# Shapeshifting (was Re: (urth) Shadow Children in the Lupiverse?(attn. Tony Ellis)) *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 05 May 2002* > 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. --- ### Alice K. Turner *05 May 2002, 16:46* Without following the argument very closely, let me suggest that with the Annese, GW references the fairy tradition--he is not alone among good sf writers to do so. Faries are flummoxed by "cold iron"--i.e.tools. They can sometimes shapeshift. And they have been known to interbreed with humans, as well has to kidnap human children. I wouldn't nail it down to "fairies" in particular, but to the entire group of supernatural fairylike creatures in Western (and worldwide) legend. The indumi are more specifically akin to devils and the Neighbors to cherubim (even to the multiple limbs and the semi-visibility). Yes, of course there is the Australian "dreamtime," quite specifically. Not only but also. I just checked date for Bruce Chatwin's -Songlines-; published 1987. 5HC is 1972, but there was earlier material for GW (and BC) to research. -alga ---