# Severian's ancestry *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 13 Nov 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. --- ### Dan Rabin *13 Nov 2002, 07:04* > Dan'l Danehy-Oakes wrote: > We know with reasonable certainty who Severian's maternal > grandparents are. For the paternal line, well, Wolfe > deliberately keeps that mysterious and, though many > speculations have been offered, none has really proven > satisfactory. I suggest that the mystery is deliberate, > and intended to reflect the orthodox Christian belief > that Jesus had no human father. Um, I think this is reversed. _New Sun_ makes it fairly clear that Dorcas and the elderly boatman in the Botanic Garden are the parents of Severian's father Ouen. It's Severian's mother and her parentage that we know little about, save that she was an ex-Pelerine (only implied, actually--she had "run off from some order of monials") named Catherine. -- Dan Rabin --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *13 Nov 2002, 16:57 · follows Dan Rabin* Dan Rabin responds to moi: >> We know with reasonable certainty who Severian's maternal >> grandparents are. For the paternal line, well, Wolfe >> deliberately keeps that mysterious ... > Um, I think this is reversed. By Jove, you're right. Sloppy, Dan'l, sloppy. ---