A Mixed Ecology

Poul Anderson conveys the richness of the Avalonian environment with detailed descriptions of what can be seen from particular vantage points. From a balcony of the tower of the Weathermaker Choth, Nat Falkayn sees, first, the imported organisms:

meadows full of grazing meat animals brought from Ythri;

Terrestrial grass, clover, oak and pine;

Ythrian starbell, wry, braidbark and copperwood -

- then, beyond the cultivated area, native Avalonian organisms:

the red mat of susin;
intensely green chasuble bushes;
delicately blue janie;
a flock of leather-winged draculas.

Susin must be the local equivalent of grass, surface-covering vegetation that can be cropped down to ground level without being killed. Anderson always describes this on each colonized planet.

Again, the view from a hospital window displays the mixed ecology:

"...a lawn and tall trees - Avalonian king's-crown, Ythrian windnest, Earthly oak - and a distant view of snowpeaks. Light spilled from heaven. The air sang."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2012), p. 321.

These are the moments to be savored in Anderson's works. There are many such passages, to be found when rereading since they are usually forgotten soon after a single reading.

(Ythrian hammerbranch has found its way to Aeneas: see here.)

Families And Choths On Avalon II

Ythrians throughout their Domain, including on Avalon, which has a majority human population, self-organize in choths which differ in size and traditions:

"...whether they be roughly analogous to clans, tribes, baronies, religious communes, republics, or whatever, [mainland choths] counted their numbers in the thousands at least. In Oronesia there were single households which bore the name; grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2012), p. 464.

Oronesia, a line of drowned peaks rising above the ocean's surface, is a haven for human or Ythrian eccentrics, each of whom has been able to colonize one or just a few small islands, hence the small choths. But, by contrast, the numerous fisher folk of the Highsky Choth occupy a long stretch of the Oronesian archipelago.

The most basic Ythrian social unit is the family, each requiring fiercely guarded territory for hunting or herding. The family of Lythran and Blawsa occupies a compound on a plateau of Mount Fairview. Senior family members and their children live in an old stone tower whereas the unwed, retainers and their kin live in lower wooden buildings with amberdragon and starbells growing on their sod roofs. The family belongs to Stormgate Choth.

Three centuries earlier, when the colonists had settled Avalonian archipelagos though not yet the Coronan continent, the Weathermaker Choth was described as an "...extended household..." (p. 297) with "...the core families..." housed in a "...tall stone tower..." (p. 297), above wooden buildings. This suggests two different kinds of choths. In Weathermaker, families share a tower. In Stormgate, they do not. But, by the time we read about Stormgate, an entire continent has been settled by the two species.

We are told somewhere, although I can't find it, that some choths are identified with a particular territory but others not. Wyvans (public officials/judges) are elected in each choth and also in each Khruath, a regular, regional fully democratic meeting that can be attended by every free adult in the given territory, regardless of choth. For the Great Khruath of Avalon, a computer-equipped staff filters questions and comments from two million enfranchised adults, including human choth-members, and, after only six hours, 83 percent vote in favor of continued resistance to Imperial Terra.

Wingless

Winged and feathered Ythrians fly but cannot swim. Their understanding of air movements enables them to construct efficient sailboats. (Self-adjusting curved boards replace keel and centerboard to increase speed but I do not understand the technicalities.) However, when one immaturely handled boat is wrecked on a reef and atlantis weed entangles a sailor's wing, a human being must enter the water to free the wing. Then, that young man on his gravbelt and another Ythrian are able to pull their injured companion free.

The moral of the story:

"'I have learned how good it is that strengths be different, so that they can be shared.'
"'Well, yes, sure. Wasn't that the whole idea behind this colony?'"
-Poul Anderson, "Wingless" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), pp. 295-306 AT p. 306.

Nat Falkayn, the rescuer, is seventeen Avalonian, twelve Terran, years old. We have seen four generations of Falkayns:

Athena
David
Nicholas
Nat

Three centuries (fifteen generations?) later, we see Tabitha, who is a direct descendant of David. Thereafter, the action of the History moves away from Avalon but Dominic Flandry, anticipating the Long Night after the Terran Empire, comments:

"'The sophont races will survive. In due course, they'll build fascinating new civilizations. Cultures of mixed species look especially promising. Consider Avalon already.'"
-Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy (New York, 2012), p. 75.

So a colony founded in anticipation of the fall of the Solar Commonwealth still offers hope to someone anticipating the fall of the Empire that had replaced the Commonwealth. Is Falkayn's legacy greater than Flandry's?

The Books Of Stormgate

Poul Anderson's twelve page juvenile short story, "Wingless," was originally published as "Wingless on Avalon" in Boy's Life, July 1973, of which this image, apparently, is the cover.

In The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Hloch's Introduction to "Wingless" says:

"As for the creation and history of our choth upon Avalon, that is in The Sky Book Of Stormgate."
-Poul Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011), p. 294.

This reminded me of:

"As for the other events of Zimri's reign...are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel?" I Kings 16. 20.

One historian may refer to the works of another, even though that other is no longer extant. I think that it is fully appropriate to compare the Books of Stormgate to the Bible. In these Books, as in the Bible, already existing texts have been collected and edited to tell the history of a people who left one place to colonize another. In both cases, the narratives are of different kinds and lengths.

Hloch writes:

"...these annals...are garnered from different trees, and few of them will seem at once to grow toward the same sun. Yet they do, they all do. This is the tale, told afresh, of how Avalon came to settlement and thus our choth to being."
-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 2.

"...how Avalon came to settlement..." sounds Biblical indeed. Critical readers may or may not accept the editor's claim that his garnered annals grow toward the same sun. Malachi 4.2 tells us that the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings but not all readers of the Hebrew scriptures accept that that Sun rises in the New Testament.

Families And Choths On Avalon

The Holms went to Avalon with Falkayn and a Holm later married a Falkayn so what had happened in between? David Falkayn, the Founder of the Avalonian colony, went there with his wife Coya and their son Nicholas who was born on Earth and named after David's employer/Coya's grandfather. Nicholas' son, Nat, was born on Avalon.

Later, one Ivar Holm works at Andromeda (Mountain) Rescue Station when the current Wyvan of the Stormgate Choth, injured in a storm, needs to be rescued. Later again, Daniel Holm is a Marchwarden while his son, Christopher, joins Stormgate Choth and marries Tabitha Falkayn, a direct descendant of David and a member of Highsky Choth.

Tabitha is the third generation of her family in Highsky. When her parents were lost at sea, an Ythrian family adopted her and encouraged her to take a wandertime in accordance with Highsky custom so she has been a huntress, trapper, sailor, prospector and gambler in human country. Living entirely among Ythrians in the Oronesian islands, she runs a commercial fishery in partnership with Draun, an Ythrian of the Old Faith.

Emil Dalmady from Altai was employed, then funded as an entrepreneur, by Nicholas van Rijn. Some of his children moved to Avalon with Falkayn and one of them, Judith Lundgren, wrote historical fiction which was published in the periodical, Morgana (named after the Avalonian moon) and later collected in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

One of the most progressive Avalonian choths is Mistwood, embracing human technology, therefore large and prosperous. Ferune, Wyvan of Mistwood, is succeeded as First Marchwarden of Avalon by Daniel Holm. Another choth is The Tarns and Liaw of that choth is Wyvan of the High Khruath. And that is as much as I can find about families and choths on Avalon.