Many Winds

 

The Broken Sword, IX.

When Asgerd, Aelfrida's daughter, agrees with her betrothed that the garth is hollow with its men gone:

"A cold sea-wind, blowing fine dry snowflakes, ruffled her heavy locks." (p. 59)

Then:

"As night fell, a strong wind came with snow on its wings, to howl around the hall. Hail followed, like night-gangers thumping their heels on the roof." (ibid.)

Almost immediately, Valgard and his Vikings arrive, kill men, burn the hall, abduct the sisters, Asgerd and Freda, and depart by sea:

"...rowing against a wind which blew icy waves inboard." (p. 61)

But Valgard, following the witch's instructions, unties a sack that releases a favourable wind. Back at Orm's garth, among the women and children left behind, Aelfrida sits:

"...with hair and dress blowing wild..." (ibid.)

A gale drives the ships and wind whoots in the rigging. The cliffs of Finnmark bear "...wind-twisted trees." (p. 62) The wind blows the ships into a fjord where the waiting trolls, visible only to Valgard's with-sight, wear little or nothing:

"...however freezing the wind." (p. 63)

As already agreed with Valgard, the trolls attack and kill his men who cannot see them.

I have skipped past some details like the disgusting appearance of the trolls. However, for the most part, focusing on the winds has given us a good summary of the action.

Valgard gives Asgerd and Freda to Troll-King Illrede. 

It is my time of night for other reading. But I think that we have done justice to Poul Anderson's winds.

What The Priest Says

The Broken Sword, IX.

Looking at the dead bodies of her husband and sons, Aelfrida whispers:

"'The priest says it would be a sin, or I would slay myself now and go to my rest beside you...'" (p. 58)

I agree with the priest although not for his reasons! By remaining alive, Aelfrida can later appreciate life although differently from before and even though this seems impossible to her at the time. More fundamentally, we are the organisms through which reality is known/knows itself. As such, our role is to remain conscious as long as possible, not to give up when times are bad.

The most fundamental question of philosophy is the relationship between being and consciousness and the most fundamental question of life is: "To be or not to be," - in Shakespeare and also here.

Two Winds

The Broken Sword, VIII.

When Valgard sees the witch not as a beautiful woman but as the hag that she really is, he burns her hovel. Then:

"...there were only the leaping flames and the piping wind and the snow hissing as it blew into the fire." (p. 55)

The wind, with its appropriate sound effects, punctuates the main action scenes and plot turning points.

When Valgard announces that his fleet will raid Finnmark, one of his captains suggests instead:

"'...England, Scotland, Ireland, Orkney, or Valland south of the channel...'" (p. 56)

- but Valgard's axe settles the matter.

(Hugh Valland is a character in an sf novel by Poul Anderson.)

For a winter voyage to Finnmark, Valgard can:

"'...snuff a good wind coming.'" (p. 57)

But first he will plunder Orm's garth where he had grown up as Orm's son. The changeling's:

"'...league with the lands of darkness...'" (p. 55)

- seems to be complete.

Every chapter advances the action.

Long And Cold, Blown On The Wind

The Broken Sword, VIII.

The witch asks her familiar, a rat:

"'...how went the journey?'" (p. 50)

He replies:

"'Long and cold... in bat shape, blown on the wind, I fared to Elfheugh...'" (ibid.)

That is as much as I plan to quote this evening but it suffices.

First, we notice that the wind takes a reasonably active role in the proceedings. By now we expect it to.

Secondly, the familiar's first three words sound familiar. I have read very little of Rudyard Kipling but have always been impressed by the following verse:

What of the hunting, hunter bold?

   Brother, the watch was long and cold.

What of the quarry ye went to kill?

  Brother, he crops in the jungle still.

Where is the power that made your pride?

 Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.

Where is the haste that ye hurry by?

 Brother, I go to my lair to die!

-copied from here.

In a Poul Anderson text, there is always something to post about. Until some time tomorrow.

Wind-Driven Sleet And Stars

The Broken Sword, VII.

See Bluster, Chill, Whine.

When Valgard, who, of course, is a changeling, not really Ketil's brother, approaches the house where he will kill Ketil:

"A thin wind-driven sleet stung his cheeks." (p. 44)

The wind becomes fiercer as the action intensifies.

Ketil's younger brother, Asmund, finds Ketil's body under a cairn:

"'...with naught but wind and the stars for company.'" (p. 48)

- and with Valgard's axe in its head.

Asmund returns to the hall with the body, thus provoking a fight in which Valgard kills Orm, Asmund and several others and escapes into the woods.

The witch's vengeance seems to be complete but what happens next? I do not remember despite several previous readings (!) and, as frequently happens, I have to go out before possibly reading and posting more later this evening.

Life is good, especially with Poul Anderson in it.

Bluster, Chill, Whine

The Broken Sword, VII.

"On a blustery fall day, with the smell of rain in the keen air and leaves turned to gold and copper and bronze, Ketil and a few comrades rode forth to hunt." (p. 42)

They feel bluster and keenness, smell rain and see colours: three senses.

After chasing a huge noble white stag, Ketil is separated from his companions and:

"A thin chill wind whimpered through dusk." (ibid.)

Later, when Valgard seeks his now lost brother, Ketil:

"Wind whirled dead leaves through the air like ghosts hurrying down hell-road, and its whine gnawed at Valgard's nerves." (p. 44)

Wind blusters when the hunt is good, whimpers when Ketil is separated and whines when Valgard follows him. Poul Anderson's winds always follow his narratives. Will these autumnal Northern winds whirl two brothers down hell-road? Maybe but not tonight. I am going back to Stieg Larsson, then to bed.

Good night if you are in a part of the world where it is dark right now...

Truth

The Broken Sword, VI.

Odin disguised as Satan tells the witch:

"'...that truth is a thing which bears as many shapes as there are minds which strive to see it.'" (p. 39)

Not exactly. Something that was completely different for everyone would not be truth. It would be entirely subjective with no objectivity.

Science has become our way to discern some measure of empirical objectivity although it cannot tell us everything. When a man is diagnosed with cancer, that is his objective medical condition but it does not tell us everything about him. Two men with the same diagnosis can be in very different mental/psychological/spiritual states. 

When I was at University, a religious dogmatist proclaimed, "Truth is one. Error is manifold!" I replied, "Truth is one. Its expressions are manifold!" Those propositions are a classical Hegelian thesis and antithesis. We approach truth through syntheses. And at most we know only partial truths. "Truth is one" has a very different significance depending on who says it.

Mythological Metaphysics

The Broken Sword, V.

Imric's fleet raids a troll town:

"Though war was still not declared, such forays and tests of strength were growing common on either side." (p. 36)

Does that sound familiar to us now? There are powers that do not want to break a ceasefire but cannot make peace either. War and life become synonymous. 

This novel has a complex metaphysics. How do beings from all the mythologies coexist with each other and with the new god Whom elves etc cannot name? Alfheim is not just one of the Nine Worlds in the Tree but is also coterminous with the human world, Midgard.

Imric's elves defeat:

"...a group of exiled gods, grown thin and shrunken and mad in their loneliness but wielding fearsome powers even so." (pp. 36-37)

Who are these gods, neither Aesir nor Olympians? Maybe they are some that we have never heard of.

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman remains the most appropriate parallel text for Poul Anderson's fantasies that I know of. All gods exist as long as they are believed in. They begin and end in the Dreaming and linger in a Dream Country after their worship ceases.

Meanwhile, Escape...

In Poul Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness," natives of an extra-solar planet entice children of human colonists into the wilderness where they create an illusory fairyland. Although these telepathic natives masquerade as Terrestrial "fairies," they are completely unlike them when seen as they really are. 

However, two other works by Anderson present more satisfying escapes from mundanity. 

Skafloc tells the Erlking:

"'I am wholly thankful to Imric that he rescued me from the dullblind round of mortal life. I am elf in all but blood, it was elf breasts I suckled as a babe and elf tongue I speak and elf girls I sleep beside.'"

-The Broken Sword, V, p. 35.

And, returning to an sf context, Diana Crowfeather runs away in:

Meanwhile Tigeries...

Many readers would gladly accompany Skafloc or Diana.

Some Elvish Dialogue

The Broken Sword, V.

"'...Imric, earl of Britain's elves...'" (p. 34)

- addresses the Erlking:

"'Were it not that men must never be sure their children are stolen, so that they would call their gods to avenge them, elves would make no changelings.'" (p. 35)

I am having trouble understanding this sentence. Imric means that, if men ever did know for sure that elves had replaced human children with changelings, then the men would call on their gods to avenge the loss of those children and, if that were to happen, then elves never would make changelings to exchange with human children. Elves make changelings only for this purpose and would not make them otherwise because of their:

"'...wild and evil nature...'" (ibid.)

Seeking illumination in the original text of the novel, we are even more confused because there we read:

"'Were it not that men must never be sore their children are stolen, so that they would call their gods to avenge it, elves would make no changelings at all.'"

-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1988), 5, p. 27.

I have very carefully reread this sentence in both editions in order to make sure that there are no copying errors on my part.

We learn some of what human beings can do that other intelligent species cannot:

use every metal;

touch holy water;

walk on holy ground;

speak the new god's name.

The Erlking points out that, if Skafloc turns to the new god, then the elves will lose him. In the original text, the Erlking had spoken not of Skafloc turning to the new god but of him turning Christian but presumably this part of the dialogue was changed because it involved the Erlking speaking the new god's name even though not as a noun but as the first syllable of an adjective.