How can we convey the detail of Poul Anderson's descriptions without quoting some at length? Instead of composing the following paragraph, Anderson could simply have written that the warriors embarked:
"On a night just after sunset, the warriors embarked. A moon newly risen cast silver and shadow on the crags and scaurs of the elf-hills, on the strand from which they rose, on the clouds racing eastward on a wind that filled heaven with its clamour. The moonlight ran in shards and ripples over the waves, which tumbled and roared, white-maned, on the rocks. It shimmered off weapons and armour of the elf warriors, while the black-and-white longships drawn up on the shore seemed but shapes and light-gleams.
"Skafloc stood wrapped in a cape, the wind streaming his hair..." (p. 65)
Two paragraphs: two references to wind. Colours, clamour, cape, wind, waves, white manes, weapons, warriors... And at last a conversation in which Leea warns Skafloc not to go. He goes.
We know only that doom awaits.
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