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Fifty-One Tales · Chapter
The Mist explained
The mist rises over the Downs, weeping as it fills the high places and hollows.
What happens
The mist rises over the Downs, weeping as it fills the high places and hollows. The narrator consults a prophet who explains that the mist is composed of souls who never saw the Downs in life and now mourn their loss in death.
Themes in this chapter
Death and the Human Condition
The mist is revealed to be the souls of the dead, mourning the beauty they never experienced in life.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The narrator seeks a prophet to understand why the mist weeps.
Key passages
“The mist is the company of a multitude of souls who never saw the Downs, and now are dead. Therefore they come up weeping into the Downs, who are dead and never saw them.”
The mist is a crowd of spirits who died without ever seeing the Downs, and so they rise weeping into those hills, mourning what they missed.
The prophet's explanation reveals the mist as a collective of regretful dead souls.