Back To Lord Of A Thousand Suns

"'...you'll find almost anything man has ever imagined out in the Galaxy,' I said."
-Poul Anderson, "Lord Of A Thousand Suns" IN Poul Anderson Planet Stories Ebook.

This opening sentence immediately establishes that the story is science fiction. I posted about "Lord..." here and here but have yet to finish reading it.

The first person narrator goes on to use his sf setting to present scientific rationales for some standard fantasy ideas. First, he elaborates his Galactic background. There are:

many millions of planets;
fantastically varied planetary environments;
diverse life forms adapted to those environments;
intelligences and civilizations emerging among those life forms.

These include:

fire-breathing dragons;
dwarfs fighting beings resembling goblins;
"witches," using telepathic psuedohypnosis;
no doubt some counterpart for every other tall story or fairy tale.

I would have appreciated more of a rationale for the fire-breathing dragon, though. (I have just read Tolkien's translation of Beowulf.)

The narrator's companion agrees, affirming that he once let a genie out of a bottle and, further, that it killed him. I was going to comment that the phrase, "...genie out of a bottle...," is used metaphorically. However, it is not far from the mark. Laird (Scots for "Lord") released a powerful intelligence that had lain dormant for ages so maybe it can be classified as a counterpart of a genie.