Cocopa: (a tribe of Native American Indians in the southwest, found in California, Arizona, and Texas) “skany” is a word meaning “to break something long into several pieces.” But there is also a similar word, “skkany,” meaning “to pull (corn off the stalk).” This is particularly interesting, in that it relates to corn, the secondary goal of Horn’s quest (which in turn, points to the linkage between “silk” and “corn” found in “corn silk”).
sleepers among the colonists of Blue are sleepers, people who had been stored in suspended animation for the centuries of shipboard travel. Mamelta in The Book of the Long Sun was a sleeper, and Rigoglio in The Book of the Short Sun is another.
Mamelta had very important information about landers and how to repair them, so it seems that the sleepers have the function of “lander specialists.”
Incanto, trying to broach a delicate subject, says to Rigoglio, “We filled the remaining places [in the lander] with sleepers like you, and the rest boarded the other lander. Our sleepers—I don’t quite know how to say this . . .” (VI, chap. 18, 276).
Thus, more than half of the first colonists were sleepers. Horn has clearly had a lot of experience dealing with sleepers during the subsequent 20 years.
Rigoglio guesses that the sleepers readily adopted the manners of their host culture. Incanto writes, “It was not what I had nearly said, but I seized upon it eagerly” (276).
Later Silkhorn says that the sleepers on the lander “were confused for the most part; some very badly confused indeed, nearly insane” (VII, chap. 14, 279). This confirms the earlier suspicions that Rigoglio is unusual, atypical for a sleeper. It appears that the sleepers as a group are another case of people who are transitional: in this example, the transition of landing and establishing colonies. Silkhorn is an accidental transitional figure for a later phase, but still transitional.
slug gun the rifle of the Long Sun and Short Sun whorls. To chamber a cartridge, the user works the slider with his left hand in a pumping action (V, chap. 11, 273). The rifle holds a number of cartridges, at least four, but the maximum may be five or six (V, chap. 5, 132–33). The caliber seems to be around 30-06, a deer-hunting size.
Smoothbone Horn’s father, left behind on the Long Sun Whorl (V, chap. 3, 79). He stayed behind to fight for General Mint (V, chap. 15, 365). When “Horn” meets him again, he doesn’t recognize Smoothbone (366). After the revolution Smoothbone married a second time and began a new family (366). One of his sayings is, “On the other hand you have warts” (V, chap. 12, 300).
Silkhorn meets him while looking for the old shop on Sun Street (VII, chap. 12, 248). The shop burned down, as did their house on Silver Street (249). His new family has four boys (including Antler and Stag) and three girls (249). He leaves the worn pen case for Silkhorn on the step to the old shop (252).
Anatomy: this name identifies him as a member of the bone family. Based upon his guess of “Parietal” as the name for Silkhorn, the “smooth bones” in question are probably the eight that make up the cranium (one frontal, two parietals, one occipital, one sphenoid, two temporals, and one ethmoid).
Commentary: Smoothbone’s second wife and new family parallel Horn’s relationship with Seawrack, even to the extent of having Krait as a “new” son.
snow cat animal of Blue (V, chap. 1, 37).
snowbirch a tree of Blue (V, chap. 5, 139).
Soldo “the largest of the towns established by colonists from Grandecitta” (VI, list). The other towns are Blanko, Novella Citta, and Olmo. Soldo is the closest to Blanko, on the other side of a mountain range. Soldo seems bounded on the east by mountains, such that the farm Fava visits (in her story “The Washed Child”) has the last plowed land to the east before the mountains (VI, chap. 2, 38).
Soldo has Duko Rigoglio (VI, chap. 1, 27), and was founded 16 years ago (VI, chap. 2, 42). Fava visited two years ago (VI, chap. 2, 38). After the Soldo-Blanko War, Sfido is called “duko.”
Italian: penny.
Soldo-Blanko War in outline:
1. Soldo marches toward Blanko in secret. Blanko discovers through augury and raises its army: first day of Mobilization.
• Incanto writes letters to cast doubts on Soldo’s allies Olmo and Novella Citta.
• Incanto subverts mercenaries at the saddle.
2. Soldo attacks ally Olmo.
• Olmo sends letter to Blanko requesting aid.
• Inclito goes with force to Olmo.
• Blanko celebrates letter from Olmo.
• Inclito finds Olmo has fallen: looted and burned. Mobilization day 27.
• Inclito arrives at the Blanko forward position after a ride of two days (259).
3. Soldo attacks Novella Citta.
4. Remnants of Soldo horde attack Blanko.
• Blanko repulses attack at the Battle of Blanko.
• Inclito gives chase in the hills (one day after the battle).
• Incanto moves to catch up (two days after the battle).
• Incanto catches up with Inclito, and both meet the force from Novella Citta (450 troopers) arriving to aid Blanko (three days after the battle).
5. Soldo vanquished.
Solenno “one of Salica’s unlucky husbands” (VI, list). Her third husband, mentioned in her story “From the Grave.”
Italian: solemn.
Somvar “an advocate” (V, list) who represents all the defendants in Gaon (V, chap. 1, 25).
Hindi: Monday.
Song “Sad Experience Teaches Me” a human song that shows up a number of times in the text. It is first mentioned by the Rajan (V, chap. 9, 221), as well as on the last page of that volume. While it does not show up in the second volume, it gives its name to chapter 8 of volume VII, wherein a dream links this song to Silk’s old music box (VII, chap. 8, 171). Thus it appears in the Silk-text, then it is artistically enmeshed in the DHV text with a tie-in to The Book of the Long Sun.
Silkhorn says it was a marching song on the road to Blood’s villa (VII, chap. 10, 195). The song itself is about a vagrant, who, while stealing apples from a tree at night, glimpses a girl braiding her hair by candlelight (VII, chap. 8, 171). The line repeated throughout the song is, “These fair young girls live to deceive you / Sad experience teaches me.”
Commentary: this song seems based in whole or in part on a traditional English country song called “Counting Song,” “The Spanish Lady,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “Dublin City,” or “Twenty Eighteen.” Both “The Spanish Lady” and “Dublin City” include the phrase “sad experience teaches me.”
Sphigx goddess of war, youngest of the Nine. Depicted with helmet and lion. She governs obedience, courage, watchfulness, and hardihood (VII, chap. 10, 206).
Many statues of Sphigx were smashed during the fight against Trivigaunte, so the replacement has the lion on a medallion (VII, chap. 10, 204). The statues were smashed by Trivigauntis (206). (See entry in LS Half.)
Myth: a Greco-Egyptian monster/god.
Spider “spycatcher of Viron” (VI, list). (See entry in LS Half.)
Zoology: member of the class Arachnida.
Stag “a son of Smoothbone by his second wife” (VII, list). He is eight years old (VII, chap. 12, 252). His big brother is Antler.
Zoology: the male deer.
Commentary: the common thread of “deer” to the names of Antler and Stag hints at their mother having some connection to deer in her name, or in her father’s name.
Starling the young man of New Viron who loved Lily (“The Night Chough”).
Zoology: bird of family Sturnidae.
“Story of the Ugly Daughter, The” Hound tells this local ghost story of Viron (VII, chap. 6, 116–17). It is a distorted version of Mucor, Blood, and Silk, in which Mucor dies and haunts the ruins of the house.
strego a witch in the language of Grandecitta (VI, chap. 1, 31).
Italian: male witch (the female form being strega).
Strik, Captain “a master mariner of Dorp” (V, list). Horn meets him a
t sea, where Strik tells him that Sinew is looking for him (V, chap. 6, 168). His wife is Versregal, and his son is Toter.
Later he is Hide’s hospitable jailer in Dorp (VII, chap. 5, 102). At the preliminary hearing, Hide maintains he is Hoof, who took the place of Hide at Strik’s house (VII, chap. 7, 150). The judge releases him and assigns Strik as another prisoner at Beroep’s house (152). This trick by Hide is the reason why Hide is beaten later at Strik’s house.
Dutch: a word meaning “bow (the weapon),” as well as “snare,” “loop,” “mesh,” “noose,” and “net.”
String Street “when the Sun Street Quarter burned, the fire reached String” (VII, chap. 10, 209). A street in Old Viron. But note that Long Sun Whorl geography is suspect in the DHV text.
“Stuck in the Chimney” Salica’s second story (VI, chap. 7, 110–12). This one is about Dentro and the strega. In Grandecitta on the Long Sun Whorl, a strega made young Dentro fall in love with her. One day she had him sweeping the chimney, rather than hiring a worker to do it. A passing neighbor noticed this, and shortly thereafter when the strega surprised him on the street, he tricked her, saying Dentro had fallen in. She rushed home in fear. In revenge for this, she killed the neighbor’s wife by dragging her up a chimney.
Sun Street “a wide diagonal avenue in Viron” (V, list). This is wrong; probably an error by the editors who have never seen Viron. Or, as Roy C. Lackey points out, it might just be misleading: the grid of Viron is at such a tilt that Sun Street seems “diagonal” relative to it.
The Sun Street Quarter is the district served by Silk’s manteion (VI, list).
Silkhorn walks from near the manteion west to the market, then northwest on Manteion Street to the Palatine. Arriving at the Calde’s Palace, with Ermine’s only two or three streets away (VII, chap. 10, 213).
Sweetbay daughter of Oxlip, she was a train-bearer at Vadsig’s wedding (VII, chap. 20, 400).
Botany: Magnolia virginiana, a member of the magnolia family of deciduous or evergreen trees (deciduous at the northern end of its range, evergreen in areas of mild winter).
T
Taal, Mysire Advocaat “the advocate engaged by Beroep and others to defend the narrator” (VII, list). He is a small man with a shock of white hair, “and one of those round soft-looking faces that breathe the very essence of stupidity” (VII, chap. 11, 224). Wijzer hires him for three gold cards (228).
Taal uses a couple of Latin phrases: ab initio (“from the beginning”) and testis oculatus unus plus valet quam auriti decem (“one eye-witness is worth more than ten ear-witnesses”).
Dutch: language.
Tail “the southern end of Lizard Island” (V, list).
Tallow “one of Horn’s brothers” (VII, list). Calf, Tongue, and Tallow wanted help from Horn (VII, chap. 2, 40).
Zoology: tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat. It is used to make soap and tallow candles.
Tamarind “a fishmonger’s widow” (V, list). She helped young Horn with the first boat he built (V, chap. 1, 45). Seawrack mentions Tamarind (V, chap. 10, 249). Sinew, talking about Horn’s visit to “the witch” Mucor, says, “You went to see her like you’d go to see Tamarind” (V, chap. 13, 339).
Botany: Tamarindus indica, a tree native to tropical Africa, introduced to India so long ago it is often thought to be indigenous there. The fruit is in clusters of brittle-shell pods.
Tansy a young woman known by Incanto in the past (VI, chap. 17, 248). “Hound’s wife” (VII, list; VII, chap. 4, 71). She grew up in Endroad on the Long Sun Whorl.
Botany: a flowering herb of the aster family.
Tartaros “a major god of the Long Sun Whorl, the god of darkness and commerce, and the patron of thieves” (V, list; chap. 13, 131). “Pas’s loyal son” (VII, list). (See entry in LS Half.)
Myth: (Greek) a god of the underworld/afterlife.
Teras a mercenary who dies in the sewer fighting the white worm on Green, only to wake up with the rest in the snow on Blue (VI, chap. 15, 224). He is alive after dying during a warp, but he can no longer speak nor understand what is said to him. Even so, he seems to return to fighting for Inclito (225). Chaku has the same fate.
Indonesian: heart; pith (of wood).
Terzo, Colonel “an officer of Soldo” (VI, list). Before the Battle of Blanko he demands Incanto’s surrender (VI, chap. 17, 249). At their next meeting, Incanto spooks him by introducing him to Seawrack’s singing (266–67).
Italian: third.
Thelxiepeia “a major goddess of the Long Sun Whorl, the goddess of learning, trickery, and magic” (V, list; chap. 6, 149). (See entry in LS Half.)
Myth: (Greek) one of the Sirens.
thief robbing items from Horn’s boat at New Viron Horn leaves his boat in the care of a man he had known in palaestra, yet when he returns from his meeting with Marrow, he finds he has been robbed of paper, cordage, and a few other things (V, chap. 2, 74). Upon asking the man, Horn deduces that he was the thief, so he fights him and beats him but does not get his paper back.
Commentary: this clearly shows the lawless nature of New Viron. Candidates for who this nameless man might be include Addax, Cavy, Feather, Locust, Macaque, and Villus. Feather and Villus are especially likely since they were last seen on the Long Sun Whorl heading for the lander.
Thing on the Green Plain, The the monster of the weird artificial island Horn and Babbie explore, searching for water (V, chap. 5, title; 143). Horn finds it in the well-like structure, and it rushes up to attack. Its body is large and flat, colored black above and white below, and it has great yellow eyes. It lurches up to the surface and chases after them “as a bat runs, using its wide leathern wings as legs.”
Because it seems to lie in wait and then pounce, and because the island itself is artificial, the creature seems analogous to a spider waiting at the center of its web.
Thody “a mercenary, lanky with a scar across his chin” (VI, chap. 11, 180).
Hindi: some.
Onomastics: an English surname.
Three Rivers “an inland town near New Viron” (V, list). A trip there from New Viron is no big deal (V, chap. 1, 47). It seems famous for its glass (V, chap. 8, 192). Because of The Book of the Long Sun, the people of this town (and Urbasecundus) want Silk as their caldé (V, chap. 4, 96).
three-horned beast blind Maytera Marble, prophesying, says, “I see you, Horn, riding upon a beast with three horns” (V, chap. 3, 93). Silkhorn in Gaon writes, “On Green I rode a three-horned beast. Indeed, I was riding it at the time I was wounded fatally” (94).
Thyone “a minor goddess of the Long Sun Whorl” (VII, list; VII, chap. 6, 124). (See entry in LS Half.)
Myth: (Greek) the mother of Dionysus after she became a goddess.
Tigridia “a client of the Honorable Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence” (VII, list). The Urth woman whom Juganu meets with and wants to free (VII, chap. 19, 397).
Botany: tiger-flower, a genus of bulbous or cormous plants, belonging to the family Iridaceae.
History: there are two saints Tigridia, one from the 6th century and the other from the 11th century.
Timelines Section the tracking of events in The Book of the Short Sun is so challenging that this text uses seven separate numbered timelines. Timeline 0 covers a period of years before the action of the series. Timeline 1 covers Horn’s journey from Lizard to Green. Timeline 2 deals with Horn’s time on Green. Timeline 3 details Silkhorn’s brief stay on the Long Sun Whorl. Timeline 4 tracks the Rajan of Gaon. Timeline 5 follows Incanto in Blanko. Timeline 6 traces Silkhorn’s adventures in Dorp and New Viron.
Rough Outline
1. Horn’s journey from Lizard to Green (6 months, or less; conjunction to come in two years).
2. Horn’s time on Green (6 months)
• Silkhorn says, “I was on Green for a long time . . . I suppose it was actually only half a year or so” (VII, chap. 2, 34).
• Silkhorn tells Hound, “I think I’ve been away for about a year” (
VII, chap. 8, 169).
3. Silkhorn’s time on the Long Sun Whorl (estimate about ten days; four of them accounted for).
4. Silkhorn’s time in Gaon (one year).
• Arrival of conjunction near the end of his stay marks the two year point from Horn leaving Lizard.
• Return of Oreb at the end of his stay marks the one year or so he has been there.
5. Silkhorn’s travel from Gaon to New Viron (about three months).
Timelines for The Book of the Short Sun
Timeline 0. History
• 2,500 years ago Eco’s estimate for passage of time in Nessus since Roger left Urth (VII, chap. 22, 325).
• 1,900 years ago Hide’s estimate (325).
• 1,000 years ago Horn’s guess at a minimum (325).
• 1,000 years ago The Vanished People vanish.
• 100? years ago The Long Sun Whorl arrives in the Short Sun system; the Neighbors visit the Long Sun Whorl, introducing inhumi.
• 20 years ago Colonists establish New Viron. Horn is 15 years old (VII, chap. 14, 279). Subsequent colonists include convicted criminals as well as laborers, small farmers, and craftsmen (281). Horn and Nettle marry. Sinew, conceived on the Long Sun Whorl, born on Blue.
• 16 years ago Conjunction (first time). Blazingstar comes to New Viron from the Long Sun Whorl, possibly in same lander as Gyrfalcon (V, chap. 1, 24).
Gate of Horn, Book of Silk Page 27