Odin taught the wedge battle formation to men in Anderson's War Of The Gods. That was a book in which Odin was a real being. Here, we must regard him as a myth.
Here again, St Olaf does the next best thing. He cannot interact as a physical being but does appear to his son Magnus in a dream before a battle and offers a choice: follow me or become a great king but at the expense of committing a great sin. This is ominous since this second chapter of the novel is entitled How King Magnus Went To His Weird. Next day, Magnus spends a lot of time with a priest and I must finish rereading the chapter to learn how he meets his death.
Harald comments:
" 'Men get dreams and dreams and most of them mean naught.' " (p. 39)
Fortuitously, I have just reread Neil Gaiman's "August." There, no less an authority than Caesar Augustus, in whose reign the new God was born, informs us that:
"Many dreams come through the gates of ivory...and they lie. A few dreams come through the gates of horn, and they speak to us truly." (Neil Gaiman, Fables And Reflections, New York, p. 105)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And we should not forget how the first volume of THE LAST VIKING: THE GOLDEN HORN, also has a chapter similar to the one about King Magnus: "How Emperor Michael Went To His Weird." And theme of that chapter was analogous to the one about King Magnus in some ways. In 1041 Emperor Michael was a dying man even as he drove himself to suppress a rebellion. He was troubled in his conscience on the role he had played in the murder of his predecessor, Romanos III. The impression I got was that Michael thought himself guilty of being at least an accessory to Romanos' murder.
King Magnus was troubled and worried about possibly committting a great sin. Emperor Michael thought himself guilty of such a sin.
Sean
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