From: "Robert Borski" 
Subject: (urth) Cim Glowing
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:29:07 -0500

More "Tracking Song" thoughts, this time on Cim Glowing.

Though he risks his life to save Cim Glowing, Cutthroat may be making a
signally bad choice, since she is clearly allied against him. Cim Glowing,
as you will recall, is kidnapped by the minions of Mantru--the fat dwarf who
rules the underworld metal city and who Dis-like wants a Persephone bride.
If you accept that Mantru is Cutthroat's symbolic twin, this may make Cim
Glowing Awan (Hebrew for "wickedness")--the woman who, according to Biblical
tradition, is not only Cain's sister, but his wife. Notice too how Cutthroat
chooses "Wickedness" over continuing to chase after the Great Sleigh.

Cim Glowing has killed her previous boyfriend not once, but twice, implying
perhaps a cyclical event. It's therefore hard not to see Fishcatcher as the
Fisher King, and the snowbound world/postlapsarian Eden as the Wounded Land.
(Notice also how Fishcatcher is brought back to life by Great Sleigh
technology--the same technology that is attempting to bring spring to the
Wounded Land.) The father of Cim Glowing originally wanted to call her Seven
Snows--potent winter imagery to be sure--but her mother has named her Cim
Glowing when pops is away at parturition. "Cim" may refer to Cimmerian
(darkness) and "Glowing" to remnant radiation. Possible implication: nuclear
winter has decimated the planet of the animal tribes.

Cin Glowing also believes she will not be allowed to board the Great Sleigh,
which makes sense since she represents winter/death and the Great Sleigh
represents spring/renewal. But more insidiously still she attempts to
convince Cutthroat that he is not a left-behind member of the snowcraft.
Here she is indeed "wicked"--attempting to stop Cutthroat (who as a former
tiller of the soil understands the nature of a killing frost) from
rendezvousing with his people. Equally possible: she loves Cutthroat
(indeed, she says she does when she leaves him), but knows the two of them
can never be together if he achieves his goal.

Not that it matters. In the end, Cim Glowing elects to go her own
way--perhaps because unlike Cutthroat she understands that winged guardians
will not allow her to board the redemption-bringing, planet-saving, Great
Sleigh.

Robert Borski


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