{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2638",
    "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": 2638,
    "subject": "More Sidhe",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-05-10T23:00:10+00:00",
    "last": "2001-05-11T08:52:29+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0404@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-10T23:00:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) More Sidhe",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Rostrum asks:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "So, don't keep me in suspense--what happens to the children in the\noriginal version?  Does it have the bit about the flock dwindling to a\nsingle bird?  I think that's the coolest part of the story.  (Also,\nWolfe's bit about baptism captures what really happened to the pagans in\nIreland pretty well.  And the baptism vs. attempted immortality is what\nmakes it such a good end to Weer's story.)<<"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, they weren't part of a larger flock, per se. The spell laid on them by\nAeife was that they retain the forms of swans (but with minds and speech\nintact) for three periods of three hundred years each, each period to be\nspent near a particular body of water. There were four swans. After many\nhardships and nine hundred years (during which time the Tuatha Dé Danann\nwere supplanted by the Milesians), they found themselves in the same sorry\nposition that Ossian found himself upon his return from Tir nan og (the Land\nof Youth); the old gods were gone and the land and people were much\ndiminished from their former glory. They retreated to an isle, where\neventually they came in contact with a holy man (Christian, of course).\nVersions differ, but whether before or after baptism, they loose their swan\nshapes and find themselves shrunken, ancient, and decrepit, near death. They\nare converted and soon die and are buried together in one grave.\n\nI have a variety of books on Irish mythology, folklore, fairy tales, etc.\nThe story is a well known one, easily found in most any book that covers the\nsubject. The details and spellings differ, but the basic story is the same\nwherever it is found. I like Charles Squire's _Celtic Myth And Legend Poetry\nAnd Romance_, first published in 1905 as _The Mythology Of The British\nIslands_.\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0406@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Straight",
        "address": "straight at email.unc.edu"
      },
      "date": "2001-05-11T08:52:29+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) More Sidhe",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0404@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Thu, 10 May 2001, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nof Youth); the old gods were gone and the land and people were much\ndiminished from their former glory. They retreated to an isle, where\neventually they came in contact with a holy man (Christian, of course).\nVersions differ, but whether before or after baptism, they loose their swan\nshapes and find themselves shrunken, ancient, and decrepit, near death. They\nare converted and soon die and are buried together in one grave."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "That's funny.  I assumed that the Christian holy man and baptism were the\nparts Wolfe had added.   Neat to see that the nifty part (the flock\ndwindling to a single bird) is from Wolfe (of course, I guess he might\nhave picked that up somewhere else as well).\n\nInteresting that Wolfe leaves out what happens to the Sidhe after they\nrevert to their original forms.\n\n-Rostrum"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}