The Golden Slave: Epilogue

(This book cover is a well drawn picture of a scene which occurs nowhere in the novel.)

For earlier blog references to The Golden Slave, see here.

Poul Anderson, The Golden Slave (New York, 1980), EPILOGUE, pp. 281-282.

This Epilogue starts a short way down p. 281 and finishes right at the top of p. 282 so it could easily have fitted onto a single page.

"It was told from olden days, and written in the books of Snorri Sturlason, that the Asa or Ansa folk fared from the land of Tanais to the North. They soon became overlords; from the high hall they raised at Upsala their power spread, until even the German tribes drew chieftains and learning from them. For they were good masters, who brought their new people not only wealth but knowledge." (p. 281)

I will continue to quote but will now rearrange and re-punctuate the text as a list.

"They gave to the North crafts of both peace and war, such as:

"the building of longships;
"and the breeding of fine horses;
"the writing of runes;
"and the mustering of armies;
"foreign trade;
"and foreign travel;
"much leechcraft;
"and many wise laws." (ibid.)

That is quite some list. I think that it is somewhat lost if it is merely embedded in a paragraph. Returning to standard prose:

"By all this the folk were strengthened and helped, so that they lifted themselves from rude forest dwellers to mighty nations who finally overthrew the Roman power..." (ibid.)

(See the previous post.)

"...and peopled Europe afresh in the time of the Wanderings. Above all did they shape the country called England, and there they kept much of the old freedom-shielding law that the Asa men first brought.
"Every king in the North reckoned descent from the Asa lords, who themselves came to be worshipped as gods after they died." (pp. 281-282)

(See the concluding paragraph of Saga And War III.)

"The first Asa king was called Odin, and he was the chief of the gods." (p. 282)

That concluding sentence jumps from a historical claim before the comma to a mythological statement after it.

Combining this and the previous post, our list of founders or ancestors becomes:

Thales
Hermes
Abraham
the Buddha
Dardanus
Odin

Combining all of the relevant traditions, the British Royal Family is descended from:

Odin, whose grandfather emerged from primeval ice;

the Kings of Israel;

Aeneas, Prince of Troy, son of the Homeric Aphrodite who was a daughter of Zeus, not of Uranus and sea foam (although Zeus is a grandson of Uranus who emerged from Chaos).

Japanese Emperors are descended from the Sun Goddess. People imagine splendid origins for themselves.