Saturday, 30 August 2025

Whining Wind And Grinding Waves

The Merman's Children, Book Three, VIII.

When Tauno and Eyjan approach the garth of Haakon Arnorsson:

"Wind whined sharp-toothed; waves ground together the stones of the beach." (p. 162)

This is all promisingly Andersonian: a beach, waves and wind - a wind, moreover, that plays its usual scene-setting role by, on this occasion, whining instead of, for example, sighing, which winds can also do when appropriate. Are we to be treated to a chapter of winds commenting on the action? Well, yes, but we also find that we have posted about it before!

See: Wind In Greenland And Elsewhere Later.

Let's not repeat ourselves as we sometimes do. In the above-linked post, we had missed the whining wind and started with the moaning wind but it all blows the same way in the end. Poul Anderson's texts are inexhaustibly analyzable.

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Repetition is not always a bad thing.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Fortunately for this blog!