(urth) Short Story 125: Sightings at Twin Mounds

[Sergei SOLOVIEV]

Dear Robert,

"robak" may also come from slightly modified "rybak" - fisher -

Sergei Soloviev

Robert Pirkola wrote:
> This story continues to bug me but I really haven't come up with a way to make my theory really hang together as well as it should.  
> The more Wolfe I have read, the more I see your point about functional, motivated prevarication.  With that, some extra information that
> I have been backlogging regarding SATM:
>
> The name Stanley J. Robakowski.
>
> According to my sources, the first name means "lives by the stony grove", which could imply a cemetery.
>
> Robakow appears to be Polish for "worms".  "-ski" as a Polish suffix also seems to denote some noble lineage for the bearer.
> This certainly continues to imply death and graves.
>
> No ideas on the "J".
>
> This story appears to be an extract from a book of the type popularized by Charles Fort.  I came across
> reference to Fort in annotations to H.P. Lovecraft's work that I had been recently reading.  Within days, 
> Marc had mentioned Fort in his write-up for “All the Hues of Hell” a GW story written around the same time as SATM.
> I have Fort's works in my to-read pile, but haven't gotten around to it yet.  Might this be a better template than the avowed
> Sasquatch book?
>  
> I had previously questioned the function of the wendigo in the story, arguing that it was unnecessary to the way the story works
> other than to point us towards cannibalism.  It could also serve the function of being wholly allusive, pointing us towards 
> Algernon Blackwood by way of his story “The Wendigo”.  This story seems to have little relation to SATM, but other 
> AB stories have interesting parallels.  For example, the werewolf story “The Camp of the Dog” featuring AB’s famous 
> psychic detective John Silence, discusses the means by which a werewolf comes into being.  It apparently is a psychic portion of a person that 
> is repressed, but which ultimately escapes, taking with it some portion of the physical matter of the person 
> less than the whole, so that it is a combination psychic/physical creature.  The creature is largely 
> invisible and the actions of the werewolf are unknown to the person that spawns it, and vice versa.  
> Other AB stories involving John Silence have interesting similarities as well, but my book is not before me at the moment so 
> I cannot reference them specifically.  In any event, "Secret Worship" is one, which involves a long-demolished monastic school
> reappearing to a former student when he visits the area.  The former student engages in ghostly and diabolical
> interaction with his former teachers.  The story is written in a way that made me think of seeing the twin mounds through 
> the eyes of Robakowski.  A couple of passages make this point.  I will try to supplement later. 		 	   		  
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