Spring Wind

Lee Berman · 23 Sep 2010, 14:01 · from 2010-September.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:01:34 -0400
Subject: (urth) Spring Wind
Message-ID: <SNT123-W84CF6CB762C42663B2CDDCF610 at phx.gbl>

Andrew Mason: 

>Spring Wind = March, i.e. Mars, father of Romulus and Remus.
>Early Summer = June, i.e. Juno, mother of Mars.

>I think that the tale can be wholly explained in terms of stories that
>exist now - Romulus and Remus and Mowgli being the main sources, with secondary ones 
>including Moses, the Pilgrim Fathers, and a story I'm sure I've heard, though I'm not 
>sure where, about a virgin who became a mother with the help of a flower.

Excellent analysis Andrew! There are a number of mythological stories about virgins and
plant impregnation (likely stories, indeed!). But perhaps the most relevant one 
connects to your analysis, though does not involve a virgin.

According to one Roman legend, Juno, being jealous of Jupiter's motherless birthing of 
Minerva, sought aid from Flora, goddess of flowers and fertility. Flora used foxglove in
a certain manner on Juno to produce her fatherless offspring, Mars.

I'm less than confident that identifying such mythological origins makes the story "wholly 
explained" though. In the other thread I mention the very similar- Tale of the Student and 
His Son. We could say this story is wholly explained as a conflation of the stories of Theseus, 
Jason, Perseus, Erebus/Nyx, Iroquois Corn Maiden, Monitor and Merrimac, etc. 

But then Severian openly ties this story to Abaia. Simply by parallel, The Tale of the Boy 
Called Frog might also refer to a "real" character in BotNS. In that light, Typhon/Spring Wind 
seems hard to casually dismiss, for me.

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