The title “Speculum Luminis Dealbensis” is alchemical, referring to the purification or “whitening” process by which a base metal may be transformed into gold and, by extension, to the purification of the human soul. It also refers to the Spirit Mercurius, or Quicksilver, the agent or generator of this transformation process.
Fancifully perhaps, I often see the great cliff-bound bay before my window where the Atlantic and the North Sea meet as a huge alchemical crucible, rich in speculative connotations, and it is this which is the physical Mirror of title.
© Peter Maxwell Davies