Sunday 22 July 2018

Vikings And Nerthus

Today, we attended an annual Viking Festival with two ships, a tent village, costumes, handicrafts, a battle and a talk on Viking funerals which included a reference to the unrestful dead as in Poul Anderson's "The Tale of Hauk."

Back to the Psychotechnic History -

Nerthusian grass is green but does not smell like Terrestrial grass. We have seen that many other Andersonian planets have alternatives to grass.

"The Acolytes" is yet another juvenile story and has definite parallels to Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness."

Surprisingly, "The Green Thumb" is a continuation of "The Acolytes." An alien has learned Terran "...by psychophonic means..." (p. 22) Having read later installments of this future history, I know that the alien is not what he seems. Now I must read the rest of this story.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And in THE BROKEN SWORD, see Skafloc Elven-fosterling disturbing and troubling the dead men buried in Orm's mound. And finding out that Orm and his sons was Skafloc's father and brothers!

So, even as early as "The Acolytes" and "The Green Thumb," we see Anderson giving careful to what would be likely to be found on terrestroid planets. That is, such planet would have their own analogs to our grass.

Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And were any of the participants at the Viking Festival members of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Poul Anderson was a founding member of that group (and his "real" name was Sir Bela of Eastmarch). And you know how important the SCA was in the PPA created by S.M. Stirling in his Emberverse series.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
I don't know but I don't think we have the SCA in the UK.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I checked, and the UK does have SCA members and chapters (or "baronies"). So British SCA members could have helped in rebuilding Britain in Stirling's Emberverse.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
And could have been at our local festival this past weekend.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would not be surprised if some SCA members WERE at the recent Viking Festival.

Sean