An Anomalous Apostrophe

The Broken Sword, XV.

Smiting Valgard during a sea battle, Skafloc shouts:

"'That for Freda!... I'll have you done to her.'" (p. 104)

What does that mean? There is a clue in Valgard's reply:

"'Not so ill as I think you have...'" (ibid.)

Ill? Yes. The original edition confirms:

"'That for Freda!' he shouted. 'Ill have you done to her.'

"'Not so ill as I think you have,' snarled Valgard..."

-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 2014), 15, p. 105.

It is helpful to be able to compare editions. I do not remember noticing that anomalous apostrophe on previous readings. For a summary of the entire sea battle, see:

Battle At Sea

The plot thickens.

Fictive References

Authors refer to other authors. Stieg Larsson's Mikael Blomkvist reads Val McDermid and sees The Lord Of The Rings for the first time. In the latter case, he reflects that orcs are simple creatures when compared to human beings. Of course, Tolkien's titles - and the films - are universally known so that every reader of Larsson immediately understands a reference to The Lord Of the Rings - as also to Mr Spock and Miss Marple. By implication, Blomkvist also has access to all other fictional works that are known to us - except, of course, for three novels by Stieg Larsson! (Addendum: And I should also have remembered to mention sequels by other authors but I don't read those.) Blomkvist could read not only JRR Tolkien's but also Poul Anderson's Norse-based fantasies and, in the latter, he would find creatures more complicated than orcs. The elves from Pictland have:

"...blood of troll and goblin and still older folk in them, as well as Pictish women stolen in long-gone days.'"

-The Broken Sword, XIV, p. 96.

Anderson imagines intricate details of his fictional world. And it suffices for Larsson's purposes to reference The Lord Of The Rings but not to mention any other fantasy writers that are known to us. They are all there but only implicitly.

Knowledge And Understanding

Are there things "that man was not meant to know"? Of course not. Not meant by whom for a start? Knowledge is good for its practical applications and, in my opinion, is a value in itself. We are better for knowing, since 1925, that our galaxy is not the entire universe. (I have met people who either disagree with me on that or do not even see the point of such a value judgment.) James Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy addresses the question whether secular knowledge is evil.

Sometimes an author reaches a limit of what he is able to explain or account for within a given text. Discussing time travel paradoxes, Manse Everard of the Time Patrol breaks off and says:

"'I hope you understand what I'm saying. I don't.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, July 1991), PART SIX, 18,244 B. C., II, p. 304.

His fellow agent, Komozino, helpfully adds:

"'It requires a metalanguage and metalogic accessible to few intellects...'" (ibid.)

- and besides:

"'We haven't time to quibble about theory.'" (ibid.)

So the text can move on to practical matters! (But one thing that they do have is time. Komozino might already have spent weeks, months or years of her lifespan on their current problem. Anderson's characters have come a long way from Wells' Time Traveller and his outer narrator wondering about curious possibilities of anachronism and of utter confusion.) 

When Valgard asks Illrede about the new god, the troll-king replies:

"'Best not speak of mysteries we cannot understand.'"

-The Broken Spear, XIII, p. 92.

Indeed, none of us can understand such a mixing of mythologies!

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Wake (New York, 1997):

"...there are some powers that no one, not even the Endless, seeks to inquire into deeply." (p. 17, panel 4)

Why not?

Fictional Species

The Broken Sword, XIV.

Of Poul Anderson's science fictional species, the Lunarians most closely resemble elves. However, other comparisons can also be made.

When preparing for war:

"Each province of Alfheim was readying itself alone; the elves were too haughty to work well in concert." (p. 95)

"'Overweening pride, bickering, haggling about details. We Ythrians - our dominant culture, at least - don't fit well into anything centralized.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT II, p. 456.

The trolls, about to attack Alfheim, conceal their preparations by screening their lands with magic. The Terrans, preparing to attack Ythri, conceal their preparations by assembling in interstellar space.

Finally, for now, trolls, like Merseians, use every period of peace to prepare for the next war while the Merseians also treat diplomacy as continuation of war by other means.

Sfnal and fantasy realms reflect reality.

While reading hard sf, it is impossible to conceive that realms ruled by magic instead of by physics might also exist. However, multiversal scenarios accommodate the coexistence of every imaginable kind of universe.

More Mixed Mythologies In Works By Three Authors

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Morpheus' raven, Matthew, visits (Norse) Swartalfheim - and indeed is involuntarily yanked away from there when ravens gather in the Dreaming because it is threatened by the (Greek) Furies. Swartalfheim, home of the dark elves or dwarves, and Alfheim, home of the light elves, are two of the Nine Worlds in the Ash Tree, Yggdrasil.

Alfheim (scroll down) is in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword. Yggdrasil is in Anderson's Operation Luna and in Mike Carey's Lucifer, the sequel to Gaiman's The Sandman. Carey also gives a big role to Fenris Wolf. Firespear's elf-hounds had:

"...blood of Gram and Fenris and the Wild Hunt's dogs in them."

-The Broken Sword, XII, p. 89.

In The Sandman: Season Of Mists, messages from the (Biblical) One God are relayed by an angel and the former appears as an elderly gentleman in modern garb in Lucifer. He exists but remains in the background in Anderson's The Broken Sword and Operation Chaos.

Firespear, Norns And Ravens

We, editorially speaking, are unwell and are entering this single post this evening without checking Comments or anything else online. Normal service will be resumed later. The rest of this evening will be devoted to rereading Stieg Larsson and maybe watching some TV news (while wondering which is the more fantastic).

Elf-earl Imric tells guardsman Firespear:

"'...if [the witch] yet lives, slay her out of hand.'

"'Aye, lord...'"

-The Broken Sword, XII, p. 86.

I found some gallows humour in this prompt acceptance of an order to slay someone out of hand. 

Firespear:

"...still a youth of two centuries..." (ibid.)

- was prepared to track the witch through foreign lands for twenty years but instead finds her nearby immediately, leaving:

"'...the rest of the night for better game.'" (p. 90)

Tyr tells Skafloc that:

"'The Norns spin many a thread to its end these days.'" (p. 84)

- and:

"'...ravens hover low...'" (ibid.)

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, the Three Who Are One manifest both as the Norns/Fates and as the Furies. The Fates spin Morpheus' thread to its end and the Furies attack his realm, the Dreaming. During their attack, ravens gather in the Dreaming, including Noah's raven and the ravens from the Tower of London (where their absence means that the kingdom will fall).

I hope that that summarizes enough interconnected fantastic fiction for this evening!

To paraphrase John Carter: We still live!

We Do It

The Broken Sword, XII.

The Dark Lord to the witch:

"'Did you think you ever summoned me and struck a bargain? No, you were led astray; that was another. Mortals never sell me their souls. They give them away.'" (p. 90)

The Sabbat Goat to the black magician:

"WE WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST. HE WAS NEVER NECESSARY. MEN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 423.

Lucifer Morningstar to Morpheus:

"They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why.

"I need no souls.

"And how can anyone own a soul?

"No. They belong to themselves...

"...They just hate to have to face up to it."

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Season Of Mists (New York, 1992), p. 82, panel3 5-6.

Well, that is clear enough. We do it.

Splendour And Presences

The Broken Sword, XII.

"The dim splendour of the castle which was also a barren tor, the sorceries adrift through its eternal warm twilight, the presences that haunted hills and woods and waters - oppressed [Freda] with strangeness." (p. 86)

See also:

The Twilight Of The Elves

More On The Elves

Here again, Poul Anderson's text expresses two levels of reality or perception. People saw tors and imagined or interpreted them as elven castles. They saw hills, woods and waters and sensed haunting presences. I do not expect to meet a ghost in a wood but I do expect to experience some of what our ancestors felt as twilight deepened in such places. We must follow the narrative and also feel its atmosphere.

"Go with G - !" Well, no. Freda cannot say that in Elfheugh. But the Faerie realms are fading or withdrawing...

Chill Wind And Slow Storm

The Broken Sword, XII.

Skafloc's wizard skis bear  "...him like the wind." (p. 83) He meets Tyr who:

"Despite a chill wind...wore only a wolfskin kilt..." (ibid.)

It is not good to meet the god of war "...alone at dusk..." (ibid.) so, of course, the wind at the time of this meeting is appropriately chill. 

"[Tyr's] voice was as of a slow storm through a brazen sky." (p. 84)

The earliest gods were personifications of natural forces. It would have been imagined that a storm was the voice of a god so, of course, this god's voice sounds like a storm. When society became more complicated so that social forces like wars overwhelmed individuals with the apparent inevitability of natural forces like hostile weather, then social forces also were personified. Thus: Thor, thunder; Tyr, war. Next, personified external forces were unified. Then they came to be understood and therefore no longer personified... However, because external forces remain uncontrollable, resort is still made to spells or prayers.

Poul Anderson's narrative returns us to those ages when a storm was a voice and when men told tales of gods and elves.

Cold Wind And Doom

The Broken Sword, XI.

Freda's home is burned and her family killed. She says:

"'Broken is the tree whose branches sheltered the land, and wind blows cold across fields gone barren -'" (p. 79)

Leea warns Skafloc against Freda:

"'There is doom in her; I can feel it, like chill in my marrow.'" (p. 80)

- but Leea does not know the reason. Freda is Skafolc's sister. 

I admit to not remembering what happens next despite several previous readings. Maybe the plot of The Broken Sword will stay with me longer this time.

I also admit to preferring Poul Anderson's fantasies to Tolkien's. Anderson deserves as much recognition.