(urth) Seawrack and the Mother

[Lee Berman]

>Antonio Pedro Marques: > It turns out that sex is a big part of religious 
>thought. It's hardly surprising that it's prominent in Wolfe's writings.

>David Stockhoff: Absolutely. It's huge, as the Donald would say.

I am hoping Antonio is lucky enough to not be familiar with Donald Trump.

>David Stockhoff: Thanks Marc. I like that counterpart very much.

Ditto

>David Stockhoff: Where does the "crop of women" occur?

Good question. Had to search around to find it among the pages at the end
of RTTW. That part of the story is so rife with revelations I am still
struggling to wrap my mind around all of it. And of course Wolfe jumps around
and inserts so many asides and observations it is always confusing. I'll use
some excerpting to get to the point below. 

In my copy it starts on page 364. They are on a ship on Urth moving from the
Gyoll delta to the open ocean. One of the passengers is called both "Scylla" 
and "the girl" She is calling/singing to the ocean.

>We both wanted to know why Scylla wanted to talk to that other Scylla in the
>Red Sun Whorl and he said, "She wants to describe her efforts in the Long Sun
>Whorl, and to obtain the Greater Scylla's advice"....>

>People started coming out of the water ahead...they were all women. The ones 
>closest to us were smaller, and the ones further away were bigger, so they all
>seemed like they were the same size. Some of the farthest back ones were as tall
>as Father (Silkhorn), Juganu and me put together. A lot had on black robes and
>cowls, but some were naked, especially the big ones further back. The closest 
>ones talked and sang, and called to us...

>The girl kept singing to them, and they got quieter and started to come toward
>us. It was like they were standing on something under the water that moved....
>Two sort of rose up and talked to the girl and Father then, their robes getting 
>longer and longer as they came up out of the water until they would have dragged
>behind them clear across the deck if they had been walking on the boat. There was
>something under them that the women were standing on, if those women had any feet.
>...one looked at me and smiled, and she had little sharp, pointed teeth like tacks.
>Her eyes were all one color and sort of glowed or gleamed under the cowl... I told
>[Father] about the woman who had looked at me and smiled and said, "Was that Scylla?"
>The girl was mad about it.

I don't think Wolfe is going to give it to us more clearly than this. I think having 
a collection of smaller singing women and giant, naked women with sharp teeth rising 
up out of the water (almost) clearly ties sirens, the Mother, Scylla, undines and 
Abaia together. And if there were some doubt, Wolfe give us the women wearing black 
robes and cowls. This garb is called an Abaya or Abaia. Hard to swallow that as 
coincidence given all the other connections between giant sea monster/gods. And more 
evidence that Wolfe is willing to use english word play as direct reader clues to names 
in the Sun Series. (like Rhea Silvia and perhaps Sirenia, Cilinia and Seawrack)