Gudorm And The Wind

War Of The Gods, XXXI.

When, at the barrow, Ulfhild persuades her husband, Gudorm, to arrange the murder of her father and his king, Hadding:

"Their fifth year together was waning. A wrack of clouds flew low above bare fields and sere grass, before a skirling, biting wind. The woods behind the howe roared with it. Dead leaves broke loose, whirled and rattled, fell on an earth that had gone cold." (p. 271)

This passage is all pathetic fallacy but we particularly notice that the wind bites and makes the woods roar.

When Gudorm protests:

"'Murder? Under my own roof?' The wind howled with him." (p. 272)

So this wind bites, roars and howls - appropriately of course. The wind commenting on the dialogue is so pervasive in Poul Anderson's works that I am beginning to identify it with Vayu, the Hindu god of the wind, who would no doubt be able to pass between universes and to manifest when needed. I think that a powerful wind has also been regarded as a manifestation of the Christian Holy Spirit. (Somewhere in Joyce's Portrait.)