The Ontological Status Of Ys

Like Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix, the inn between the worlds, Poul and Karen Anderson's city of Ys seems to have an uncertain ontological status. When Gratillonius, who will become the last King of Ys, first sees the city, he cannot believe that it is inhabited by human beings rather than by elves or Gods.

Later, when he has been its King for sixteen years:

"Ys gleamed, somehow not quite real - too lovely?" (Dahut (London, 1989), p. 183)

"...not quite real..." Impossibly beautiful?

This uncertainty of the relationship between Ys and reality increases when the city is destroyed and its existence is past:

"Ys was gone.
"Had Ys ever been?" (pp. 466-467)

To us, Ys is a legend and the setting of a work of fiction. To Gratillonius, it has become not only a memory but also one that he can already question and doubt. Does this approach qualify the text as "metafiction," a fictional text acknowledging its fictional status? Whether or not this term is applicable, the Andersons construct a smooth transition from a narrative about the last King of Ys to one set in the history that we recognize where a myth like Ys of the hundred towers is too good to be true.