Urth Net
winged figure
↰ answers Dan Rabin
· by quotation
Dan,
Since you're open to resonance, remember that "Tracking Song" has a distinct North American flavor, and that a very important figure in Western NA myth is Great Raven (or simply Raven), who made the world. There is only one winged being seen on the Great Sleigh (and it may the hallucination of a dying person), and since the Great Sleigh crew has been seen by many of the people Cutthroat encounters, none of whom mention wings, I think it's fairly safe to say that they don't look like a cartload of cherubim.
-alga-
3 quoted lines
2. The winged beings as beyond-humans resonate with Wolfe's own Hierogrammates, shaped by humans according to human ideals (`united, compassionate, just') never actually achieved by the human race itself.
I can't quite draw an exact analogy, but I'm always willing to believe that Wolfe often works impressionistically rather than with exacting exactness. I think he's willing to deviate slightly from his clever constructs in order to deliver a haunting image or a well-timed surprise.