{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1311",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1311,
    "subject": "Reflections on a Shadowless Man",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-12-18T19:31:12+00:00",
    "last": "1998-12-18T19:31:12+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0022-0059@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Nigel Price",
        "address": "nigelprice1 at compuserve.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-12-18T19:31:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Reflections on a Shadowless Man",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In the first volume of Lexicon Urthus \"Additions, Errata, &cetera\", Mantis\nrefers to a \"Tale of a Man Who Sold His Shadow\", and comments:\n\n        \"Master Ash seems to be talking about a German fairy tale.\"\n\nHow about Adalbert von Chamisso's famous romance \"Peter Schlemihls\nwundersame Geschichte\" (\"Peter Schlemihl's Remarkable Story\", or as it was\ncalled in the translation that I read, \"Peter Schlemihl, the Shadowless\nMan\").  Published in 1814, this short novel tells the story of the\neponymous Peter Schlemihl, a young man who sells his shadow to the Devil in\nexchange for the Purse of Fortunatus.  If I remember correctly, he hopes to\nuse this legendary source of limitless wealth to make himself eligible in\nthe eyes of his beloved.  Unfortunately, she notices that he no longer has\na shadow, and refuses to marry him.  Spurned by society, he flees into the\nwilderness, where he meets the Devil once more and unsuccessfully attempts\nto buy back his shadow.  In the end, he finds a pair of Seven League Boots,\nand uses them to travel the world, devoting his life to scientific\nresearch.  \n\nLacking Severian's memory, I can't be absolutely sure, but I seem to recall\nthat von Chamisso was himself a research scientist of some kind - a\nbotanist, I think - and took part in various travels to far off lands\n(Antarctica?) in search of specimens.  (Yes, I checked this out.  He was a\nbotanist.  He travelled on a research trip around the world on a Russian\nship, and published a diary of the expedition.  Apparently he was also\ncustodian of the botanical gardens in Berlin.)\n\nThe other locus classicus for the Shadow motif is Hans Christian Anderson's\nshort story \"The Shadow\".  But while Peter Schlemihl barters his shadow,\nthe Shadow in Hans Anderson's story takes on a life of his own and rebels\nagainst his master, eventually stealing his beloved and taking over his\nlife.\n\nDon't know whether any of the above is any help at all, but I offer it as\nfurther grist to the lexicographer's mill...\n\nMantis' comment on the above was as follows:\n\n        Maybe the one you mention is the right one (it certainly sounds\nlike\n        the one I saw).  But there's also that detail of \"for a time he\n        traveled with a man who had no reflection,\" would that match up to\n        the Devil?\n\nTo the best of my understanding, it is a traditional attribute of vampires\nthat they have no reflection, and thus keep away from mirrors in order to\navoid detection.  Whether a similar tradition adheres to devils and demons,\nI do not know.\n\nGenerally in these tales, the reflection or shadow is taken to represent\nthe soul, and thus Peter Schlemihl, although he appears at first to be\ntrading away something relatively insignificant, is actually losing\nsomething far more precious.  As damned and demonic creatures, vampires\nhave no reflection because, unlike humans, they have no soul to save.\n\nOr something like that!\n\nNigel Price\nMinety, Malmesbury\nEngland"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}