Monday 7 December 2020

The Ancestors On Ythri

When Rennhi is said to have chronicled the ancestors on Ythri, this probably does not refer to many generations of an ancestral lineage back on the home planet. There are two more specific groups to whom she might refer.

First, those directly affected by contact with humanity:

"You well know how the Discovery gale-seized those peoples who had the learning to see what it meant, so that erelong all Ythri could never again speak in full understanding, through books and songs and art, with the ancestors. The dealings with Terrans as these returned, first for study and later for trade; the quest and strife which slowly won for us our own modern technics; the passion of history through life after life: these are in many writings."
-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION THE PROBLEM OF PAIN IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 103-105 AT p. 103.

These writings might include Rennhi's The Sky Book Of Stormgate. Hloch's concern in his Earth Book is to relate "...how the Terrans themselves were faring meanwhile." (ibid.)

Secondly, those who responded to a later human proposal:

"'...a human company made the Ythrians a proposal...
"'These humans, a mixed lot under the leadership of an old trade pioneer, wanted to safeguard the future of their families by settling on out-of-the-way Avalon - under the suzerainty, the protection, of an Ythri that was not corrupted as Technic civilization was. The Ythrians agreed, and naturally some of them joined the settlement.'"
-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT III, p. 476.

Naturally - and those Ythrians who joined this human-initiated settlement are the direct ancestors of the founders and Ythrian members of every Avalonian choth, including Stormgate.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, Rennhi almost certainly included some of the history and genealogical lineages of at least the chief founding members of Stormgate choth in her SKY BOOK. Perhaps for about a century before Ythri was discovered by humans in the first Grand Survey.

And that "naturally" implies, at least to me, that Avalon becoming a planet colonized by both humans and Ythrians was partly accidental. Avalon might have become a planet settled wholly by humans--and thus end up with a very different history.

And how do you PRONOUNCE the name "Ythri," anyway? I've been thinking it sounds like "YithREE."

Ad astra! Seam

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

I think: "Ithree."

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

A silent "Y"? Pronounced more like "ithREE"?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

That is how I vocalize it.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think of it being vocalized as "YithREE." But "IthREE" might be correct.

Ad astra! Sean