Summer Wanes, Wind Screams

The Broken Sword, XXV.

Pathetic fallacy highway:

"...the summer was waning at last. But so was Trollheim." (p. 183)

Valgard is drunk and despondent:

"Would the rain never end? He shuddered at the wet breath through the window. Lightning glared blue-white and his bones shook to the thunder." (ibid.)

When he enters his bedroom:

"Lightning blazed anew. Thunder sent quiverings through the floor. Wind screamed and dashed rain against glass. Tapestries fluttered and candles flickered in a cold draught." (ibid.)

We read it and want to see it on screen.

When Valgard screams that he is "'...but the shadow of Skafloc...'":

"Lightning leaped and flamed, hellfire loose in heaven. Thunder banged. Wind hooted. The rain flung itself down rivering panes. A gust within the walls blew out the candles." (p. 184)

There is an exact parallel between inner and outer turmoil.

Before even hearing their message, Valgard has killed one of the messengers that had come to tell him that the elves have landed in England and that the Sidhe from Ireland are in Scotland. Only two of a band of fifteen messengers had survived attacks by elven outlaws.

Chapter XXVI begins:

"Under cover of an autumn storm, Skafloc led the best of the elf warriors across the channel." (p. 185)

The storm both reflects Valgard's inner conflicts and works against him.

Earlier in Chapter XXV, we were told how Skafloc appears to his enemies:

"A demon on a giant horse, with a sword and a heart from hell, led the elves to victory over twice their number." (p. 180)

It can be amusing to hear how we are seen by others. In Lancaster, someone said, "One of the big leftists in town was there...," then added, "Eugene, I think he's called." Yes, I know Eugene!

Summer Past; Red And Gold

The Broken Sword.

Two more passages in Chapter XXIV:

"...the memory of Skafloc was becoming a summer that was past, recalled in a new year." (p. 179)

The narrative has combined the passage of the seasons with the feelings of the characters. Now, a past season becomes an analogy for a changed feeling. Both the text and the analogy continue:

"He warmed her heart without searing it, and her longing for him was like a still tarn whereon sun-glints had begun to dance." (ibid.)

A longing that has become still and is like dancing light - has ceased to be a longing.

Over the page:

"There came an evening when they two stood on the shore, the waters murmurous at their feet and the sunset red and gold behind them." (p. 180)

They two are Freda and her new suitor, Audun. He proposes and she accepts. But an elemental, non-human viewpoint would focus on summers and sunsets and not on human relationships!

Winter And Spring

See:

Weather And Seasons

Winter

The Structure Of Star Of The Sea

Poul Anderson's works set in historical or prehistorical periods often describe seasonal changes particularly at the beginning of a chapter or of some other discrete narrative passage.

In The Broken Sword, XXIV:

"Winter bled away under the joyous weapons of spring." (p. 176)

"As the weeks passed into months, [Freda] felt the same stirring within her that brought back the birds and called forth buds like clenched baby fists." (p. 177)

"Winter went in rain and pealing thunder. The first soft green spread over trees and meadows. The birds came home." (p. 178)

"[Freda] stood in twilight with the blossoms of an apple tree overhead, drifting down on her at each mild breeze. The winter was gone. Skafloc lived in the springtime, in cloud and shadow, dawn and sunset and high-riding moon, he spoke through the wind and laughed through the rain. There would be winter, and winter again, in the great unending ring-dance of the sun. But she bore the summer beneath her heart, and every summer to come." (ibid.)

"The days lengthened and earth burst into its fullness. Warm winds, shouting rains, birdsong and deer and fish silvery in the rivers, flowers and light nights - More and more Freda felt her baby stirring." (p. 179)

Chapter XXV begins:

"In late summer the northland weather turned rainy. For days and nights on end, wind scourged the elf-hills and veiled them in lightning-blinking grey." (p. 180)

The Earth His Work

The Broken Sword, XXIV.

Freda reflects - and this can also be our evening reflection -:

"Dreary was a church after the woodlands and hills and sounding sea. She still loved God - and was not the earth His work, and a church only man's?" (p. 177)

I essentially agree. Earth, sky and sea are our place of worship. But "God" is anthropomorphic - a person literally making everything? The reality that appears to itself as woodlands, hills and sea is THAT, not He. Or so I now think. However, no one's creed is identical with the whole truth.

A Magic Sword

The Broken Sword, XXIII.

John Carter, the self-proclaimed best swordsman of two worlds, could defeat any number of sword-wielding antagonists. He thought that he and his friend, Tars Tarkas, would have been able to fight their way across Mars killing all before them.

Some fantasy heroes are not only blessed with fighting skills but also cursed with magical swords. (I do not honestly know how many magical swords are cursed but Skafolc's is.) Shortly after he has attacked and killed six trolls, Skafolc is stalked by two more. He hews through the shield, shoulder and heart of the first and the second spits himself on the upraised sword which simultaneously gives Skafloc an "...unearthly strength..." (p. 169) enabling him to withstand the impact.

Again, two perceptions of reality: snow-devils whirl on a mountain and trolls storm an elvish fortress. Skafloc's horse leaps a ravine and gallops through the troll camp as Skafloc burns the tents. He kills three besieging trolls while his horse tramples three. He mows trolls down. They cannot touch his iron. He severs a head, opens a belly and cleaves through a helmet, skull and brain. His horse mortally kicks and bites most of the infantry.

Metal clangs and screeches. Blood steams. Snow is trampled. Corpses wallow. Trolls panic and scramble between burning tents and castle wall, recognizing a Jotun horse and a haunted sword. Skafloc rides back and forth. His mail gleams. Trolls think that he is Odin, Thor, Loki, a possessed man, Death...

Elves sally. The Erlking leads. Swords and axes rise and fall. Metal is shattered. Spears and arrows cloud the sky. Horses trample. Warriors die. Illrede leads a wedge to split the elves. Skafloc charges. Man and troll-king fight. Illrede's axe splits Skafloc's shield and dents his helmet but:

"...the uncanny strength lent by the sword kept Skafloc from swooning." (p. 173)

Axe bursts on sword. Skafloc kills Illrede.

There are nuances but this is a summary.

Before their fight, Illrede says that it was a wicked deed to bring back that sword:

"'Whatever his nature, which the Norns and not himself gave, no troll would do such a thing." (pp. 172-173)

I agree with Illrede that fate or destiny made us what we are. Although I meditate, I do not buy into the idea of previous lives. But we are responsible now for cleansing our karma. 

A Brief Andersonian Fight Scene

The Broken Sword, XXIII.

Now armed with the re-forged sword, Skafloc meets six trolls:

(i) he cleaves a helmet and skull;

(ii) he beheads another;

(iii) he cuts through an axe and a chest;

(iv) he splits one from shoulder to waist;

(v) his jotun horse rears and crunches a skull;

(vi) he throws his sword through the one that flees.

I said it was brief.

Description, then action.

A Detailed Descriptive Passage

The Broken Sword, XXIII.

When Skafloc, returned from Jotunheim, rides to the Erlking:

his horse is gaunt and hungry;

his clothes are ragged and faded;

his armour is battered and rusty;

his cloak is worn thin;

his weight is down;

great muscles lie under tight skin over big bones;

his face is lined and aged;

his fair hair is wind-tossed.

"So might Loki look, riding to Vigrid plain on the last evening of the world." (p. 167)

I think that that is an authentic touch. In the Sagas, a comparison would be made with a mythic story.

Next comes a description of nature:

air is chill;

wind is strong;

spring wind frolicks and shouts;

sky is high and blue;

sun strikes through clouds;

wet grass gleams and sparkles;

thunder rolls;

the southeast is dark;

a rainbow shines;

geese honk;

a thrush sings;

squirrels play;

warm days, light nights, green woods and nodding flowers approach;

Skafloc remembers Freda.

Don't read past. Reread.

The Power And The Inn

I am searching for blog references to the power unknown that granted the charter for the Old Phoenix, e.g.:

Powers Unknown 

The Taverners' Charter And Sagittarius 

Moving Between The Universes

After Or Between

The Time Patrol And The Old Phoenix

"Anomalous Variations In Reality"

That seems to be all.

In A Midsummer Tempest, xii, Valeria Matuchek tells Prince Rupert that the Old Phoenix is in "'...a pocket universe...'" (scroll down)

A "power unknown" controlling a pocket universe in a multiverse that contains not only high tech civilizations but also gods... Whatever the source and purpose of this power, it seems clear that the inn can be kept supplied with food and drink without the Taverners needing to collect coinage from diverse periods from their customers.

See the question in the combox for Telling The Tales.

Ragnarok

The Broken Sword, XXII.

Skafloc and Mananaan take the broken sword to Bolverk, the giant who had made it and who alone can mend it. Skafloc speaks a verse that makes Bolverk think that Loki needs the sword soon for Ragnarok! Of course the giant works hastily to make the sword ready. He also does something that I think is a feature of the Eddas and Sagas. While working, he summarizes an account of the Ragnarok:

"'So it is the end,' he whispered. 'Now comes the last evening of the world, when gods and giants lay waste creation as they slay each other, when Surt scatters flame which leaps to the cracking walls of heaven, the sun blackens, earth sinks undersea, the stars fall down. It ends - my thralldom, blind beneath the mountain, ends in a blaze of fire! Aye, well will I forge the sword, mortal!'" (pp. 163-164)

Although this account is not complete, it does incorporate several elements of familiar end of the world scenarios:

last evening

last battle

flame reaching to heaven

sun, earth and moon ending

How does this specifically Eddaic apocalypse fit into the mixed mythology of The Broken Sword? This question becomes even more acute in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Season Of Mists where Lucifer Morningstar has, at least temporarily, expelled all the demons and damned from Hell and Odin hopes to acquire this now empty infernal realm so that his pantheon can shelter from the Ragnarok there!

Poul Anderson, unlike James Blish, was not focused on any imminent end of the world scenario. The universe will end eventually and that ending is reached by time travel in one work and by time dilation in another but the ending does not come to us here and now whereas Blish has:

a cosmic collision in Cities In Flight, Volume IV;

Armageddon in After Such Knowledge, Volume II;

ecological collapse of Earth in "We All Die Naked."

Telling The Tales

 

Unfortunately, the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, appears only in:

"House Rule"

"Losers' Night"

A Midsummer Tempest, xi, xii and Epilogue.

xii concludes:

"Valeria and Rupert settled themselves for conversation. The landlord listened." (p. 106)

I would resent being listened to but that is part of the deal. The landlord listens and learns instead of charging for food, drink and accommodation!

In the Epilogue, a larger number of guests exchange stories. Impatient to hear from others, Valeria Matuchek concludes her tale, and thus also the novel, abruptly:

"'Enough. I hope you've enjoyed my story.'" (p. 229)

Mister Gaheris: "There.

"That's my tale told. Who's next?"

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), p. 41, panels 5-6.

Valeria surprises us by saying that she had spent some time in the Shakespearean timeline:

"'...learning how things worked out.'" (p. 228)

After conversing with Rupert, she had consulted history books elsewhere, then travelled "'...through that universe...'" (ibid.) before returning to the Old Phoenix. So she has control over her inter-universal travel unlike Holger, whom she tries to help.

Inter-universal inns are more crowded at some times than at others:

Chiron the centaur: "I have never seen the inn so full."

-Worlds' End, p. 141, panel 5.

"There were many gathered this evening, to sit before the innkeeper's fire, enjoy his food and drink and regale him with their tales."

-Epilogue, p. 228.

"About a score of people were present..."

-Poul Anderson, "Losers' Night" IN Anderson, All One Universe (New York, May 1997), pp. 105-123 AT p. 108.