{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2233", "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": 2233, "subject": "Little, Big: Parliament of the Birds", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2000-05-04T23:34:53+00:00", "last": "2000-05-05T00:10:06+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "William Ansley", "address": "wansley at warwick.net" }, "date": "2000-05-05T00:10:06+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Little, Big: Parliament of the Birds", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thirty birds make it to the end of the quest. They\nlook at each other and realize that they, collectively, are the\nSimurgh. (According to Borges, the word \"Simurgh\" also means \"thirty,\"\nIIRC.)\n\nSo the Drinkwaters, once they have \"crossed over,\" are indeed fairies." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Or perhaps *a* fairy?\n\nWilliam Ansley" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2000-05-04T23:34:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Little, Big: Parliament of the Birds", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "alga wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From the Kind and Helpful Ratso (what a paradox!)!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI second the \"kind and helpful\" part. Many thanks, Nutria, for quuoting\nfrom so much of the foreword." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "[Quoting Crowley] \"I came upon a Persian parable called _The Parliament of the Birds_,\nwhich\nsupplied me with a plot remarkably -- uncannily -- suited to what I\nhad\naltready thought up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For heavens's sake! Chaucer wrote \"The Parliament of Foules\" (Fowls)\nwhich I read in somewhat cribbed Middle English back when I was an\nEnglish major in college, but I don't remember (a) it (though if I had\nthe energy I could leap from my seat and consult my old textbook); or\n(b) that there was a Persian original. Where would Chaucer have got it\nfrom? But I'm sure he did." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know anything about the Chaucer text, so I don't know if it's an\nadaptation of the Persian one, which as Tom Urash points out is Sufi. \n(Crowley's reference to it as a \"parable\" is a bit misleading as regards\nits length; IIRC it's almost as long as a short novel.) My knowledge of\nthe Sufi text comes from Borges, who has cropped up on this list many\ntimes before. I'm not sure exactly where he discusses it; it may have\nbeen \"The Approach to al-Mutasim.\"\n\nThe gist of \"The Parliament of the Birds,\" as derived from my memory of\nBorges' account, is that the birds all gather together (the\n\"parliament\") and decide to seek the Simurgh, which is a sort of mythic\nKing of Birds. The journey is long and ardurous, and many birds drop\nout along the way. Thirty birds make it to the end of the quest. They\nlook at each other and realize that they, collectively, are the\nSimurgh. (According to Borges, the word \"Simurgh\" also means \"thirty,\"\nIIRC.)\n\nSo the Drinkwaters, once they have \"crossed over,\" are indeed fairies. \nBut in my reading, it's not due to genetics or geography. It's their\nliving their lives so as to be able to eventually reach the fairies'\ncountry (I refuse to call it \"fairyland\") which turns them into fairies,\nalthough some of them (Smoky and Alice's daughters) get there quicker\nthan other. (And there are a few exceptions, like George and Auberon,\nwho receive special dispensations from the fairies.)\n\n--Adam" } ] } ] }