William And Conan

At last, in Poul Anderson's The Sign Of The Raven (New York, 1980), we meet Duke William of Normandy, of whom it is said:

" 'When banditry becomes as vast as his, men name it conquest.' " (p. 129)

William will soon be known, of course, as William the Conqueror.

 What is surprising at least to me is that he fights a local war against a Count Conan of Brittany. I had not realised that there was a real life Conan, let alone one so historically recent. Anderson wrote Conan The Rebel about Robert E Howard's prehistoric character and Brittany is Armorica of which Poul and Karen Anderson's character Grallon became Duke after losing his Kingship when the city of Ys was inundated (non rex sed dux, not king but duke). Yet more interconnections.