Friday 20 May 2016

Wind And Dahut

When Tommaltach walked inland from Ys:

"Gorse grew thickly at his feet, rustly beneath the wind that shrilled off the sea."
-Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut, Chapter XI, section 2, p. 240.

The sea is Lir's and the wind shrills from it. I have become over-sensitized to every textual reference to the wind. Then Tommaltach meets Dahut:

"It was as if they had the world to themselves, they and the wind and a pair of hawks wheeling high above." (p. 242)

OK. Lir's sea wind brought them together? Dahut begins to work on Tommaltach. All that she extracts from him on this occasion is his promise that he will escort her when she goes, masked, to the Hunter's Moon festival in Ys. I now understand the logic of Dahut's position:

the Gods have chosen her to be a Queen of Ys;

she can be Queen only if she consummates her marriage to the King;

but the present King refuses this;

however, any challenger who kills the King in single combat in the Sacred Wood becomes the King;

therefore, she must persuade a strong young man to challenge Gratillonius;

fortunately, from her point of view, it is easy for her to do this.

Neither Aristotle nor Spock of Vulcan would be able to fault this logic.

Addendum: Tommaltach did not merely meet Dahut. She ran "...hastily...through the wind..." (p. 241) to catch up with him.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree with the logic of Dahut's plotting. Plainly, she was selecting Tommaltach to be her instrument in challenging and killing Gratillonius.

Sean