The freed slave with red hair and beard wraps a chain around his hand to use the bracket as a cestus.
An archer climbs toward the poop deck but Redbeard drops him with a thrown ax.
Hwicca wields a trident taken from the slaves' watchman.
Most of the fighting is with swords.
Redbeard grabs a short-handled maul from the carpenter and smashes his skull with it.
We knew whom Redbeard resembled even before he had identified himself as "'...Tjorr the Sarmatian...'" and added that he is "'...of the Rukh-Ansa...'" (p. 128) At last we realize the significance of Eodan's name.
6 comments:
Paul:
Rohan's The Anvil of Ice has a brief epilogue stating that main character Elof will come to be known with the cognomen "Valantor." In light of that sobriquet's last syllable, it's no surprise when early in the second book, The Forge in the Forest, he uses his smithing hammer as a thrown weapon. It won't be the last time....
"Short in the haft it was, but terrible weight was in its high-peaked head, as long as his forearm and cored with strange and turbulent metals of great weight, which the duergar alone knew how to refine and contain in safety."
Does one deity manifest through different characters?
Paul:
I'm not absolutely sure this is what you meant by that question, but – trying to avoid spoilers – Elof is mortal, with talents that, once trained, make him the greatest mage/smith of his time. Although there are genuine deities/Powers in the series, and Elof interacts with them to a greater degree than does anyone else in the tale, he's also hinted to, like Eodan and Tjorr, become the basis for some myths that don't have actual Powers attached. Not exactly, anyway....
Kaor, DAVID and Paul!
This discussion of mythologies, historical and literary, reminded me of how JRR Tolkien handled or treated his Middle Earth mythos. Anyone familiar with the earlier drafts and versions collected in THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH will note how "convetional" they were. That is, we see "gods" in them. In his earlier drafts Tolkien conceived of the Valar, good or bad, like Manwe and Melkor, as being good or bad.
However, a devout Catholic as Tolkien was seems to have become uneasy about him using "gods," even fictional ones, for his Middle Earth mythos. So, as time passed, and Tolkien slowly revamped his mythology, we see him demythologizing his stories. That is the Vala were demoted from gods to becoming the angelic servants of the true and only God, Eru Iluvatar.
Ad astra! Sean
Readers can regard fictional characters as manifesting aspects of mythical deities.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree! And Tolkien's mythology has impressed me as being far more satisfactory and "solid feeling" than practically any other literary mythology has been to me. Esp. as we see it in its most advanced form, in THE SILMARILLION and THE CHILDREN OF HURIN. And Tolkien himself was at least half convinced his Middle Earth legendarium was real or literally true.
And of course we both remember Astrid Larssen Loring, from Stirling's Emberverse, who was crazy about the works of Tolkien and tried to literally bring them to life as much as possible in the Changed world. Albeit Tollkien would not have approved of her worship of neo-pagan "gods."
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment