I want to say a bit more about that Zemblan variation of the Elder Edda (C. 79), or rather about its purported translator. Kinbote says (with a question mark) that the translator is Kirby. Someone on the list a long while back noted that this is probably a reference to W.F. Kirby, who translated the Kalevala in the late nineteenth century. But of course Kirby was primarily known as a lepidopterist.  See here, for example:

 

 

I noticed today that among the Pseudolucia Nabokov (many of the more recent of which were assigned Nabokovian names) listed here

 

 

we find Pseudolucia sibylla (Kirby, 1871).

 

So...is this convergence of Nabokov, Kirby, and sibylla (think Sybil) in both the natural world and in PF just a happy accident?

 

Matt Roth