We have got drawn into rereading Poul Anderson's
War Of The Gods although currently we are mainly looking for condensed summaries of Norse myths. There are some in the dialogues as well as in Chapter
I.
"We know almost nothing about the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, except that it happened. I found that with a bit of rearrangement and a few minor additions I could unify a number of fragments." (Afterword, p. 303)
That explains why Anderson's and Lancelyn Green's accounts of the Aesir-Vanir war are almost completely different but also have two specific details in common.
In Chapter II, the new-born Hadding must be hidden in the wilderness and brought up by a giant because his father, the king, has been killed and Hadding will probably be killed as well if he is found. We recognize this narrative - although the giant is a specific mythological detail.
Croseus tells Manse Everard that the new-born Cyrus, threatened with assassination at birth, grew up as a herdsman and came forth when the time was right:
"Everard lay quiet on the couch for a little. He heard autumn leaves rustle dryly in the garden, under a cold wind."
-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 55-112 AT 4, p. 73.
Everard has just heard a myth recounted as if it were a prosaic fact. Of course, in a Poul Anderson text, autumn leaves and cold wind underline the dialogue at such a moment:
"...Everard had heard nothing so incredible in all his Patrol career... a typical hero myth. Essentially the same yarn had been told about Moses, Romulus, Sigurd, a hundred great men. There was no reason to believe that it held any fact..." (ibid.)
But the story fits in War Of The Gods especially since Anderson makes Hadding an incarnation of a god.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I've been trying to think of actual, undoubtedly historical examples of stories like that of the infant Cyrus being hidden from his enemies. I thought of King Joash of Judah, who was hidden in the Temple of Jerusalem after his grandmother Athaliah usurped the throne after his father was killed by Jehu in Israel. But nothing more recent comes to mind.
Ad astra! Sean
As Poul said, it's a typical hero myth -- which is why, in the non-supernatural milieu of the Time Patrol, it's an instant giveaway that something fishy is going on.
And it turns out to be just as mythical in the aborted Dennison/Cyrus timeline as in the "real" one they restore. It was used shrewdly as propaganda in both!
NB: evidently the longevity treatment Patrol agents get has to be renewed; note that the false, American Cyrus ages normally.
It would -really- put the cat among the pigeons if he didn't!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Or it would have put that cat among the pigeons if the False Cyrus/Keith Dennison was not killed in battle fighting barbarians.
If the Danellian longevity treatments needs to be periodically renewed, I can imagine some Danellians and retired Patrol agents eventually deciding they had lived long enough and declining further renewals, and dying after a longer or shorter time.
Ad astra! Sean
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