gatefold inner sleeve: sides 2 and 3.  The story Olias of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson is the text.

(Below) Sides 4 and 5 (?). The album was a single record but it must have had a page added between the two sides of the inner cover. I haven’t seen it in 25 or 30 years.

outer cover, full

Ranyart — on this one the text can be read more easily if you click on the image twice to enlarge it

Video artist vzqk50 created a set of 13 slide show videos for Jon Anderson’s epic Olias of Sunhillow. (Olias playlist). The entire set is presently available again. Two had been missing for months after having been disabled by WMG.

Ocean Song

Meeting (Garden of Geda) / Sound Out the Galleon

Dance of Ranyart

Olias (to Build the Moorglade)

QoQuaq Ën Transic

Naon

Transic To

Flight of the Moorglade

Solid Space

Moon Ra

Chords

Song of Search

To the Runner

I discovered that some of the images created by David Fairbrother-Roe for the cover — front, back, and gatefold inner sleeve — of Olias of Sunhillow are very difficult to find. For that reason four of these are screen shots. And those made when I was just learning how to take screen shots and to use Paint. They are pretty fuzzy. Will try to improve them when I get a chance.

Above: A fan, identified as “John D.”, says he painted this, modeled on the original. See more about the creation of Olias of Sunhillow and about the artwork at this page.

Both of these photos are, according to my sources, from the Relayer tour in 1975. Haven’t found any pics nearly as good from the ‘76 Yes Solo Album tour.

The liner notes of Jon Anderson’s epic album Olias of Sunhillow (1976) included the following story.

The Story
by Jon Anderson

Through the mist of a million years of high energy three riders skimmed the surface of the plain of Tallowcross and raced towards a dream. Their meeting point lying between the glades and Gardens of Geda and the high mountain masses, where fountains of light and colour and soft winds of passion, openly existing through wisdom, surrounded the three that silent eve, they sang together through motions only ways, as all around them sparkled and chorused in wonder.

* OLIAS was to build the ship the Moorglade Mover
* RANYART was to guide the moments begotten light
* QOQUAQ, a leader, a fashioner of peoples of Sunhillow

Four tribes lived on Sunhillow and existed through music, rhythms and tempos, each of the tribes attained a light of their own through their songs to their stars, so their energy, their souls, their time, their movements were all accordant to the stars.

* NAGRUNIUM deepdark skinned stretched beat
* ASATRAMUS jangled lines of monatone
* ORACTAMOM cascading ready light metal
* NORDRAMOUS weavers of body sound

The dance of Ranyart would start the call with beams of alternity directed to the skies. Bending the staff of motions begotten light, he moved with grace within him and charged the air to part and carry him towards the course of passion.

Olias had been busy, and having sang his song, the metallic-like trees with their golden leaves jingling like winter snow,  had motioned their strong roots to slowly dance out of position towards Olias to create the frame of the Moorglade. With spread-eagled wings and high masts with enough room for all, it stood, near ready, it needed only to be strenghtened and covered and this was for the fish of the ocean the ’solar’ to do. Olias reached out with voice and sound to ease them from their play. As intertwined and inter- moving parts of the ocean rose into the air glistening in the quick wind they rushed expectantly towards the frame and crashed their forms and clasped and died as all will: the Moorglade was ready.

Hurtling through space amidst countless sister planets, Sunhillow had held the tribes for as long as time would allow: Qoquaq sat alone in the valley, at close points to all, and sang of the mass lands to the East; as the sound ascended and rang out of the valley, a distant form was heard, deep rhytms awoke that spell of a movement as slowly and surely Nagrunium awoke to the message of love and haste. A deep throated drone from the East was heard as an array of sound converged toward the valley. Metal could be seen glinting and chiming in the Western mist. Qoquaq, translike, sang out the rhytms in one clear tone as the singers of the North approached the scene. As they began to mingle a strange discord arose: each tribe had not seen of each other and were at once charged to counteract the balance, only seen to a veil of innocence, still the movement was so strong, all that could move, moved toward Qoquaq, so great was his song. He then gently rose as if not seen at all and guided them toward the ship the Moorglade Mover. Olias song out to Qoquaq as the tribes of sound, in their transic state, appeared on the plain of Tallowcross, his song of welcome was to bring them closer to the ship, as they climbed on board the noise rang out within, rhytms took over rhytm and became more and more intense so that all in one movement the giant wings of the Moorglade began to take to life.

Slowly she dragged herself along the plain, onto the ocean, from which point the ocean began to move underneath the feet of the ship. The solar shell counterreacting with the live made sense of vision, and as the Moorglade began to race, inventing speed, a great writhing tidal wave became and rose high towards the stars, thrusting the Moorglade high into space and to flight with giant sails beaming to the stars, and as the ship traveled into space.

The featured slide show set for Jon Anderson’s great masterpiece Olias of Sunhillow is the work of vzqk50 who provides the following information on the music, from the wikipedia article (slightly edited by me).

Olias of Sunhillow is a progressive rock concept album by Jon Anderson, the lead singer of the band Yes. Released in 1976, it was his first solo album.

The album tells the story of an alien race and their journey to a new world due to catastrophe. Olias, the title character, is the chosen architect of the glider Moorglade, which will be used to fly his people to their new home. Ranyart is the navigator for the glider, and QoQuaq is the leader who unites the four tribes of Sunhillow to partake in the exodus.

The concept may have been partly inspired by the cover art for the 1972 Yes album Fragile, which depicts a tiny planet breaking apart and a glider escaping into space.

Note: This is not in question.  Anderson stated very clearly in a well-known 1976 post-release radio interview with New York DJ Allison Steele “The Nightbird”–I plan to post at least some of the interview either here or at my yes75to76 site–that the primary source was Roger Dean’s artwork for the album Fragile. “I had the idea that that ship…that kind of hovered around…was playing some little  part in this idea, of the story that was coming out at that time….”  

more from wiki…Anderson has stated that works by J.R.R. Tolkien were also an influence, underlying the epic scope of the narrative compressed into the album.

Olias of Sunhillow has been Anderson’s most acclaimed solo work both by critics and fans. Through months of effort, Anderson achieved arrangements of musical virtuosity that he has been unable to match in later solo works. (Many later works, such as Animation, relied on session players.) Since Anderson produced Olias soon after Vangelis had auditioned to be a part of Yes, there has been widespread speculation that Vangelis contributed to the album, with some fans going so far as to say that Olias represents the kind of sound that Yes would have created if Vangelis had in fact joined the band. However, both Vangelis and Anderson have denied that they collaborated on the album, and it must be noted that Olias sounds markedly different from the five albums that Jon and Vangelis did actually produce together in the late 70s and early 80s.

Olias has been re-released several times, most recently with a US CD release by Wounded Bird Records on February 28, 2006.

The album sleeve features a series of artworks by the artist David Fairbrother Roe, RA (whose other work included graphics for the Isle of Wight Festival, Nazareth – Hair of the Dog, and the Dragonflight novels of Anne McCaffrey).

To this I will add that the second image in the sidebar, also used periodically in the header, is the work of “John D.” who says he painted it in 1977 at the age of 17 (posted by Niaka at flickr).  It is a close approximation of artwork by Roe used on the inside of the album cover. I remember the image from having seen it last more than two decades ago. At the time I thought this was the character referred to as Qoquac, and that this was a depiction of Qoquac Ën Transic, the title of one of Anderson’s songs, but I don’t remember if it was so labeled.

My brief attempts, two days since I began work on this site, to find the Roe original which  John D. based his painting have been unsuccessful . Even Roe’s official website, dragondaze.50webs.com, has only the outside cover and a second work depicting the same vehicle seen on the front cover, The Moorglade Mover, which  I’ve reproduced in the sidebar.

There were additional figures inside the the gatefold sleeve, perhaps also on the sleeve/lyric sheet (Sorry, it’s been  25 years since I sold my record collection). I presume these represented the three major characters in Anderson’s story  Olias, Ranyart, and Qoquac although  I don’t recall if they were labeled.  It amazes me that these images are so hard to find.  I’ve searched Yes fan sites and official sites for several hours over the past three days.

Update 21 Jan. ‘08: Yesterday I used the second vzqk50 video [23 April '09: presently missing] to create the images of three of the principal Roe illustrations inside the gatefold sleeve of Olias. These images, cropped, have been posted here at this site, and sometimes used in the header or sidebar. I used Paint  for the editing because it’s the only image editing software I’ve used and  presently have. I’ll try to improve these images in time.

The image just below the white background Chris Squire photo in the sidebar is a painting titled Welcome Home Olias made by the artist Daniel B. Holeman whose work may be found here awakenvisions.com.

The symbol used by Holeman in his piece called Welcome Home was designed by Jon Anderson. Holeman discusses both the symbol and his work based upon it at his site awakenvisions.com:

The symbol (based on the “Olias” symbol) represents the concept of oneness of God and diversity (creation) and acts as a reminder of our path back to God through finding our oneness and embracing our diversity. The symbol is based on the “Olias” symbol of musician, Jon Anderson, combining the circle, square and triangle [the specific version of the symbol appears to be the work of the artist David Roe who designed and illustrated the album cover and gatefold sleeve] – the symbols of the fundamental dimensions of consciousness from oneness to diversity. They are all actually part of the same oneness. There are many paths back home, all unique to the individual who finds their way back, but all have one thing in common - the way back home is through TRUTH, as it was the distortion of TRUTH that made us seem lost and away from home.

While doing image searches for the symbol I came across a photograph of a headstone with an engraved symbol that caught my attention. The image had already been cropped when I found it and cropped it again (to use in the header periodically). The full image I found at flickr is shown below:

The resemblance of the tripartite geometrical design in this engraving to the Anderson design is striking, the principle differences being  a. In the headstone design the triangle is enclosed in the circle whereas the triangle in the “Olias symbol” has points which extend beyond the circle,  b. The base of Anderson’s square appears to sit upon the base of the triangle while the two are distinctly separate in the engraving, and c. In Anderson’s symbol all of the three shapes are broken; it’s essentially two nearly-symmetrical halves held together by a few threads. The shapes are unbroken in the headstone figure.

Sites that I’ve seen discussing the Anderson design have not been particularly informative. One called it a medicine wheel. It looks nothing like the American Indian medicine wheels I’ve seen (an aerial photograph of a large one with a group of people congregated at the end of the path leading to the circle is shown in the sidebar) but does have some resemblance to the Greek medicine wheel shown at right–source: www.greekmedicine.net.

The intersecting square and triangle of the “Olias symbol” (I don’t know if it actually  has a name) also make a five pointed figure most of which is contained within a circle. This may suggest the pentacle symbol, an encircled pentagram, which is frequently associated with paganism. It is a Wiccan symbol, for example.*

Update: Yesterday (on 21 Dec 09) I received a link in comments from Winston at yesfocus.org which clears up some of the mystery.

The symbol found on the gravestone above is one of the symbols used by an organization called the Lectorium Rosicrucianum, earlier called The Rosicrucian Society. The Society was originally the Dutch branch of the Rosicrucian Fellowship founded by Max Heindel in 1909. I am not aware of any relationship between Jon Anderson and this organization. The page on philosophy (English translation) at the site Lectorium Rosicrucianum (or English translation) gives the meaning of the symbol as follows:

SYMBOLS – THE CIRCLE, TRIANGLE AND SQUARE

The circle symbolizes eternity, infinity and the microcosm as well.
The triangle signifies the three great Powers that emanate from the Logos and which are indicated as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The square symbolizes the foundation for the structuring of the New Man.
The square also goes by the name of carpet on which the candidate should stand to complete this inner structure, in the service of world and mankind.

Two other symbols employed by the organization, a cross and the pentagram, are also discussed on the same page.

above: both images above are from http://members.shaw.ca/bbogdan/blog_images/wicca/pentacle.htm

Above: image found at http://www.wiccanglade.com/index.html. (In early January ‘09 I was unable to open this site (my server can’t find it). However there is an apparently related site open at blogspot for those who are interested: The Wiccan Guide.

*The encircled pentagram with the single point facing downward, however, is a symbol more often associated with Satanism. Below is the official insignia for the Church of Satan, the Sigil of Baphomet.