Mananaan Mac Lir is an Irish sea god and the son of Lir, one of the Three of Ys. When Mananaan and Skafloc embark for Jotunheim, Mananaan sings to the wind, calling it to blow him on his quest. And indeed a strong breeze springs up so that the boat surges. The wind tosses Mananaan's hair.
He refers to the Tuatha De Danaan as no longer gods or at "'...their full might.'" (p. 155) These powers are fading.
The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon (illustrated by Alicia Austin) is a tale told to Skafloc by Mananaan during their voyage to Jotunheim. Some of Anderson's works have extraordinary intertextual interconnections. (In sf, the Maurai future history is a work of fiction published during the course of the time travel novel, There Will Be Time.)
11 comments:
Any future in SF that's near enough will turn into an alternate history, since the future is impossible to predict.
So I make 'em an alternate history anyway...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I would not have minded if some of your stories had started in our real history. It would have been interesting comparing what you thought might happen with what actually happened.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: the problem is that history, on a large scale, is unlikely accidents bouncing off each other. The way WW1 started is an example. And on an individual level too. My father's mother ended up in St. John's, Newfoundland, because she was on her way to Boston when her ship hit an iceberg and sank. The crew and passengers were rescued put up in St. John's, where she met the son of the owner of the hotel, my grandfather.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You are right, both of the examples you cited were stunningly unpredictable. Francis Ferdinand dying because his driver made a wrong turn and stopped directly in front of Princip? Or your paternal grandmother surviving a shipwreck and ending up in Newfoundland sheerly by accident???
Alternate worlds stories make more sense.
Ad astra! Sean
All histories are unlikely, in the sense that they are the results of weird accidents.
For example, my mother existed because FF's driver took a wrong turn. My maternal grandfather was gassed at Passchendaele in 1917, and met my maternal grandmother as a VAD nurse in a convalescent home.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I have to agree, re "weird accidents."
Even my own mother might have existed solely because of Francis Ferdinand's tragedy. She was born on April 6, 1915. I can see it being possible that no assassination at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 might have somehow prevented her from being conceived in July.
My father was already alive, being born on Oct. 7, 1903.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean; very probably. To get the individual that resulted, one sperm has to meet one egg, and then the (random) exchange of genetic material has to be exactly as it was. That's vanishingly unlikely with the very slightest change in circumstances. If there was a change in history, within a few decades at most nobody would be born who was born in our history.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That makes plain what I had in the back of my mind. How alarmingly contingent our personal existences are!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, yeah, but you've got an 'out' -- religion and an omnipotent God.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
True. And that option is possible as well for those who are skeptical.
Ad astra! Sean
If we are skeptical, then we cannot just opt to believe.
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