Sidir And The Wind

The Winter Of The World, XI.

Sidir thinks:

"They call the Rogaviki women witches.

"Beneath his Rahidian reason, an old barbarian stirred. He felt the wind's bite, shivered, and followed the factor inside." (p. 103)

Of course the Northern wind bites just as Sidir thinks of Northfolk witches! The wind sighs or roars on other occasions as appropriate. All of Poul Anderson's characters are "People of the Wind" although not in the same sense as the winged Ythrians.

Why do the Rahidian invaders and the Killimaraichan spy find it so difficult to understand the Rogaviki? Surely they are just another culture, after all? Well, no. The author is preparing his readers for the disclosure of a deeper differentia. At the end of "Starfog" in the Technic History, descendants of human exiles turn out to be no longer human... Anderson's narrative timespans encompass not only histories but also mutations and evolutions.