Fictional Species

The Broken Sword, XIV.

Of Poul Anderson's science fictional species, the Lunarians most closely resemble elves. However, other comparisons can also be made.

When preparing for war:

"Each province of Alfheim was readying itself alone; the elves were too haughty to work well in concert." (p. 95)

"'Overweening pride, bickering, haggling about details. We Ythrians - our dominant culture, at least - don't fit well into anything centralized.'"

-Poul Anderson, The People Of The Wind IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 437-662 AT II, p. 456.

The trolls, about to attack Alfheim, conceal their preparations by screening their lands with magic. The Terrans, preparing to attack Ythri, conceal their preparations by assembling in interstellar space.

Finally, for now, trolls, like Merseians, use every period of peace to prepare for the next war while the Merseians also treat diplomacy as continuation of war by other means.

Sfnal and fantasy realms reflect reality.

While reading hard sf, it is impossible to conceive that realms ruled by magic instead of by physics might also exist. However, multiversal scenarios accommodate the coexistence of every imaginable kind of universe.

More Mixed Mythologies In Works By Three Authors

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, Morpheus' raven, Matthew, visits (Norse) Swartalfheim - and indeed is involuntarily yanked away from there when ravens gather in the Dreaming because it is threatened by the (Greek) Furies. Swartalfheim, home of the dark elves or dwarves, and Alfheim, home of the light elves, are two of the Nine Worlds in the Ash Tree, Yggdrasil.

Alfheim (scroll down) is in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword. Yggdrasil is in Anderson's Operation Luna and in Mike Carey's Lucifer, the sequel to Gaiman's The Sandman. Carey also gives a big role to Fenris Wolf. Firespear's elf-hounds had:

"...blood of Gram and Fenris and the Wild Hunt's dogs in them."

-The Broken Sword, XII, p. 89.

In The Sandman: Season Of Mists, messages from the (Biblical) One God are relayed by an angel and the former appears as an elderly gentleman in modern garb in Lucifer. He exists but remains in the background in Anderson's The Broken Sword and Operation Chaos.

Firespear, Norns And Ravens

We, editorially speaking, are unwell and are entering this single post this evening without checking Comments or anything else online. Normal service will be resumed later. The rest of this evening will be devoted to rereading Stieg Larsson and maybe watching some TV news (while wondering which is the more fantastic).

Elf-earl Imric tells guardsman Firespear:

"'...if [the witch] yet lives, slay her out of hand.'

"'Aye, lord...'"

-The Broken Sword, XII, p. 86.

I found some gallows humour in this prompt acceptance of an order to slay someone out of hand. 

Firespear:

"...still a youth of two centuries..." (ibid.)

- was prepared to track the witch through foreign lands for twenty years but instead finds her nearby immediately, leaving:

"'...the rest of the night for better game.'" (p. 90)

Tyr tells Skafloc that:

"'The Norns spin many a thread to its end these days.'" (p. 84)

- and:

"'...ravens hover low...'" (ibid.)

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Kindly Ones, the Three Who Are One manifest both as the Norns/Fates and as the Furies. The Fates spin Morpheus' thread to its end and the Furies attack his realm, the Dreaming. During their attack, ravens gather in the Dreaming, including Noah's raven and the ravens from the Tower of London (where their absence means that the kingdom will fall).

I hope that that summarizes enough interconnected fantastic fiction for this evening!

To paraphrase John Carter: We still live!

We Do It

The Broken Sword, XII.

The Dark Lord to the witch:

"'Did you think you ever summoned me and struck a bargain? No, you were led astray; that was another. Mortals never sell me their souls. They give them away.'" (p. 90)

The Sabbat Goat to the black magician:

"WE WILL DO WITHOUT THE ANTICHRIST. HE WAS NEVER NECESSARY. MEN HAVE ALWAYS LED THEMSELVES UNTO ME."

-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 423.

Lucifer Morningstar to Morpheus:

"They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why.

"I need no souls.

"And how can anyone own a soul?

"No. They belong to themselves...

"...They just hate to have to face up to it."

-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Season Of Mists (New York, 1992), p. 82, panel3 5-6.

Well, that is clear enough. We do it.

Splendour And Presences

The Broken Sword, XII.

"The dim splendour of the castle which was also a barren tor, the sorceries adrift through its eternal warm twilight, the presences that haunted hills and woods and waters - oppressed [Freda] with strangeness." (p. 86)

See also:

The Twilight Of The Elves

More On The Elves

Here again, Poul Anderson's text expresses two levels of reality or perception. People saw tors and imagined or interpreted them as elven castles. They saw hills, woods and waters and sensed haunting presences. I do not expect to meet a ghost in a wood but I do expect to experience some of what our ancestors felt as twilight deepened in such places. We must follow the narrative and also feel its atmosphere.

"Go with G - !" Well, no. Freda cannot say that in Elfheugh. But the Faerie realms are fading or withdrawing...

Chill Wind And Slow Storm

The Broken Sword, XII.

Skafloc's wizard skis bear  "...him like the wind." (p. 83) He meets Tyr who:

"Despite a chill wind...wore only a wolfskin kilt..." (ibid.)

It is not good to meet the god of war "...alone at dusk..." (ibid.) so, of course, the wind at the time of this meeting is appropriately chill. 

"[Tyr's] voice was as of a slow storm through a brazen sky." (p. 84)

The earliest gods were personifications of natural forces. It would have been imagined that a storm was the voice of a god so, of course, this god's voice sounds like a storm. When society became more complicated so that social forces like wars overwhelmed individuals with the apparent inevitability of natural forces like hostile weather, then social forces also were personified. Thus: Thor, thunder; Tyr, war. Next, personified external forces were unified. Then they came to be understood and therefore no longer personified... However, because external forces remain uncontrollable, resort is still made to spells or prayers.

Poul Anderson's narrative returns us to those ages when a storm was a voice and when men told tales of gods and elves.

Cold Wind And Doom

The Broken Sword, XI.

Freda's home is burned and her family killed. She says:

"'Broken is the tree whose branches sheltered the land, and wind blows cold across fields gone barren -'" (p. 79)

Leea warns Skafloc against Freda:

"'There is doom in her; I can feel it, like chill in my marrow.'" (p. 80)

- but Leea does not know the reason. Freda is Skafolc's sister. 

I admit to not remembering what happens next despite several previous readings. Maybe the plot of The Broken Sword will stay with me longer this time.

I also admit to preferring Poul Anderson's fantasies to Tolkien's. Anderson deserves as much recognition.

Wanderer And Night-Bridge

The Broken Sword, X.

Leea sings about the wind:

"Seaward blows the wind tonight..." (p. 66)

Women, hearth, kith and kin cannot hold men called to sea by the wind which Leea addresses as "...old wanderer..." (ibid.)

The wind that Valgard had released from a sack blows Skafloc's fleet into the same fjord where the elves find human longships and murdered men.

When they approach Illrede Troll-King's hall:

"Wind shrieked and cuffed them with cold hands." (p. 68)

That is what we expect! However, there is not much more wind in this chapter. During the battle in the hall, Skafloc Elven Fosterling and Valgard Changeling come face to face (the same face!) in combat but they are driven apart. Illrede, Valgard and some others flee. Skafloc frees the human prisoners, Asgerd and Freda, not knowing that they are his sisters.

When the elves, with the freed women, return to their ships, they expect attack because they hear troll horns:

"...blowing ragged on the wind." (p. 72)

Skafloc leads a wedge formation. 

"...they saw the trolls massed black against the wan night-bridge of the gods..." (p. 73)

"Night-bridge" is yet another description of the Milky Way and the trolls are something else seen against it.

When the elven survivors escape, Skafloc's runes shift the wind in their favour.

Reaving, Grieving

The Broken Sword, X.

Leea sings to Skafloc and concludes:

"...when the sea their life is reaving.

"And their women will be grieving." (p. 66)

Does this sound a bit like Dies Irae?

1 Day of wrath and doom impending.
David's word with Sibyl's blending!
Heaven and earth in ashes ending!

7 What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
When the just are mercy needing?

-copied from here.

Something resonates when lines end in "-ing"!

This also reminds us of another verse by Kipling:

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

-copied from here.

I have quoted the two best parts of Kipling that I know and unfortunately will sail no further with Skafloc tonight.

Theology

Lunarians need a source of energy - antimatter - whereas elves just need to know the right spells. Poul Anderson's creative versatility and literary skills enabled him to construct, with apparent ease, fictional narratives based on either of these two very different sets of premises. Fantasies can assume either polytheism or medieval monotheism. Sf features characters who at least believe either in diverse monotheisms or in alternative religious metaphysics. Norse and other deities can appear as fictional characters in novels or short stories. The One God of several well known scriptural traditions intervenes less frequently but can be there when needed. 

Thus, the content of religious beliefs is at least a major background issue in Poul Anderson's works. For what it is worth, my most recent foray into theology, an attempt to improve on an earlier version, and now entitled "Prophecy And Contemplation," is here.