Map of the Whorl

Leatherskin

A large, powerful, aggressive, man-eating, aquatic (but apparently air-breathing) monster in the sea surrounding Lizard Island and New Viron. It has six "legs," each bearing "great coarse claws" as large as ax handles, and three jaws boasting a "thousand fangs". Its body is massive and "inflexible". Its neck is thick and ribbed, and its tail is fluked. It is a fast and powerful swimmer, but it is clumsy on land. 

Commentary 

The Dog-fish

There are only two creatures in literature with triple-rows of teeth... the legendary manticore and the "Dog-fish" of Collodi's Pinnochio (Monstro the Whale in the Disney version). If the leatherskin is the Dog-fish, then that makes Horn Gepetto in his little boat whom the Dog-fish swallowed whole, or he is Pinnochio who rescues him. Since this is a work by the premier creator Wolfe, Horn does eventually become both the puppet and the puppet-master having his body taken over by Silk and himself taking over the body of Babbie. It would show admirable creativity for Wolfe merely to have worked Collodi's Dog-fish and Pinnochio so cleverly into the his novel, and similarly the Dog-fish would normally serve as a sufficient source for the leatherskin. But, Wolfe is not just an "admirable" writer, and the Dog-fish does not explain why Wolfe chose to call it a "leatherskin".

I once had a toy, a little wooden man in a blue coat who was moved by strings. When I played with him, I made him walk and bow, and spoke for him. I practiced until I thought myself very clever. One day I saw my mother holding the two sticks that held his strings, and my little wooden man saluting my youngest sister much more cleverly than I could have made him do it, and laughing with his head thrown back, then mourning with his face in his hands. I never spoke of it to my mother, but I was angry and ashamed.
Horn, On Blue's Waters, pg. 158

The Triton-Manticore

The meaning behind the name leatherskin is that the Horn attacker is a monstrous cross between the manticore and the Red Sea dugong or sea cow. How is this so? As the case with so many of Wolfe's choices in words and names, the connection is not obvious, but it is clear when one discovers the key.

The legendary manticore has triple rows of teeth. The manticore, the triton, and flying serpents share page space in Pausanias' Description of Greece (Book 9, chapters 20-21). The manticore and the triton (like unicorns which are also described there) are fantastic creatures that owe their literary existence to descriptions of actual animals. The  manticore is the tiger, and the triton is the dugong (unicorn, the rhinoceros).  Pausanias described the dugong as having bony hands fingers and claws, not flippers. 

Just as the manticore has triple the number of jaws of the tiger, so Wolfe's leatherskin's clawed legs are triple the number of the pectoral flippers had by the dugong. Just as the manticore has stinging horns and projectile stingers, the leatherskin "has" Horn with his harpoon.

In the Bible, the dugong's name (tachash) is translated alternately as the animal and the leather made from its hide. In every place but one, the word is written "dugong skin", which could be translated "leather skin". For examples of the alternate usage see Exodus 25:5 and Ezekiel 16:10).

Note: The morphology of the leatherskin's "legs" seems to differ from the dugong's flippers in that the foremost claws (at least) are attached to jointed "arms" that permit them to be extended in front of the animal to some degree. This is clear because Horn's first view of the creature was its claws "scrabbling" for the gunwale with its head not in sight. 

Looking behind me, I saw great, coarse claws, each as thick as the handle of our ax, scrabbling for a hold on the port gunwale and rowling its wood like so many gouges. A moment later the head appeared and shot toward me.
On Blues Waters, chapter 2 

Click here for a more elaborate explanation of the connection between the leatherskin, the manticore, and the dugong.

One other intriguing, but apparently unconnected fact is the Duyong Cave in the Philippines ("duyong" is the Malaysian word for "dugong"). This is the site of a grave in which was found earliest direct archeological evidence of the use of a narcotic by humans, which is...betel.
 

Cetus

The constellation Cetus (The Whale) is positioned adjacent to Aries and Taurus. I explain why Horn is to be found in Taurus, in Wolfe and Orion. See Horn for where Horn is to be found in Taurus.


Engraving from Stanislas Lubienieki's Theatrum cometicum. Cetus attempting to swallow Taurus.
Notice that Lubienieki has plotted a harpoon-straight comet's course into mouth of Cetus.

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