All The Wind III

"An autumn gale came down off the pole. It gathered snow on its way across the steppe..."

-Poul Anderson, "A Message in Secret" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 341-397 AT X, p. 379.

"Winter came early to the northlands. Flandry...saw snow endless across the plains..."

-ibid. XII, p. 383.

I classified the gale as a wind, then noticed the transition from autumn to winter. These are just descriptions of the Altaian environment but they also recall chapters in Poul Anderson's works of historical fiction that begin by tracing the cycle of the seasons - in The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson), "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" and "Star of the Sea."

Returning to the Polesotechnic League period:

"'No one stirred for a time that went on eternally, in that Fimbul wind."

-Poul Anderson, "The Master Key" IN Anderson, Trader To The Stars (New York, 1966) AT p. 131.

Yet again wind accompanies a pregnant pause in the dialogue. This time it is entirely appropriate. Natives of Cain have just threatened the merchants and, in Norse mythology, the Fimbul winter precedes the Ragnarok.

During a later confrontation, the wind shredded Per Stenvik's words and a ripple through the Cainites was:

"'...like wind dying out on an ocean.'"

-ibid, p. 139.

This second wind is analogical. 

Earlier, Cainite wind had:

"...cut like a laser..." (p. 129)

That is merely a physical description and this time it is the laser that is analogical. But, as the conversation with the Cainites becomes problematic, Per wonders whether:

"'...the wind was whittering louder.'" (p. 130)

The wind is like part of Anderson's grammar.