Where Did The Gods Go?

If Gods existed but stopped either communicating or responding, then our environment would have changed from Pagan polytheist to secular atheist unless meanwhile we had acknowledged a new God Whose power and influence had been increasing.

Whether the Gods have ceased to respond is an experimental question. The vestal Nemeta tries to invoke them but is unsure of the result:

"Something stirred in the forest, unless it was a trick of the wearily climbing moon." (Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), p. 46)

Gods used to manifest through forests and moonlight but maybe now there is only a forest and the moon?

Again, this time in a dream:

" 'I know not...Did I see Him, antlered and male, two snakes in his grasp? Were there thunders? I woke cold...' " (pp. 47-58)

Is this a vision of the God or has it now become just a dream with mythological content? And has the nymph fled or is she dead?

Meanwhile, something else is happening. The older, wiser vestal Runa warns Nemeta to be discrete with her invocations because the political balance of power has shifted in favour of the Christians. Here we see the beginning of the Dark Ages and the seeds of the Middle Ages, centuries of enforced uniformity and oppression from which the world has thankfully emerged. Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time shows the medieval church-state conflict ending indecisively, thus allowing freedom and science instead of either theocracy or autocracy.

Who destroyed Ys? Niall when he opened the sea gates. Lir when he let the sea pour in through the opened gates. Could Lir have held the sea back when the gates had been opened? No, but the Gods, including Lir, had marked Dahut as their next chosen Queen, knowing what must result. Rejected, as she saw it, by her father, Dahut would join forces with Niall whose own Gods had told him to seek the "Queen without a King."

The sign stops appearing on vestals when Ys has been destroyed. The Gods have at least withdrawn if not died.

Niall's morality is childish. He had intended no harm to Ys so Ysans should not have harmed him? He had intended to harm others in Armorica and Ys was part of the Armorican defence system. It is he who is responsible for the loss of his invasion fleet and his eldest son.