There was a time when two terminologies became interchangeable.Thus:
"'Odin - Christ gives victory as he chooses.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Four, Chapter XXIV, p. 276.
A recently converted Christian must remember to use the right divine name.
"'The gods, uh, the saints know I'm no soothsayer...'"
-Chapter XXVI, p. 382.
A monotheism that allows invocation of saints is transitional between polytheism and the purer, uncompromising, monotheism of the prophets, Protestants or Muslims. In Anderson's The Last Viking, a character who misses Thor accepts St Olaf as his replacement.
"...a breath from out of this world - elven or hellish or whatever it was -..." (p. 382)
Whatever it was... I prefer "elven" to "hellish." Before retiring for the night, let me leave blog readers with this question: why has the noun, "elf," generated two adjectives, "elven" and "elfin," and what are the differing connotations of these two adjectives?
And, of course, how did Poul Anderson generate texts that address so many issues?
4 comments:
Paul:
I believe I read somewhere that the word "elven" DIDN'T EXIST AT ALL in English until J.R.R. Tolkien derived it (from the old linguistic roots) in preference to the twee connotations that the last few centuries of bowdlerization had given to "elfin" -- the tiny folk, often butterfly-winged and all but interchangeable with fairies, that Puck derides in the first chapter of *Puck of Pook's Hill*. I can't at the moment find anything to confirm or deny that Tolkien WAS the party responsible for the new word.
I just now, however, consulted two dictionaries of the English language, a 1972 Funk & Wagnalls and a 1993 Merriam-Webster, and neither of them includes "elven" in any way, shape, or form. "Elfin" and "elfish," yes; "elven," no.
Kaor, Paul!
I have to strongly disagree with this comment of yours: "A monotheism that allows invocation of the saints is transitional between polytheism and the purer, uncompromising monotheism of the prophets, Protestants or Muslims." The veneration and honor shown to the saints by Catholics or Orthodox is NOT in any sense idolatry. We do not consider the saints to be in any sense "gods." Any "power" that they have comes only from God, by delegation.
Sean
David,
Yes, "elfin" is twee. Thanks for info re Tolkien.
Sean,
Saints are not gods but might be a transitional stage between gods and only one God?
Paul.
Gentlemen:
I'm addressing this note to both David and Paul.
David: JRR Tolkien was, in my view, largely responsible for "elfin" being challenged by "elven." I'll quote part of his letter to his son Christopher of August 4, 1953 (Letter 138 from THE LETTERS OF JRR TOLKIEN, page 169 of the Houghton Mifflin edition of 2000): "...except that the impertinent compositors have taken it upon themselves to correct, as they suppose, my spelling and grammar: altering throughout DWARVES to DWARFS, ELVISH to ELFISH, FURTHER to FARTHER; and worse of all, ELVEN-- to ELFIN."
I used upper case instead of italics because of not being able to used italics.
Paul: No, the saints, for Catholics and Orthodox, are not in the least "transitional" between many gods and the One God. They too are servants and creatures of God. What is a saint, strictly speaking? Simply a soul in glory with God "in" Heaven. We on Earth can pray to them for their intercession with God. And "pray" does not mean "worship," it means to earnestly beseech or entreat somebody. And this can be easily demonstrated by remembering how lawyers in both the US and UK often say things like this in courts: "I PRAY the court to grant this petition," etc.
Sean
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