(urth) Trial summer project short story: Easter Sunday

[Craig Brewer]

Ah, Hephaestus. Of course. And the reverend does suppose it's an artificial limb.

But Vulcan never had that seething resentment. Dunno, seems basically like a nice little Easter fable.

On Mar 25, 2012, at 11:32 AM, Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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