(urth) Short Sun blog

[Lee Berman]

>James Wynn: Wolfe doesn't just create easy allegories of other stories. He is 
>interested in mythology as he is interested in pulp literature. But even 
>more, he seems interested in the way their themes and icons span the globe.
 
I agree with this. The field of comparative mythology seems so fascinating to me. 
Perhaps Gene Wolfe has no interest in it but hard to believe.
 
We have Flood and Ark myths all around the Middle East area. If the Bible has a raven 
and dove, Sumerians have a dove, sparrow and raven, and the Masai have a dove and a 
vulture I suppose it could be evidence that the flood stories were unrelated. But so
much more interesting to guess each culture faced the same flood and interpreted it
in a slightly different way. 

>..This is a myth that has been subsumed into an historical character in 
>the same way that King Arthur and Alexander the Great subsumed myths 
>from much more ancient periods.

Yes, leaders, like floods can be the shared historical reference which gives rise to 
similar myths and legends in a given area. I'd want to add that the shared human 
condition itself also gives rise to parallel stories and legends from around the world.
 
I hope it is not too sacriligious to suggest that the stories of sexless pregnancy found
for Early Summer and plant juice, Juno and foxglove, Shing Ma and Waterlilly etc. share
a cognate in the Mary/Jesus story, all rooted in the cultural roles for women and sex in 
human society. 
 
Some think that the mythology of dwarfs, sprites, giants and dragons etc. has its basis 
in primate and earlier mammalian genetic memories from when various sized human species 
co-existed and earlier times when there were flying reptilian creatures in the sky.