{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6020", "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": 6020, "subject": "Frog and Fish", "messages": 6, "voices": 4, "first": "2011-05-23T17:42:01+00:00", "last": "2011-05-23T19:56:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Andrew Mason", "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-23T17:42:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Gerry Quinn wrote: >\n\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm not familiar with details of the Jungle Book - are their parts of it in\nthe story?." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Elements from the Jungle Book include:\n\nThe name 'Frog' (that's what 'Mowgli' means)\nThe tiger (smilodon) as the threat to the child.\nThe figures of the Black Killer (Bagheera, the Panther) and the Naked\nOne (Baloo, the Bear - the resemblance is less exact in his case, but\nthe role he plays is very similar)\nThe Red Flower as a name for fire\nA woodcutter as Frog's father before his adoption by the wolves (in\nthe original his biological father: in this version, since it has to\nbe fused with the Romulus/Remus legend, his first adoptive father).\n\nAll the Romulus and Remus references you mentioned are clearly there\nas well. It's an amalgam of two stories about [a] child[ren] brought\nup by wolves. It's entirely plausible that such a story would develop\n- much less weird than the combination of the Monitor and the\nMinotaur. There is also a bit derived from American history (Squanto),\na glancing reference to Moses, and quite likely other things as well.\n\nSo, why Fish? Well, if they are trying to combine one version of the\nstory in which the hero has a twin, and another in which he is called\nFrog, they need to find a name for his twin which fits 'Frog'. 'Fish'\nlooks suitable.. That may be all there is to it, though for all I know\nit is also a reference to another legend we haven't spotted yet. That,\nat least, is all we need to say to explain how the story developed;\nit's very probably meant to have resonances with other references to\nfish in various parts of the cycle.\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Note 1: Mars or Hercules was supposedly their father - some people have\nfound Mars somewhere I think, but I prefer the idea of Hercules as Spring\nWind, because of his parentage, Zeus appearing as a flower which is the sort\nof thing he did. ?Frog later claimed his heritage in the name of the Red\nFlower.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If I remember rightly, the Red Flower story is actually a historic\nlegend about the birth of Mars. (Virtually everything that is said\nabout Spring Wind fits Mars. Once he has dropped out of the story\nthings become more complex.)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<6A720799A50E420FBAE6E11E0EF8E5DE@jill>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerryq at indigo.ie" }, "date": "2011-05-23T18:05:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message ----- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Andrew Mason\" \nAll the Romulus and Remus references you mentioned are clearly there\nas well. It's an amalgam of two stories about [a] child[ren] brought\nup by wolves. It's entirely plausible that such a story would develop\n- much less weird than the combination of the Monitor and the\nMinotaur. There is also a bit derived from American history (Squanto),\na glancing reference to Moses, and quite likely other things as well." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, that certainly seems the source for those bits." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So, why Fish? Well, if they are trying to combine one version of the\nstory in which the hero has a twin, and another in which he is called\nFrog, they need to find a name for his twin which fits 'Frog'. 'Fish'\nlooks suitable.. That may be all there is to it, though for all I know\nit is also a reference to another legend we haven't spotted yet." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It is also alliterative, as with Romulus and Remus.." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Note 1: Mars or Hercules was supposedly their father - some people have\nfound Mars somewhere I think, but I prefer the idea of Hercules as \nSpring\nWind, because of his parentage, Zeus appearing as a flower which is the \nsort\nof thing he did. Frog later claimed his heritage in the name of the Red\nFlower.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If I remember rightly, the Red Flower story is actually a historic\nlegend about the birth of Mars. (Virtually everything that is said\nabout Spring Wind fits Mars. Once he has dropped out of the story\nthings become more complex.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ah, yes, looked it up now. That certainly must be the source of the flower \nstory. My main issue was that Early Summer (and Spring Wind) seemed to be \npresented as human rather than divine in the story, hence my preference for \nthe Hercules version. But looking in detail at Mars, I see he was an \nagricultural as well as a war god, which does indeed fit Spring Wind \nperfectly. So yes, I think we can discount Hercules and unambiguously \nidentify Spring Wind as Mars.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-23T18:12:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": "<6A720799A50E420FBAE6E11E0EF8E5DE@jill>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason: So, why Fish? Well, if they are trying to combine one version of the\nstory in which the hero has a twin, and another in which he is called Frog, they need \nto find a name for his twin which fits 'Frog'. 'Fish'looks suitable.. That may be all \nthere is to it, though for all I know it is also a reference to another legend we haven't \nspotted yet." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nAh well, at the risk of being repetitive, I think there is a volume of evidence which \npoints to a watery, fishy origin for the gods/demons of Urth, references including\nAbaia, Fomalhaut, Jurupari, undines, kelpies, etc. I don't know if that idea came first\nor the idea of using \"Fish\" as a pairing for Frog, but I think they are related. Wolfe\nprovides some bolstering for this connection in that giant fish from Scylla's lake and the \nvery fishy relationship between The Mother and Seawrack.\n \nI was just reading the section where Severian is swimming around in the ocean after the\nflood and he sees shadows of a school of fish as big as ships. Those are some awfully big\nfishes. I am thinking he is really seeing the \"pelagic argosy\" (open ocean flotilla). \nMeaning they are the undines. Not yet ship-sized, Juturna is probably the smallest of them \n(not counting Idas) and thus she was picked to seduce Severian. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DDAAEC7.5010503@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-23T19:00:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Andrew Mason:\nIf I remember rightly, the Red Flower story is actually a historic\nlegend about the birth of Mars. (Virtually everything that is said\nabout Spring Wind fits Mars. Once he has dropped out of the story\nthings become more complex.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The flower used by Juno to conceive Mars is unidentified. Robert Graves \nposited that it was the \"whitethorn\" -- a type of European hawthorn with \nmedicinal uses that Graves asserted was associated with miraculous births.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus_monogyna\n\nThe Red Flower is a direct lifting from one of the most famous stories \nfrom The Jungle Books -- one referenced in the Disney version: The story \nwhere the monkeys want Mowgli to teach them to make \"man's red flower\" \n(then Kaa shows up and eats them all). Of course, the compilers of the \nStory of Frog might well have seen it as a confirmation that Romulus and \nMowgli were \"actually\" the same person. Certainly, a clue like that \nwould have attracted Robert Graves.\n\nJ" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-23T19:07:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": "<4DDAAEC7.5010503@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "James Wynn: I think it is an easy call that Ymar is Frog (ymir=king=rana=frog)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \n \nAs usual, I feel you are ten steps ahead of me James. Is there more to the conenction\nthat I've missed? You mention being raised by wolves/torturers...also, we can assume\nthat Ymar is an orphan. For a more tenuous link, I note that the similar circumstance child, \nMoses, has a connection to frogs (plague).\n \nWhat relationship does this imply between Spring Wind/Typhon and Ymar?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I suspect that Fish will be found on Tzadkiel (the shepherds). Possibly he \nwill have a name that means \"sword\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI'm quite lost on this one. Tzadkiel (the shepherds)? I'm hoping it might be of some\nhelp to note that Master Xiphias in Long Sun has an occupation and name which invokes both \n\"sword\" and \"swordfish\".\n \n \nAlso, I'm still hoping for some explication of your suggestion of Erebus being long dead..\n(is it only the Student and his Son story? Or more?) \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<4DDABC00.2080906@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2011-05-23T19:56:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Frog and Fish", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "James Wynn: I think it is an easy call that Ymar is Frog (ymir=king=rana=frog)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Lee Berman:\nIs there more to the conenction\nthat I've missed? You mention being raised by wolves/torturers...also, we can assume\nthat Ymar is an orphan. For a more tenuous link, I note that the similar circumstance child,\nMoses, has a connection to frogs (plague). What relationship does this imply between\nSpring Wind/Typhon and Ymar?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it means that Ymar is of some sort of royal stock. That like \nSeverian, he has a twin (probably fraternal). Since he is being raised \nby the Torturers it is clear that he has been \"orphaned\" which does not \nnecessarily mean his parents are dead. But there is nothing I've \ndetected in his conversation with Severian or in the story of Frog to \nsay how he got there. If you're looking for the true identity of Frog, \nYmar is an obvious choice. I'm open to others, but you HAVE to like the \nway Ymar means \"king\" and so does the genus for frogs." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I suspect that Fish will be found on Tzadkiel (the shepherds). Possibly he\nwill have a name that means \"sword\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I'm quite lost on this one. Tzadkiel (the shepherds)? I'm hoping it might be of some\nhelp to note that Master Xiphias in Long Sun has an occupation and name which invokes both\n\"sword\" and \"swordfish\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Don't think that connection has evaded my notice. And the constellation \nDorado (swordfish) is nearby the star Rana (frog) in the Eridanus \n(stream) constellation. Since Wolfe reuses ideas, a swordfish strikes me \nas a useful place to start. There are of course other possibilities. But \nthis is the way profiling works. Gerry thinks I just make stuff up on \nthe fly. I wish it were that easy. In order to solve a puzzle, you must \nfirst allow that there *is* a puzzle.\n\nTzakiel as the shepherds? Isn't that exactly their role regarding \nhumanity? (for whatever purpose)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, I'm still hoping for some explication of your suggestion of Erebus being long dead..\n(is it only the Student and his Son story? Or more?) \t\t \t \t\t" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There's his name for starters, which means the Darkness of the \nUnderworld, that's awfully chthonic.\nThen there's the story of the Student and His Son. Wolfe has said in The \nCastle of the Otter that Nix is the consort of Erebus \"which makes him \nthe step-father of Princess Noctua\" [from memory]. Well, the consort of \nNix in the story is the Ogre, and (using the commutative property) \nErebus is the Ogre. Of course the Ogre dies in that story.\nFinally, there's the fact the Ascians are called \"slaves of Erebus\", but \nhis base is supposedly in the South. It seems to me that he is a bit \ninactive. There's no assault on the Commonwealth from Antarctica.\n\nThe pirates of the south still honor Erebus. Still, when someone speaks \nof pirate \"ship of Erebus\", they might only be talking about the region \nwhere he once ruled.\n\nOne thing that speaks against this view is Master Ash who says \"If \nErebus and Abaia and the rest\nenter the field themselves, it will be a new struggle. If and when.\" I \nwould guess they would \"enter the field\" in the same way the Storm King \nentered the field against the US Navy. But just because Erebus has died, \ndoes not mean he cannot be a power anymore. The great powers in Wolfe's \nnovel are not debilitated by death. Severian, Mr Million, Weer, Silk, \nTyphon. So, Erebus' current state is ambiguous but, yeah, I think he's dead.\n\nJ." } ] } ] }