The Viking Era

Poul Anderson, "THE NORSE" IN Poul Anderson & Mildred Downey Broxon, The Demon Of Scattery (New York, 1980), pp. 200-207.

(The title page of this edition says "SF ace books," which is inaccurate.)

According to Anderson's historical note:

The "Vikings" were not a people and the word should not be capitalized. The earliest recorded viking raids on England and Ireland occurred in the late eighth century. (Thus, Hrolf Kraki, in the mid-sixth century, was much earlier. See "The History of Hrolf Kraki: a Foreword by Poul Anderson" IN Poul Anderson, Hrolf Kraki's Saga (New York, 1973), pp. xvii-xxi AT p. xviii.)

The viking period lasted for about three centuries:

England, Ireland, France, Germany and the Low Countries were attacked repeatedly;
in 845, Paris and Hamburg were captured;
at least one expedition plundered in the Mediterranean;
Finns, Lapps and Balts were attacked but had no one to record it;
the attackers were from Scandinavia or from their colonies, including Iceland;
the probable causes were population pressure, ambition and greed;
some bands would sow, go in viking and return for harvest;
"viking" is probably derived from "...'vik,' meaning a narrow bay..." (p. 202), because raiders would wait in such a bay to attack passing cargo ships;
"viking" rhymed with "seeking";
kings and jarls discouraged such attacks at home but did not object to attacks on foreign countries;
some huge fleets wintered abroad, then colonized in England, Ireland, Normandy etc.

Blog Maintenance And Future Reading

Despite the mysterious disappearance of some posts from the Blog Archive, I have been in my opinion improving the blog by scanning earlier posts not only to make minor corrections but also to link to still earlier posts, where I had previously only referred to them, if I am able to locate the post in question. Sometimes, a link is not to a single post but to a search result which thus can include later posts.

Such "blog maintenance" does not increase the number of posts. However, I will:

continue to reread at least some passages of SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers;
reread The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon;
read for the first time Stirling's The Stone Dogs when I at last receive a copy of this novel.

This reading and rereading will in due course generate material for new posts.

Meanwhile, is anyone able to identify the ten volumes by Poul Anderson whose covers are shown in the attached image? (Perhaps three of the titles are legible.) Also, the fifteen covers on the "Disappearing Posts" post. See link above.

Between Books II

(The Peshawar Club.)

I have been doing "blog maintenance," which improves earlier posts but does not add any new ones. It will also take some time to complete the job.

Meanwhile, maybe the next Poul Anderson volume to be reread should be The Demon Of Scattery? It describes events post-Mother Of Kings and is narrated during The Broken Sword. Thus, these three Viking volumes are set centuries after War Of The Gods and Hrolf Kraki's Saga but before The Last Viking Trilogy.

SM Stirling's The Stone Dogs cannot arrive tomorrow because there is no post on Sunday. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers is extremely enjoyable to reread but I am determined not to google every unfamiliar word like sambhur. There are too many of them, in any case.

In ...Lancers, the King estate has a church, a temple, a mosque and a gurdwara and the Kings' business agent in Delhi is a Jew. Admirable pluralism, also to be found in Anderson's Terran Empire although not in its rival imperium, the Merseian Roidhunate. In Europe right now, terrorist fanatics are trying to destroy our pluralism and start a race war. These are bad times.

The First War And Later Events

"The gods themselves fought the first war that ever was."
-Poul Anderson, War of The Gods (New York, 1999), Chapter I, p. 9.`

There is a beginning.

"Saxo places Hadding three generations before Hrolf Kraki."
-War Of The Gods, Afterword, p. 301.

Thus, War Of The Gods, about Hadding, precedes Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga.

"Great and rich was the Thraandlaw, a home for heroes. Hither had come Hadding from the South, to fell a giant, and win a king's daughter. Hence had gone Bjarki to the South, he who became the right hand of Hrolf Kraki."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Two, Chapter XXII, p. 184.

Thus, Mother Of Kings, about Gunnhild, comes third.

"'It's said he fathered Gunnhild, the queen of King Eirik Blood-ax -'
"Skafloc gripped the tiller hard. 'The witch-queen?'
"Mananaan nodded. 'Yes...'"
-Poul Anderson & Mildred Downey Broxon, The Demon Of Scattery (New York, 1980), p. 193.

Skafloc and Mananaan converse in the untitled Prologue and Epilogue of The Demon Of Scattery during their voyage to Jotunheim described in The Broken Sword. Thus, The Broken Sword and The Demon Of Scattery are, chronologically, the fourth and fifth volumes of this sequence although everything in ...Scattery between Prologue and Epilogue is an extended flashback.

Mananaan's father, Lir, was a God of the City of Ys and Skafloc sees:

"...the drowned tower of Ys..."
-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977), Chapter V, p. 31.

Thus, Poul and Karen Anderson's four-volume The King Of Ys precedes The Broken Sword and, indeed, since it features the decline of the Roman Empire, is set several centuries before Mother Of Kings and about a century before Hrolf Kraki's Saga.

The title character of Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy is Eirik Blood-Ax's father's great-great-grandson, Harald Hardrada, who refers somewhere in the Trilogy to Gunnhild and falls in battle in 1066.

Skafloc also saw:

"...the sea maidens tumbling in the sea and singing..." (ibid.)

Christian priests drive the last merpeople from Europe in the fourteenth century in Anderson's The Merman's Children.

One long literary sequence alternating between historical fiction, historical fantasy and heroic fantasy.

The Demon Of Scattery II

In Poul Anderson's The Demon Of Scattery (New York, 1980), unfamiliar terminology: Vikings call Christians " '...Papas.' " (p. 16) Also, " '...prime-signed...'" Pagans can trade with Christians even though not (yet) baptised. (p. 64) I do not remember noticing these details on first reading.

The book becomes unequivocally a historical fantasy only on page 124 of 193 when Brigit, the goddess, not the saint, appears to Brigit, the nun. As in The Broken Sword, we see both the divine and the nature through which the divine is seen. When the goddess vanishes:

"Where she had stood was merely a patch of green moss, like any other spot on the banks of the pool." (p. 126)

Earlier, the goddess had worn green in the heroine's dream. But, if we start to think that a green patch has been mistaken for a green-clad woman, then next we see a giant serpent attacking the Vikings and killed by lightning (Thor).

In Brigit the nun's second dream in the novel, she sees her mother, who had followed the Old Way, die in child-birth while a "...shadow figure..." says, " '...she served us well.' " (p. 91)

My Pagan friends will like the conclusion of this novel when the former nun accompanies the Viking chief back to Norway and bears his sons and daughters.

The Demon Of Scattery I

The Demon Of Scattery (New York, 1980) is written by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon and illustrated by Alicia Austin. For convenience, I will refer to it here simply as an Anderson novel. It is one of five closely connected Viking novels.

The Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki's Saga and War Of The Gods all feature Odin as a character. The Demon Of Scattery, a tale told during a journey undertaken in The Broken Sword, is about the grandfather of the title character of Mother Of Kings. Although Anderson never wrote the projected sequel to The Broken Sword, itself a sequel to an Edda and a Saga, he certainly wrote a lot more around the subject.

The illustrations add considerably to the pleasure of reading The Demon Of Scattery. Early in the novel, a nun captured by Vikings, and lamenting their raid on an Easter Sunday, quotes, " 'Eli, Eli, lamach sabachthani?' " For an extremely powerful use of this quotation in modern science fiction, see Perelandra by CS Lewis.

Mythical Cosmography

Poul Anderson's later fantasy novel, War Of The Gods (New York, 1999), has several features in common with his much earlier The Broken Sword (London, 1977; first edition, 1954). In both:

there are gods, giants, elves, dwarves and trolls;

the chief god, Odin, converses with other characters and initiates major events;

the jotun or "giant" race are not all uncomely or of gigantic stature;

Jotunheim is oversea north of Midgard.

The fact that Jotunheim is not part of Midgard/Earth but can be reached by sea entails that the sea voyage to Giant Land is the mythical equivalent of a space journey even though the direction is north, not up. Symbolically and appropriately, our thinking rotates through ninety degrees when our attention turns from mythological reconstruction to scientific extrapolation. Anderson incorporates both reconstruction and extrapolation into diverse works of imaginative fiction.

The voyage across the sea that encircles and defines Midgard is made in The Broken Sword and Anderson's The Demon Of Scattery is a tale told during that voyage. Thus, mythical cosmography closely connects these three novels. Anderson writes in the Afterword to War Of The Gods:

"With the cosmic framework I have taken a still freer hand. After all, we have lost much. Lines here and there hint fleetingly at what must once have loomed high..." (pp. 302-303)

Chapter I summarizes or alludes to several myths. Thus:

"...jotuns remembered how Odin and his brothers slew Ymir their forebear." (p. 10)

This refers to the Norse creation myth because the brothers made the earth and sky from Ymir's body. Before that, there was only a Chasm or Void where northern cold and southern heat condensed to form life, starting with Ymir. (The account first of a void, then of interaction between opposites generating life, amounts to a philosophically sophisticated creation myth. Arbitrary elements, like a primeval cow to feed Ymir, had to be added to keep the story going.)

The retold myths include the story of Mimir's head which is consulted in Anderson's Operation Luna (see here).

War Of The Gods retells and reinterprets a heroic myth whereas The Broken Sword goes further by presenting a sequel to a story told in an Eddaic poem and a saga. Anderson historically progresses the mythology by adding "...new gods..." to "...this game between Aesir and Jotuns..." (p. 196)

One new god won as we, living later, know.

Connections

Poul Anderson wrote several linear series but also perfected the technique of obliquely interconnecting his works of fiction. Of the following works:

The Golden Slave
The King Of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson)
The Broken Sword
The Demon Of Scattery (with Mildred Downey Broxon)

- the first is a historical novel set during the Roman Republic;
the second is a historical fantasy about the last days of the city of Ys during the decline of the Roman Empire;
the third is a historical fantasy that refers to drowned Ys;
the fourth is a story told during a journey made in the third, The Broken Sword.

Of the following four fantasy novels:

Three Hearts And Three Lions
Operation Chaos
Operation Luna
A Midsummer Tempest

- Holger Danske appears in two, Valeria Matuchek appears in three and they meet in the inter-cosmic Old Phoenix where other characters meet in two short stories. Thus, although Operation Luna is a direct sequel to Operation Chaos, the quartet as a whole is more many-sided than, eg, if Anderson had simply written four Operation volumes.