special talent. See also OY, in CHARACTERS
BIN-RUSTIES: Bin-rusties are swallows. W:19, W:20
BINGO-WEED: In Mid-World, people chew bingo-weed. It stains the tongue yellow. W:286
BINNIE BUGS: These bugs hover over the swamps of Mid-Forest. While she is possessed by Mia, Susannah snatches them out of the air and gobbles them to feed her chap. (Yum.) V:82
BIT O’ TAIL: “Bit of ass.” A man’s bit o’ tail is his woman on the side, or his mistress. V:411
BLACK COLLAR OF MOURNING: After Gabrielle Deschain’s death, every man in Gilead wore either a black mourning collar or a black band around his shirtsleeve. Women wore black nets over their hair. This continued for six months. W:35
BLACK THIRTEEN: Black Thirteen is the last and worst of Maerlyn’s evil seeing spheres which are collectively known as Maerlyn’s Rainbow. According to Roland, it is the most terrible object left over from the days of Arthur Eld, although it probably even predates Roland’s illustrious and semimythical ancestor. See also MAERLYN’S RAINBOW, in CHARACTERS
BLACKMOUTH: Cancer. Or as Roland pronounces it, can’t sir. VII:141
BLOODSORES: A terrible degenerative disease that can eat away a person’s face. The Widow Smack contracted bloodsores many years before Tim Ross knew her. Hence her face was terribly disfigured. W:112
BLOSSIES (BLOSSWOOD TREES): When Roland was young, Blossie trees were grown on a farm east of Gilead. Blossie was a lovely fine-grained wood, golden in color and almost light enough to float on air. Blossie wood could be used to build lakecraft, but it wasn’t strong enough to build seafaring vessels. When Roland was a boy, the Blossie farms were wiped out by plague. However, Blossies still grew in North’rd Barony’s Endless Forest, north of Gilead. V:612, W:111
BLOW-WEED: Tobacco. VII:310
BLUE CAR SYNDROME: According to Susannah Dean, a person develops Blue Car Syndrome when he or she buys a blue car and then suddenly begins to see blue cars everywhere. Our ka-tet doesn’t have Blue Car Syndrome but “Nineteen Syndrome.” V:98
BLUEBACKS: Roland’s term for police officers. VII:463, VII:472
**BOCKS: Dollars. It is the currency used in Tull.
BONFIRE OF DRAGONS: Just as a gathering of crows is called a murder, a gathering or group of dragons is called a bonfire. W:150
BOLA: A Mid-World weapon. According to Mid-World mythology, the harrier Gray Dick thought that his enemy, Lady ORIZA, would try to murder him with a bola. She killed him with a sharpened dinner plate instead. V:326
**BOLT AND BAH: Crossbow and bolt. Although Roland’s KA-TEL trained with the bolt and bah, this weapon tends to be used by those without access to guns.
BONDSERVANT: A servant. VII:437
BONDSMAN: One who is bound to serve the DINH of his or her KA-TET. VII:258
BOOBYRIGGED: This is a term from Lud and is used by Tick-Tock. It means booby-trapped. III:354
BOOGERY HOT: Extremely hot. W:47
BORDER DWELLERS: Border Dwellers are the men and women who live on the edges of the Mohaine Desert. They burn devil grass and live in huts with sod roofs. Their diet consists of corn, beans, and peas. See also BORDER DWELLERS, in CHARACTERS
BOUGIE: A reanimated corpse. VII:764
BRAIN-STORM: A stroke. IV:625
BRAKES: The Brakes are those tangled areas of mixed vegetation and woody bushes that exist in the low hills near the Western Sea. II:286, II:296
BRIGHT: A person’s bright is his talent. (A BUMBLER’s bright is predicting the arrival of a STARKBLAST.) W:14
**BUCKA (BUCKA WAGGON, BUCKBOARD): A buckboard wagon is a horse-drawn vehicle whose body is formed by a plank of wood fixed to the axles. The ones driven by the Manni have rounded canvas tops. In the 2003 version of The Gunslinger, we learn that Buckas once followed the Great Road through the Mohaine Desert. V:14, V:21, V:477, V:654, VI:62
BUGGER-MAN: This is the Mid-World term for the Bogeyman. II:286
BUGS WON’T EAT THE FLESH OF A VIRTUOUS MAN: This is an old wives’ saying repeated in the Endless Forest. It seems to hold true, since no flesh-eating insects marred the body of Big Jack Ross, though for many months he floated six inches below the bug-infested water of a sluggish forest stream. W:160–61
BULLDINK: This term is used in River Crossing and is the equivalent of “bullshit.” III:248
BUMBLER: See BILLY-BUMBLER, above
BUMBLER GOT YOUR TONGUE?: Mia uses this term during her PALAVER with Susannah. It translates as “Cat got your tongue?” In other words, why are you so quiet? III:327, VI:246
BUMHUG: Bumhug is an amusing word that Jake and Eddie made up. Although we don’t hear it as often in the final books of the Dark Tower series, we still occasionally come across it. A bumhug is a jerk, a poop-head, etc. VII:144, VII:173
BUMP-CRIBS: The small rooms or stalls where prostitutes do their business. W:277
BUX: Roland-speak for dollars (bucks). II:345
BY SHARDIK: This is the equivalent of saying “By God!” VII:34
CAMISAS: Spanish for shirts. Used in Hambry. IV:237
CANDA: See entry in HIGH SPEECH
CAN’EE SEE HOWGIT ROSEN-GAFF A TWEAK IT BETTER: Roland utters this phrase while talking to Patrick Danville about one of the roses of Can’-Ka No Rey. Basically, it means “Can you see that-there goddamn rose a little better?” VII:759
CARTOMOBILE: This is Roland’s word for a car. VI:166, VII:426
CARVERS (BEER BARRELS): Five-shot revolvers. IV:393
CASTLE ROOKS: See GAN’S BLACKBIRDS, below
CASTLES: A game similar to chess. V:530
CAT’S PAW: When you PULL A COZY, or do a sting operation, you need someone to be your cat’s paw, or your front-man or pawn. W:86
CATACLYSM: See GREAT POISONING, below
CHAFE: To chafe someone about something they’ve done is to upbraid them about it. W:186
CHANGED LIFE: According to Daria, the North Central Positronics Portable Guidance Module, a Changed Life is a creature that has been changed from its original form into that of a different type of creature. When Tim Ross first meets Maerlyn in The Wind Through the Keyhole, Maerlyn is a Changed Life. (He is in the form of a tyger.) W:222
CHASSIT: See entry in HIGH SPEECH
CHEFLET: Roland’s pronunciation of the antibiotic Keflex. II:157, VII:635
CHERT: A stone much like quartz, which can be used to scrape hides. Hunters say it breaks lucky. VII:636, VII:638
CHILDREN OF RODERICK (RODS): The Children of Roderick (also known as Rods) are a band of mutants who swore allegiance to Arthur Eld in the long-ago. They are from lands beyond those known to Roland. See MUTANTS: CHILDREN OF RODERICK, in CHARACTERS
**CLAN-FAMS: Extended family units, or clans. In the 2003 version of The Gunslinger, we learn that many of these inbred groups live on the borders of the Mohaine Desert. See also END-WORLD TERMS
CLEARING AT THE END OF THE PATH (THE CLEARING AT THE END OF THE PATH): This is the place we all go to in the end, though each of us arrives there by a different route. The clearing at the end of the path is death—the snip at the end of the life-cord. III:380, V:374, VI:34, VI:243, VI:259
CLOAK FOLK: This is Eddie Dean’s term for the Manni. VI:24
CLOBBERS/CLUMPETS: Straw hats worn by working men. W:270
CLOUTS: A clout is a cloth that can be used for cleaning, as in a dish-clout, or for diapering a BAH-BO. IV:127, IV:448, VII:22, VII:91
COME FORWARD, GOOD STRANGER, AND T
ELL US OF YOUR NEED: Come forward and speak. V:107
COME TO ME: See MID-WORLD GESTURES
COME-COME-COMMALA: See COMMALA, in CALLA BRYN STURGIS DIALECT
**COMMALA: A Mid-World dance also known as the Sowing Night Cotillion. See entries in HIGH SPEECH and CALLA BRYN STURGIS DIALECT
CONVERSATIONAL: A Conversational is a political event. In every barony of Mid-World, the week leading up to Fair-Day is full of Conversationals, which are like political luncheons. Important people come from all corners of a barony to meet and PALAVER. The main Conversational takes place on Fair-Day itself. IV:456–57
COOL AS A BLESSING: Water on a burn is cool as a blessing. W:260
COOZEY: Jonas calls Roland a “coozey little brat.” IV:484
CORPSE-LAMPS: This is the name Roland gives for the lights he sees floating in the underground river located below the Cyclopean Mountains. I:153
CORSE: Corpse. W:172
CORVETTE: In the Barony of Mejis, a corvette is a small leather purse, big enough for a few coins. It tends to be carried by women rather than men, but men occasionally use them as well. Literally speaking, corvette means “little packet.” As can be seen, however, a more practical definition is “little purse.” IV:283
COSY: This term is from Lud. Gasher tells Jake “you’ve got a cosy look about you.” Cosy seems to mean clever or full of guile. III:299
COTTON-GILLIES: Cotton-gilly is a fancy term for a common whore. A gilly (or sheevin) is a side-wife taken by a man who already has a legal wife. She is a mistress, but one who will be faithful to the man she serves. A cotton-gilly goes with whoever has enough ready cash. Gert Moggins of the Travellers’ Rest uses this term for herself and the other girls. IV:447
COTTONWOOD: This is a tree that grows near the desert beaches of the Western Sea. Eddie makes a travois out of it in order to drag Roland north. II:167
COVENANT: A Covenant was sworn between Arthur Eld and the people of In-World. The people of In-World would pay taxes and the Eld and his men would protect them. The evil Covenant Man/tax collector (who was none other than Walter O’Dim in disguise) took advantage of this situation and charged exceedingly high taxes. The people came to resent Gilead, which was exactly what the Covenant Man wanted. W:113, W:133