Monday 18 July 2016

Fourteenth Century Copenhagen

The Merman's Children.

We have read about Copenhagen in the twentieth century here. In the fourteenth century:

stately moats, walls and watchtowers guard the city;

thatched, wooden houses are jammed along narrow, crooked, dirty streets crowded with drably clad laborers;

jugglers and fiddlers wear flamboyant rags;

there are also beggars, foreign sailors, mounted knights, rich merchants, courtesans in litters, swine, poultry, dogs and children;

wagons force their way between pedestrians;

sounds are voices, feet, wheels and hammers;

smells are smoke, dung, offal and graveyards;

"Here was the womb of the future." (p. 143)

Indeed but - time travelers and sf readers - let's escape back to that future!

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Commenting on your last line: I would remind you that LARGE and many parts of OUR world are no better off or in even worse shape than the Copenhagen of circa AD 1300. The Danes of that time at least had the advantage, albeit unknowingly, of being part of a civilization which was starting to enter, to use a Hordian term, free growth and rapid advances in all fields of life. The primitive or wretchedly ruled parts of our world are being being governed by brigands tyrannizing over peasants. I have most of Africa and almost all Muslim nations in mind. And this is caused by ideas, beliefs, and customs which are retarding these peoples.

Sean