Tracking Song and Other Stories

Roy asks:

I now understand this story less than ever. As you observe, it seems to be the primary feature of Tracking Song that it is woven of many disparate strands. This is true of Wolfe in general, but especially, it seems to me, the stories in The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, which leads me to speculate that this collection's title is a wink acknowledging this multiplicity of sources. So far, in relation to Tracking Song, these have been identified, or at least suggested: Genesis the Icarus legend the Great Raven legends of Western North American Indians The Iliad of Homer (The Odyssey must be there too) The Aeneid of Virgil Jack London, The Call of the Wild and White Fang I know next to nothing about most of these. And if the winged man at the end is a raven, then I suspect Norse myth must be involved too, another subject about which I know nothing. Rather than groping in darkness (where Wolfe's protagonists so often find themselves) I am hoping someone will show me the light of day (perhaps even Great Raven himself). Matt G.