Are the Neighbors REALLY the Neighbors?

James Wynn · 15 Feb 2011, 18:21 · from 2011-February.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 12:21:38 -0600
Subject: (urth) Are the Neighbors REALLY the Neighbors?
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W2653D606C043EBE1AF6FF8CFD30 at phx.gbl>
References: <SNT123-W2653D606C043EBE1AF6FF8CFD30 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4D5AC432.1000201 at gmail.com>

>> If one presumes that Silk was a clone of Typhon, Barnacles-as-Midas
>> works perfectly.
> Lee-
> I shouldn't need explanation for this but I might. IIRC, in your theory,
> Midas figures into the Spring Wind/Typhon legend perhaps with Alexander's
> story as a mediating influence. But I think the connection isn't the
> obvious one involving Alexander's cutting of Midas' Gordian Knot. How does
> the connection work?

Well, it would be nice if Wolfe had worked such a connection into the 
story. He's pretty good about that sort of thing. I haven't detected it, 
but it might be that I've failed to catch an allusion.

Typhon, as you say, is an Alexander-figure. When Kypris says of him that 
took over the world so fast and no one could believe it, I thought of 
Alexander immediately. Additionally, Alexander is member of an important 
legendary triad that I think was appealing to Wolfe: Alexander, Moses, 
and the Green Man.

The Midas connection is more allusive but he keeps popping up. His main 
connection to the story is through Dionysus. Midas found drunk Silenus 
in his rose garden. He took him in and was regaled with a story of a 
continent to the West inhabited by the ancient-living powerful 
Hyperboreans (Neighbors). In thanks for caring for his mentor, Dionysus 
granted Midas his golden touch. Then inspired by Silenus' stories, he 
sends an expedition of 10 million colonists to the land of the 
Hyperboreans. On the way, they encounter a whirlpool (Short Sun) with a 
stream nearby where two trees were growing: The fruit of one would cause 
the eater to weep, groan, and pine away (Green). The fruit of the other 
would make the eater young again, and younger, until he became an infant 
and then disappeared (Blue; Horn speaks of the colony moving back in 
time in technology).

The Book of the Long Sun is plotted over the life of Aristaeus, as 
described by Robert Graves, as described by Herodotus, as described by 
Pindar (Soldier of the Mist). Aristaeus is the author of the story of 
the Hyperborans.

Finally, Alexander, Midas, and Dionysus all have horns. D is the 
"two-horned god". Alexander is depicted with horns on his coins. 
Quetzal, the Whorl's demon-Dionysus, plants a tamarin tree outside his 
window, and that particular species plays a key role in India's version 
of a Midas story--in which Midas grows horns instead of donkey ears.

u+16b9
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