Thursday 15 October 2015

Words And Seasons

Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003).

sedges (p. 12);
stockfish (p. 12);
steading (p. 12);
crock (p. 12);
to handsel (p. 13);
balefire (p. 13);
darkling (p. 13); (+ see here)
aurochs (p. 13);
wadmal (p. 14);
casting runes (p. 14);
spaewives (p. 14);
Saami (p. 14);
the norns (p. 16);
swiving (p. 16);
hoarfrost (p. 16).

Book One, Chapter IV, begins with another seasonal change:

"Summer waned; days shortened; the first sallowness stole over birch leaves; often at sunrise hoarfrost glimmered on the ground. Fields lay harvested..." (p. 16)

As in previous works, Anderson presents lives lived directly with nature and its seasons. Thus, many chapters begin:

"Spring had come..." (p. 5);
"Summer waned..." (p. 16);
"The sun swung onward..." (p. 42);
"Endlessly wheeling through summer, the sun cast light..." (p. 51);
"Winter pressed inward..." (p. 59);
"Spring came slowly..." (p. 63);
"Sunlight from the east seeped through overcast..." (p. 65).

Fast-forwarding between chapters reproduces the experience of Wells' Time Traveler or Anderson's Jack Havig. Both see the sun speed across the sky.

1 comment:

Jim Baerg said...

'balefire'
See the 'baleflower' in "The Night Face"