(urth) Trial summer project short story: Easter Sunday

[Nick Lee]

Gerry Quinn:

"Enjoyable enough albeit a bit obvious.  But why does the Devil have a
limp?  Is there a tradition here I am unaware of?

No doubt Lee will chime in to point out that this means Severian is the
Devil"

Yes, there is, and Lee could have a point. Craig and Marc have chimed in on
this already, and I'll offer some more context.

The lame god is a motif in mythology. We all know that Vulcan is the lame
god of Classical tradition is Hephaestus (Vulcan). Cast down by Zeus, he
walks with a limp. The Christians of the past few hundred years (after
Satan was codified), conflated the two and concluded that Satan was the
lame god, injured following his fall from Heaven.

The idea that the limp is caused by a cloven foot is present in tales as
well, although I'm not clear on how that started.

There is also the "lame devil," Asmodeus. I don't know if the conflation I
mentioned originated here, in the 1707 novel The Lame Devil or if it
predates it. I just discovered it myself. The nickname was offered to Lord
Byron (he had a club foot) and other historical figures as well.

Now here's some more information I just found. It never occurred to me to
research Slavic mythology (although the presence of the Severian tribe
should have suggested it).

Dazbog is a Slavic god, a solar deity, a ruler of the underworld, depicted
as a "lame shepherd of wolves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%C5%BEbog

I'll be stopping by my local library to pick up something on Slavic
mythology. Even if Wolfe has never heard of him, this is fascinating stuff.
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