Frost-Road, River Of Frost

Nowadays, when rereading Poul Anderson and coming across a colourful description of the Milky Way, I usually pass it by on the assumption that I have noted it in an earlier post. We find:

"...a night crowded with unwinking brilliant stars, girded by the frost-road of the galaxy..."

-The Boat Of A Million Years, XIX, 28, p. 550.

Searching the blog for "frost-road" brought up The Milky Way which does quote a phrase from this novel but not this phrase. Furthermore, for the reference to the phrase that is quoted, "...like a river of frost and light...," I had linked to a post entitled "Pytheas" which the computer informs me does not exist! And searching the blog for a post with that title reveals that there is none. A while back, a couple of posts were deleted for a reason that came up at the time.

This time round, I started to reread The Boat Of A Million Years not from the beginning but at its long concluding section, XIX, Thule, because I wanted to treat Thule in and of itself like an independent interstellar novel comparable to Tao Zero or Starfarers. Now I think that, when I have read to the end of Thule, I will again reread I-XVIII with a view to reperceiving the eight continuing characters as they had been in historical periods while now knowing where they are destined to wander in a remote future. While rereading, we can look out for any descriptions of the galaxy although these are less likely pre-space flight. 

Indeed, now checking XIX, 12, where Pytheas leaves the Solar System, we find:

"The Milky Way coursed heaven like a river of frost and light." (p. 499)

Thus, that earlier quotation has been found easily enough. I will now edit "The Milky Way" to link to here.