Ariel resembles a young boy less than a foot high with butterfly wings colored like:
"...a tiger in a field of gillyvor." (p. 171)
(The Wikipedia article on "Gilliflower" cites "gillyvors" in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.)
Readers of Poul Anderson's hard sf about Ythrians and Diomedeans know that butterfly wings would not enable a human body to fly but this is fantasy.
Ariel concludes this chapter not with a rhyming couplet but with a pun:
"'Now from the deeps for thee let whirl a wind, lass!'" (p. 174)
At last, the opening section of Chapter xx is headed THE ISLAND. Jennifer has reached their destination ahead of Rupert.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I remember the astronomer in "Pact" sneering at the devil who was offering him a deal as having absurd wings!
Ad astra! Sean
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