Monday, 17 March 2014

The Realms Of Lynx And Flower Feather

(Image of a flower feather.)

Poul Anderson, The Corridors Of Time (London, 1968).

Malcolm Lockridge/Lynx's contributions are more than human:

he is responsible for the capture of the Ranger Director Brann by the Wardens and of the Warden Koriach Storm by his own people;

thus, he is indirectly responsible for the deaths of both Director and Koriach and also, we think, for the loss of momentum in the Warden-Ranger conflict;

in twenty five years, Auri/Flower Feather and he have nine children of whom eight survive and four of the five boys become old enough to fight;

he founds "...a powerful, progressive confederation in the southwest [of England], which had even started a little tin mining to draw merchants from the civilized lands..." (p. 122), had persuaded southern farmers to stop "...those grim rites which formerly made them shunned..." (p. 121) and will erect "...a great temple on Salisbury Plain, as the sign and seal of their confederation" (p. 213);

he will spend twenty or thirty years building "...the same kind of league in Denmark." (p. 221);

he and Auri might even influence "...America, where the Indians were to tell of a wise kindly god and of a goddess named Flower Feather." (p. 222)

Comments:

We always wondered what Stonehenge was for.

On p. 122, Lynx knows of the "powerful, progressive confederation." p. 213 summarizes how he built it.

On p. 122, leaving England, he thinks "...with a pang here was where he belonged." It is where he belongs. His older self is already there.

On p. 210, he thinks of what he is losing and gaining:

"...he surrendered his country and his people, his whole civilization - the Parthenon and the Golden Gate bridge, music, books, cuisine, medicine, the scientific vision, every good thing that four thousand years were to bring forth - to become, at most, a chieftain in the Stone Age. He would always be alone here.
"But that, he thought, would mark him out for awe and power. Knowing what he did, he could work mightily, not as conqueror but as uniter, teacher, healer, and lawgiver." (p. 210)

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