Yet More Details

Slowly rereading a Poul Anderson novel in order to blog about it is an excellent opportunity to appreciate Anderson's attention to detail even more closely than usual. For instance, in The Day Of Their Return, we read that, on the dry planet, Aeneas, the Hedin Freehold is able to engage not only in ranching but also in agriculture because:

the Wildfoss river flows close enough to maintain a water table with a few wells;

wind-driven moisture from the canals, marshes and salt lakes of the Antonine Seabed brings rain two or three times a year.

Whitewashed rammed earth buildings decorated with stone or glass mosaics comprise manse, cottages, barns and workshops around a paved courtyard. Windbreak trees are:

native delphi and rahab;
Terrestrial oak and acacia;
Llynathawrian rasmin;
Ythrian hammerbranch.

The casual reference to Ythri is evocative for regular Anderson readers.

All flowers have had to be imported because Aenean plants never evolved blossoms, their closest approach being a few bright leaves or stalks. When it comes to describing the life and activity of the steading, Anderson presents one of his description-lists, including kinds of people, animals, vehicles, sounds and smells. The animals include stathas. It is explained in a later passage that these green, six-legged, domesticated animals were imported to Aeneas - as, in the previous installment of the Technic Civilization History, to Freehold - from elsewhere just as horses were imported from Earth.

I must have read all of these details before because I have read through the entire novel at least twice but over a long period. Details about the Hedin Freehold were not remembered but are worth recovering.