From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: Re: (urth) Decoding "Tracking Song"
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 01:29:27 


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

>  Here's the Cim name quote (p 199 of the 1980 Timescape
>  pb edition of IODDAOSAOS):
>
>      When I was born my father wished to name me
>      Seven Snows, which is a common name for girls
>      amoung our people.  But I was born while he
>      was away in his boat; and before he returned,
>      my mother had left her bed and seen the Cim
>      blowing from tree to tree like a soft star in
>      the air, and completed the naming.

	I have nothing to go on except the passage itself, but I figured that cim
is snow. Notice that the naming is "completed," which implies (possibly)
that the mother did not completely change the father's desires. 

Nutria