The Little Monster And The Man Who Came Early

Similarities

(i) In both of these stories, the title character is transported to the past by accident.

(ii) In both stories, the traveler is presented as seen by inhabitants of the period to which he has been sent.

(iii) Both stories address the question of how a modern person would be able to cope if transported to the past.

Differences

(i) The Little Monster is sent from and returns to a period where time travel technology is in regular use whereas The Man Who Came Early was struck by lightning.

(ii) "The Little Monster" alternates between the time traveler's point of view and that of an inhabitant of the Pliocene. (In fact, the title is ironic because each perceives the other as both little and monstrous.)

(iii) The Little Monster uses a knife and Scouting skills to survive whereas the Man Who Came Early, lacking necessary knowledge and skills, does not survive.

Thus, Poul Anderson not only addresses a question raised by earlier sf writers, Twain and de Camp, but also presents alternative answers to it.

Icelandic Wisdom

Anderson, Poul, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Knight, Damon, Ed., 100 Years Of Science Fiction (London, 1972), pp. 1185-212.

The tenth century Icelandic narrator of "The Man Who Came Early" is "...a godi, a chief who holds sacrifices..." (p. 195). I was unfamiliar with this term. Googling reveals that some of the godis became Christian priests. Presumably, the similarity to the word "god" is accidental?

This godi says:

"Birth and life and death, these are the great mysteries, which none will ever fathom, and a woman is closer to them than a man." (p. 206)

Women are closer to birth and, in some societies, to preparing the dead for burial. We now fathom more than we did but not everything.

"I wonder if Gerald thought that the strangeness of his weapon would unnerve us. He may not have understood that every man dies when his time comes, neither sooner nor later, so that fear of death is useless." (p. 211)

That attitude helped them to face danger but I think we can say that a man who dies young potentially had decades in him if things had gone differently.

"...I look into the future, a thousand years hence...Maybe some of them, walking about on the heaths, will see that barrow and wonder what ancient warrior lies buried there, and they may well wish that they had lived long ago in his time when men were free." (p. 212)

We might.

Lack Of Knowledge Of Social Complexities

Anderson, Poul, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Knight, Damon, Ed., 100 Years Of Science Fiction (London, 1972), pp. 185-212.

Unable to support himself in tenth century Iceland, Gerald Robbins is insulted and must fight;
he wants to fight with fists but is obliged to fight to the death;
he kills a man with his gun so the Thing must decide between weregild and outlawry;
failing through ignorance to declare a manslaying at the first garth he seeks, he becomes immediately a murderer and an outlaw;
the slain man's father and brothers attack him till his gun gives out.

I would have known even less than Gerald and succumbed even sooner!

Even when dead, he receives some respect:

it is acknowledged that he defended himself well with a dead man's sword when his gun gave out;
for fear of the ghost, since he may have been a warlock, his body and everything that he had owned, even a valuable knife given as a present, are burned and a barrow erected but shunned.

Although Gerald's story of the world a thousand years hence refutes the priest's claim that the world will end soon, it seems that Gerald himself came from a time when the world might indeed end soon. Suddenly the great social differences between the two periods seem insignificant.

Lightning

Anderson, Poul, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Knight, Damon, Ed., 100 Years of Science Fiction (London, 1972), pp. 185-212.

"'I was out in the storm, and somehow the lightning must have smitten me in just the right way, a way that happens only once in many thousands of times. It threw me back into the past.'" (p. 194)

A way that happens never, we believe! So this passage is ironic. Anderson is commenting in two ways on L Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall. De Camp's hero, thrown into the past by lightning, uses modern knowledge and expertise to succeed in the late Roman Empire and even averts the Dark Ages whereas Anderson's character, lacking the skills necessary to succeed in tenth century Iceland, comes to grief and is commemorated only by a burial mound.

The tenth century narrator of "The Man Who Came Early" had suggested:

"'Maybe Thor's hammer knocked you from your place to here.'" (p. 190)

- so he propounds essentially the same theory but in mythological language.

Being thrown into the past by lightning is so rare that it happens only in an occasional work of science fiction. However, Bob Shaw suggested in one of his "Serious Scientific Talks" at a Science Fiction Convention that it was quite common. His words, as far as I can remember them, were:

"Most people think that, if you are struck by lightning, it will kill you. But, if you read science fiction, you know that a much more likely result is that you will be flung into the past. Which period of the past you go to is a product of three factors:

"the voltage of electricity in the lightning;
"your body weight, measured in pounds;
"which period the author has been mugging up on!"

 Authors "mug up" on periods, no doubt. We appreciate Shaw's honesty and humor. But we may add that Poul Anderson displayed a detailed knowledge and sound understanding of many historical periods in several works of both historical fiction and time travel fiction.

The Man Who Came Early II

Anderson, Poul, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Knight, Damon, Ed., 100 Years of Science Fiction (London, 1972), pp. 185-212.

The protagonists of "Wildcat," "The Nest," "The Little Monster" and "The Man Who Came Early" travel to the Jurassic, the Oligocene, the Pliocene and the late tenth century AD respectively. Thus, they are true time travelers. The protagonist of "Welcome" psycho-physically exists for less than half an hour between 1997 and 2497 and the protagonist of "Time Heals" undergoes zero duration between 1952 and 2837 but neither can return so they are not time travelers.

The protagonists of "Flight To Forever" can travel into an indefinite future but would need infinite energy to travel more than about seventy years pastwards. But they can travel in that direction so they are time travelers. They can also reach the past by traveling forwards around the circle of time, which is a new angle. (Olaf Stapledon's Last Men discovered that time is a circle and that most of it is an unknown period between the end and the beginning of the universe.)

"The Man Who Came Early" perfectly complements these other stories of characters displaced in time. Its point, contra L Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, is that a twentieth century engineer and soldier would lack the skills necessary to succeed or even to survive in tenth century Iceland. The time traveler is described entirely as perceived by the tenth century narrator. He wears what we recognize as a military uniform inscribed not with runes but with Roman letters, "...thus, MP." (p. 189) So we know that he is a military policeman.

By speaking with this stranger, the narrator has learned that the Christian priest is wrong to say that the world will end in two years but has also learned that Christ will conquer Thor - so he might as well be on the winning side. The stranger introduces himself as Gerald Robbins but, when asked, says that his father was named Sam, so he is known as Gerald Samsson. When he asks what year it is, he is told, "'...it's the second year after the great salmon catch...'" (p. 191), but he perseveres and learns the approximate date AD.

Thus, this is a time travel story recounted entirely from the perspective of the period that has been traveled to.

The Man Who Came Early

(The end of the month approaches. I will probably hold back a few posts in order to end the month with a round number. Figures ending in "0" are more satisfying and easier to total.)

Anderson, Poul, "The Man Who Came Early" IN Knight, Damon, Ed. 100 Years of Science Fiction, Book One (London, 1972), pp. 185-212.

"The Man Who Came Early" reminds us of other historical fiction by Poul Anderson. Its second sentence refers to "...the king in Miklagard..." (p. 185) and to an "Eilif Eiriksson," who had served in the Varangian Guard.

Not only is the narration first person but it is addressed conversationally to a single auditor, a Christian priest. The speaker, having seen how the English and French prosper, concedes that "...the White Christ...must be a very powerful god, to ward so many realms..." (ibid.) and is attracted by the idea of receiving a white robe at baptism. Such a garment would mildew in Icelandic weather but he would sacrifice to the household elves...

Someone who thinks thus is prepared to change his deity within the Pagan world view but is not yet making the change to the Christian world view. How many of the first generation in Northern Europe did it that way? Christianity represented civilization, a higher culture and wider trade. There were pragmatic reasons for conversion. But subsequent generations grew up in a society that had collectively changed its world view from Pagan to Christian.

We now experience social change with, potentially, a more sympathetic understanding of earlier periods. I attended a handfast ceremony in which some people were surprised to hear a prayer to the Lord Jesus. However, the bride was Christian so it was appropriate that her deity was invoked. When a Pagan seasonal ritual was held in our kitchen, my daughter quietly informed the celebrant that she did not have any religious beliefs but was advised that belief or disbelief did not matter. (That is the Christian approach.) She found that she appreciated the ceremony.

I feel attuned to a world view in which it is acceptable to invoke local gods or not as we want and also to respect other people and their gods. Attending an anti-racist rally in Trafalgar Square, I again found my fellow demonstrators queuing to receive free vegetarian food from devotees of Krishna. And, if we learn meditation from Zen monks, then we offer incense to the Buddha who, in the mythology, was a "teacher of gods and men."