(urth) Seawrack's name

[David Stockhoff]

  Absolutely! And Wolfe mixes them up anyway.

If the Syrenka is involved at all, she is not known for being a siren. 
But Seawrack is.

It's not much of a stretch.

On 8/30/2010 9:47 PM, Lee Berman wrote:
>> >David Stockhoff- If Seawrack is a part of Scylla, then she is certainly "little" even if
>> >she's a siren and not a mermaid.
>
> At the risk of mucking up David's perfectly good Andersenian reference I'd want to note
> that sirens and mermaids are not really distinct creatures. The sirens are often depicted
> as mermaids and mermaids were often supposed to have a seductive, deadly allure. I think
> the legends are all intertwined.
>
> Manatees are supposed to be the real world inspiration for mermaids. As mentioned, their
> order classification is Sirenia. We know undines are confused with manatees in BotNS. I
> don't remember Juturna singing but she certainly had a seductive nature, luring Severian
> toward an underwater future.
>
> Wolfe is certainly giving those European water nymphs/demons their due. Joining the undines
> and nixies and kelpies that are mentioned in BotNS, now we might have a melusine/syrenka
> inspiration to the siren of the Short Sun.