(urth) Baldanders' dream

[Gerry Quinn]

On 20/08/2014 13:47, Lee wrote:
> Though "Echidna" is not mentioned by name in BotNS, it would seem 
> Wolfe thought "snake" and "cave dwelling" would be enough clues to tie 
> the character of The Cumaean to the wife of Typhon. Since few got the 
> reference, Wolfe made sure the name Echidna was front and center in 
> Long Sun.

Echidna is, but the Cumaean isn't, so it hardly ties the two 
characters.  Snakes and caves do not an Echidna make -  as you point out 
yourself, a mash-up of two Appolonian shrines is enough. Besides, she's 
not necessarily a snake:

"As I had suspected, the Cumaean was not a woman at all; yet neither was 
she one of the horrors I had beheld in the gardens of the House 
Absolute. Something sleekly reptilian coiled about the glowing rod. I 
looked for the head but found none, though each of the patternings on 
the reptile's back was a face, and the eyes of each face seemed lost in 
rapture."

She shares no obvious personality characteristics with Echidna.


- Gerry Quinn