Monday 25 July 2016

Horned Men

"'The Horned Men walk no more in my dreams,' replied the shaman..."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 153.

"...the Horned Man ward the Night Ones from the paths of your dreams."
-SM Stirling, Island In The Sea Of Time (New York, 1998), p. 77.

Not really the same, are they? Just an echo or memory from one text to another. In Island..., the response:

"'And may the Lady of the Horses be gracious to you, chieftain...'" (ibid.) -

- reads like a literary reference and, sure enough, see here, except that the dates are wrong for Stirling to be referring to Judith Tarr.

In the Anderson and Stirling texts, a passage of prehistorical fiction forms part of a time travel novel. In Island..., the Aryans, "Iraiina," (ibid.) have arrived in the Mediterranean and dealt with the traders of Tartessos, kind of like an earlier Ys. The Tartessians have transported the Aryans to the White Island. "The white cliffs of Dover..."? Meanwhile, a trading ship from Nantucket approaches Europe...

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I wondered if Stirling's use of "Horned Man" might have been, in this case, an unwitting allusion to Anderson's THE SHIELD OF TIME.

Sean