{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6629", "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": 6629, "subject": "Short Story 98: At the Point of Capricorn", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2014-08-19T02:42:38+00:00", "last": "2014-08-19T02:42:38+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2014-08-19T02:42:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 98: At the Point of Capricorn", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"At the Point of Capricorn\" first appeared as a chapbook in 1983.\n\nSUMMARY: Visitors from all ages and places come to an icy cave at the end\nof the world, where an old woman entertains some children with stories on\nthe winter solstice.\n\nCOMMENTARY: The story telling tradition holds immense importance for Wolfe,\nand his introduction to *Endangered Species* casts an enormous amount of\ninsight into “At the Point of Capricorn”, where he says:\n\n“Stories are far older than any classroom. They came to be at a time when\nthe storyteller knew his (more correctly *her*, for the first were almost\ncertainly women) audience thoroughly, and was not in the least averse to\naltering his narration to fit it. The hearer — is more central than the\nmonstrous beast slain on the other side of the mountain, or the castle upon\nthe hill of glass, or the mirror beyond which Gene’s sister glimpses an\nocean in ?The Sister’s Account.” Therefore, let me describe the reader for\nwhom I wrote all these stories. I wrote them for you. Not for some\nprofessor or for myself, and certainly not for the various editors who\nbought them, frequently very reluctantly, after they had been rejected by\nseveral others. You see, I am not an academic writing to be criticized —\nThis is simple truth: Tonight you and I, with billions of others, are\nsitting around the fire we call “the sun,” telling stories, and from time\nto time it has been my turn to entertain.\n\nThis set up is the entirety of “At the Point of Capricorn”, sun imagery and\nall. We have children around a fire listening to an old storyteller, on a\nday when the sun wanes and then begins to gain in strength again, and the\nobsession with the bonfire becomes a symbol of that vital luminous energy\nas well.\n\nThe speaker begins by assuring the children that there is no reason to be\nafraid, even though the days have been getting shorter. The oldest boy\nboasts that he has no fear, casting a bone into the fire, and feels mocked\nwhen the old woman says he has grown wise from listening to her stories.\nThe smallest girl pulls a wolf-skin cloak around her in the cold.\n\nThe point of Capricorn is of course the southernmost point at which the sun\ncan be directly overhead throughout the year, at the winter solstice on\nDecember 21st. Here the old woman says, “All the world comes here to the\nend of the world just to hear my stories,” and the cold of winter\naccumulates a kind of apocalyptic imagery. This idea is nothing new in myth\nand even Christian religion, and Frazier’s *Golden Bough *examines the\nconcept of myth and sacrifice as a way early mankind explained the\nincomprehensible seasons — the solar myth and the cycle of fertility , in\nwhich the king, a solar deity, mystically married the earth, and the cycle\nof death and rebirth continued — the days grew longer and the crops\nprospered. Fear of the cycle ending prompted religious and mythic\nceremonies and sacrifices. Here in this cave we have the world at the end\nof its solar cycle.\n\nSince this is a mythical kind of story, a varied cast appears as necessary.\nA Viking named Knute’s son walks in and says, “Tell them why we kindle\nbonfires in winter to bring back the youth and life of Tyr Odinson the\none-handed, who was stolen from us by the Frost Giants of Niflheim.” (Knute\ncan mean knot). Here we are given the significance of the fire: to summon\nback something from the wintry cycle of death, to return to life and youth.\nOf special note is the story of Tyr, a god of law and glory, at one time\npossibly the chief god in the Norse pantheon before losing that position to\nOdin and Thor. He lost his hand to Fenrir the wolf when the gods bound it —\nsomething only possible if a god agreed to keep their hand in its mouth.\n\nWe have the idea that the bonfires summon back warmth and life and signify\nthat mythic cycle Frazier chronicled throughout human societies everywhere,\neven in Christology. Next a lexicographer comes in and asserts that the\nword bonfire comes from the bones burned in them at midwinter (ironically,\nsomething which the oldest child did at the start of the tale). The Viking\nkills him with his sword, Legbiter (the sword of the historical monarch\nMagnus III, considered the last true Viking King. Magnus died in 1103 and\nextended his influence through a large portion of the British Isles.\nHowever, Magnus III was known as Olafsson rather than Knute’s son, which\nprobably refers to Cnut the Great, a king of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and\nEngland, dying in 1035). This refutation of the origin of burning bones in\na fire reeks of finality, though there is probably some accuracy to it.\nRegardless, bonfires are used throughout the world in a variety of\nreligious and holiday celebrations, and the lexicographer was balefully\nunaware of their true importance\n\nThe old woman asserts that the fire does warm bones, and a French pastry\nchef who appears from the back claims that this is why they are called *le\nbonfeu* — the good fire. Then, in a fashion similar to the shifting of sign\nand signifier in “To the Dark Tower Came”, the chef immediately asks how to\nget to Paris, Texas. (Clearly, the introduction of the stereotyped chef is\nmerely to introduce the French etymology of bonfire). Wolfe's childhood in\nTexas might have prompted this reference to the small Texas town, so proud\nof its name.\n\nA druid crowned in mistletoe enters (mistletoe was sacred to druids and was\nharvested in Alban Arthan, the Winter Solstice) and tells the pastry chef\nthat soon the sun will rise between Sacred Stones Fifty-Five and Fifty-Six\n(Stonehenge is aligned with the sun during both winter and summer\nsolstices). He then request the use of the lexicographer's body for a\nsacrifice, and an academic shows up to deny that the druids ever practiced\nhuman sacrifice. The druid simply replies, “we really don't *need* the\npractice now, do we” But it seems such a shame to waste him.\n\nThroughout all of the random appearances, there is a strain of black comedy\nthat undercuts the modern scholars of the world as they are presented face\nto face with the figures and objects they deign to know so much about from\nhistory and myth.\n\nThe old woman says that the sun has gone into the south, following the\nbirds in their migrations, and that “He will return when he sees the\nbeautiful tree we have made — for he will know the birds will want to perch\non its boughs.”\n\nEven though Knuteson asserts that the tree she speaks of is Yggdrasil, the\nworld tree of Norse mythology which might have been the tree upon which\nOdin hung, here the old woman begins to tell a story at which the professor\ngrunts, saying “Another solar myth. It is actually the inclination of the\nEarth, I believe.”\n\nHere, Mother Gaea herself rumbles to life, fulfilling the promise to some\ndegree of the marriage of the goddess of earth with the solar deity to\nbring about renewal, for she reinforces the idea that all of this is a\nresult of her inclination and will. The story ends with the arrival of the\nsun, and the old woman's assertion that the Sun comes “to tell his own\nstory, here at the beginning of the world.”\n\nThe coming of the sun, when the days will grow longer and the winter fade\nto more fecund seasons, prompts new growth and renewal. There is also the\nhint, as we know, that on top of all these other myths there is a very\nparticular Christian one that will be mapped to the winter solstice season\nas well, one involving birth, death, and renewal. The fire at which the\ngroup gathers symbolizes the heat and life-giving properties of the sun\nwhich will soon return in glory, and the stories told around it create a\ncommunal spirit that celebrates the entire solar cycle in the midst of\ndeepest winter, so that hope will not give way to fear and the despair of\nan eternal cold.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nIs the “beautiful tree [they] have made” to attract the sun a Christmas\ntree? If the old woman is telling the story of Christ there, then the\nprofessor's grunt dismissing it as “another solar myth” would still make\nsense. However, his next statement, that “It is actually the inclination of\nthe Earth, I believe” would be something of a nonsequitur giving a physical\nexplanation for why the sun goes no further south than the Tropic of\nCapricorn (and consequently why the seasons exist at all).\n\nCONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS:\n\nThis story has much in common with “The Boy Who Hooked the Sun” and “To the\nDark Tower Came” in its surreal dream logic, but is more like an\nexploration of a theme than a fable or dream story." } ] } ] }