Freda's home is burned and her family killed. She says:
"'Broken is the tree whose branches sheltered the land, and wind blows cold across fields gone barren -'" (p. 79)
Leea warns Skafloc against Freda:
"'There is doom in her; I can feel it, like chill in my marrow.'" (p. 80)
- but Leea does not know the reason. Freda is Skafolc's sister.
I admit to not remembering what happens next despite several previous readings. Maybe the plot of The Broken Sword will stay with me longer this time.
I also admit to preferring Poul Anderson's fantasies to Tolkien's. Anderson deserves as much recognition.
20 comments:
Tolkiein's fantasies are deeply (but in a non-obvious way) influenced by his Christianity. Poul's are closer to the pagan roots. They're both great, but in different ways. I think JRRT's are more popular because Christianity is an underlying bedrock beneath Western Civ's moral discoruse.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Correct, Tolkien did not want to insert his Christian faith too obviously into his Middle-earth legendarium. Yes, even now, despite the disastrous nonsense of Political Correctness and anti-Christian prejudice among our "elites," Christianity is still a bedrock of Western civilization.
But I still wish Anderson had paid more attention to the elves seen in THE SILMARILLION. He might then have avoided the mistake he made in both "Awakening the Elves" and the Foreword to the revised version of THE BROKEN SWORD, believing Tolkien was glorifying the elves. He was not- we see the elves as they were at different stages of their history. All too imperfect in THE SILMARILLION and more chastened and wiser in later Ages of Middle-earth and in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
And even Gandalf and the Lady Galadriel had to wrestle with a deadly temptation at two points in LOTR.
Paul: While I would not minimize Tolkien's works too far, I completely agree Anderson's fantasies deserve to be far better known than they are these days.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We have an "elite" which is prejudiced against Christianity? My reading of the same data is just that we have many people who are able to articulate substantive reasons why they do not accept Christianity and why they also find other world-views more reasonable.
"...the disastrous nonsense of Political Correctness..." sounds quite prejudiced! Surely it is possible to discuss these issues without expressing contempt and even what sounds like hatred towards those who hold alternative points of view?
Paul.
Tolkien influenced by Christianity; Anderson closer to pagan roots? That sounds like an apt summary.
Paul: yes, I think it is. Tolkien was an intense believer. Poul was an agnostic and immersed in pre-Christian Norse mythology.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Those "substantive reasons" are not convincing and those other "world views" have not given us beneficial results. The Christianity so many in those "elites" hate and fear has been an enormous factor in spreading all that has been so successful in Western civilization, including the rise of a true science and ideas leading to the limited State.
Yes, "disastrous nonsense of Political Correctness." I can easily cite monstrosities like "legalized" abortion, and the desperate, strained, irrational arguments made trying to defend infanticide. And absurdities like "everything is relative" or "nothing is absolutely true," which also came from PCness. And the "transexual" lunacy sprang from resentment of how it's not possible to change unwanted facts into their opposites.
Denying God and logical reasoning opens the door to swarms of bad, catastrophic ideas. Something I believe Anderson would agree with as this bit from this story, "A Feast for the Gods," that he wrote with his wife shows: "You'll find you can't get along without Jesus, whose ethic keeps men from completely exploding the planet; and Yahweh's stiff-necked "No" to every sly new superstition; and other human qualities embodied in other gods."
Mr. Stirling: But in others of his fantasies we see Anderson being almost as influenced by Christianity as was Tolkien: OPERATION CHAOS, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST, and short stories like "Pact."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: no, those were set in universes where Christianity was true. I do that too.
Sean: "Those "substantive reasons" are not convincing"
Exactly what I say about 'reasons' for believing in god(s).
I was raised without religion, but of course am familiar with several religions including varieties of Christianity. None of the arguments for God have been convincing to me.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Jim!
Mr. Stirling: I agree, of course. But that is still the same as me saying Anderson was influenced by Judaism/Christianity. Without those faiths we would have most likely ended with a word like "The House of Sorrows," an endlessly cyclical rise and fall of dead end civilizations." Or one similar to the monstrous society we get a glimpse of in "Eutopia," where we see disgusting things pedophilia being "normal."
Jim: That goes both ways, I've never seen any convincing arguments against the existence of God. I would suggest going to John Wright's blog, where as both a philosopher and lawyer he became more and dissatisfied with atheism and anti-Catholic attacks. He has often written about these topics.
Ad astra! Sean
Corrections: second sentence of my comment to Stirling immediately above should have been "world", not "word." Last sentence of that comment should have "like" after "things."
Sean
Sean: it's impossible -not- to be influenced by Christianity in modern Western culture.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That was good, not only because of God offering Christianity as the means for salvation, but also because of how the Faith was one of the factors preventing us from ending up in a world like that of "The House of Sorrows."
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Those substantive reasons do not convince you! We continue to disagree. You do not seem to understand this if you still require sceptics to present reasons that DO convince you.
Paul.
People out here do not hate and fear Christianity! That is how you perceive their disagreement.
Denying God AND logical reasoning? Let's just do the first.
Sean,
No one is obliged to argue AGAINST a belief. Believers are obliged to state their reasons FOR their belief. This fundamental logical point keeps getting lost.
Paul.
Sean,
You attack a bogeyman of Political Correctness. Your opponents can easily do the same with Trumpism.
Paul.
Sean,
Also, the argument never sticks to the point. People who can give reasons - whether or not you agree with those reasons - are not speaking merely from prejudice.
Paul.
Sean,
Air is free to all. I do not envy you the air that you breathe although you would be envied if you controlled the last oxygen cylinder in a space station. See how much conditions influence attitudes and therefore also behaviour.
Advanced technology, if it is controlled by society, not by a self-serving minority, can make everything that we need and want as free as air. We really can live in a qualitatively different society and civilization but only if enough of us cooperate to build it. It will not fall into our hands. Indeed, it will be and is now being resisted. But it is in the interests of the majority to reorganize society in this way so it is possible.
May I say that you stubbornly refuse to deduce and imagine the consequences of technology? - which is what sf is about. I would not usually deploy language like "stubbornly" but I am replying in kind to earlier remarks.
Paul.
I can anticipate one reply: we would all die of boredom! I have replied to that before. But my main point here was that we would no longer have any reason to envy each other. The argument does not stay on one point at a time but wanders from point to point and back again.
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