Cumaeans

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes · 05 Feb 2009, 21:42 · from 2009-February.txt.gz

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From: danldo at gmail.com (Dan'l Danehy-Oakes)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:42:37 -0800
Subject: (urth) Cumaeans
In-Reply-To: <498B5985.1030001 at verizon.net>
References: <mailman.5088.1233834647.6116.urth-urth.net at lists.urth.net>
	<498B5985.1030001 at verizon.net>
Message-ID: <1f7617370902051342y6909c26bubd20b528f961aba0 at mail.gmail.com>

David,

No; the Cumaean is _not_ named for a witch out of the New Testament. Rather,
she is named for the priestess-prophetess of Apollo at Cumae.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sybil

As such, she might well be a "being of power." I had concluded (assumed?)
that she was of the same order of being as Father Inire.

On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 1:26 PM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> Tim
>
> My assumption---or rationalization---has always been that the Cumaean was an
> alien of a different sort than the Inhumi. Or else just a being of
> power---she is named after a witch out of the New Testament, after all. The
> faces and lack of wings or any serious attempt to disguise herself lead me
> to that.
> Beyond that, I dunno. It's possible Wolfe hadn't worked out the details yet.
> Who would the thing feed on?
>
> I also have always assumed that the great toothy butterfly-creature Severian
> sees flying through the pages of Father Inire's mirror book was an Inhumu.
> Is there any consensus on that? Was it Tzadkiel?
>
-- 
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes

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