Inns In Ys

We learn at last that the "...disreputable old haunt in the Fish Tail..." is not the same place as the Green Whale which has also been mentioned (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 198). The text implies that the Green Whale is more expensive but the characters have prospered and can now afford it.

By contrast with the old haunt already described, the Green Whale is "...spacious, clean, sunny, muralled with fanciful nautical images." (p. 199) There are several tables. The resident courtesan has "...learning and conversational abilities..." as well as beauty and sexual skills. (p. 198)

Zeugit the landlord's clientele do more than swap songs and tales. " 'They talk of a new Age...' " (p. 199) Ys, brought out of its centuries-old isolation by King Gratillonius, is now a busy seaport visited by strangers from everywhere bringing new Gods, ways and ideas. The old faith is weakened. Some men seek Mithras whose legionaries want volunteers, not conscripts. Zeugit says, " '...change is in the air, you can smell it like the sharpness before a lightning storm.' " (p. 199)

The old unnamed inn in the Fish Tail slum, with its ancient, sea-damaged building, was like a haunt of the primordial Ysan sea god, Lir, whereas the Green Whale is frequented by young men eager for the New Age when glorious Ys might "'...succeed Rome as mistress of the world.'" (p. 199)

There has indeed been a New Age since then but it has not been what anyone then could have imagined. Across Ocean in the western continent discovered by Ysans is a seaport with towers, named after the Romano-British city of Eboracum - Novum Eboracum, New York.

A Scotian Mithraic initiate addressing Gratillonius, " 'Tis honoured I am, Father," is an ancestor of generations of Irish Catholics addressing their priests as "Father" although he could not have suspected that as we do not know what will come after us. (p. 167)