Urth Net
Cim glowing
↰ answers Jim Jordan
· by quotation
12 quoted lines · 1–2 deep
From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Here's the Cim name quote (p 199 of the 1980 Timescape
pb edition of IODDAOSAOS):
When I was born my father wished to name me
Seven Snows, which is a common name for girls
amoung our people. But I was born while he
was away in his boat; and before he returned,
my mother had left her bed and seen the Cim
blowing from tree to tree like a soft star in
the air, and completed the naming.
I have nothing to go on except the passage itself, but I figured that cim is snow. Notice that the naming is "completed," which implies (possibly) that the mother did not completely change the father's desires.
I hate to be always the contrarian (lie: I love it)...but I think "Cim" is an electrical phenomenon, like St. Elmo's Fire or ball lightning. Either could fit the description of a "soft star" moving from tree to tree. In addition there is Cim's weapon: perhaps the totemic naming conveys an analogous power on the named one, and thus Cim's weapon is electrical.
Sgt. Rock