Tineran(t)s

A future history series develops more fully in one volume what it merely refers to in another. In The Rebel Worlds, while Hugh McCormac is leading a revolt against the Terran Empire, he spends time with his sons at their ancestral seat of Windhome on the planet Aeneas.

"A caravan of tinerants had established itself on the meadow in front [of Windhome]."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 425.

In this novel, the "tinerans," with an extra "t" at the end of the word, are a colorful detail, not mentioned again: trucks, striped tents, flags, booths, campfires, music, dances, "...tatterdemalion wanderers..." (ibid.), a carnival drawing customers from far afield despite the approaching Imperial fleet. Hugh McCormac cannot understand it. What is important to him is not important to others but that is people for you. Without such diversity, no complex civilization would be possible.

In the following volume, The Day Of Their Return, McCormac's nephew-in-law, Ivar Frederiksen, trying to revive the rebellion but on the run from the Imperials, hides among the "tinerans." We learn much more about them and they teach us a lot about life on Aeneas.