{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4371",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4371,
    "subject": "TWK: Mag's sons and stuff",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2005-02-23T00:25:58+00:00",
    "last": "2005-02-23T00:25:58+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<000e01c51981$4bbed3c0$b73ec6d8@rclackey.stic.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2005-02-23T00:25:58+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) TWK: Mag's sons and stuff",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, Kieran wanted to discuss TWK, so here goes.\n\nAndrew Bollen, back on Jan. 7&9, wrote about Mag and her sons; those\ninterested might want to look back at those posts. I agree with him that Mag\nis in some sense the mother of Ben and Art, as well as the natural mother of\nBerthold and Able, but I see some things a bit differently. Actually, I\nbelieve she was also the natural mother of Ben and Art. More on that later.\n\nFirst, I want to establish Art's mother's age at the time she disappeared\nfrom his life. It goes like this:\n\nIdnn was \"about sixteen\". (K, 296)\n\nArt said to Beel that he was \"about your daughter's age\". (K, 297)\n\nArt said Scaur was \"not a lot older than me\". (K, 25) Late teens?\n\nSha, Scaur's wife, was probably about the same age as her husband.\n\nFollowing a dream in which his mother figured, Art wrote of her: \"She was\nstill a young girl, not a great deal older than Sha, when she went away.\"\n(K, 319) Early twenties?\n-----------------------------------\n\nMag doesn't get much ink, but I think she is the key to unlocking the\nArt/Able/Ben/Berthold confusion. Those were her bones on the island, of\ncourse, and she committed suicide by poison rather than be killed and eaten\nby the Khimairae when she got too old to lure sailors. So how long was she\nthere, and how old was she when she got there?\n\nShe was of child-bearing age, obviously, when she arrived. Able was an\ninfant and Berthold was old enough to walk and talk, so he was just a few\nyears older. Nowhere is it stated or even implied that those were the only\nchildren she gave birth to. She took (or was given) the name Mag \"here\",\nmeaning Mythgarthr. She was taught the script of Mythgarthr and her note was\nwritten in that script because she hoped her note would be seen by her sons\nBerthold and Able, her most reasonable choice of language under the\ncircumstances. But she already knew how to write. She _could_ have written\nthe note in American English. She spoke to \"Able\" through Lynnet about her\ngirlhood in America and how she met and wed Art's father. (W, 335)\n\nForgive me if I'm stating the obvious, and I haven't worked out the details,\nbut this is how I see her role, in outline:\n\nMag (what was her American name?) was born and raised and wed and gave birth\nto Ben and Art in America. Still young, she (like Art) wandered into\nAelfrice (or was abducted). She became wife to Berthold the Black and gave\nbirth to Bold Berthold and Able before being taken to Glas. Each set of\nbrothers was the same age relative to each other.\n\nWhat still needs to be worked out is the 30-40 year difference in age\nbetween \"Able\" and Berthold. Art was a teen in America, say sixteen. When\nDisiri made him 'grow up' he became maybe ten years older. (K, 162) That\nmakes Berthold about sixty years old.\n\nAnd the Able that Berthold remembered wandered off when he was about the\nsame age that Art had been. Where did that Able go, and what happened to\nhim?\n\nWe know what happened to Berthold and Able's mother Mag. Their father,\nBerthold the Black, seems to have died or disappeared before the brothers\nwere grown. Likewise, Ben and Art's mother was out of the picture while they\nwere still kids, as well as their father.\n\nMag chose to name her first-born in Mythgarthr after his father; it seems\nreasonable to assume that she did the same back in America. If correct, that\nwould mean that Art's father was likely named Ben Ormsby, fwiw.\n\nI don't know what to make of Kulili. She destroyed a statue of The Lady on\nGlas and erected another of herself. That has to be bad, given Wolfe's\npecking order of worlds, but . . .\n\nSpeaking of worlds; there are two main traditions Wolfe is using in TWK,\nNorse and Arthurian. That seven-level business belongs to the Norse, as do\nmost of the names and other trappings. But the world of Faerie is more\nCeltic, and I think of Aelfrice more in terms of its connection with the\nArthurian stuff. This may be relevant. Art mentions computers and TV and\nsuch; he comes from our modern Earth. Our modern Earth also has airplanes\nand rocket ships; our sky is indisputably not Skai, as seems to be the\nliteral case in Mythgarthr, nor is Aelfrice to be found beneath our feet--at\nleast not so easily. We don't live in a seven-level cosmos, clearly, but we\ndo have a tradition of visits to Faerie. What I'm saying is, the world of\nFaerie, aka Aelfrice, may be the _only_ connection between our Earth and the\nworlds of TWK. That and Dream, maybe.\n\n-Roy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}