One War In Two Or Many Worlds

Three Hearts And Three Lions, NOTE, pp. 154-156.

Ogier wielding Cortana rides out and scatters the hosts of Chaos...

Holger, naked, runs impossibly fast at the Germans, grabs one guy's gun and uses it as a club, thus covering the escape of a man whose contribution will affect the outcome of World War II...

The same war is fought in both worlds. The worlds and their wars are four-dimensional slices of one five-dimensional solid. They are like a single event recorded first in an epic poem, then in an animated film. If we hear the epic and see the film, then we notice the many differences more than the common theme.

In the concluding paragraph, Holger has disappeared:

"But meanwhile new storms are rising. It may be that we shall need Holger Danske again." (p. 156)

A possible sequel? There are sequels but not as we expect.

THATL: Concluding Points

See another discussion of THATL here.

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

In the previous post, I wanted to highlight a parallel with Thomas Malory so I omitted a few other points.

(i) Holger and Alianora had declared their love before the end. Holger now wants either to remain in the Carolingian universe or to return there if he is drawn back to our Earth. This explains what he is doing in A Midsummer Tempest when he is helped by Valeria Matuchek.

(ii) Before Ogier rides out on the wold, the others gather around, Alianora encircled by his left arm, Carahue clasping his shoulder and even his horse, Papillon, touching his cheek. Ogier and Carahue share only this single moment of mutual recognition.

(iii) A paragraph summarizes Ogier's history:

like Hamlet, he is a prince of Denmark;
Faeries gave him strength, luck and love;
he was one of Charlemagne's finest knights;
he defended Christianity and mankind;
he defeated, then befriended and wandered far with, Carahue of Mauretania (I can't find this guy anywhere);
Morgan le Fay gave him back his youth in Avalon;
a hundred years later, he defended France against the paynim (when was this?);
"Then in the hour of his triumph he was carried away from mortal men." (p. 154)

- like Arthur. (Well, not exactly triumph in the case of Arthur.) But was this when Morgan le Fay suppressed Ogier's memory, regressed his body and transferred him to our Earth? (The historical periods would not have had to correspond on both Earths.)

(iv) When we are told what "some say," we are also what they forget, that the Defender is a man with human needs. This also links with A Midsummer Tempest.

All that remains to reread is the concluding NOTE.

Some Say...

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The Wild Hunters are described as anguished and damned. (p. 151) The Carolingian universe embodies a Christian judgment upon a folklore motif.

"Swiftly, swiftly, over the rime-gray wold, under the last stormclouds and the sinking moon, gallop, gallop, gallop." (p. 151)

The Hunters are in the sky, where their horses' hoofs somehow manage to be audible, whereas those who gallop across the wold are Holger, Carahue and Alianora, fleeing before the Hunt. Holger tells his horse that:

"'...we ride against striding Time, we ride against marching Chaos.'" (ibid.)

Dominic Flandry shows us that the Long Night can be delayed but not prevented.

At the end of this last chapter - which is followed by a two-page "NOTE" -, Poul Anderson steps back from his narrative about a man who remembers a life as a twentieth century engineer. When he lifts the sword Cortana, Holger Danske/Ogier le Danois sheds his magical disguise and is recognized by Carahue as he regains his memory and knows himself. Anderson relays to his readers two alternative accounts of what others say about the Defender:

"...some say he waits in timeless Avalon until France the fair is in danger...
"...some say he sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle and wakens in the hour of Denmark's need..." (p. 154)

This is true and not fiction. It is true that some have said that Ogier is in Avalon whereas others have said that he is beneath Kronborg.

This exactly corresponds to the way in which Thomas Malory concludes his account of King Arthur:

"...some men say in many parts of England that Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again...

"...many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse: HIC IACET ARTHURUS, REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS."
-see Grallon And Arthur.

Anderson returns to his narrative for a single sentence:

"He rode out on the wold, and it was as if dawn rode with him." (p. 154)

Thus, we step out of fiction, then back into it. Anderson's "Star of the Sea" alternates between different kinds of writing:

reimagined mythologies;
historical fiction;
science fiction;
a prayer.

Wold, Wild Hunt And Milky Way

Three Hearts And Three Lions.

"Moonlight flowed over the wold, gray, shadow-barred, glinting on rime."
-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, p. 149.

Every wold description here is worth quoting.

"Far and faint, at the very edge of hearing, the horns blew. They had the noise of wind and sea and great beating wings, a hawk voice, a raven voice. And Holger knew that the Wild Hunt was out and after him."
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR, p. 150.

The Hunt, barely audible, sounds like wind, sea, wings, hawk and raven because it is all those things plus human imagination. See Roots Of Paganism.

"Calling, as he used to call, faint and far away,
"In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day."
-see here.

(I previously quoted from "Sherwood" in Brake. See also Unexpected Connections.)

There is another description of the Milky Way.

Carahue's Religion And Hugi's Death

(Another Yorkshire wold.)

Three Hearts And Three Lions.

Carahue still thinks in very Muslim terms:

"'By the hand of the Prophet ... the Prophet Jesus...'"
-CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE, p. 137)

That reads like someone who is Muslim but trying to cover it and not very well because Jesus is more than just another of the Prophets in Christianity. (If Carahue was in my company, then he would be free to express himself however he wanted but he is in a milieu where these could be life or death issues.)

When a comic relief character dies, the mood switches from comedy to pathos. Hugi the wood dwarf's last words, addressed to the swan-may, Alianora:

"'Och, dinna weep... 'Tis aboot fifty females o' ma ain race wha' ha' cause to mourn. Yet 'twas ever ye who we loved best... I'd gi' ye guid counsel if I could. But the noise in ma head's too great.'"
-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, p. 147.

Holger prays: "'Ave Maria....'" (ibid.) We remember "Ave Stella Maris."

Word, World And Wold

Three Hearts And Three Lions.

Holger gives his word and the Middle World threatens the world. The wold, after some contradictions, becomes a destination and a place of refuge.

"'...there's another way onto the wold, where they uns will ne'er follow.'"
-CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE, p. 138.

"Southward, close at hand, the wold was bounded by the cliff brink, beyond which he saw nothing save darkness, as if he stood at the edge of creation."
-CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE, p. 147.

"Wolves howled, miles away on the wold." (p. 148)

"He rode out on the wold, and it was as if dawn rode with him."
-CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR, p. 154.

This post might gather a few more quotes about the wold but I am about to sign off for this evening.

The other way to the wold was through the troll's nest. The troll seems unkillable but Holger notices that a burn does not heal so:

"The knowledge burst open in Holger. 'Fire!' he roared. 'Light a fire! Burn the beast!'"
-CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO, p. 145.

This is Holger's second moment of realization.

"Allah Akbar!"

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWENTY.

"'Allah akbar!' exploded Carahue. 'They're terrified of magic. Merciful saints, I meant to say.'" (p. 129)

Ketlan was a big fan of Anthony Burgess and was envious that I had heard Burgess speak on James Joyce at Lancaster Duke's Playhouse. Ketlan got me to read Earthly Powers. In that novel, a Maltese character has always accepted that he prays to Deus in a church whereas his Muslim neighbor prays to Allah in a mosque. Now, however, the Catholic Church has adopted the vernacular liturgy so that suddenly the character finds himself praying, in his Arabic-influenced Maltese, to Allah in church. For him, this is a problem - but had he never addressed God in the vernacular in private prayer?

When Sheila and I were on holiday in Malta, we were looking around the back of a church during a Mass and heard the priest say, "Oh, Allah..."

Carahue acts in character as a recent convert from Islam to Christianity.

THATL: Miscellaneous

Three Hearts And Three Lions.

Holger does not recognize Sir Carahue because he suffers from induced amnesia whereas Sir Carahue does not recognize Holger because the latter is magically disguised so there is rich scope for a comedy of errors.

Magnesium burns in water, with apparent magic, both here and here.

Holger wonders whether his destiny has momentum just as Manse Everard wonders whether the time stream bears Veleda along.

Holger is captured by the nixie of a lake. Anderson's The Merman's Children features merfolk, a vilja and a reference to rousalka. See here. In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys, Princess Dahut survives in the sea and pulls men under.

The Chaos

We are living in the 21st century which was the future in the sf that I read in the 1960s. Wells' future was aircraft in the 20th century; ours was spacecraft in the 21st. Philip K. Dick surprised us with one short story featuring regular interplanetary travel in the 1990s when space operas were called "captainkirks."

We are living in the Chaos which is the beginning of Poul Anderson's Technic History. What can we expect in our real future history? I do not expect either FTL interstellar travel or First Contact with extraterrestrial intelligences. Hopefully, there will be regular interplanetary travel in this century. Some problems on Earth are urgent. Everyone accepts that unpredictable changes will continue, an idea alien to the minds of most of our ancestors. Many want the world to be different after the pandemic than it was before - as they did during the World Wars.

Yesterday I attended a zoom meeting of just under 300 people discussing the problems of racism, the pandemic and the environment. I texted an acquaintance in London to say that I could see her on my computer screen. We are living in the future and on the threshold of potential futures, many of them dystopian. People need to read sf to understand the present. Wells and Anderson remain relevant.

Some Details

Good morning. We need a much better understanding of our own mental processes. A few days ago, while out walking, I suddenly remembered a recent post and realized that it contained a factual error so I prioritized correction of that error as soon as I had returned home. But why did that occur to me just then?

The blog is a perpetual work in progress. There is always more to be said and past posts often require minor alterations or corrections. Blog readers sometimes point out mistakes but how much remains unnoticed in references to works that maybe none of us has read or reread recently?

In Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER NINETEEN, Holger is pulled into a lake by a nixie. This prompts comparison with similar water-dwelling beings in other works by Poul Anderson and such comparisons will be made after another reading project that will consume some time probably today and tomorrow. I am trying to be on two computer screens at once. The changeable British weather is currently damp so maybe there will be some progress in new reading.

Militaristic And Other SF

Imagine, a young sf fan:

reads Poul Anderson's The Star Fox;
dislikes Gunnar Heim's militarism;
hears that this is typical Anderson;
writes off Anderson as militaristic;
reads no more Anderson;
thus, misses out on -

the Time Patrol series;
Anderson's time travel novels;
the Technic History (partly militaristic);
The King of Ys (with Karen Anderson);
the Old Phoenix sequence;
Tau Zero;
Starfarers;
The Boat Of A Million Years;
the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy;
Genesis;
other works -

- this is not a complete list.

Almost the entire point of this blog is to persuade that young sf fan to read more Anderson.

THATL, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Holger consults a magician who consults Ariel who will reappear in A Midsummer Tempest. The Old Phoenix sequence holds together well.

This chapter describes Sir Carahue's armor:

arabesqued corslet;
spiked helmet;
chainmail earflaps;
greaves;
leather boots -

- and his heraldic shield:

six-pointed star argent;
field azure;
border gules fleury or.

This time, I leave it as an exercise for blog readers to google the terminology.

OK. It is time for some other reading.

Addendum, same day, early afternoon: To complete the story so far about heraldry, Sir Carahue describes his old friend's arms as:

"'...either of an eagle, sable on argent, or of three hearts sanguine and three lions passant or.'"
-CHAPTER SIXTEEN, p. 106.

Time And Song

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Sir Carahue has experienced time dilation in Huy Braseal as Holger has in Avalon although Holger also suffers from amnesia and his body has regrown, having been magically regressed to infancy. Anything seems possible here.

On pp. 106 and 108, Sir Carahue refers to:

sestinas
ballades
villanelles
sirventes

I knew little or nothing about any of these verse forms before googling them. Rereading this novel after many years makes it seem like a new book. Many fantasy and sf fans must have read it once as an adventure story and thought nothing further of it. Poul Anderson deserves wider and more serious recognition.

Now I face a choice:

reread CHAPTER SEVENTEEN;

read something new;

finish a second mug of coffee and make some attempt to get into the day although a retired person, especially during a lockdown and on a rainy day, is free to make breakfast last all day.

Wine

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

This post is mostly personal reflections but with Poul Anderson's text as the springboard.

When Sir Carahue, the "Saracen," samples the landlord's wines and chooses the best to accompany each course:

"Holger could not resist saying, 'I thought your religion banned strong drink.'" (p. 106)

Holger should resist saying it. As a matter of fact, Sir Carahue has converted to Christianity but he should not be obliged to explain himself to Holger or to anyone else.

I think that the following line of reasoning is the height of bad manners:

I have reason to believe that this man is Muslim;
I understand that Muslims do not drink wine;
he is drinking wine;
I should point this out to him.

No, you should not point it out to him. If the man has already decided to break the rules of Islam, then that is entirely his own affair.

For many years, I did not touch any alcohol because:

I had stopped wanting to;

excessive drinking, which I used to do, definitely interferes with meditation and I just found it easier to cut it out completely.

However, I had not taken any pledge not to drink. Needless to say, I was taken to be advocating that no one should drink. When an acquaintance saw me drinking what looked like beer, she informed me that I did not drink, as if I had forgotten and needed to be reminded. I replied first that what I was drinking was in fact non-alcoholic beer and secondly, and more importantly, that I was not accountable to her for what I consumed. On a subsequent occasion, when I did accept one free glass of wine at the end of a meeting, she again informed me that I did not drink...

In another situation, a guy repeatedly and with increasing puzzlement asked me to confirm that I was vegetarian. When I had repeatedly confirmed it, he then asked, "Then what have I just seen you eating?" The penny dropped. "It was a VEGE-burger - but, if I ever decide to break my own rules, then I will..."

Blog readers might deduce that this is a sensitive issue: being labeled, then being called to account because of a label.

Conversion And Compassion

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Turning the page, we learn that this Saracen has converted to Christianity. However, the question as to whether the universes of different religious traditions, including mutually incompatible monotheisms, coexist in the multiverse still stands.

Holger explains to Alianora why he does not want to start a relationship with her. I agree with Sean (see the combox here) that Holger's reasoning is compassionate, not chauvinistic. However, he could have asked her what she thought and discussed the issue further with her. As it is, he makes the decision and she accepts it.

Amsterdam with its canals is on our TV screen at the other end of our upstairs sitting room while I work on the computer screen at this end and I must get off the computer back into a book by Stieg Larsson so it looks like we will return to Three Hearts... tomorrow.

The Implications Of The Saracen

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

Holger meets the Saracen who has been looking for him and who is an old albeit forgotten friend.

Is this Carolingian universe one where the Christian God exists and Allah does not or where both exist? GK Chesterton's militaristic poem, Lepanto, describes the Prophet marshaling giants and genii against the Crusaders. Alternatively, is there a Muslim universe where Allah is the Creator and Jesus is a prophet of Islam?

Presumably, the Norse universe, which is visited in Operation Luna, is complete with gods and giants arising in Ginnungagap, Odin and his brothers killing the giant Ymir and making the world from his body, dead warriors fighting and feasting in Valhalla and fighting for the last time at Ragnarok etc? The multiverse gets complicated if it incorporates every possibility.

I am still doing some other reading that might impact on the blog but later. Meanwhile, rereading Three Hearts continues...

A Detective And Werewolf Story That Is Also Two Chapters Of A Novel

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTERs THIRTEEN-FOURTEEN.

These chapters are a detective story in which Holger deduces the identity of a werewolf. The werewolf is a link to Operation Chaos where the narrator, Steve Matuchek, is one.

"There must be -
"It blazed in him. 'By the Cross, yes!' he shouted." (p. 93)

This is Holger's first moment of realization.

Alianora refers to Mab. (p. 90) I thought that Mab was just another aspect of Titania, who appears in Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, but the Wikipedia article shows that her history is more complicated.

Like A Midsummer Tempest, (see A Flag) CHAPTER FOURTEEN discusses heraldry. Sir Yve de Lourville's shield bears:

a wolf's head erased;
sable on barry of six;
gules;
argent.

I might try to google all those heraldic terms some time.

The Unity Of The Multiverse II

See The Unity Of The Multiverse.

Both Holger Carlsen in Three Hearts And Three Lions and Steve Matuchek in Operation Chaos refer briefly to whatever it is that unites the multiverse.

In the above linked post, I disagreed with Matuchek when he called "...the ultimate oneness itself..." "God." If someone formulates a Unified Field Theory, establishing that the four cosmic forces, gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces, are diverse expressions of a single force, should we call that single force "God"? No, because forces are impersonal whereas "God" either means a personal being or at least is widely taken to mean that even when some philosophers, mystics etc set out to use it in an impersonal sense. The phrase, "...oneness itself..,." implies impersonality.

What can we make of "God" in a multiversal context? Many people believe that "God," meaning either a unipersonal or tripersonal being, created this universe. Therefore, they would extend His (Their?) domain to say that He (or They) created the whole multiverse. However, another possible meaning is that "God" is a single being Who counts as omnipotent within, e.g., the goetic or the Shakespearean universe but Who has no presence within the Norse or other pantheonic universes. A third meaning of "God" is the impersonal one but that merely confuses the issue.

Matuchek's formulation of the ultimate oneness is unobjectionable:

"...if parallel worlds exist, they must be linked in a very fundamental way... Deriving from the same source, embedded in the same matrix, they must in some fashion have a common destiny."
-Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos (New York, 1995), p. 2.

Source and matrix with no implication of personality.

Elders And Chimes

Two details in Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return connect with recent posts. First, Aycharaych's fictional conflict between Elders and Others sounds like another version of Law versus Chaos. See:

Elders And Others
Philosophy II

The Others favor entropy.

Secondly:

"Chimes rang from the bell tower of the University. They played the olden peals, but somehow they sounded at peace."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-240 AT 21, p. 232.

A happy ending with bells, as in two other works. See:

Amen To The Bells.

I have become involved in something else which is not unrelated to the blog but which will take some time away from it for a while it as well. Nevertheless, back here soon.

Exaltationists And Chaos

See Raor And Morgan le Fay.

Everard, in conversation with Wanda Tamberly, confirms the chaotic potential of the Exaltationists:

"'Selfishness like that generally turns on itself. Battles through time, a chaos of changes - I wonder how much flux the space-time fabric could survive...
"'How does it feel knowing you may have saved the universe?'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Year of the Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 641-735 AT 23 May 1987, pp. 718-719.

Guion, a mysterious agent operating within the Patrol and currently interviewing Everard, searches for something beyond the arrest of the last Exaltationists:

"'...beyond that necessity, perhaps, a larger meaning, a direction and an ending -'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART ONE, 1987 A. D., p. 8.

Guion tells Wanda that the Exaltationists, all by now either caught or killed:

"'...could be related to something larger... Not a larger organization or conspiracy, no. We have no reason to suspect that. But chaos itself has a basic coherence.'"
-The Shield Of Time, PART THREE, 31,275,389 B. C., pp. 135-136.

Finally, a Danellian explains to Everard and Wanda that:

"'In a reality forever liable to chaos, the Patrol is the stabilizing element, holding time to a single course.'"
-The Shield Of Time, PART SIX, 1990 A. D., p. 435.

Thus, the Exltationists are an expression of chaos just as, in Three Hearts And Three Lions, the Middle Worlders are servants of Chaos.

Raor And Morgan Le Fay

See Wildness And Freedom.

Now for a longer comparison.

Morgan le Fay is King Arthur's sister whereas Raor is Merau Varagan's clone mate. Thus, Varagan and Raor are leading Exaltationist time criminals in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series.

Raor tells Time Patrolman Manse Everard that the Exaltationists:

"'...would have made [the universe] what we chose, and unmade it and remade it, and stormed the stars as we warred for possession, with an entire reality the funeral pyre of each who fell and entire histories the funeral games, until the last god reigned alone.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART TWO, 209 B. C., p. 118.

Morgan le Fay tells Holger Carlsen that:

"'...the mirth and thunder and blazing stars of Chaos would be yours... You could hurl suns and shape worlds if you chose!'"
-Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER ELEVEN, p. 68.

Thus, the Exaltationists want to cause cosmic chaos and the Middle Worlders serve capitalized Chaos.

Rules, Riddles And Radioactivity

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Different works of fantasy can have different rules of magic. I think that it is standard that trolls emerge only at night because sunlight would transform them into stone whereas this is not usually the case with giants although it is what happens to the giant Balamorg in Three Hearts And Three Lions where all Middle Worlders are vulnerable to sunlight - and dwarfs are not Middle Worlders. We learn the precise rules in each new narrative.

In a riddling contest with Balamorg, Holger invents an excellent alternative answer to "'Why does a chicken cross the road?'" (p. 76) (There was also a riddle contest in Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Star Prince Charlie.)

Fairy gold becomes dead leaves in sunlight. Gold from the petrified Balamorg's pouch becomes radioactive because the transformation of his carbon into silicon has generated a radioactive isotope. There is "...a curse on the plunderer of a sun-stricken giant..." (p. 80) The spine of my Three Hearts... says SF. Do these scientific rationalizations transform fantasy into sf?

Chaos And Continuity

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWELVE.

Operation Chaos works as a sequel to Three Hearts And Three Lions. It begins as Steve Matuchek telepathically broadcasts to other possible universes and states that the conflict between Law and Chaos must occur in every universe. Several times throughout the book, he comes face to face with that "...final One..." (p. 72) postulated by Holger Carlsen as outranking every other agent of Chaos.

Holger wonders whether Chaos is a more animistic expression of the second law of thermodynamics, the tendency toward disorder and level entropy, then whether Nazism is a resurgence of such animistic entropy in his world. But Chaos is not entropy. The Middle World agents of Chaos want the order of Law to be ended but not their own bodies or environments to become disordered or to wind down to total quiescence.

In our universe, that quiescence is apparently inevitable although, in Anderson's later hard sf, some high tech AIs think that they might somehow remain conscious even at full entropy. So they are Law against Chaos? As is the Time Patrol when it counteracts temporal chaos at the end of The Shield Of Time.

Extrablogular activities rule at present as you might guess from the fewness of posts. 

The Unity Of The Multiverse

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"...science had its perversions, while magic had its laws. A definite ritual was needed in either case, whether you built an airplane or a flying carpet." (p. 66)

This comparison prefigures Operation Otherworld.

"...Roland had tried to break Durindal (scroll down), in his last hour at Roncesvalles..." (ibid.)

"In Holger's home world, physical forces were strong and well understood, mental-magical forces weak and unmanageable. In this universe, the opposite held true." (pp. 66-67)

And the goetic universe is one where people can choose to use either set of forces?

"As for the force which made [the worlds] so parallel, the ultimate oneness itself, he supposed he would have to break down and call it God." (p. 67)

Oh no, he does not have to. That word, "God," is like a card trick. It can be used either literally or metaphorically. It can mean either a personal being or an impersonal unity. So a paragraph or a conversation can start with one meaning and end with the other. Either do not use that word or be very clear what you mean by it.

One of my Philosophy tutors, Colin Lyas, said that, when students told him, "By 'God,' I mean (fill in the blank)," he replied, "You want the comfort of that word without the responsibilities."

Dragon

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TEN.

A dragon attacks:

fifty feet long;
scale-armor;
muscle;
a large snake head;
bat wings;
iron talons.

"Downward the monster slanted, overhauling them with nightmare speed." (p. 64)

Is the word, "nightmare," a giveaway? Will Holger's entire experience of the Carolingian universe turn out to have been a dream?  He has already considered that explanation:

"...unless he was dreaming (and he doubted that more and more; what dream was ever so coherent?)..." (CHAPTER THREE, p. 25)

Meanwhile, we remember Ariel's butterfly wings. An Andersonian hero, at least one who is also a twentieth century engineer, has to ask:

"...what amendment to the square-cube law permitted that hulk to fly?" (ibid.)

Holger also wonders about the metabolism. There is some speculation here. He smells sulfur dioxide.

Facets

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TEN.

"All the uncounted stellar universes might be separate facets of one transcendental existence." (p. 62)

And some universes might not be "stellar"?

A Flatlander sees a single square which is just one cross-section of a cube whereas a Solidlander perceives the entire cube without dividing it into individual cross-sections. From a distance, light might be seen as reflected from a single facet of a jewel whereas, on closer approach, the entire jewel becomes visible.

On our Earth, Holger fights the Nazis; in the Carolingian universe, the Middle World. So is there a point of view from which the Nazis and the Middle World are not individuated because they have merged into a single transcendental existence like cross-sections into a cube or facets into a diamond?

Time In Elf Hill

Poul Anderson wrote two classics of time dilation:

Tau Zero
Starfarers

How strange that time dilation occurs in myths:


"'...know that time is strange in Elf Hill. They'd ha' held ye there wi' one nicht o' merrymaking, and when ye came oot again, a hundred years would a' passed here. In the meantime the Middle Worlders would ha' been able to do whate'er 'tis ye noo stand in the way o'."
-Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER NINE, p. 57.

Irish mythology used time dilation to enable an ancient hero to meet a Christian saint. See Kinds Of Crossovers.

Did the ancient myth-makers intuit something about time that we don't?

Morgan Le Fay And Some Long Sentences

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER EIGHT.

King Arthur's sister is a character in Three Hearts... and Arthur himself appears at the end of A Midsummer Tempest. Thus, the Arthurian legend is a strong unifying element in Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix sequence - and also links it to CS Lewis' third Ransom novel which features a returned Merlin.

Sometimes, when we expect a sentence to end, it continues, with prepositions adding extra nouns so that the reader's attention is engaged and drawn onward.

"The procession wound out of the gates..." (p. 53)

- which would have made a complete sentence, instead acquires four additional clauses:

"...over the bridge...
"...across the lawns..
"...toward Elf Hill...
"...of the roses." (ibid.)

The immediately following sentence continues in similar vein:

"Behind him curveted warriors...
"...and horseback... (on horseback?)
"...banners flying...
"...from their lances...
"...musicians playing horns...
"...and harps...
"...and lutes...
"...a hundred lords...
"...and ladies...
"...of Faerie...
"...who danced...
"...as they neared the mound." (ibid.)

We are well on our way into Elf Hill with Holger when Alianora intervenes. What would have happened to Holger if he had entered that Hill?

Gerard, Demons And Coffee

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTERs SEVEN-EIGHT.

In the Faerie castle, Hugi remarks:

"'Here's a tricksy bigging.'" (p. 47)

Alfric recites three lines of a chanson about one of the Emperor Napoleon's heroes:

"'Gerard li vaillant, brigadier magnes,
"'tres ans tut pleins ad este an Espagne
"'combattant contre le Grande-Bretagne.'" (p. 47)

"Gerard the valiant, great brigadier,
"three full years he was in Spain
"fighting Great Britain."

Hugi reports:

"'Great flashes o' lightning from the topmost tower, a demon figure departing in smoke, and the stench o' warlockry so rank it night curdled ma banes.'" (p. 48)

For the fourth time, I quote a particular line from James Blish for comparison:

"The room stank of demons."
-see here.

For breakfast at Mother Gerd's, Holger consumes porridge, bread, cheese, ale and bacon and thinks:

"...wistfully of coffee and a smoke." (p. 24)

He shares such thoughts with time travelers. See here.

However, at Alfric's castle, he is served:

ham and eggs;
toast;
buckwheat cakes;
coffee;
orange juice. (p. 48)

He thinks that they must have learned his tastes by witchcraft and we have already been told that they can conjure "...things from the air-..." (p. 45)

Over Breakfast

Over breakfast, I like to post but, this morning, breakfast has generated no posts (apart from this one) because:

I have been reading and responding to combox comments;

Sean Brooks and I also correspond by email, in this case about statues and Theodore Roosevelt who  has been a big blog topic.

Now it is time for other activities but I expect to return to Holger Carlsen's adventures in the Carolingian universe before long.

Textbooks And Files

For four earlier posts quoting Everard and/or Flandry on the limitations of textbooks, see here.
(Scroll down.)

In Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, Dragan Armansky has employed and worked with Lisbeth Salander whereas Inspector Bublanski has merely read her social welfare agency file. Consequently, their views of her aptitudes and personality are completely contradictory. Armansky comments:

"'Files are one thing. People are something else.'"
-Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire (London, 2010), CHAPTER 13, p. 225.

That reminded me of Everard's:

"'...reality never conforms very well to the textbooks...'"

- sufficiently well to prompt a late night comparative post. Tomorrow, probably, back to Holger Carlsen in the Carolingian universe.

Dig that pile of textbooks.

Elf Hill, Mirkwood And Alfs

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SEVEN.

Hugi the dwarf advises Holger:

"'Yon's Elf Hill...'" (p. 42)

I expected to find an Internet explanation of this phrase but did not find one although there are literary works with similar titles.

"'There in Mirkwood do the Pharisee laids hunt griffin and manticore...'" (ibid.)

I could not find any corroboration of the application of the term, "Pharisee," to Faeries.

Holger is a guest of:

"'...Alfric, Duke of Alfarland in the Kingdom of Faerie.'" (p. 43)

- just as Dominic Flandry, his colleagues and their Merseian opponents are guests of the Sartaz of Alfzar in the Betelgeusean System.

Same Space Or Other Space

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SEVEN.

Holger continues to try to make sense of his experiences. Both the similarities and the differences to his own world rule out another planet in the same universe. Gravity and chemistry operate but allow for magic unless the apparent magic is telekinesis? Maybe many universes can occupy the same space and time without interacting except for some as yet unknown link?

In the DC multiverse, universes occupying the same space vibrated at different rates. If you changed your vibratory rate, then you dematerialized from one universe and materialized in another but hopefully on an alternative Earth, not in empty space.

Universes occupying the same space, whether by vibrating differently or in some other way, can fit into the same four dimensions and therefore need not coexist along a fourth spatial dimension contrary to what I said here.

Valeria Matuchek confirms this:

"'...the cosmoses...occupy the same space-time...'"
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), xii, p. 101 -

- i.e., the same four dimensions -

- but then contradicts it:

"'...being separated by a set of dimensions ''" (ibid.)

However, the only role of Valeria's remarks at this stage in the narrative is to cause Holger to interrupt her to say that she is leaving him and Rupert behind. Valeria then concentrates on the practicalities of historical divergences rather than on their physics or metaphysics.

A Suit Of Armor

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER SIX.

Holger and a Faerie knight fight with lances on horseback, then with swords on foot. Holger stabs at a crack above his opponent's gorget. The opponent collapses and lies still, then turns out to have been an empty suit of armor.

In Thor (2011), Thor fights an empty suit of armor which had a history in the comics. (See image.) An excellent cross-reference is made when a SHIELD agent asks, "Is that one of Stark's?" See here.

Notionally, all fictional universes, including those of Poul Anderson and of Marvel Comics, can coexist.

Valkyries

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER FIVE.

Alianora's swan dress, which empowers her to metamorphose into a swan, is said to have:

"'...once belonged to the Valkyries.'" (p. 37)

What are the cosmological implications of this? Are the Norse pantheons a part of the Carolingian universe where they would have to belong to the Middle World, serving Chaos together with the Giants? But the Carolingian universe would not be able to incorporate Ginnungagap, Yggdrasil, Nine Worlds, Ragnarok etc. So has there been inter-cosmic contact?

Virginia Matuchek travels from her native goetic universe to the hell universe where she summons Thor as an enemy of Chaos;

later, Virginia travels to Mimir's Well below Yggdrasil in yet another universe;

Virginia's daughter meets Holger in the Old Phoenix.

Thus, we might infer from all this that the Valkyries to whom Alianora refers inhabit not the Carolingian but the Nordic universe.

Far Stars

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER FOUR.

In the Carolingian universe:

"The man lay awake for a long time to watch the constellations. They were familiar, the late summer sky of northern Europe up there. But how far away was home? Or had distance any meaning?" (p. 34)

We look for another description of the Milky Way but this time do not find it.

In this universe, those familiar constellations will be not widely separated incandescent bodies but lights embedded in a crystal sphere. See Ancient And Classical Cosmology.

Home is not to be reached by traveling through space or between stars. See Far And Near.

Is Pan Dead?

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER THREE.

Law and Chaos, which are in perpetual struggle, are:

primeval forces;

modes of existence;

or a terrestrial reflection of the spiritual conflict between heaven and hell? (p. 28)

Holger's guide, Hugi, identifies four sides, Heaven, Hell, Earth and the Middle World, adding that his people, the woods dwarfs, remain neutral. Human beings are the chief agents of Law on Earth although most do not realize this and some, witches, warlocks and other evildoers, have sold out to Chaos. A few nonhuman beings support Law although on the other side is the entire Middle World comprising realms like:

Faerie;
Trollheim;
the Giants, which are a creation of Chaos.

Human wars, as between the Holy Empire and the Saracens, help Chaos. Law means peace, order and liberty but the Middle Worlders work against this and try to extend their realm. The lands of men, comprising the Empire, the southern Saracen countries and lesser kingdoms, are to the west whereas the Middle World is to the east, its closest part being Faerie. Holger has arrived in a disputed borderland.

History:

there was a literal Fall;
then nearly everything was Chaos;
Chaos has been driven back;
when the Saviour lived, the darkness could not stand;
at that time, Pan died;
however, Chaos has rallied;
it prepares to strike back.

Pan imagery has revived on our Earth. CS Lewis cited the "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" chapter of The Wind In The Willows as a literary example of awe.

"Pan has taken their souls, and they stampede."
-Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), xxiv, p. 221.

Characters And Actors

Occasionally, when a novel is filmed, the actors are so well cast that we remember them whenever we reread the novel, as with the Swedish screen adaptations of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

This has to be done with Poul Anderson's works. Of existing actors, who would be most suitable for the role of Nicholas van Rijn? Obviously, he must both look the part and reproduce the flamboyant character. Maybe someone would have to put on weight to look right? The best option for van Rijn and other characters would be previously unknown actors who could be signed on for several years until the entire series had been filmed. Van Rijn appears in ten works, several of which would have to be serialized. Dominic Flandry needs to change actors after his single biosculp. This can be done. In fact, it would be infinitely more worthwhile than yet more Star Wars or Star Trek films.

This World

Finding themselves in another world, some characters remember and appreciate this world.

Manse Everard recalls his friends, including characters from previous stories, and:

"...the austere cantos of Dante and the ringing thunder of Shakespeare; the glory which was York Minster and the Golden Gate Bridge..."
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 173-228 AT 2, p. 184.

In Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER THREE, Holger Carlsen recalls (I will rewrite them as a list):

the graceful spires of Copenhagen;
moors, beaches and wide horizons in Jutland;
ancient towns in green dales on the islands;
the skyward arrogance of New York;
the mist on San Francisco Bay made gold by the sunset.

While he is riding into Faerie, Holger remembers what reads like an even more fabulous realm.

Translations

Another other blog discussion of THATL.

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWO.

A guy on British TV years ago, denying the paranormal:

"These things cannot happen and can be explained!"

You don't need both! Holger tries both in succession:

the old woman apparently conversing with a demon is practicing ventriloquism;

his own tired mind is conjuring the vision;

his knife is hot because magic induces eddy currents!

Gerd thinks that Holger's head wound must have been won in battle against a troll or a giant. It was caused by a German bullet so she is right - if we translate between universes:

"'Those two worlds - and many more, for all I know - are in some way the same. The same fight was being waged, here the Nazis and there the Middle World; but, in both places, Chaos against Law, something old and wild and blind at war with man and the works of man.'"
-NOTE, pp. 154-156 AT p. 155.

Having quoted that equation, I am now less sure of it. In Norse mythology, giants symbolize hostile forces of ice and cold whereas the Nazis, unfortunately, were one end-product of our modern civilization.

Gerd's Incantation

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWO.

See Libera Nos A Malo.

Gerda:

draws two concentric circles around a tripod brazier;

stands between them with her cat, Grimalkin;

explains that the inner circle will hold a demon whereas the outer will hold his enchantments;

asks Holger neither to pray nor to make the sign of the cross;

dances and chants (see the above link);

switches from Latin to some other language;

touches the brazier with her wand, bringing forth dense white smoke that almost hides her but remains within the outer circle;

invokes -

"'O Beliya'al,
"'Ba'al Zebub,
"'Abaddon, (scroll down)
"'Asmadai!
"'Samiel, Samiel, Samiel!'" (p. 22)

The smoke thickens into Samiel who tells Gerda that Holger is from so far away that a man could travel until Judgment Day and not reach it.

See:

Far And Near
Far And Near II

What Year Is It? II

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWO.

Holger asks Mother Gerd:

"'Can you tell me what year this is?'" (p. 20)

"'What land is this? What kingdom?'" (ibid.)

"'Where is the nearest king or duke or earl...?'" (ibid.)

Year
"'...such reckonings have long slipped from me, the more so when time is often an uncanny thing here in the wings of the world since -'" (ibid.)

Holger interrupts with his second question. Gerd has already said that she lives:

"'...by the edge of the world.'"
-CHAPTER ONE, p. 18.

This must be a flat Earth but should that affect time?

Land
"'For long have these marches been in dispute between the sons of men and the folk of the Middle World... Faerie and the Holy Empire both claim it...'" (p. 20)

- but human beings, like Gerd herself, are in possession.

The Nearest King Etc
"There is a town not too many leagues away as men reckon distance...yet in truth I must warn you that space, like time, is wondrously affected by the sorceries blowing out of Faerie...'" (pp. 20-21)

Are we getting a bigger picture? This is the edge of the world because it is a disputed march between human civilization and the Middle World/Faerie. The latter somehow alters both time and space. I would not expect a Medieval witch like Gerda to talk about "time" and "space" like a modern physicist.

Space is affected in that a place can be near, then perilously far, and the route between can change. (This would explain different versions of a single story.) Holger concludes that Gerd is either an idiot or stalling him. He has not yet got it that he really is in an environment such as she describes. It sounds like the Hell realms in Heinlein's Magic, Inc. or in Anderson's Operation Chaos. In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, there are "soft places" on the borders of the Dreaming where people from different periods can meet. Again, time is variable although maybe not in the same way.

What Year Is It?

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER TWO.

Continuing from A Man And His Role.

Time travel would not explain comprehension of the language but, as we have seen, some time travelers have their ways of coping with that. See the blog search result for diaglossa.

Someone who suspects that he has time traveled needs to know what year he is in. He is unlikely to be greeted with: "Welcome to 1000 A.D."

"Temporal agents always notice date & time; we must."
Robert Heinlein, "'-All You Zombies-'" IN Heinlein, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag (London, 1980), pp. 126-137 AT p. 126.

"'What year is this?'
"We gaped at him. 'Well, it's the second year after the great salmon catch,' I tried.
"'What year after Christ, I mean,' he prayed hoarsely.
"'Oh, so you are a Christian? Hm, let me think... I talked with a bishop in England once, we were holding him for ransom, and he said...let me see...I think he said this Christ man lived a thousand years ago, or maybe a little less.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Damon Knight (Ed.), 100 Years Of Science Fiction (London, 1972), pp. 185-212 AT p. 191.

When disguised time travelers in ancient Tyre insist on booking passage on a particular day, this gives a canny local the idea that precise remembering might be profitable so:

"'Back then, I couldn't read or write, but what I could do was mark whatever special things happened each year, and keep those happenings in order and count back over them when I needed to. So this was the year in between a venture to the Red Cliff Shores and the year when I caught the Babylonian disease -'"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 229-331 AT p. 317.

This enables him, when asked by a Time Patrolman in 950 B.C., to state confidently that a particular event occurred:

"'An even one score and six years, come fifteen days before the fall equinox, or pretty near to that.'"
-ibid. p. 316.

We have learned some interesting ways to tell what year it is:

the second year after the great salmon catch;
the year between a venture to the Red Cliff Shores and the year when I caught the Babylonian disease...

Many people who have lived A.D. have not thought in terms of A.D. - and, of course, no one thought in terms of B.C.