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Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
Dan Clore <clore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
As always, more information welcomed. This seems to be a Jack Vance
coinage, but it's possible that he took the word from somewhere
else.
Other likely suspects for use include Michael Shea (one of whose
books is set in Vance's Dying Earth, but I have yet to see a copy),
and Gary Gygax, who used the term in Dungeons and Dragons (but not,
so far as I know, in his own fiction).
libram, n. [?< L liber, book; the derivation seems obvious, but the
form is inexplicable. Apparently coined by Jack Vance.] A book; in
particular, one pertaining to magick. [Not in OED.]
I don't see a connection, but the only early hits I find in English
are for the phrase "per aes et libram", which is translated as "with
bronze (ingots) and scales", apparently referring to a ritual used to
transfer real property (and bind oneself into servitude).
This "libram" is the accusative singular of Latin "libra",
balance, scales. No connection, except to screw up searches.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
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