The second mythological passage, which is also the second to be headed by a Roman numeral, begins:
"Out of the east, the morning behind them, rode the Anses into the world." (p. 557)
A striking and memorable sentence, so much so that we have previously quoted it eight times. See here.
Since it is getting late here, since I want to read some John Grisham and since I have probably written all that I am going to write about the Anses riding into the world, let's make this a very short post. Since the cold is not completely cleared up, tomorrow looks like being another day of not going out but staying at home with books and computer. Grisham's hero's problems are a divorce and a rich client, a refreshing contrast from gods and interstellar empires. The Republic of Letters is one.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI know you don't much care for his stuff, but one of the things that interested about John Wright's books was his science fictional extrapolation of what law might become millennia from now. Which is no surprise, since he, like Grisham, is a lawyer.
THE DEVIL'S GAME is one of Anderson's few works which touches on the law. Again, no surprise, not many SF writers will give much attention to the law.
Ad astra! Sean
The Anses coming from the east is actually a reflex of their -followers- coming from the east... which they did, since they were the Yamnaya culture, the original Indo-European expansion.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteAnd the Magyars who galloped into Europe around AD 900 were the last nomadic invaders to carve out a kingdom of their own, Hungary.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, but by the time the Magyars arrived, Europe was an area of states/kingdoms. When the Yamnaya showed up, it was a congeries of tribal-clan societies. The Yamnaya had mechanisms for armed expansion that nobody else (at the time) could match. Then the Corded Ware culture -- a close offshoot of the Yamnaya and also Proto-Indo-European speakers -- arose and completed the expansion all the way from Ireland to over the Urals.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI agree. Your comments about how aggressive/warlike the proto-Indo-Europeans were reminded me of the much later Magyars. And of how the German king and Emperor Otto I defeated the Magyars when they tried to invade the Holy Roman Empire.
Ad astra! Sean