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The god of the Grey Mountain (the Brute/the Shadowbrute)
The Priest of Ungit presides over the goddess’s temple and interprets her will to the King. He believes deeply in Ungit’s presence and power, and his faith makes Orual question the Fox’s teachings to the contrary. The Priest frightens Orual with the feeling of holiness that hangs around him, caused by the bird mask he wears on his chest and the odor of sacrificial blood that follows him. Furthermore, he is the one who initiates the sacrifice of Psyche. Neither the King nor Orual likes him, but both have to pay attention to his demands. The Priest eventually dies around the same time that the King does. The Priest is also blind, a condition that carries significance in a novel that focuses often on what sight reveals or fails to reveal—Psyche’s physical beauty; Orual’s ugliness, concealed behind her veil; Psyche’s palace in the valley. The Priest’s blindness seems to exempt him from the sort of doubts that Orual has when the gods refuse to show her anything clearly. It also connects him to people’s inner lives, which are where Ungit resides, more than their physical appearances.
The Priest of Ungit Quotes in Till We Have Faces
The Till We Have Faces quotes below are all either spoken by The Priest of Ungit or refer to The Priest of Ungit. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 5
Quotes
And when the Brute is Ungit it lies with the man, and when it is her son it lies with the woman. And either way there is a devouring... many different things are said... many sacred stories... many great mysteries. Some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing. For in sacred language we say that a woman who lies with a man devours the man.
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I, King, have dealt with the gods for three generations of men, and I know that they dazzle our eyes and flow in and out of one another like eddies on a river, and nothing that is said clearly can be said truly about them. Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them.
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The Priest of Ungit Quotes in Till We Have Faces
The Till We Have Faces quotes below are all either spoken by The Priest of Ungit or refer to The Priest of Ungit. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 5
Quotes
And when the Brute is Ungit it lies with the man, and when it is her son it lies with the woman. And either way there is a devouring... many different things are said... many sacred stories... many great mysteries. Some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing. For in sacred language we say that a woman who lies with a man devours the man.
Related Characters:
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I, King, have dealt with the gods for three generations of men, and I know that they dazzle our eyes and flow in and out of one another like eddies on a river, and nothing that is said clearly can be said truly about them. Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them.
Related Characters:
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
