Didonians, 12 June 2013;
Didonians, 22 May 2014.
A Didonian entity is known not by a name but by a designation indicating either a personal quality or a past event. Three entities, Cave Discoverer, Harvest Fetcher and Smith, accompany Flandry's party and can switch around to form Iron Miner, Guardian of North Gate or Lightning Struck The House. "Smith" amuses Flandry's crew but, in fact, the English/Anglic name, "Smith," began as a designation.
In a Clifford Simak novel, some aliens were introduced to a small town American mayor. The mayor was told (something like), "This being does not speak. He is a telepath." The mayor was all sympathy. "That's too bad," he said. Then:
"You can call him 'Smith.'"
"What do you know? They have names just like us!"
I used to be a Simak fan but stopped being but Poul Anderson regarded him highly. See here. (Scroll down.)
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I only have a frivolous comment just now! "Cave Discoverer" brought up images of Didonian entities SPELUNKING. And if there is one thing which is impossible for Didonian entties to do it's spelunking.
Sean
Paul:
I may have mentioned this here before, but I've long found it amusing that Genghis Khan's birth name, Temujin, is usually translated as "ironworker," which is to say "smith." That's right, one of the greatest military innovators and leaders of all time could be referred to as "Mr. Smith."
Kaor, DAVID!
Ha, ha! But, in a way, that's not surprising. Blacksmiths, blade smiths, metal workers, etc., belonged to high status crafts requiring great skills to master.
Sean
When I was very young, our very old neighbor employed a gardener whose surname was "Smith." Because I made no distinctions between adults, I addressed him politely as "Mr. Smith." Because the neighbor was a relic of an earlier social period in England, she was not being impolite when she addressed him simply as "Smith."
Kaor, Paul!
I remember seeing that in Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels. Lord Peter sometimes addressed his butler as simply "Bunter." And no offense was meant or taken.
Sean
I went to a very traditional style of English preparatory school, run by an ex-colonel in the British Army of India who'd fought Pathans on the NW Frontier -- even then he was older than God, a WW1 veteran too -- and it was the custom for us all to address each other by our last names.
Even close friends did that. The teachers got a "Mr."
(If someone had a sibling, they'd be addressed as "Smith Maximus" and "Smith Minimus".
Mr Stirling,
A former pupil of the currently existing Lancaster Royal Grammar School told me that surnames and Latin additions to brothers' surnames were still in use there.
Paul.
Dear Mr. Stirling and Paul,
I thought of that as well. And I recall how surnames and Latin additions to the names of brothers were used in Kipling's STALKY & COMPANY.
Sean
I think that at Lancaster Grammar and maybe elsewhere, brothers are "Smith Major" and "Smith Minor" with a 3rd called "Smith Minimus" (or something).
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that is what I rather vaguely recall as well from Kipling's book.
Sean
There's a feedback between real schools and fictional ones, and has been for quite some time -- "Tom Brown's Schooldays" records Rugby under Arnold, the great reforming headmaster, but it also influenced generations of schoolboys. The same is true with Kipling and a lot of other lesser purveyors of school fiction.
(Not just for boys, either: see Mary Cadogan's "You're a Brick, Angela!", which deals with the equivalent about girls' schools.)
And of course in our own time there's Hogwarts, which apart from the magic is a classic of British boarding-school fiction, and which has spawned its own sub-genre.
Life influences art, and vice versa.
A friend of mine just returned from a trip to eastern Europe, and among other things saw a 14th-century "Round Table" in Gdansk, where people in 14th century Poland used to dress up as King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table -- medieval Live Action Role Playing, as it were.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
Life imitating art as regards, say, Kipling's STALKY AND COMPANY and people in Medieval times role playing the legends of King Arthur? Very cool!
Sean
Post a Comment