The Muses
Creator	Van Rijn
Purpose	Inspiration of the arts
First Appearance	First group shot... ✣

The Muses were a set of nine clanks created over 200 years ago by legendary master spark, Van Rijn for The Storm King.

Hiding in plain sightEdit

To avoid damage and misuse by overly curious sparks the muses needed to hide. Two, Tinka and Moxana hid undisguised in plain sight by connecting themselves with traveling shows, most recently Master Payne's Circus of Adventure. One, Otilia hid in the body of the construct Von Pinn aboard Castle Wulfenbach guiding and protecting the children, notably, Gil and Tarvek. Recently in Volume X, the Van Rijn body of Otilia hidden in the subterranean Heterodyne lair of Lucrezia Monfish Heterodyne, made her appearance. It is now in need of serious repair, both physical and psychological. The mind inside the body is that of much vaster Castle Heterodyne.

Desperation due to the condition of his sister prompted Tarvek to commandeer Tinka from the circus three years ago. The muses were an irresistible lure to other Sparks, who wished to disassemble them in order to find out how they worked. Since Van Rijn was exceptionally Sparky, this has not met with much success. However, an imperfect, but impressive copy of Tinka was built by Tarvek Sturmvoraus. When the circus stopped in Sturmhalten, Tinka went and brought back Moxana and Van Rijn's notes to Tarvek.

Comparison to the classical musesEdit

The picture on the west inner tympanum of Tarsus Hall^[1] of Transylvania Polygnostic makes them look as if they were intended to mimic the classical muses in form and function. Tinka is obviously the "Muse of dance and movement." Tarvek who studied the muses extensively has called the winged muse Otilia the "Muse of Protection", and Moxana the "Muse of Mystery". These do not have obvious classical equivalents. It is likely however that Otilia takes the place the grand muse Calliope and Moxana the place of Polyhymnia.

It is possible that the Enigma is one of the Muses (or, of course, another clank based on their design).

Outside World Edit

Although writers accounted the Muses in Greek mythology as anywhere from one (Mousa) to three (Memory, Practice and Song) to four (Heart-delighting, Song, Beginning and Meditation) to seven to nine ^[2], eventually Hesiod, naming them, settled the count of nine Muses adopted by later Europan cultures. They were:

(The above information is excerpted from Wikipedia. See that article for more detail.)

Foglio World Edit

In the Foglio world^[3] they are:

Muses on Murals Edit

Mouse over the a muse for her name. The outside world names are placeholders until the storytellers tell more of the their tale. Clicking on a muse will link to her page if she has one.

References

1. ↑ See the mural of The Muses at TPU ✣
2. ↑ ΜΟΥΣΑΙ
3. ↑ [Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess novel preview]