"So it was. So it is."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 469.
This first of the mythopoeic passages in "Star of the Sea" describes the betrothal of two of the Wanes, before the arrival of the Anses. Here, springs and autumns are part of the deal from the beginning. They do not result from a later rift as in the second of these passages. Here also, the two chief Wanes are Frae and Niaerdh, not Froh and Naerdha. Anderson shows myths and divine names changing by creating different stories.
The attached image is particularly appropriate since the rainbow is reflected on water. Niaerdh makes seals, whales, fish and gulls, sails on an iceberg, wears a fog and catches ships in a net.
At a family wedding, we were each invited to choose and read a passage. I considered this one but it would have needed too much explanation and some censorship.
The rainbow is:
the lapis lazuli necklace of a goddess in a pre-Genesis creation myth;
a sign in Genesis;
the bridge to Asgard;
a road to Oz;
the father of Polychrome, Daughter of the Rainbow, in an Oz book;
the path to a crock of gold -
- and Anderson makes it Niaerdh's path to Frae.
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