Fictional Universes II

Fictional universes contain not only persons but also places that take on a life of their own. In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the Virgilian System includes the planets, Dido and Aeneas. The latter, lighter and dryer than Earth, kind of like a Mars with a breathable atmosphere, would have been more suitable for colonization by the nearby Ythrians. However, human scientists, wanting to study the tripartite inhabitants of the even less hospitable Dido, established a base, which became a University, on Aeneas. The Rebel Worlds, set mainly on Dido, has one chapter set on Aeneas. Its sequel, The Day Of Their Return, is, except for a single early flashback, set entirely on the surface of Aeneas. 

Hermes, important as the home planet both of David Falkayn and of Sandra Tamarin, remains off-stage until it becomes a major setting in Mirkheim and is again visited in A Stone In Heaven.

Avalon, is shown at four different stages of development in three short stories and one novel. Its notable locations include the Weathermother mountain range and the cities of Gray and Centauri, the latter containing Livewell Street named after a local flower.

Dennitza appears only in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows where, however, it imparts a real sense of place to the Kazan, the Obala and Zorkagrad.

Returning again to another author in another medium and genre, Alan Moore fully exploits the connotations and implications of the familiar place name, "Gotham City," before bringing on stage its most notorious inhabitant.

Names Of Avalonian Choths

Mistwood

Sea fog blows across its wooded homeland.

Stormgate

Its territory is located in the Weathermother mountain range.

The Tarns

Its territory is among crags near a glacier so there must be small mountain lakes.

Many Thermals

We know only the name which implies an area of more than usual Avalonian atmospheric turbulence. 

Highsky...

...occupies a long archipelago where Ythrians must naturally look up and also fly between the many small islands.

Weathermaker...

...is a single extended household near the (turbulent) sea.

Wryfields on Ythri

?

There are many that we do not know. The more we know, the more we realize how little we know.

Some Facts About Ythrians

The People Of The Wind.

Of course, these "facts" are really fictions but we know what we mean or at least I hope that we do. I once suggested to a University graduate that a good fictional premise for a sequel to The Time Machine could be that Wells wrote a true account that has been mistaken for fiction for all these years because the Time Traveller never returned. What would follow from such a premise? In no time, however, the guy with whom I had shared this idea had got so confused that he asked me, puzzledly, whether I though that The Time Machine was true? If we ask whether it is "true" that in 1984, the world was divided into three states, Eurasia, Eastasia and Oceania, that were perpetually at war, then the answer is "yes" provided that it is understood that this entire discussion takes place within the context of the fictional scenario in George Orwell's novel, 1984, and is not about the real world in 1984 AD, a year that had still been in the future when Orwell wrote 1984.

Obvious, we hope. Here is a "fact" about the Ythrians' usually regular sexual cycle. Grief can prematurely initiate female receptivity and fertility. Philippe Rochefort's training video informs him that:

"Doubtless this was originally a provision of nature for rapid replacement of losses. It seems to have brought about a partial fusion of Eros and Thanatos in the Ythrian psyche which makes much of the race's art, and doubtless thought, incomprehensible to man." (IV, p. 44)

I had to google "Eros" and "Thanatos" to get a more exact understanding of these terms as used in psychology. If (i) these principles are partially fused in Ythrian psychology and if (ii) this partial fusion makes much Ythrian thought incomprehensible to humanity, then surely there should be bigger communication problems than we are shown in these narratives? Yet this potential problem is mentioned only in this single sentence. We did see in In Oronesia And The Weathermother, that western Coronans and northern Oronesians would first confer human-to-human and Ythrian-to-Ythrian. Tabitha Falkayn judged that this procedure would initially avoid:

"'...the handicap of differing species.'" (III, p. 30)

Later, the omniscient narrator informs us that:

"...one is tempted to call [Ythrian Planha-speakers] 'Hellenistic.'" (V, p. 53)

However, is this an omniscient narrator if he speaks/writes about "one" being tempted...? Who is this "one"? An omniscient narrator should in no way obtrude into the text. Instead, he should be completely outside of the readers' sight and hearing like the supposed invisible, omnipresent deity. This sentence reads more like one of our many Technic historians and commentators reflecting on his subject-matter.

Lastly, for now, Khruaths, assemblies which any free adult can attend, work for Ythrians because members of that species differ from humanity in the following ways. They are less:

talkative

busybody

easily bullied

crowded

Modern communications spread Khruaths planet- and Domain-wide.

Your blogger needs a food break.

In Oronesia And The Weathermother

The People Of The Wind, III.

The Western Coronan Khruath decided that its region must cooperate with northern Oronesia to defend the Hesperian Sea. This means that mountain-dwellers must confer with island-dwellers and ornithoids (Ythrians) with "birds" (human choth members). To facilitate early mutual understanding, Oronesian "birds" first meet with Coronan "birds" and ornithoids with ornithoids. Christopher Holm is a delegate because he is one of the few human beings in Stormgate. He contacts Tabitha Falkayn because they are already acquainted and because she is a descendant of the Founder which matters in Stormgate if not in Oronesia.

In the Weathermother, while Eyan and Vodan fly together:

"A wind sang..." (p. 33)

We expect it to. We must remember that the Ythrians are the title characters, the people of the wind:

"The Ythrians drank of the wind's cold and swam in its swirling, thrusting, flowing strength. It stroked their feathers till they felt the barbs of the great outer pinions shiver." (ibid.)

Eyath catches a downdraught, glides, flies back up, traces a thermal, catches that and is carried higher. She would not trade this to be human.

(Each species wonders what it would be like to be the other.)

Explanations

Each of the seven volumes of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga opens with an Introduction by the Compiler of the Saga, Hank Davis. 

After the first story collected in Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, readers find what purports to be an INTRODUCTION to the second story, "Wings of Victory." However, this passage is an Introduction not just to this single story but to the entire The Earth Book Of Stormgate whose twelve instalments are distributed in their appropriate chronological places from near the beginning of Volume I until the mid-point of Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire. 

The fictional author of the Earth Book Introduction introduces himself as "Hloch of the Stormgate Choth," refers to himself in the third person and informs the "people" whom he addresses that:

"His Wyvan Tariat son of Lythran and Blawsa, has asked this."

-Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), p. 75.

This can mean nothing to readers at this stage, especially if this volume is their first encounter with Poul Anderson's Technic History. Hloch means that a "Wyvan," whose name is Tariat, has asked Hloch both to compile and to introduce the Earth Book. The title or rank of "Wyvan" does not recur until the third instalment in Volume III and is not explained properly until the sixth and last instalment in that volume.

However, in that last instalment, The People Of The Wind, Christopher Holm/Arinnian flies to Lythran's aerie where, after a communal meal in the dining hall, Arinnian's Ythrian friend, Eyath:

"...asked permission to leave of her father Lythran and her mother Blawsa..."

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind (Riverdale, NY, 2011), pp. 437-662 AT I, p. 443.

This contextualizes Tariat. He is the son of a head of a household and the brother of Eyath although neither he nor Hloch appear in The People Of The Wind. (At least, I do not think that Tariat appears but will check.)

Even after centuries in the Weathermother on Avalon, members of the Stormgate Choth remain mostly hunters, not herders. Although Ythrians have become an interstellar power, they remain not omnivores but carnivores who must herd or even still hunt. Their biology affects their psychology, sociology and theology.

Four Choths

 

The People Of The Wind, I-II.

Chris/Arinnian lives neither with his parents - his father must speak to him on screen - nor with any of the extended households that make up Stormgate Choth - he must fly for several hours to Lythran's aerie in the Andromedas mountain range named in Planha the Weathermother. (Stormgate was taking possession of the Weathermother in "Rescue on Avalon.")

After one night at the aerie, Arinnian flies with the extended family to the mountain where the regional Khruath, attended by other Stormgate families and by members of other choths, meets. His friend, Lythran's daughter, Eyath, will become betrothed to Vodan who is also of Stormgate although she had previously thought of marrying into a less strict choth. These choths at last begin to develop some individuality.

Vodan has launched a silvicultural engineering firm in partnership with young members of Stormgate, Many Thermals and The Tarns. Daniel Holm's colleague, Ferune, is of Mistwood Choth, progressive, mechanized, large and prosperous.

Our present purpose is to gather data about choths but that is far as we go this evening. Remember these names:

Stormgate

Many Thermals

The Tarns

Mistwood

Closing Scenes

The People Of The Wind, XVIII.

We have appreciated this scene before. Emerging from the improvised hospital outside Gray, Tabitha Falkayn stands, in a murmuring, livewell-scented wind, atop a hill of emerald susin and Avalonian flowers above the gardened city and glittering Bay. We have seen Falkayn Bay, named after Tabitha's ancestor, the Founder of Avalon, often enough that it has become a familiar background setting and we particularly appreciate these concluding scenes set on both Avalon and Esperance.

Arinnian's closing speech to Tabitha celebrates Poul Anderson's twin values of freedom and diversity.

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

Eyath flies home to Stormgate which is where we find Hloch perched on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother when he introduces the following volume of Anderson's Technic History, The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Fair winds forever.

Mistwood

The People Of The Wind, X.

Does "Mistwood" sound Tolkienian?

"Before sunrise, Ferune departed Mistwood." (p. 558)

That is to say that the body of First Marwarden Ferune, who has died defending Avalon, is disposed of according to the rite of the Ythrian New Faith. We gather that it is appropriate to set off while it is still dark.

The text continues:

"That day his home country bore its name well." (ibid.)

The name bears two syllables, each a distinct word, "Mist..." and "...wood." Both are well represented in the following description.

Mist

There is "Fog..." and "Smokiness..." (ibid.) The fog blows cold, wet and blinding from the sea while the smokiness prowls among trees.

Wood

Hammerbranch boles are thick.

Lightningrod trunks soar.

Sword-of-sorrow stems are ringed.

Boomer tree noise rolls beneath Ferune's house and echoes from ancestral shields.

Boomer trees are remnants of Old Avalon.

Mist and Wood

Moisture drips from trees onto fallen leaves and chimes when it strikes pools among ringed stems.

The rest of this passage describes the funeral ceremony. Sons surrounded by their torches-bearing choth carry the body on a litter over the wilderness high enough to see the Weathermother snowpeaks lit by the hidden sun. When the sun rises, the new Wyvan of Mistwood blows the horn and speaks the words. The sons tilt the litter. The choth drop torches. The widow leads the sky dance. Ferune's spirit is always remembered.

Lythan's Household In Flight

The People Of The Wind, I.

At Lythan's aerie in the Weathermother, it is morning on the day of a regional Khruath. Lythan's household will fly to the mountain where the Khruath meets. The household comprises senior family members, their children, the unwed, retainers and their kin. En route, they will be joined by other Stormgate families and, at the Khruath, there will be other choths. Only a few retainers will remain to maintain the aerie.

Clear dawn, streaming tailwind, calling trumpet, lifting wings, gaping antlibranches, thundering takeoff catching an updraft, formation flight east over crags. (Ythrians followed a trumpet call when they attacked human explorers on Ythri during first contact in "Wings of Victory.")

Arinnian, the only human member of this household, flies by antigrav belt, staying close to his friend, Eyath, who sings a traditional carol that Arinnian has translated into Anglic. Later, Arinnian will contribute to Hloch's compilation, The Earth Book Of Stormgate. 

If I had read this novel while still at school, then I would have envied Arinnian's ability to fly away from his human fanily, join a choth and attend a Khruath. But I would want to join a choth that combined the best of Ythrian and human traditions: no duels or deathpride. This is feasible because we are informed that choths vary more than we are shown in the texts.

High is heaven and holy.

Appreciating The Earth Book

We will shortly go out for the evening. I am appreciating the hardback The Earth Book Of Stormgate as a physical artifact. Of course the text is identical but reading the collection in this edition is a very different experience from carefully handling and struggling with my disintegrating paperback edition. Hloch's introduction is superb. For anyone who has just read The People Of The Wind, as ideally they should have done, the references to Stormgate Choth, the Weathermother, a Wyvan and the towns of Gray and Centauri are instantly comprehensible.

Of course, the Earth Book does not include the final version of Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization. Thus, "The Saturn Game" is absent. Also, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows is followed not by The Game Of Empire but by "/story on Flandry's old age planned/" (p. 12) The collection represents a stage in the development of the Technic History and therefore is of inestimable historical value.

Visuals

I have copies of comic strip adaptations of Hamlet and of parts of the Mahabharata. In Hamlet, the speech balloons contain extracts from the script of the play but there are also explanatory captions. In Mahabharata, colour coded panels depict the recital of the epic. The latter is rich in colourful details. For example, Agni, the fire god, tries to burn a forest but Indra, the sky god, quenches the fire with a rain storm.

I imagine not only cinematic but also graphic adaptations of Poul Anderson's Technic History. At the beginning of The Earth Book Of Stormgate, we should see Hloch on Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother followed by scenes of everything that he mentions:

Spearhead Lake

the Avalonian cities, Gray and Centauri

a copper mine

guests of Hloch's parents, roaming and hunting

human members of Stormgate Choth, flying with Ythrians

Rennhi writing The Sky Book Of Stormgate

ruined landscapes under skies gone strange after the Terran War

etc

Any visual adaptation that included every detail would be lengthy like the Mahabharata - where Bumper Issue No. 59 is about "THE PRELUDE TO WAR"! - but also worthwhile.

Saga And Earth Book

In Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, we read Hloch's AFTERWORD to The Earth Book Of Stormgate at the mid-point of Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, then read the novel, The People Of The Wind, at the end of that omnibus volume even though we understand that the Earth Book is composed in the aftermath of the events of The People Of The Wind. In the alternative and earlier reading order, the Earth Book immediately follows The People Of The Wind. Reading it that way, we already understand a great deal before we open the Earth Book. 

We already know that:

Stormgate is the name of an Avalonian choth;

Avalon is a human colony planet with a large Ythrian minority;

the "choth" is the basic unit of Ythrian social organization after the family;

Ythrians are flying carnivores so their psychology, sociology and theology differ from ours.

Reading Hloch's first Earth Book INTRODUCTION which, in the Saga, comes near the beginning of Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, we find:

"To those who read, good flight. 

"It is Hloch of the Stormgate Choth who writes, on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother. His Wyvan, son of Lythran and Blawsa, has asked this. Weak though his grip upon the matter be, bloodpride requires he undertake the task."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION WINGS OF VICTORY IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 75-77 AT p. 75.

We know that:

the Weathermother is theYthrian name for the Andromedas, the highest mountain range on Avalon;

Stormgate is based in the Weathermother;

a Wyvan is a judge;

Lythran and Blawsa are the heads of a household;

bloodpride, also called deathpride, is the highest obligation for an Ythrian.

Further along, we find references to the human towns, Gray and Centauri, and to the Terran War. The People Of The Wind describes a lot of activity in both those towns and is entirely focused on the Terran War. In the Saga, these references are tantalizing hints of what is to come. We should read the Technic History in one order and reread it in the other.

Avalon As A Real Place

The People Of The Wind.

Avalon seems like a real place because:

there is a wealth of environmental and geographical detail;

there is recognizable historical change and progression;

many individual characters live there.

Arinnian sets off to fly from Gray on Falkayn Bay to Lythran's eyrie in the Weathermother and passes over the countryside outside the town. We would like to accompany him on his long journey over Avalon. However, after a double space between paragraphs, Arinnian is suddenly found to be benched with young Ythrians in the dining hall at Lythran's and Blawsa's place. A narrative, unlike real life, can jump ahead in time! He is not seated close to his childhood friend, Eyath, daughter of his host and hostess, but she and he exchange a look and leave the dining hall together. They sit on a platform near the top of a copperwood. The different kinds of trees are described in detail. The human male and Ythrian female see the moon, Morgana, and the constellations, Wheel, Swords, Zirraukh and Ship.

A real place - that will suffice until human beings really do colonize extra-solar planets.

Arinnian Over Gray And Falkayn Bay

The People Of The Wind.

My favourite prose passage in this novel is the conclusion:

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of joy.

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 662)

These two short paragraphs are comparable to the conclusions of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows and "Star of the Sea," which I have also quoted.

My favourite scene in The People Of The Wind is in Chapter I when Arinnian, ascending from Gray on antigrav, enjoys the view. We have described this scene before and need not repeat every detail but they include:

the town of Gray sprawling among green trees and susin and colourful gardens on hills surrounding Falkayn Bay;

the Hesperian Sea, sun-flared silver, horizonward sapphire;

a cargo vessel from Brendan's Islands;

above, patrolling space warcraft (war is imminent);

on the inland horizon, the Andromedas/the Weathermother;

outside Gray, Ythrian ranches, human farms and native ecology.

We can see why the colonists settled the Hesperian Islands before tackling this Coronan continent. Beyond Hesperia and over the horizon is Oronesia. We will learn more about that archipelago and also about Brendan's and other islands later in this novel.

It is human beings that build cities, only two on Avalon: Gray and Centauri. But some Ythrians live in highrises in Gray. Thus have the two species come to intermingle. Christopher Holm/Arinnian has joined Highsky Choth which is based in the Weathermother but has agreed with his parents that he will remain in Gray to complete his mathematical studies. Choths have been accepting human members for the past century. Thus, Avalonian history has progressed a long way from "Rescue on Avalon."

Choth Membership

"...because of its nearness to populous Gray, our choth receives more humans into membership than most."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION WINGS OF VICTORY IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 75-77 AT pp. 75-76.

Although advertised here as the introduction to only one story, this passage in fact introduces the entire The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

This passage and The People Of The Wind are the only places where we read about human membership of choths. When Christopher Holm is Arinnian of Stormgate, he speaks Anglic as if interpreting from Planha. Like many other "birds," he imitates Ythrians by not wearing clothes except, e.g., when he needs a coverall and boots to fly by gravbelt from Gray to Lythran's eyrie in the Weathermother. He prefers individual flight to much faster travel by aircar.

"Birds" live under choth law and custom. If I were a human Avalonian, then I would want to join a choth and participate in Khruaths, not Parliament, but it would have to be a choth that combined (what some of us would regard as) the best of human and Ythrian customs. Thus, no deathpride or duels and Oherran only by boycott, not by violence. These terms are explained elsewhere on this blog. Would Wyvans accept such a choth? The choth would appoint its own Wyvans. We are given to understand first that choths vary a great deal and secondly that both species influence each other so I think that my proposal would receive some support.

Ecologies On Avalon

"Rescue on Avalon."

"While men and Ythrians could eat many of the same things, each diet lacked certain essentials of the other. For that matter, native Avalonian life did not hold adequate nutrition for either colonizing race. The need to maintain separate ecologies was a major reason why they tended to live apart." (pp. 318-319)

The two species had seemed to be practising segregation but this was only a preliminary, albeit long-term, precaution. The Wyvan of Stormgate says:

"'Indeed, the time is over-past for our two kinds to intermingle freely.'" (p. 322)

Indeed, later, human beings will join choths and many from Gray, when it exists, will join Stormgate. 

Was Jack Birnam unwise to hike alone in the Weathermother? By our current rules, yes. The story shows that high tech can minimize but maybe not eliminate the dangers. Ayan, the Wyvan, scouting their new territory for his choth, had not known that it was wrong for an individual to venture unaccompanied under ironleaf trees which impede emergency calls by absorbing radio waves. The trees draw metal from the soil and concentrate particles. Thus, their leaves shine and attract bugs. Evolution finds a use for metal.  

Technology And Nature

"Rescue on Avalon."

Because none of his friends are free to accompany him, Jack Birnam hikes alone into the Weathermother where, as often on rapidly spinning Avalon, there is a sudden storm. His sleeping bag with hood and breathing mask can keep him warm at lower than Avalonian temperatures. A duraplast sheet keeps off hail and debris. Explosive pegs hold the collapsible alloy frame firm in the bedrock. His pocket transceiver can summon an aircar from a nearby rescue station if necessary - as long as the storm does not prevent air travel. Thus, technology more or less keeps a lone individual safe in a wilderness.

Ayan, Wyvan of Stormgate, flies into the Weathermother, wearing only belt, pouch and dagger. Ythrians, unclothed and able to hunt live prey, are considerably closer to nature than their fellow Avalonians of human stock.

Ivar Holm points out to Jack that, in an inter-species exchange, human beings gained fertile prairies and lost only mountains which are humanly useful only for recreation and then only by a few. This is an excellent story of inter-species cooperation.

Avalonian Choths And Geography

Poul Anderson, "Rescue on Avalon" IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 307-323.

"Choths differed as much in their ways as human nations did..." (p. 310)

In the early days, when only the Hesperian Islands had been colonized, the Weathermaker Choth comprised only an "...extended household..." ("Wingless," p. 297) Centuries later, choths on the northern polar continent of Corona each had thousands of members at least. By that time, it had become unusual that:

"In Oronesia, there were single households that bore the name..." (The People Of The Wind, III, p. 464)

- and, even more unusual that:

"...grown and married, the younger children were expected to found new, independent societies." (ibid.)

Gray, the larger of only two cities on Avalon, is on the west coast of Corona. Inland from Gray, are the Andromeda mountains called the Weathermother by Ythrians and occupied by the Stormgate Choth. Christopher Holm lives in Gray and is Arinnian of Stormgate. Two thousand kilometres west from Gray is the Oronesia archipelago stretching almost to the Antarctic Circle, much of it occupied, despite those unusual small choths, by the fisheries-controlling Highsky Choth. Tabitha Falkayn is Hrill of Highsky. In the northern hemisphere, Oronesia divides the eastern Hesperian Sea from the western Middle Ocean. This is meant to impart some information about where various characters live at different times. 

Small continents or large islands in the South Ocean are Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila. There are other smaller islands. 

We want to go there or even feel that we have been there.

Some Avalonian Place Names

Sometimes we are told a Planha word, e.g., "choth." At other times. a Planha word is translated for us, e.g., "deathpride," "Weathermother."

"To those who read, good flight.

"It is Hloch of the Stormgate Choth who writes, on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION WINGS OF VICTORY IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 75-77 AT p. 75.

That should be filmed with a scene of clouds blowing past a peak and Hloch's words as voiceover. 

Human Avalonians call the Weathermother range the Andromedas. Avalon is smaller than Earth so that its mountain-forming forces are weaker. In addition, rapid rotation causes violent weather which also makes for a lower surface. The highest Andromeda is only 4500 metres. 

On Earth:

Polynesia means "many islands";

Micronesia means "small islands";

Melanesia means "black islands";

Indonesia means "Indian islands."

On Avalon:

Oronesia means "mountainous islands."

The Oronesian archipelago, occupied by Highsky Choth and many very small choths, crosses the Tropic of Spears and ends near the Antractic Circle. In the northern hemisphere, it separates the Middle Ocean from the Hesperian Sea. Beyond the equator is the South Ocean. Oronesia has a distinct rich ecology and has been a refuge for eccentrics of both species. Colonists originally settled the Hesperian Islands before moving to the northern Coronan continent the size of Australia, stretching past the Tropic of Swords. In the southern hemisphere, Equatoria, New Africa and New Gaiila are large islands or small continents.

On Avalon

What is evident on rereading Poul Anderson's The People of the Wind, I, is the realization of the planet Avalon as a physical environment. The city of Gray, named after the captain of the Grand Sutvey ship, Olga, is on Falkayn Bay, named after David Falkayn. Christopher Holm/Arinnian, flying straight up from Gray by antigravity belt, sees Bay, city, countryside, other fliers of different species and sea and air vehicles. Three ecologies merge: imported Terran and Ythrian and native Avalonian. Anderson describes ranches, pastures, animals and trees.

When Arinnian has reached his destination, Lythran'a aerie on Mount Fairview in the Andromedas/the Weathermother, the description becomes more detailed:

Ythrian trees

broadbark

copperwood

lightningrod

jewelleaf

native flowers

janie

livewell

trefoil

Buddha's cup

harp vine singing in the breeze

Constellations, Wheel, Sword, Zirraukh and Ship, are visible and Arinnian reflects on other regions of Avalon:

Plains of Long Reach

arctic marshes

scorching New Gaiilan savannah

the many islands that are most of the land

A well conceived almost real place.