(urth) Dionysus

[Andrew Mason]

I'm in the middle of reading OBW now, and realise it's dangerous to
comment before you have reached the end of a series, but a couple of
things occur to me:

1. I'm not sure anyone has mentioned so far that the Neighbours _say_
why they have chosen Horn to make the deal - because he is well
disposed towards them. Why they think _that_ can still be disputed, of
course - that he is in some sense a Neighbour would be one
explanation.

2. There is in any case something odd about the deal. From a normal
human perspective it is unclear that the deal would be binding; but it
is also unclear why the deal would be necessary. Would humans have the
right to chase Neigbours off Blue if they had not given them
permission to stay? They say 'tonight we give [this whorl] to you'.
This doesn't itself seem to be part of the deal; they say it
unconditionally, and then ask Horn for permission to come back.  But
no one forced them to say it, and if Horn had not been there no one
would have known that they had said it. Or they could, as far as one
can see, have said 'we give you this whorl on condition that we are
allowed to visit it from time to time'. That they asked even one
human's permission seems an extra act of grace on their part.