Sunday 26 June 2016

The Broken Sword, Chapter II

Imric the elf-earl:

must stoop inside a human hovel;
has slanted eyes, blue without whites or discernible pupils;
is ever youthful;
has broad forehead, high cheekbones, narrow jaw, straight nose, long pointed ears, wide shoulders and fine silver-gold hair;
wears a horned helmet, a ringed byrnie and a great red cloak.

A century long war between elves and trolls should be the subject of a fantasy trilogy, I think. But this is how it is passed over in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword: the human witch comments that the elves have not gone forth among men very often in recent lifetimes. Imric replies:

"'...we have been too busy in our war with the trolls...I am curious to find out what has happened in the last hundred years.'" (The Broken Sword, p. 19)

There is an elf-troll truce. How long will it last? The witch replies that the Danes have come but Imric points out that before them were the:

Angles
Saxons
Picts
Scots
Romans
Brythons
Goidels
others -

- and the Danes will not be the last. He has "'...watched it almost since the land was made...'" and "'...it helps pass the time.'" (p. 20)

Imric describes our England. Does he already know about the Normans and later waves of immigrants? See here.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

More simply, perhaps, due to his wide knowledge of human history, Imric expects England and other nations to be invaded or conquered by other peoples as millennia passes. He would not be surprised by what we are seeing now, with so many Muslims lately pouring into Europe and the UK the past few years. The EU's disastrous weakness about immigration or so called "refugees" is dangerously increasing the likelihood of enclaves inhabited by people hostile to the values of Christianity and the West taking root. The Paris and Orlando massacres and the anger in the UK about unrestricted immigration bears me out.

Of course I know there were other reasons why so many Britons voted to leave the EU: resentment over the loss of sovereignty for their country and anger over the arbitrary edicts of the sclerotic EU bureaucracy in Brussels.

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
The flooding of Ys connects with discussion of current sea levels and Imric's list of invaders of Britain connects with discussion of current immigration.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Exactly! With me taking the more skeptical view of alleged global warming and pointing out the dangers and risks of uncontrolled "immigration" (which, as last year's events showed, looks more like an INVASION). ISIS, after all, has openly declared it planted thousands of agents and sympathizers among those "refugees." And the US Federal Bureau of Investigation stated ALL 50 US states now have cases of possible Muslim terrorism being investigated. We live in bad times, alas!

Sean