Getting To Grips With The Texts

Recently on the blog I have summarized Poul Anderson's accounts of Avalon, a troll and the Wild Hunt. Why do I do this? My readers can read or reread Anderson's works for themselves. They certainly can and I try to encourage them to do so. But I personally find that I appreciate these works much more if I analyze and summarize chosen passages in this way whereas if instead I just read quickly through a novel to its happy ending or plot resolution, then I seem to skip over many of the intervening details, which come as a complete surprise on the next rereading. There is that much information, description and allusion on every square inch of a page. The texts are dense or condensed and some paragraphs should be scrutinized carefully at least twice even on a single reading of the novel.

I have yet to reread the conclusion of Three Hearts And Three Lions. And I do not remember how Holger eludes the Wild Hunt, claims his sword or defeats Chaos. We know that there is a "happy ending" of sorts, although Holger is not fully satisfied yet, but how does Anderson conclude the novel and does he do it as well as usual?