# Cim Glowing *The Urth list — 8 messages, 4 voices, 29 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. --- ### Robert Borski *29 May 2002, 17:29* More "Tracking Song" thoughts, this time on Cim Glowing. Though he risks his life to save Cim Glowing, Cutthroat may be making a signally bad choice, since she is clearly allied against him. Cim Glowing, as you will recall, is kidnapped by the minions of Mantru--the fat dwarf who rules the underworld metal city and who Dis-like wants a Persephone bride. If you accept that Mantru is Cutthroat's symbolic twin, this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness")--the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only Cain's sister, but his wife. Notice too how Cutthroat chooses "Wickedness" over continuing to chase after the Great Sleigh. Cim Glowing has killed her previous boyfriend not once, but twice, implying perhaps a cyclical event. It's therefore hard not to see Fishcatcher as the Fisher King, and the snowbound world/postlapsarian Eden as the Wounded Land. (Notice also how Fishcatcher is brought back to life by Great Sleigh technology--the same technology that is attempting to bring spring to the Wounded Land.) The father of Cim Glowing originally wanted to call her Seven Snows--potent winter imagery to be sure--but her mother has named her Cim Glowing when pops is away at parturition. "Cim" may refer to Cimmerian (darkness) and "Glowing" to remnant radiation. Possible implication: nuclear winter has decimated the planet of the animal tribes. Cin Glowing also believes she will not be allowed to board the Great Sleigh, which makes sense since she represents winter/death and the Great Sleigh represents spring/renewal. But more insidiously still she attempts to convince Cutthroat that he is not a left-behind member of the snowcraft. Here she is indeed "wicked"--attempting to stop Cutthroat (who as a former tiller of the soil understands the nature of a killing frost) from rendezvousing with his people. Equally possible: she loves Cutthroat (indeed, she says she does when she leaves him), but knows the two of them can never be together if he achieves his goal. Not that it matters. In the end, Cim Glowing elects to go her own way--perhaps because unlike Cutthroat she understands that winged guardians will not allow her to board the redemption-bringing, planet-saving, Great Sleigh. Robert Borski --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *29 May 2002, 17:39 · follows Robert Borski* These posts are fascinating ... I don't know if I "agree" with the overall interpretation, but it makes a good pile o' sense. One quibble: > ... this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness") -- > the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only > Cain's sister, but his wife. While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the word -- full-text searches on both a King James and an NIV produced no trace of this. In fact, it's actually kind of a classic "stump the Bible expert" question to ask where Cain's wife came from, since the Bible doesn't say anything about it. I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud? --- ### Michael Straight *29 May 2002, 17:48 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* >> On Wed, 29 May 2002, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote: >> ... this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness") -- >> the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only >> Cain's sister, but his wife. > While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no > trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the > word -- If the Bible says Adam and Eve were the parents of all humanity, and Cain's wife was human...QED. -Rostrum --- ### Andy Robertson *29 May 2002, 17:54 · follows Michael Straight* ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" > These posts are fascinating ... I don't know if I "agree" with the > overall interpretation, but it makes a good pile o' sense. I do think they are fascinating, but I don't agree: Or rather, I'd like to agree, but I am not (yet) convinced. These old stories have been selected for thousands of years by their "applicability" in this fashion. This memetic evolution is the source of their "deep spiritual" meaning. The only really positive factor is Cutthroat's mark - which has no purpose for being other than as a Mark of Cain, or some such thing. hartshorn --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *29 May 2002, 18:23 · follows Andy Robertson* Going down the list, ultimately Rostrum will have replied to all this ... >>> ... this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness") -- >>> the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only >>> Cain's sister, but his wife. >> While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no >> trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the >> word -- > If the Bible says Adam and Eve were the parents of all humanity, and > Cain's wife was human...QED. No, no ... my point is that there is no mention of an "Awan" at all. --D --- ### Robert Borski *30 May 2002, 05:55 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* The cockroach having written: > One quibble: >> ... this may make Cim Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness") -- >> the woman who, according to Biblical tradition, is not only >> Cain's sister, but his wife. > While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no > trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the > word -- full-text searches on both a King James and an NIV produced > no trace of this. In fact, it's actually kind of a classic "stump > the Bible expert" question to ask where Cain's wife came from, > since the Bible doesn't say anything about it. > > I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud? It's from the Book of Jubilees (Chapter 4: Verse 9): "And in the sixth week [Adam] begat his daughter Azura. And Cain took Awan his sister to be his wife and she bare him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee. And in the first year of the first week of the fifth jubilee, houses were built on the earth, and Cain built a city, and called its name after the name of his son Enoch." Azura, the other daughter, becomes the wife of Seth. It's from a suspect source, I admit , but surely not all of the Pseudepigrapha are tainted--especially Jubilees, which was allegedly written by the Lawgiver himself. Robert Borski --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *30 May 2002, 16:13 · follows Robert Borski* Apologies to those bored by such things... >> While I have no doubt that such a tradition exists, I can find no >> trace of it, and it certainly isn't "Biblical" as I understand the >> word -- full-text searches on both a King James and an NIV produced >> no trace of this. In fact, it's actually kind of a classic "stump >> the Bible expert" question to ask where Cain's wife came from, >> since the Bible doesn't say anything about it. >> >> I wonder if maybe this is a tradition from Kaballah or Talmud? > It's from the Book of Jubilees (Chapter 4: Verse 9): [quote deleted but fascinating] > ... surely not all of the Pseudepigrapha are tainted -- > especially Jubilees, which was allegedly written by > the Lawgiver himself. Well, that gets kind of problematic ... for example, we have a Gospel (really just a collection of kerygma) that was allegedly written by Thomas, but is clearly Gnostic in its content and rejected from the canon of every orthodox church. On the other feeler, there are books which are universally accepted by the churches and are of highly doubtful authorship, such as some of the epistles traditionally attributed to Paul. I've never read Jubilees, and don't know of any church, or synagogue, for that matter, which considers it to be canon (though it is cited in several of the canonical texts...); I thus claim that my basic statement above (that this is not a "biblical tradition") stands unaltered. When you say it is attributed to "the Lawgiver," are you referring to Moses, or to the Deuteronomist, or ... Ob.LupineContent: I've said it before, but I think that it's more appropriate than ever here ... I think that YA of the many things several of Wolfe's books are "about" is an attempt to provide, in a non-Biblical context, an experience similar to that of a Biblical exegete attempting to determine the historical facts lying behind a given text, divinely inspired but written by one or more humans, edited and redacted by many humans, transcribed and translated by humans ... any or all of whom may have not only inserted their own errors, but added or suppressed matter suited to their own agendae ... all of this guided by the assumption that the Holy Spirit, as the true Author, ensures that the truth the text is to convey (though not necessarily the historical facticity of the narrative content) is preserved incorrupt ... Wolfe stands in precisely this relation to his many fallible and unreliable narrators; what _Wolfe_ wishes to convey, is conveyed, however obscurely, despite -- and even because of! -- his narrators' varoius transformations, suppresisions, distortions, and occasional outright lies. --- ### Robert Borski *31 May 2002, 06:10 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* Blattid having rebutted: > I've never read Jubilees, and don't know of any church, or > synagogue, for that matter, which considers it to be canon > (though it is cited in several of the canonical texts...); I > thus claim that my basic statement above (that this is not a > "biblical tradition") stands unaltered. No argument there, and I should probably have used something a little more qualitative like "according to non-canon tradition" or "according to the Book of Jubilees" when I talked about the Qayin-Awan connection. > When you say it is attributed to "the Lawgiver," are you > referring to Moses, or to the Deuteronomist, or ... To Moses, who supposedly received Jubilees as a revelation from the Angel of the Presence. Robert Borski ---