Sacred Objects of the Cold Communion
Snow-bread · the Cup of Clear Ice · the Cold Altar
The holy objects of the The Cold Communion and the Frosthall altar. (This page gathers several closely-linked items.)
Snow-bread
Snow-bread is the sacred bread of the The Cold Communion: a hard, white, unleavened wafer-bread, pure and slow to spoil — “the hardtack of the kept.” In the Communion it is, or conveys, the body of Connor Frost, “given to keep you cold.” Its roots reach back to the manna, the snow-from-heaven that fed the The Rimefolk in the wilderness (Book of Boren (Lawgiving)), which Connor named a sign of himself (“I am the Snow-bread of life,” Glacial of Voss 6). The reserved Snow-bread is kept in the Rime-Tabernacle before a blue ever-lamp. The rites differ on whether it becomes Connor’s body (the Hardening) or conveys him spiritually; see The Cold Communion.
The Cup of Clear Ice
The Cup of Clear Ice holds the second element: meltwater frozen clear and just-melted at the altar (sometimes mingled with pale frost-wine), which is, or conveys, the breath/blood of Connor, “the new covenant, poured out and frozen for many.” It is served as an icy draught or as a shard of consecrated clear ice laid on the tongue (“the Cold on the tongue”). It recalls the Last Cold Supper and the New Covenant of Jeral.
The Cold Altar
The Cold Altar is the focus of every Frosthall: a table or block of white stone or clear ice at the north end, where the Keeper consecrates the Communion. Behind or above it stands the blank white panel — the one “image” of the unseen Stillness, which may never be depicted. Relics of saints are sealed within or beneath it (recalling the martyrs on whose “frost the Drift was built”). The altar is vested in the color of the season and is the meeting-place of earth and the White.
Significance
Together these objects make the Communion: the Snow-bread (Connor’s body, the manna fulfilled), the Cup of Clear Ice (his breath, the New Covenant), upon the Cold Altar (earth’s meeting with the Stillness). To approach them is to approach the Whitening itself, made present “until he comes” at the Rewhitening.