Subject: (urth) Cyriaca

From: Alice Turner <pei047 at attglobal.net>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 1999 09:00:30 +0000

At Paul Duggan's site, I just read a 1991 essay by Stephen Palmer which
posits a thought I'd never seen before (pasted);

>>However the mother of the 'second' Severian, the carrier of the Claw,
would seem to be Cyriaca, a.k.a. Catherine or Katherine, she who recognised
Severian even though his mask was on then tried to cover her tracks.
Incidentally, Catherine is derived from the word for pure, which could be
translated as virginal.<<

Well! Shagged both Granny and Mum! Good heavens! Looking further, it's
unlikely, however. Cyriaca is not a form of Catherine. In its masculine
form, it means "lordly" as derived from Greek. The etymology of C(K)atherine
is unknown according to The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names
(OTOH, my copy is copyrighted 1945; perhaps someone has something more
recent), though it too derives from the Greek. The spelling has
"assimilated" to that for "pure" but also--aha!--to that for "torture."

Also, we know enough of Cyriaca's story to be pretty sure that she couldn't
be Sev's mum. But it did give me a turn. The url for the essay is
http://world.std.com/~pduggan/sevchrist.html

-alga

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