<html><head></head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div>Ah, Hephaestus. Of course. And the reverend does suppose it's an artificial limb.</div><div><br></div><div>But Vulcan never had that seething resentment. Dunno, seems basically like a nice little Easter fable.<br><br>On Mar 25, 2012, at 11:32 AM, Nick Lee <<a href="mailto:starwaterstrain@gmail.com">starwaterstrain@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div><span style="">Gerry Quinn:</span></div><div><span style=""><br></span></div><span style="">"Enjoyable enough albeit a bit obvious. But why does the Devil have a limp? Is there a tradition here I am unaware of?</span><br style="">
<br style=""><span style="">No doubt Lee will chime in to point out that this means Severian is the Devil"</span><br style=""><div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><span style="">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.</span></div>
<div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><span style="">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.</span></div>
<div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><span style="">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.</span></div><div><span style=""><br></span></div>
<div><span style="">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.</span></div>
<div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><span style="">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)</span><span style="">.</span></div>
<div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><span style=""><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif">Dazbog is a Slavic god, a solar deity, a ruler of the underworld, depicted as a "lame shepherd of wolves."</font></span></div>
<div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%C5%BEbog">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%C5%BEbog</a>
</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><span style=""><br></span></div><div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><br>
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