{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/500",
    "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": 500,
    "subject": "Finn M'Cool and his Cat",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-04-20T12:03:54+00:00",
    "last": "1998-04-20T12:03:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0009-0757@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Tony Ellis",
        "address": "tony.ellis at futurenet.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-04-20T12:03:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Finn M'Cool and his Cat",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "                                                                      \n20/04/98\n                                                                      13:02\n Finn M'Cool and his Cat"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Rostrum wrote:\nThe story of Finn M'Cool and his cat...."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "<snip>"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "This is one story that seems to invite allegorical interpretation with the\nexchange: \"Who are they?  Well, one is wickedness, and the other a fairy\ncat.\"  But while I enjoy this tall tale, I'm hard pressed to find any\nconnections with Weer's story or tease out the allegory."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've pondered this too, and my best guess is that the story is meant as an\nallegory of the founding of America. It's connection with the rest of the \nnovel\nis that America is the subject of the rest of the novel, just as much as Weer\nis.\n\nThe last line of the story is something to the effect that the pieces the\nCat and the Rat are tearing off each other are running off into the trees,\nthe implication being (it has always semed to me) that these pieces will\nnow colonize the new world. Thus America is born out of a mix of magic\nand wickedness. This is very much the way America is portrayed in the\nnovel as a whole.\n\nThere is compelling evidence, by the way, that the voyage of St Brendan\nreally did take place, and that the Irish got to America before even the\nVikings did. Wolfe backs this theory in Castle of the Otter."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}