"Triskele" is unrelated to "Triste"

Dan Rabin · 11 Jan 2001, 06:27 · from urth-v0030.mbox · original

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From: Dan Rabin <email-reply at danrabin.com>
Subject: (urth) "Triskele" is unrelated to "Triste"
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 06:27:50
Message-ID: <urth-v0030-0240 at digest.urth.net>
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It is more likely that "Triskele" is used in the sense of a design in=20
the form of three running legs (or stylizings thereof) arranged at=20
120-degree angles with the "hip" being the center of a circle.=20
Merriam-Webster online gives the term as a variant of "Triskelion".=20
Triskele has three legs (and a stump, but perhaps

Such a design serves as the symbol of the Isle of Man see=20
<http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/im.html>.  It would not be=20
un-Wolfean for "Isle of Man" to have some bearing on the choice of=20
the name for the dog.  (Hmmm--isolation of Man???)  BUT (!!!) the web=20
page mentioned says, "According to Norse mythology, the triskelion=20
was a symbol of the movement of the sun through the heavens".

I was all set to crow at this find just now, but I calmed down enough=20
to check _Lexicon Urthus_, in which mantis cites John Clute giving an=20
Apollonian connection for the symbol.  Darn.

So Severian's healing of Triskele symbolically brings the New Sun, or=20
the New Sun symbolically arises at his touch, or (if we admit what we=20
learn in _Urth of the New Sun_) the New Sun gives a symbolic token of=20
his coming to the young Severian, which token also sort-of leads him=20
to the Atrium of Time, and also makes the structure sort of cyclic=20
(just like the sun, and like Divine Years), and...

Someone else please pick this up and run with it--my head hurts, and=20
I have to save it for _Return to the Whorl_ :-).

It would also be non-un-Wolfean for the dog character to have been=20
*derived* from the symbolic connection.

   -- Dan Rabin

P.S. The "-skele" element also occurs in "isosceles".

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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