"'Angels or Aesir...I wonder if they don't wage their war, not in the sky, but in our souls.'"
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Five, Chapter X, p. 444.
They do.
Haakon Jarl replies:
"'It's useless for us on earth to ask, I'd say.'" (ibid.)
Not useless, but there is always more than we know. Wittgenstein said that the important questions are the ones we cannot answer.
(Did I mention my encounter - not a physical meeting - with Wittgenstein? I read his letters to a friend. In one, he wrote, "I am afraid that the Devil will come to take me away." I thought, "This is Wittgenstein. He does not mean that literally." The very next sentence was: "(I mean this quite literally.)")
Earlier, Gunnhild had reflected on Christ driving the gods out of country after country, like a military campaign. (pp. 438-439) They:
"...fought back, with weather and worshippers for weapons. They had brought him to a standstill." (p. 438)
That contrasts with her insight about the inner struggle.
Haakon tells her of:
"...Men who saw their own fetches, knew they were fey, and soon died." (p. 445)
I had not come across that meaning of "fey" before.
See also here.
Addendum, 12 Nov 2015: I did mention Wittgenstein. See here.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
What I can't help wondering is this: did the HISTORICAL Haakon Jarl and Queen Gunnhild think and speak like this? Unlike Wittgenstein, whom you quoted, we don't have any letters, notes, or journals from Haakon Jarl or Gunnhild. But, the insights and speculations are still worthy of being pondered, even if they came only from Poul Anderson.
And I do believe fallen angels like Satan are real. So I sympathize with Wittgenstein's anxiety about him. I've long thought it very odd how some people who say they believe in God have also denied the angels, good or bad,are real.
Sean
Paul:
I had to chuckle at how you described thinking Wittgenstein didn't mean something literally, and then his text written however-many-years before explicitly contradicted you. I've seen that sort of "conversation" (Recording: "The house is haunted." Listener: "Haunted?!" Recording: "Yes; haunted.") occur as a comic device in fiction a number of times, but this is the first real-life instance of which I've heard.
David,
It has happened to me at least twice. Frankie Howerd, a British comedian, starred in a TV comedy series set in ancient pre-volcano Pompeii. In one episode, he told a very old joke. I said, "That's an old one!" Frankie looked straight into the camera, at me, and said, "What do you mean, it's an old gag? It was new in these days!"
Paul.
Paul:
Now that you've jogged my memory, I myself did something a bit similar while watching a *Star Trek: The Next Generation* episode. Lieutenant Worf and his small son were visiting a holodeck programmed for a tale of the "Ancient West." When an obvious prostitute leaned out a window, Worf looked at the little boy and asked, "You programmed this yourself?"
His son replied, "Well, Mr. Barclay helped." In the instant before Worf responded, I joked what turned out to be almost word-for-word what HE said: "I shall have to have a little talk with Mr. Barclay!"
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