What Becomes Of Dahut?

Having destroyed Ys, Niall also destroys its ruins. He does not want the city to be rebuilt or even remembered. This is comprehensible if reprehensible. But something else is less comprehensible.

Where Ys had been, a siren swims and sings. Niall sees a white body and hears a song that "...was in and of the wind and the waves but more than they, from somewhere beyond." (Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), p. 35)

Here again, the Andersons convey Pagan religious experience: someone speaks, or in this case sings, in and through nature - the wind and waves. Perhaps a walker on the shore who was less attuned to such experience would hear the waves but not the song? Niall had earlier summoned a dead witch-queen and thus "...let the Otherworld into his life..." (p. 36)

The singer claims to be vengeance. Whose? We have already seen Niall's vengeance against Ys, the Ysan Gods' vengeance against King Gratillonius and Dahut's vengeance against Gratillonius. Does Dahut now seek vengeance for her betrayal by Niall? No, she claims still to love him and that this love is stronger than death. So is that what has brought her back? By the power of her love, she lays a gess, obligation, on Niall that he destroy the Ysan ruins. In fact, it is this vision, as he calls it, that motivates him to organise the systematic destruction of every remaining physical trace of the ruined city.

He tells his men that he does not want Ys to be rebuilt or remembered but does not mention that there is now also a gess on him to this effect. Does Dahut inflict on Ys her own vengeance, that of the Gods or of both? Such things happen in legendary stories even if the motivations of supernatural beings are not always clear.

Rhymes And Recriminations

We have got used to looking out for verse concealed in Poul Anderson's prose. As noted in an earlier post, in Poul and Karen Anderson's Dahut (London, 1989), Chapter VIII, section 2, what looks like prose turns out to be several stanzas with a regular rhyming scheme.

Again, on page 450, Gratillonius' prayer can be re-punctuated:

"Mithras, God of the Midnight, You have had our sacrifice.
"Here is my spirit before You, my heart beneath Your eyes.
"I call, who followed Your eagles since ever my life began:
"Mithras, also a soldier, keep now faith with Your man!"

In this milieu, Gods Who break faith with Their worshipers may be reviled. In the sequel to Dahut, The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), an officer has to tell three of his men to stop doing this as if they were merely being disrespectful to absent human superiors (p. 27).

Gratillonius says, "...the Gods of Ys are dead...They brought Their city down on Themselves..." (pp. 30-31).

Have they died or merely ceased to interact with mankind? Have they instead withdrawn to another realm? Or, indeed, is death itself simply another realm? We are given some information about the differing post-mortem fates of three of the human characters, Dahilis, Budic and Dahut, but what becomes of departed Gods remains a greater mystery.

Linking Volumes

One way to link sequel back to prequel is to make their events overlap. Two early chapters in Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novel, The Shield Of Time, retroactively describe interludes between events in what should have been the concluding two stories of his omnibus collection, Time Patrol. (I say "should have been" because the publishers have not rearranged the stories into an appropriate reading order.)

Chapter I, section 1, of Poul and Karen Anderson's The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989) re-presents an event already described near the end of the previous volume Dahut (London, 1989) but from an alternative perspective. In Dahut, we read how Gratillonius' fingers momentarily "...forgot..." his daughter Dahut who was then torn from his grasp and swept away by the current. (pp. 462-463)

In Dog, we read what Dahut saw and felt as her father's hand grasped her arm but then:

"The fingers slackened. A surge tore her from them." (p. 23)

We then accompany Dahut on a strange journey. Swept along by the sea, she breathes when above the surface and holds her breath when below it. Back on the surface after sinking deep, she swims towards floating timber but a wave sends it from her. Among the skerries, billows strike her and:

"...she did not know the last of them for what it was." (p. 24)

I don't either. This is where something supernatural starts to happen. In the dark, she sinks, breathes sea, experiences pain but only remotely and briefly, descends through an endless keening whiteness and enters some other place or space, "...somewhere outside all bounds...," where she is awaited and transfigured. (p. 24)

This is all a bit too eerie and mysterious for my liking. I would like to know whether the "Someone..." who awaited Dahut is demonic as Christians believe or neutral as Pagans would have believed (p. 24).

The God Of Small Points

Hail the God of a few small points!

(i) "Wind struck him with blades that sang." (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 438)

Should this read, "...blades that stang"?

(ii) Something was puzzling me about the words "sea" and "Ys." Is each the phonetic reversal of the other?

(iii) It is unfortunate that it all has to end but the Andersons gave us three long volumes about Ys before it was destroyed. In Heaven, if there were such a place, I would like to read endless continuations of several Poul Anderson series to include a Kings Of Ys History recounting all the events of Gratillonius' seventeen year reign, all previous reigns and Caesar's visit to Ys.

(iv) Gratillonius' withdrawal from the service of Mithras, "...the God Who in the end denied him...," dates from the drowning of Ys (p. 467). I think that this is a bit hard on Mithras. He had intervened in a battle against the Franks and could hardly be expected to save Ys when its Gods had decided to destroy it. Even Christ, now becoming the most powerful God, does not send an angel to warn of impending danger until it has become too late to prevent the danger from occurring. Thus, to save Ys, Mithras would have had to oppose Belisama, Taranis, Lir and Christ.

(v) The destruction of Ys ends the Pact with its Gods. Did the destruction of Jerusalem end the Pact with its God? Some would have said so but Isaiah prophesied a new covenant with individuals. Did Jesus' execution disprove his Messiahship? Maybe, but the execution was interpreted as a sacrifice.

The Doom Of Ys

When a city is inundated, all of its inhabitants are simultaneously drowned, killed or otherwise affected in diverse ways. In order to present a brief and unified account of such an event, Poul and Karen Anderson, in Dahut (London, 1989), give the Christian minister to Ys, Corentinus, the ability to endow the Ysan king, Gratillonius, with clairvoyance by touching him with his staff.

Gratillonius's spirit, rising like a heron through winds of space and time, sees:

the sea covering the isle of vigil, destroying the house and turret of the Witch-Queens and killing Queen Bodilis as she tells her Gods that They will be judged for Their actions;

Queen Forsquilis entering the Mithraeum in the Raven Tower and calling on its God before stabbing herself as the sea breaks in, destroying the tower;

Gratillonius' deputy and his family drowned in their home;

another legionary and his family drowned trying to reach higher ground;

the sea destroying the library and those who have taken refuge in it;

Queen Innilis trampled to death in the stampede to escape from the flooding library;

Queen Vindilis climbing onto a stone lion but the water going above her head;

Soren Cartigi, Speaker for the God Taranis, saying calmly, " 'Ocean has entered...The Gods have ended the Pact...' " before being hit in the neck by a shard of glass from a toppling tower (pp. 458-459);

Queen Lanarvilis ground into a barricade;

Queen Maldunilis running, falling, floating, going under;

Queen Guilvilis, too crippled to flee, trying the forgive the Gods as the sea comes in;

Guilvilis' daughter, Valeria, and her companions trapped by the flood beneath the wall of Ys;

the palace collapsing on Queen Tambilis and an Ysan naval officer;

most of the current and former Kings' daughters engulfed;

the Lodge and the Wood of the King burning while his enemy escapes;

houses falling like sandcastles;

ramparts breaking asunder.

Returning to his body, he sees Princess Dahut torn from his grasp. His seventeen years as King have ended. Eight of his Nine Queens have died.

Niall And Ys

Unusually in a modern novel, the Irish King Niall of the Nine Hostages delivers a soliloquy over the sleeping Dahut before he sets off to destroy Ys. Shakespearean dramatis personae soliloquise because that is the only way that the audience can know what they are thinking but a novelist usually reports a viewpoint character's thoughts directly to the reader.

Niall, although this passage is narrated from his point of view, speaks quietly in his own language:

" 'It's sad I am to be leaving you, my darling...' " (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 436)

- and continues, quietly, for over a page, ending with:

" 'Farewell, Dahut.' " (p. 438)

(She will not fare well when she drowns with her fellow Ysans.) Of course, he wants neither to wake her nor to be understood if she did awake but his speech informs the reader. It identifies Dahut as her Gods' instrument of Niall's vengeance on Ys.

Now we understand the storms that have continued for hundreds of pages. With wind and waves, Lir will quickly overwhelm Ys when Niall opens the sea gate with the key stolen for him by Dahut when he had lied about why he needed it.

Ys, no longer isolated, is open to new ideas, has both a Mithraeum and a church within its walls and has a King who has inwardly foresworn its Gods, having openly defied them on several occasions. As King Gratillonius himself had said earlier, this conflict is ultimately between the Gods so it is Their responsibility to resolve it.

A new Age is dawning, with Christianity and other developments beyond that, but it is not an Age that the Three can control. They withdraw. Their time is passed.

Goths And Gods

In Poul and Karen Anderson's Dahut (London, 1989), Stilicho, de facto dictator of the Western Roman Empire, must mobilise against Alaric, the Visigothic King (p. 362). This sounds familiar to readers of Poul Anderson's Time Patrol Series. A few decades earlier, in "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," Athanaric was king of the West Goths or Visigoths and Ermanaric succeeded his father Geberic as king of the East Goths or Ostrogoths. Athanaric hated Christ whereas Ermanaric cared nothing about any gods.

However, these Goths inhabit different fictional timelines. Both of the timelines are in most of their historical details indistinguishable from ours but the Alaric of Dahut inhabits a history where gods were real and are becoming mythical whereas the Athanaric and Ermanaric of the Time Patrol Series inhabit a history where gods were mythical and are sometimes identified with time travellers. Magic works in Dahut whereas futuristic technology works for the Time Patrol.

In Dahut, we read a conversation between Corentinus, Christian minister to Ys, and Forsquilis, one of the Nine Witch-Queens of Ys. The premises of this historical fantasy novel include the Pagan idea that all the gods which various people worship exist and that the balance of power between them can change. Thus, Christ gains in power as the Olympians become myths, the Ysan Triad withdraw and Mithras, after intervening in one Ysan-Frankish battle, retreats.

Corentinus describes a revelatory dream. Either its content is symbolic or he sees a region of the hereafter where one of his flock who transgressed and was killed "...wandered naked through an endless dark...," calling his lover's name in a bitter cold wind. (p. 377) Not an Inferno then. That doesn't sound quite so bad, wandering in cold and darkness  - for how long? Until what, rebirth, extinction or entry to another realm? Nothing is forever.

Weather And Seasons

As events in Ys approach a climax, weather conditions and seasonal changes seem to sympathise.

"Rain lashed from the west..." (p. 269)

"Weather cleared. The morning sun stood low...nearly heatless." (p. 272)

"The afternoon grew mild." (p. 275)

"Clouds drove low on a wind that howled..." (p. 278)

"Weather turned clear and cold." (p. 295)

"Wind woke anew..." (p. 300)

"The winter sun was barely aloft." (p. 305)

"Rain and sleet scourged the streets." (p. 307)

"...Gratillonius stood before the winter Council..." (p. 309)

"Snow fell in small dry flakes." (p. 328)

"Weather turned bitterly cold and clear." (p. 333)

"Snow returned, this time on a wind from the sea..." (p. 342)

"During the night snowfall ceased and freezing weather moved in." (p. 347)

"The cold spell ended. Snow began to melt." (p. 366)

"Rain mingled with sleet dashed down the streets of Ys. Wind clamoured, Ocean roared. This had become a stormy year." (p. 368)

"Clouds raced on a wild wind." (p. 380)

"Wind blustered outside." (p. 387)

"The wind yowled." (p. 390)

"A gale from the west drove an onslaught of rain before it." (p. 392)

" 'The weather...It's been vile throughout, this year.' " (p. 394)

"Suddenly came a quiet spell among the storms ramping over Armorica at that winter's close." (p. 394)

"The night...was the first clear one of their homeward journey." (p. 406)

"Foul weather returned and worsened. Wind came..." (p. 410)

"Ocean raged...Wind was an elemental force...The blast had been strengthening throughout this day...The Wood of the King surged under the storm..." (p. 413)

"If the storm got much worse, they would have been in danger." (p. 416)

"Still the wind mounted. By dawn it was like none that chronicles remembered. And still it mounted." (p. 422)

"The wind wuthered, the sea thundered." (p. 425)

"By sunset the wind had indeed lessened. It was still such as few could travel in..." (p. 428)

"The wind keened. The sea rumbled." (p. 432)

Also, a Witch-Queen learns by clairvoyance that above the clouds there is an unpredicted lunar eclipse. And shortly afterwards there is a comet. All this parallels the spiritual storms experienced by the characters and expresses the turmoil of their Gods.

Epona's Horse

When I stated in a previous post that the Irish King Niall stayed at the inn called Epona's Horse, I was in fact rereading a passage about an earlier visitor to Ys, the Northman Gunnung Ivarsson. However, Niall, on his arrival, does take a room at Epona's Horse so I had not gone far wrong.

Epona's Horse is frequented by "...moderately prosperous foreigners and Ysan commoners." (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 368). The tile floor of the taproom is warmed by a hypocaust. Tallow candles and blubber lamps light murals of both real and fabulous animals. Owned and managed by a large family, the inn serves good food and a wide choice of drinks whereas the Fish Tail inn that we encountered earlier was limited to mead and indifferent wine. Niall and the fisher captain Maeloch, sharing ale, bread and cheese, are too engrossed in conversation to heed a nearby courtesan.

By describing not just one but several inns catering to various classes of clients with different income levels, the authors make Ys a substantial setting for the political, psychological and even theological dramas that are the plot of the novel. By drawing out Maeloch, who is an acquaintance of the disaffected Queen Dahut, Niall, a mortal enemy of Ys, begins to learn how he can manipulate Dahut as she has already manipulated three unsuccessful challengers to her father's Kingship. Thus, while the reader enjoys reading about a conversational interlude in the "...snug cave..." of the taproom, the plot is at the same time significantly advanced. (p. 368)

More Details About Ys

We know of an unnamed inn in the Fish Tail slum and the more respectable Green Whale. Suddenly, we learn of three more:

" '...the Swan is the most respectable mariners' inn...' " but foreigners usually stay in " '...the Crossed Anchors or Epona's Horse.' " (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 324).

Niall, the nemesis of Ys, stays at "...the second place...," which would be Epona's Horse, where Dahut, the instrument of Ysan divine vengeance, seeks him out.

Meanwhile, we have received another prefigurement concerning Dahut. Gratillonius wonders what had possessed the two young men who had unsuccessfully challenged him for the Kingship. Unable to believe any evil of Dahut, he does not realize that he should ask who had possessed them. Corentinus, the Christian minister, believes that Dahut herself is possessed and indeed her sudden malevolence gives that impression.

Further, when dissembling to her father, Gratillonius, she clutches his hands and:

"The touch burned." (p. 311)

- like her sandcastle and the description of her rising from bed like a mermaid, here is another prefiguring symbol.

Addendum, 7 Nov '12: I have got something wrong here. All will be made clear either in a later post or in comments on this one. 

Prefigurements II

I have found another example. In Poul and Karen Anderson's Dahut (London, 1989):

"Dahut raised herself to a sitting position, rising from the blankets like a mermaid from the sea." (p. 282)

I illustrated a previous post (also here) with a picture of the legendary Dahut as a mermaid. Is that what she becomes at the end of The King Of Ys Tetralogy? She does not become half fish but "merpeople," meaning simply "sea people," can be aquatic bipeds, as in another historical fantasy by Poul Anderson.

The Anderson's "...synopsis of the basic medieval story..." has Dahut becoming "...a siren, haunting the coast, luring sailors to shipwreck among the many rocks..." (The Dog And The Wolf (London, 1989), pp. 529-530). As far as I remember, not having reread that far yet, that is what she does in The Dog And The Wolf, whereas the half-fish mermaids were supposed, I think, to pull individual sailors under the water.

In any case, the Andersons' Dahut becomes something that lives in the sea and that is prefigured when, in the previous volume, she rises from her lover's bed like a mermaid.

The Ontological Status Of Ys

Like Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix, the inn between the worlds, Poul and Karen Anderson's city of Ys seems to have an uncertain ontological status. When Gratillonius, who will become the last King of Ys, first sees the city, he cannot believe that it is inhabited by human beings rather than by elves or Gods.

Later, when he has been its King for sixteen years:

"Ys gleamed, somehow not quite real - too lovely?" (Dahut (London, 1989), p. 183)

"...not quite real..." Impossibly beautiful?

This uncertainty of the relationship between Ys and reality increases when the city is destroyed and its existence is past:

"Ys was gone.
"Had Ys ever been?" (pp. 466-467)

To us, Ys is a legend and the setting of a work of fiction. To Gratillonius, it has become not only a memory but also one that he can already question and doubt. Does this approach qualify the text as "metafiction," a fictional text acknowledging its fictional status? Whether or not this term is applicable, the Andersons construct a smooth transition from a narrative about the last King of Ys to one set in the history that we recognize where a myth like Ys of the hundred towers is too good to be true.

Inns In Ys

We learn at last that the "...disreputable old haunt in the Fish Tail..." is not the same place as the Green Whale which has also been mentioned (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 198). The text implies that the Green Whale is more expensive but the characters have prospered and can now afford it.

By contrast with the old haunt already described, the Green Whale is "...spacious, clean, sunny, muralled with fanciful nautical images." (p. 199) There are several tables. The resident courtesan has "...learning and conversational abilities..." as well as beauty and sexual skills. (p. 198)

Zeugit the landlord's clientele do more than swap songs and tales. " 'They talk of a new Age...' " (p. 199) Ys, brought out of its centuries-old isolation by King Gratillonius, is now a busy seaport visited by strangers from everywhere bringing new Gods, ways and ideas. The old faith is weakened. Some men seek Mithras whose legionaries want volunteers, not conscripts. Zeugit says, " '...change is in the air, you can smell it like the sharpness before a lightning storm.' " (p. 199)

The old unnamed inn in the Fish Tail slum, with its ancient, sea-damaged building, was like a haunt of the primordial Ysan sea god, Lir, whereas the Green Whale is frequented by young men eager for the New Age when glorious Ys might "'...succeed Rome as mistress of the world.'" (p. 199)

There has indeed been a New Age since then but it has not been what anyone then could have imagined. Across Ocean in the western continent discovered by Ysans is a seaport with towers, named after the Romano-British city of Eboracum - Novum Eboracum, New York.

A Scotian Mithraic initiate addressing Gratillonius, " 'Tis honoured I am, Father," is an ancestor of generations of Irish Catholics addressing their priests as "Father" although he could not have suspected that as we do not know what will come after us. (p. 167)

Ys And A Midsummer Tempest

In Poul and Karen Anderson's Dahut (London, 1989), the central character, Gratillonius, asked about a battlefield apparition, responds:

"'Homer tells how the Gods appeared to heroes who fought under the walls of Troy...Constantinus claimed the Cross that is Christ's stood once in the sky, and in that sign he went on to make himself supreme...'" (p. 161)

Witnesses of the apparition about which Gratillonius is asked speak of an angel or of the Ysan God Taranis although the authors' description clearly identifies Gratillonius' own deity, Mithras. Because Dahut is Volume Three of a historical fantasy tetralogy in which the Gods are real, Gratillonius' reference to Homer for historical testimony is not naive but appropriate. Similarly, in Poul Anderson's alternative reality novel, A Midsummer Tempest, Shakespeare, the Great Historian, is cited as evidence that the English were present throughout the ancient world.

There is another similarity to A Midsummer Tempest. Much of that novel is blank verse laid out as prose. Suddenly, in Chapter VIII, section 2, the text of Dahut adopts a strange rhythm but here there is rhyme as well and it is easy to rearrange the text:

"Torches in the avenue and lanterns up the street,
"Night becomes a sunrise glow about their eager feet,
"Lit the way for golden youth come forth to celebrate,
"And Dahut was awaiting them within her father's gate.

"Plangency of harp and flute, the heartbeat of a drum,
"Pulsed in Ys to welcome those that she had bidden come
"Dance away all darknesses, that morning sun might see
"How brightly Dahut's dower shone - her father's victory.

"Golden shone the eagle wings and bronze the open door,
"Chariots careened within the burnished palace floor,
"Tall the sentry columns reared through incense dreamy air,
"And lamplight turned to living gold in Dahut's loosened hair.

"Silken gowns and purple edges rippled, flowed and swirled,
"Silver gleamed and amber smouldered where the dancers whirled.
"Music laughed and laughter sang around their skipping feet,
"And Dahut went before them all, the fleetest of the fleet.

"Fair the well-born maidens were and handsome were the men
"Treading out the merry measure forth and back again.
"Close embrace and stolen kiss could cast a sweet surprise;
"But Dahut was the star that shone before the young men's eyes.

"Kel Cartagi, Soren's grandson, touched her hand and waist.
"Then the dance bereaved him of her with its lilting haste.
"On she swayed to Barak Tyri, on to many more.
"So Dahut left a swathe of joy and woe across the floor.

"When the music paused a while and gave the fevered guest
"Time to cool or drink or chat or flirt or simply rest,
"Carsa strove to keep a Roman passivity
"While Dahut in a ring of other men made jubilee.

"Tommaltach the Scotian boldly shouldered through to her,
"Cowing with a wolfish grin whomever would demur,
"Ready with such words as run when bardic harpstrings thrum;
"Then Dahut gave him half a glance, and he was stricken dumb.

"Legionaries duty-freed who hastened to her call,
"Honour guard for her, their Luck, stood ranked against the wall,
"Armed and brightly armoured from the war that they had won,
"And Budic's gaze trailed Dahut as the new moon trails the sun.

"Soon the music woke again, the dance began afresh.
"Red and gold and purple twined, unrestful rainbow mesh,
"Till the western stars grew pale and silver streaked the east,
"When Dahut bade the youth of Ys come follow her to feast.

"Afterwards she led them out to breathe the sunrise air.
"Light caressed her slenderness and blazed within her hair.
"Up onto the city wall she took her company,
"And Dahut by the Raven Tower looked across her sea." (pp. 163-164)

Ys Of The Hundred Towers

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys Tetralogy, I prefer the many passages and entire chapters set in the fabulous city, "Ys of the hundred towers." Thus, on a previous reading, the entire fourth volume, after the destruction of Ys, felt like an anticlimax. However, I will shortly reread and comment on this volume. How the survivors coped with the loss of their city is a major part of the story.

Again, I was inclined, on rereading, to skip the chapters set in Ireland but these are also important as the Irish king Niall plots the downfall of Ys.

At the beginning of Volume Four, when Dahut sinks and drowns, "Someone waited." (Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog And The Wolf, London, 1989, p. 24)

Who? Lir? Satan? Someone else? Although dying characters enter a hereafter, the narrative points of view remain those of the living so we do not know who awaits Dahut or what she experiences. We are told that, "Transfiguration began." (p. 24) So she is not merely an unquiet ghost but is transformed into something more active. What? A mermaid?

Like a mermaid, she lures sailors, is exorcised, dies (again?) and leaves physical remains which her father buries.

Gratillonius In Volume Three

We have read of the Roman general Marius in Poul Anderson's short story "Marius" and in his novel The Golden Slave and now again in the Andersons' novel Dahut (London, 1989). Gratillonius, the Roman Centurion who has become King of Ys, says:

" 'You've made me think back to my history lessons when I was a boy. Marius, who saved Rome from the Cimbri, meant to do well by the people but undermined the Republic - which Caesar demolished in all but name, meaning to repair the state - Am I sapping the wall of Ys?' " (p. 95)

We have all heard of Caesar. We might have heard that he was good for the Empire but did we know either that he was bad for the Republic or that another general called Marius was there before him? Gratillonius fears that he himself is becoming another Marius. Caesar was assassinated in an attempt to preserve the Republic. In "Marius," a character is assassinated to prevent him from becoming another Marius.

Strangely, the narrative in Dahut Chapter V, section 1, begins from Gratillonius' point of view but continues after he has left the room and describes three characters plotting against him without transferring the point of view to any of them. In the last paragraph, after a dash, thus " -," the narrative returns to Gratillonius' point of view and tells us what he did next. The spacing of the paragraphs should maybe have been different.

The Roman governor and procurator, helped by a disaffected Ysan, plot because they see Gratillonius' strengthening of Ys as weakening the Empire whereas he sees a re-engaged Ys as strengthening a province that is being let down by the Empire.

We also see what might have been. A document records that Ysans sailed west and found land. That land is described - vast, rich, inhabited. Gratillonius envisages, "...a new world...colonies free...civilization...reborn...a palace worthy of elves might arise for Queen Dahut!" (p. 131)

That might have happened if he, Gratillonius, had been able to accept his daughter Dahut as one of his Queens.

Of the western continent, he says:

" '...surely...the truth will dwarf any imaginings of ours.' " (p. 130)

Too right.

Incest

At least three times, the issue of incest arises in Poul Anderson's fantasies.

(i) A Mithraist becomes King of Ys and refuses to marry his daughter when the gods of the city mark her to replace a deceased Queen. The embittered daughter, a devotee of the Ysan gods, conspires with the king's enemy who destroys Ys, as its gods seem to want. Like other pantheons, they withdraw before the new god of the Roman Empire.

(ii) Skafloc Elven-Fosterling unknowingly marries his sister but his dead brothers unwillingly reveal their kinship when Skafloc recalls them seeking other information. Skafloc, raised by feckless elves, does not respect the incest tabu but his sister does and withdraws from him.

(iii) In Hrolf Kraki's Saga (New York, 1973), the Danish King Helgi and his wife learn, when they have had a son, that they are father and daughter. She points out that to stay together would bring bad luck on their country. They anticipate:

"Blighted fields, murrain on the stock, sickness sweeping through a starveling folk, Denmark naught but the haunt of ravens and wolves, cutthroats and madmen, until an outland ax hewed down the tree of the Skoldjungs..." (pp. 81-82)

Since the Saga is a fantasy, such an outcome is possible. Helgi and Yrsa do not stay together.