Swordsman Of Lost Terra

I have read "Swordsman of Lost Terra" to its conclusion. Our hero implausibly escapes, evades pursuit and survives in the Dark Lands, then fights his way into a palace and into a particular room in the palace, where he spontaneously and unaccountably learns how to play the god pipe, a sonic weapon that destroys the Dark Landers and their realm: a victorious conclusion, of course, but the reader always needs to understand how any particular victory has been achieved.

One side issue was of some local interest to a Lancastrian reader. The narrative refers to certain animals as "tyrs" and "hests." These turn out to be bulls and horses, respectively. "Tyr" is the Norse god of war. Is he associated with bulls? - which are used for warfare in this story. However, the local interest came from the other unfamiliar word, "hest." When I googled it, here, my google list included Hest Bank, a local place name, in fact the name of a place well within the boundaries of the City of Lancaster, so it seems that I have learned the meaning of the name of a place that I have walked and driven through even though it had never occurred to me to wonder how it came by such a name. (And I recognize the name of one of the commentators.)

Swordsmen Of Terra

Dominic Flandry is a swordsman and "Flandry of Terra." Thus, although Poul Anderson's uncollected short story, "Swordsman of Lost Terra," was not incorporated into his History of Technic Civilization, I had hoped that it would be set in a similar future. However, the story turns out to be "The third book of the Story of the Men of Killorn" and to recount "How Red Bram fought the Ganasthi from the lands of darkness..."

Skipping ahead before turning in, I gather that the lands of darkness are not a supernatural realm but the unlit half of a planet whose other side permanently faces its sun and, further, that this planet is Earth in a far future.

In sf, the Latin noun, "Terra," with the specially coined adjective, "Terran," usually differentiates Earth from other planets in hard sf futures. However, in this story, unless I have missed it, the word "Terra" appears in the title though not in the text and the characters do not know that their world had been called "Earth."

Thus, so far, two of the uncollected stories, "War-Maid of Mars" and "Swordsman of Lost Terra," have not turned out as expected, although I will read "Swordsman..." through to ensure that I am not missing anything.