Some Connections

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys Tetralogy, the city of Ys is inundated.

In Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, Skafloc sees the sunken tower of Ys and he and Mananaan mac Lir, son of one of the Three of Ys, sail to Jotunheim.

In Poul Anderson's and Mildred Downey Broxon's The Demon Of Scattery, Mananaan recounts a story to Skafloc en route to Jotunheim.

The story is about a couple who become the paternal grandparents of Gunnhild, the title character of Poul Anderson's Mother Of Kings.

Thus, these seven volumes are connected (as is much else, of course).

A Detailed Descriptive Passage

The Broken Sword, XXIII.

When Skafloc, returned from Jotunheim, rides to the Erlking:

his horse is gaunt and hungry;

his clothes are ragged and faded;

his armour is battered and rusty;

his cloak is worn thin;

his weight is down;

great muscles lie under tight skin over big bones;

his face is lined and aged;

his fair hair is wind-tossed.

"So might Loki look, riding to Vigrid plain on the last evening of the world." (p. 167)

I think that that is an authentic touch. In the Sagas, a comparison would be made with a mythic story.

Next comes a description of nature:

air is chill;

wind is strong;

spring wind frolicks and shouts;

sky is high and blue;

sun strikes through clouds;

wet grass gleams and sparkles;

thunder rolls;

the southeast is dark;

a rainbow shines;

geese honk;

a thrush sings;

squirrels play;

warm days, light nights, green woods and nodding flowers approach;

Skafloc remembers Freda.

Don't read past. Reread.

Strange Dimensions

The Broken Sword, XXII.

En route to Jotunheim, Skafolc and Mananaan sail further than any mortal ship ever can over chill, dead water under stars, moon and aurora. I think that, like some lost sailors in Tolkien's Middle Earth History, they sail not around the curve of the earth but straight out from the earth. 

"Skafloc thought this realm could not lie on earth at all, but in strange dimensions near the edge of everything, where creation plunged back into the Gap whence it had arisen. He had the notion that this was the Sea of Death on which he sailed, outward bound from the world of the living." (p. 156)

Maybe so but I am quite certain that Skafloc did not think of "dimensions"! This is sf terminology intruding into heroic fantasy. 

CS Lewis, not as author but as fictional first person narrator, quotes an entirely fictitious seventeenth century writer, Natvilcius, who hypothesizes that an angelic or demonic body:

"...exists after a manner beyond our conception in the celestial frame of spatial references."

-CS Lewis, Perelandra IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 145-348 AT 1, p. 158.

Fictional Lewis comments:

"By the 'celestial frame of spatial references' I take him to mean what we should now call 'multi-dimensional space'. Not, of course, that Natvilcius knew anything about multi-dimensional geometry, but that he had reached empirically what mathematics has since reached on theoretical grounds." (ibid.)

Skafloc also reaches out empirically, not theoretically. 

While we are outside our normal dimensions, let's take another look inside the Old Phoenix:

"...I suspect that besides being at a nexus of universes, the hostel exists on several different space-time levels of its own."

-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, September 1981), pp. 9-20 AT p. 10.

If each universe comprises a four dimensional space-time continuum, then the nexus is in a fifth dimension, neither spatial nor temporal but something else? Maybe. But what is a space-time level? The narrator retreats from this suggestion:

"Well, let's not speculate about the unanswerable." (ibid.)

See:

Knowledge And Understanding

Mananaan And The Wind

The Broken Sword, XXII.

Mananaan Mac Lir is an Irish sea god and the son of Lir, one of the Three of Ys. When Mananaan and Skafloc embark for Jotunheim, Mananaan sings to the wind, calling it to blow him on his quest. And indeed a strong breeze springs up so that the boat surges. The wind tosses Mananaan's hair.

He refers to the Tuatha De Danaan as no longer gods or at "'...their full might.'" (p. 155) These powers are fading.

The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon (illustrated by Alicia Austin) is a tale told to Skafloc by Mananaan during their voyage to Jotunheim. Some of Anderson's works have extraordinary intertextual interconnections. (In sf, the Maurai future history is a work of fiction published during the course of the time travel novel, There Will Be Time.) 

Four Series

(i) The Technic History is future history.

(ii) The Time Patrol is both historical science fiction and alternative history.

(iii) The King Of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson) is historical fantasy.

(iv) The Last Viking Trilogy is historical fiction.

(The first three are Poul Anderson's main three.)

Four series yet five fictional engagements with history.

(i) Future history is not real history but is fictional history and sometimes reproduces past historical processes.

(ii) This historical science fiction is about time travel to fully realized historical periods and some chapters in "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" and "Star of the Sea" are pure historical fiction.

The time travellers discuss and sometimes experience alternative histories in divergent timelines.

(iii) The King Of Ys is fantasy because its premises are that the gods of Ys were real and that miracles happen but most of the text is straight historical fiction about the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

(iv) The Last Viking is a fictional biography of Harald Hardrada. When his ships seek Jotunheim, they find only icebergs.

Poul Anderson addresses history.

Addendum: See combox and here.

The Details

War Of The Gods.

I appreciate the details in Poul Anderson's narratives by summarizing the narratives and therefore having to notice the details like the Finnish wizard and the Roman poet in Gardariki and the multiple realms traversed by Odin in search of wisdom. Starting from Asgard, he travels through:

Midgard

Ironwood

hell

Niflheim

the outskirts of Muspellheim

the highest mountains of Jotunheim

the hall of Farbauti and Laufey

glaciers

wastes

the sea

a wildwood

the Tree

its upper branches

death

These two chapters, XI and XII, are particularly rich and also very dissimilar, recounting Odin's search and Hadding's rise, respectively - the worlds of gods and men.

Myths Retold V

War Of The Gods, XI.

Hadding recounts a myth to his guards.

During the Aesir-Vanir war and after visiting Mimir, Odin went alone through wild ways, often losing his way and finding it again. He went through Midgard, often having to fight. He went without food through Ironwood haunted by trolls and monsters. He went down into hell, through cold, dark Niflheim, past rushing rivers, swarming vipers and the dragon Nidhogg. He skirted Muspellheim and climbed the highest mountains of Jotunheim where he met Farbauti and Laufey and their sons, Byleist and Loki. (We are still at the beginning of the worlds when figures like Loki appear for the first time.)

Farbauti and Laufey had a huge hall with swart elf servants and wind forever howling outside, driving snow and ice. Loki persuaded his parents to tell Odin that the wisdom he sought was on the far side of death. With Loki as guide, Odin went down the mountains, across the glaciers and wastes and past giants' garths to the sea which they crossed in the half boat seen by sailors before they drown. Loki called a drow from his barrow to ferry them.

They passed through a wildwood inhabited only by "...the beings of water, earth, and sky..." (p. 82) and came to the Tree with the worlds at its roots, on its trunk and in its branches. The red squirrel Ratatosk carries ill will between Nidhogg at the roots and an eagle aloft. A hart grazes the leaves and a rot attacks the wood but the Tree endures. They climbed high into the Tree, along lengthy branches, through leafy caverns. From a particular branch, Odin hanged himself. Loki wounded Odin with his own spear. Odin died and hung for nine nights. He revived and fell when the rope broke. Rising, he grasped the graven runes of high magic and deep wisdom combining the lores of gods, elves, dwarves, giants and men. Because of this, the Tree is called Yggdrasil, Horse of the Terrible One, and Odin is the Lord of the Gallows. 

The Giants

War Of The Gods.

The giant speaks like thunder and sighs like wind through tall pines. His wife weeps like a melting glacier. They are personifications of natural forces. Their tales and verses go back to the beginning of the worlds. Hadding learns from them some of the Old Tongue from Jotunheim. Their feasts are not those of men and remember:

the slaying of Ymir

the binding of the Hel-hound, Garm

the binding of Fenris Wolf

Utgard-Loki fooling Thor (V, p. 34)

Here, the world of the giants is called "Utgard" and their king is called "Utgard-Loki," not to be confused with Loki.

A giantess who is also a witch can make herself small enough for Hadding to have sex with. Poul Anderson's text is more consistent than the original myths. Soon Hadding will return, well-prepared, to the world of men.

Myths Retold II

See Myths Retold...

More men turned to the Vanir, aggrieving the Aesir. Heimdall of the Aesir, calling himself Rig, travelled through Midgard, begetting thralls, yeomen and highborn. These classes worship the Aesir. Heimdall's grandsson (I think), Con, became the first king after training by Heimdall.

Gullveig, also known as Heid, the Shining One, came from Vanaheim, sowed discord in Midgard and crossed Bifrost to Asgard. When the Aesir tried but failed to kill her, she returned to Vanaheim and incited the Vanir against the Aesir. The Vanir waged war, won many battles and damaged the walls of Asgard but were beaten back. War between the gods continued for years and caused wars between men. Odin travelled to Mimir's Well under the second root of the Tree in Jotunheim and gave one eye for wisdom. Mimir accompanied Odin to Asgard and advised him to go beyond death to seek the runes, which he did. Thus enwisened, Odin made peace. Aesir and Vanir now shared offerings and lordship.

The Vanir accepted Hoenir and Mimir as hostages.(The text summarizes the myth that Odin, Hoenir and Lodur - in another version, Odin, Vili and Ve - carved the first man and woman from ash and elm logs.)

The Aesir accepted Njord, his son Freyr and his daughter Freyja as hostages -

Njord: the sea;

Freyr: earth;

Freyja: sexual love and birth.

To be continued.

Myths Retold In Poul Anderson's WAR OF THE GODS, Chapter I

War Of The Gods, I.

This chapter is already a summary so is difficult to summarize.

The Aesir

("As" is "a god." "Aesir" is plural. Asgard is the enclosure of the gods. Midgard is the middle enclosure; Utgard, outer.)

Odin and the other Aesir inhabit Asgard, the highest of the Nine Worlds in the Tree. They are gods of sky, wind, weather, sun, moon, stars, the Winterway and the northern lights. They hunt, breed horses and cattle and marry. Odin wanders between worlds to seek knowledge.

The Vanir

Despite "Aesir" meaning "gods," the Vanir are another race of gods and the meaning of their name is uncertain. (See here.) The Vanir are gods of earth, sea, harvest, fishery, plow, ship, love, birth and much that is dark and lawless. They do not marry and many female Vanir are witches. Vanaheim (not Vangard) is west of Asgard.

Lower Worlds

Men inhabit Midgard which is surrounded by the sea. Jotunheim, which is also Utgard although that name is not used here, is north beyond the sea. Jotuns/thursir are descended from Ymir who pre-existed the gods but was killed by Odin and his brothers. 

Jotuns include:

giants as large as Ymir;

smaller giants;

trolls;

monsters;

attractive, human-like beings;

mothers of gods;

bearers of wisdom from the beginning of time.

There are also elves and dwarves. The Norns, who control the lives of men, sit at a well beneath the root of the Tree that is closest to Asgard. The Aesir meet there every morning to plan for the day.

To be continued.

Announcing The End Of The World

Sometimes a single phrase in a single text raises a question that generates references to an unmanageable number of other texts.

How will the end of the world be announced - or presaged? Is "the world" Earth or the universe? Do we mean the end of everything or only of the present world order? Will the end, in whichever sense, arrive unannounced?

In Paris, on the Left Bank overlooking the Boulevard St. Germain, in 1902:

"Everard tried not to remember that in a dozen years this world would crash to ruin."

-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART ONE, 1902 A. D., p. 119.

 

The precursors of the Jehovah's Witnesses had predicted the end of the world - or at least the end of the present sinful world order - in 1914 and subsequently, of necessity, reinterpreted it. Thus, a supernatural event occurred then but the end will come soon.

 

In Anderson's After Doomsday, spaceships re-enter the Solar System after Earth has been sterilized. Its inhabitants would have had no warning. In his Tau Zero, the crew of a relativistic spaceship sees the universe fading and contracting. However, the sterilized Earth will be re-seeded and the contracted universe re-expands so is there an end? In Anderson's Harvest Of Stars and Genesis, the latter a highly appropriate title, consciousness and intelligence might survive the heat death of the universe.

(A British TV program is just now showing the East window in York Minster which begins with (the Biblical) Genesis and ends with Apocalypse.)

Before the Ragnarok, three cocks crow, in Jotunheim, Hel and Asgard, respectively. See Cockcrow, Addendum. 

 

See also Gabriel's horn.

 

I could also reference James Blish, Isaac Asimov, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman but perhaps Anderson alone, plus Voluspa and Apocalypse, is comprehensive enough? 

 

This post was initiated by a passage in which James Bond reflects that Goldfinger, funding SMERSH, is:

 

"...piling up the surplus for the day when the trumpets would sound in the Kremlin and every golden sinew would be mobilized."

-Ian Fleming, Goldfinger (London, 1959), CHAPTER 7, p. 64.

 

So the free world would have ended when, metaphorically of course, trumpets sounded in the Kremlin? Unlikely and, in any case, did not happen.

Narrative Layers

Poul Anderson's War Of The Gods, I, states that:

"The gods themselves fought the first war that ever was." (p. 9)

- and much more. This is the omniscient narrator at work and we must accept whatever he tells us as true - within the fiction. (Within another work of fiction, it is true that the world was divided into three permanently warring superstates in 1984.)

In XI, Hadding tells his two guards how Odin traveled to Jotunheim, met Loki and hanged himself on the Tree. Since Hadding was not there, he must have heard this story from someone else and, in fact, when asked what had happened next, he replies in part:

"'The rest is merrier. Mind you, I heard it from a jotun, who may not have felt as worshipful toward the gods as he should.'" (p. 83)

And who told the jotun? Thus, in this case, the omniscient narrator tells us what Hadding claims he had heard from a probably disrespectful jotun who in turn must have heard the story from someone else. We are not obliged to accept this story as true.

To Jotunheim

Poul Anderson, War Of The Gods (New York, 1999), XI.

Traveling a long and dangerous way alone, Odin often loses his path although always, slowly and painfully, refinding it:

passing through warring Midgard as the wanderer, he must often fight;

Ironwood is haunted by monsters and trolls and has no food;

cold, dark Niflheim, has rushing rivers, swarming vipers and the dragon that gnaws the deepest Tree roots;

he skirts Muspellheim where Surtr waits;

eventually, he reaches his destination in the highest mountains of Jotunheim where he will meet Loki.

The mention of Surtr raises a question that will be addressed in the following post.

The Nine Worlds

What are the Nine Worlds in the Tree? See here. Apparently, no list survives (see here) so it has to be reconstructed, e.g., see here.

How Do We Get Nine?
2 primordial opposites, cold and heat, Niflheim and Muspelheim;
2 kinds of gods, Aesir in Asgard, Vanir in Vanaheim;
2 kinds of elves, light and dark;
2 other kinds of beings, men in Midgard, giants in Utgard/Jotunheim;
Hel.

But Hel might be part of Niflheim. Dark elves and dwarfs may or may not be identical. One name for the world of the dark elves is Myrkheim (see here; see also Mirkheim.)

At the Ragnarok:

the giants, the dead from Hel (led by Loki), Fenris Wolf, the World Serpent and Muspel will attack Asgard;

former inhabitants of Midgard will fight on both sides (we do, don't we?);

elves will remain neutral (?);

Vanaheim will survive and some of the gods will return from it later.

Boring!

SM Stirling, A Meeting At Corvallis (New York, 2007), Chapter One, p. 12.

After the Change, these school subjects are boring:

Presidents;
rockets;
atoms;
"'...all that hooey.'"

These subjects are more like real life:

King Arthur;
Robin Hood;
Niall of the Nine Hostages;
Thor's trip to Jotunheim;
A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Connections with Poul Anderson's works:

Niall of the Nine Hostages destroyed Ys;

the former King of Ys formed a defensive alliance with British leaders of the generation before Arthur;

an immortal met the original of Arthur;

Anderson's fantasies feature Thor and a trip to Jotunheim although not Thor's trip to Jotunheim;

A Midsummer Tempest is a sequel to A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.

And why did Shakespeare not write a Robin Hood play, having mentioned Robin in As You like It?

Dramatic And Literary Links

Alaksandrus of Troy reminds Ian Arnstein of Max von Sydow (see image), just as William Walker looks like Robert Redford.

I have found another roundabout set of literary links:

reading SM Stirling's replay of the Trojan War made me look at our paperback copy of Chapman's Homer;

the General Introduction informs us that Chapman translated Homer while Shakespeare was writing Hamlet;

Chapman's was the first English translation of the Iliad and almost certainly influenced Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida;

Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, a sequel to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, refers to Hamlet as a real person;

Anderson's The Road Of The Sea Horse refers to the historical Macbeth.

We accept the supernatural in (some) literature even if not in our own beliefs. Thus:

Homer - gods;
Hamlet - a ghost;
A Midsummer Night's Dream - fairies;
The Tempest - a magician and his spirits.

However, Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy is alternative history fiction without any Olympians intervening in the Trojan War and Anderson's Harald Hardrada Trilogy is historical fiction with whales and icebergs instead of Jotunheim in the far North.

Percheron Etc

Poul Anderson, Three Hearts And Three Lions (London, 1977), Chapter One.

"The animal was gigantic, a stallion the size of a Percheron but with more graceful build, sleek and black as polished midnight. It was not tethered, though an elaborate fringed pair of reins hung from a headstall chased with silver and arabesques. On its back was a saddle, high in pommel and cantle..." (p. 14)

Having googled "Percheron," I now understand the significance of a stallion the size of one.

Holger dons the armor and rides the horse. He seeks hospitality from an old woman called Gerd who sounds like a fairy tale witch. They speak in a language that he does not recognize but nevertheless understands. She claims to live "...by the edge of the world." (p. 18) That might be literally true.

If this is a flat Earth, then how did it come into existence? Cosmos-forming processes would have to be entirely different. The flat earth of Narnia was directly created, sung into existence, by Aslan. There are some parallels between Three Hearts And Three Lions and The Lion, the Witch And The Wardrobe - apart from a leonine element in both titles, which I have only just noticed. Tolkien elaborately explains how the directly created flat Middle Earth became our round Earth. I suppose that a flat Earth has a place in our collective imagination. In Anderson's The Broken Sword, a ship leaves Midgard and enters Jotunheim by sailing North.

Starting To Read The Demon Of Scattery

Poul Anderson & Mildred Downey Broxon, The Demon Of Scattery (Ace Books, New York, 1980).

Regular readers know that I appreciate visual media, not only films but also graphic fiction. Intermediate between prose fiction and sequential art story telling (comic strips) are illustrated texts.

After the framing device of Skafloc's and Mananaan's voyage to Jotunheim, the narrative of The Demon Of Scattery begins on p. 11. The opening sentence is:

"The vikings reached Scattery Island on the first of April."

(Does that mean that we should not believe this story?)

Above the text is a picture of the boats arriving. Page 12 describes a man standing on the foredeck of a boat with a woman kneeling below his feet. The picture on p. 13 shows us them. The illustrations are credited to Alicia Austin. The image on this post is:

A preliminary concept by Michael Whelan for The Demon of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Braxton.
-copied from here.

A Worm, A Dog, Something Big And A Giant

Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1977), Chapter XXII.

Entering Jotunheim, Skafloc and Mananaan must fight their way past:

a great white worm;
a great red dog;
"...something big and heavy..." of unknown shape in the dark. (p. 162)

Then they meet Bolverk the Jotun:

so tall that his head is almost invisible in the gloom;
so broad that, despite his height, he is squat;
covered in hair;
wearing only a dragonskin apron;
gnarled like an old tree;
"...muscled like a snakepit..." (ibid.);
with matted black hair and beard hanging to his waist;
short-legged;
lame in one leg;
hunch-backed;
bent forward so that his arms touch the ground;
broad-nosed;
wide-mouthed;
face scarred and seamed;
with empty eye sockets;
voice booming and hissing like the rivers of hell -

- and I wish I hadn't started that description.

In Jotunheim

Rereading Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, I find much to post about but I also avoid repeating information already summarized in earlier posts, e.g., in September 2012, I posted this summary of events during Skafloc's and Mananaan's visit to Jotunheim.

I had forgotten all of these details and I expect that every other reader of the novel or of this blog has as well so, this morning, please just read or reread the earlier post!