Cappen Varra

The second of Poul Anderson's Cappen Varra short stories, "The Gate of the Flying Knives," which I am reading in Anderson's collection, Fantasy (New York, 1981), was originally published in the anthology, Thieves' World (see first image), and is set in a city called Sanctuary. Since googling reveals the existence of a Thieves' World novel called Sanctuary (see second image), I deduce that the two Cappen Varra stories and their sequel, "Fairy Gold," are set in this shared universe of the "Thieves' World." Cappen remarks that "'...Shalpa, patron of thieves...has the most devotees of any.'" (p. 114) (If Shalpa is indeed the patron of thieves, then he is a Thieves' World counterpart of Hermes and St Dismas.)

Having read "Fairy Gold" first, not originally knowing the order of the stories, I was pleased, when I started to read the opening story, "The Valor of Cappen Varra," to recognize place names like "Norren" (p. 124). As in several much longer series, Anderson quickly establishes the sense of a familiar, consistent background for the activities of diverse characters like, in this case, Arvel Tarabine and Cappen Varra.

Cappen is a humorous villainous hero:

"Cappen said nothing. If she wanted to think that he had come especially to rescue her, he would not be so ungallant as to tell her otherwise." (p. 95)

"...of course, if she wanted to think he was being magnanimous, it could be useful later -" (p. 98)

I have commented more than once both on Anderson's rich vocabulary and on his "list descriptions" of busy, bustling street scenes. Here, vocabulary-wise, we have:

"'...a theomachy...'" (p. 124);
"'...her coadjutrix...'" (p. 125);
"'...your inamorata...'" (p. 125).

These are all easily googled.

I think that "'...a sikkintair...'" (p. 126) is a denizen of Thieves' World as hobbits and Balrogs are of Middle Earth and as Marshwiggles are of Narnia.

Here are some descriptive lists:

(i) "Merchants, artisans, porters, servants, slaves, wives, nomads, courtesans, entertainers, beggars, thieves, gamblers, magicians, acolytes, soldiers, and who knew what else..." (pp. 102-103);

(ii) - and, continuing the same sentence, "...mingled, chattered, chaffered, quarreled, plotted, sang, played games, drank, ate, and who knew what else." (p. 103);

(iii) - next sentence, "Horsemen, cameldrivers, wagoners pushed through..." (p. 103).

The description continues, though with less lists. Music, vendors, neighbors and devotees each get a sentence or a clause to themselves. But then the street scene closes with a list of smells:

(iv) "...of flesh, sweat, roast meat and nuts, aromatic drinks, leather, wool, dung, smoke, oils, cheap perfume." (p. 103)

We are told that, "Ordinarily, Cappen Varra enjoyed this shabby-colorful spectacle..." (p. 103), although today he is preoccupied.

As ever, Poul Anderson celebrates human activity and life.

On The Track Of Cappen Varra

Fantasy (New York, 1981), a collection by Poul Anderson, comprises:

two stories and one satirical piece under the heading, "Historical";
three stories and one article under the heading, "A-Historical";
four stories, one article and one satirical piece under the heading, "It Could Happen To You";
an Afterword that seems to be part of the third section and that, when we turn to it, turns out to be by Anderson expert, Sandra Miesel.

This is far too mixed up. The various items would have to go into different volumes of any Complete Works.

In "Historical":

"House Rule" is an Old Phoenix inn between the worlds story that belongs in an alternative timelines/parallel universes collection;
"The Tale of Hauk" is a historical fantasy that belongs in a collection of stories set in various past periods;
"Of Pigs And Men," the satirical piece, belongs in a non-fiction, or at least non-narrative, collection.

In "A-Historical":
the article should be in a non-fiction collection;
the stories should indeed be in a Fantasy collection;
of these, the two Cappen Varra stories should be placed before "Fairy Gold" which is not here but which does refer to Cappen Varra.

In "It could Happen To You":
the article and the satirical piece should be in a non-fiction collection;
of the stories, "Interloper" and, I think, "The Visitor" (I have yet to reread it), are sf, not fantasy;
"The Visitor" is in any case repeated in the later collection, All One Universe;
"Pact" and "Superstition" are, I provisionally think, fantasy.

The Afterword is about Anderson's fantasies.

I am trying to track down Cappen Varra stories but felt obliged to analyze Fantasy before reading "The Valor of Cappen Varra."

The Unicorn Trade

The Unicorn Trade by Poul and Karen Anderson (New York, 1984) has two pages of acknowledgments but no contents page. Since the contents are of different types (prose and verse; fiction and non-fiction), lengths (some of the verses are haikus) and authorships (Poul, Karen or Poul & Karen), it is necessary to leaf through the book to find out exactly what is in it. I have ascertained that there are eight pieces of prose fiction either written or co-written by Poul.

I have already discussed "A Feast for the Gods" by Poul and Karen as what I call "gods fiction." (Ghost stories treat ghosts as real; gods stories treat gods as real.) The Anderson's King of Ys Tetralogy is historical fiction with elements of fantasy, including some gods fiction: the Olympians and the Three of Ys withdraw before the new God that is to be in the Age of the Fish. Later, in Poul Anderson's The Merman's Children, Christian exorcism expels the last merfolk from Europe in the fourteenth century. In these cases, however, the gods, while influencing human affairs, remain off-stage so that these novels are not in your face gods fiction.

"Fairy Gold" by Poul Anderson was first published in The Unicorn Trade. Like "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, this story ends when morning sunlight transforms fairy gold into dry leaves.

In a single night, when each of the human characters has a different reason for haste:

for killing a troll, Arvel Tarabine receives a large coin of fairy gold from the elf Irrendal who advises him to spend it that very night;

Zulio Pandric the banker, who recognizes fairy gold and knows its properties, gives Arvel not the 400 aureats that the coin is worth but 350 which is enough for what Arvel wants, to buy his passage on an expedition to the New Lands;

Natan Sandana the jeweler gives Zulio 400 aureats' worth of gems for the coin;

Natan buys pearls from a Norrener merchant with the coin;

the merchant gives the coin to a courtesan in return for her services in future;

the courtesan buys a large house from a scholar;

the scholar, who wants to marry, buys Lona Grancy's pottery business and cottage;

Lona had broken off her engagement to Arvel because of his unrealistic attitude but now takes the coin to him to buy their passage on the, previously unrealistic, expedition;

Arvel already has enough for their passage which is fortunate because the sun rises on the coin...

The story is set in an unspecified other world or realm with unfamiliar place names and temples instead of churches so I think that it counts as a parallel universe narrative. I also think that it connects with some other Poul Anderson short stories but I will confirm or disconfirm this by rereading further.

Natan reads the verses of Cappen Varra and a story, classed as "A-Historical," in another Anderson collection is called "The Valor of Cappen Varra" so there is a trail to follow here.

(In The Sandman, the first performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream is to Auberon's court. Asked for payment, Auberon replies, "You ask Auberon of the fay for gold? Very well, you shall have your gold." Despite what happens to the coins next morning, Shakespeare thinks that his company has been well paid by playing to such an audience.)

The Armies Of Elfland

Poul Anderson's The Armies Of Elfland (New York, 1992) is a truly redundant volume. It collects eight stories although all of them had appeared in earlier collections.

"The Queen Of Air And Darkness" is in The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories, Winners, The Book Of Poul Anderson and New America but really belongs in the same volume as the eight Rustum stories because it is set in the same future history timeline.

"House Rule," "The Tale of Hauk," "The Valor of Cappen Varra," "The Gate of the Flying Knives" and "The Barbarian" are in Fantasy.

"Fairy Gold" and "A Feast for the Gods" are in The Unicorn Trade (co-written by Karen Anderson).

"Fairy Gold" belongs in the same volume as "Cappen Varra" and "Flying Knives" but should come after them, not before as here.

In the Armies Of Elfland introduction to "Flying Knives," Anderson says that, although this story brings back Cappen Varra, it was his, Anderson's, first contribution to the Thieves' World series. Thus, the first Varra story was not conceived as set in Thieves' World whereas the second was. Thus, the latter contains both a character and a city that appear in Thieves' World volumes by other authors.

The Armies Of Elfland has a good cover by Dieter Rottermond and a short Foreword on Romance by Anderson.

Andersonian Fantasy by Sean M. Brooks

The late Poul Anderson was best known as a writer of "hard" science fiction. But, he also wrote a smaller, but significant body of fantasy. I listed the most important of these works below.

THE BROKEN SWORD (1954, rev. ed. 1971)
THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS (1961)
OPERATION CHAOS (1971)
OPERATION LUNA (1999)
HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA (1973)
A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST (1974)
THE MERMAN'S CHILDREN (1979)
THE DEMON OF SCATTERY, with Mildred D. Broxon (1979)
CONAN THE REBEL (1980)
THE DEVIL'S GAME (1980)
FANTASY (1981)
WAR OF THE GODS (1997), regretfully, I think this was a weak, for Anderson, book.

I hesitate at including THE KING OF YS in this list because this four volume novel is best thought of as a historical novel. It does contain some very slight fantasy elements. One of the longest and most argumentative of my letters to Poul Anderson was a discussion of THE KING OF YS.

Except for the regrettably weak WAR OF THE GODS, Anderson's fantasies are of such high quality that I find it difficult to name the two or three I admire most. But THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS is definitely one of them. And A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST is unusual in being written almost entirely in blank verse. TEMPEST was written as a homage to William Shakespeare and his plays.

The stories I listed below are found in the collection called, with regrettable unoriginality, FANTASY. The collection includes two non fiction articles by Poul Anderson and an "Afterword" by Sandra Miesel

"House Rule"
"The Tale of Hauk"
"Of Pigs and Men"
"A Logical Conclusion"
"The Valor of Cappen Varra"
"The Gate of the Flying Knives"
"The Barbarian"
"On Thud and Blunder"
"Interloper"
"Pact"
"Superstition"
"Fantasy in the Age of Science"
"The Visitor"
"Bullwinch's Mythology"
"Afterword: An Invitation to Elfland," by Sandra Miesel

Truthfully, the list I gave above includes stories which are at least borderline hard science fiction. Examples being "House Rule" and "Superstition." I especially admire the rigorous logic Poul Anderson uses in developing ideas most of us would call fantasies. Two examples of that being "The Tale of Hauk" and "Pact."

Before he died in 2001, Poul Anderson arranged to have several of his books and stories posthumously published. The last of his fantasy stories, "The Lady of the Winds," was published by FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION in the Oct/Nov 2001 issue.

I am convinced Poul Anderson was a master short story writer. In both fantasy and hard science fiction. By turns poetic and elegiac, and scrupulously faithful to known science or not too impossible extrapolations from what was known. He also excelled in describing his characters and the backgrounds of his stories.

A Logical Conclusion

I am checking back through the Poul Anderson collections in my possession for any as yet unread short stories. The fourth story in Fantasy (New York, 1981) is "A Logical Conclusion," originally published in Fantastic Universe, 1960. I recognize that title but have no memory of having read the story. In this collection, it is the first of five works grouped together under the heading, "A-Historical."

The second and third "A-Historical" works are two Cappen Varra stories, "The Valor of Cappen Varra" and "The Gate of the Flying Knives." I have posted on these previously.

The fourth, "The Barbarian," is a fictitious letter written in the Howard-de Camp period of 175,000 BC and I do not seem to have read that either. The fifth is an article, "On Thud and Blunder." I have read this but it makes sense to reread it and to make some comments here.

I have yet to learn the significance of the title, "A Logical Conclusion." The story is told to the first person narrator by a publisher called Greenough in a New York bar - not, unfortunately, in the Old Phoenix. Thus, it is conceivable that Greenough is lying or deluded. However, after four pages of bar conversation, the narration shifts to a third person account from Greenough's point of view in his alternative world where the constellations are the same but unicorns and gods exist and magic works.

A Goddess has moved Greenough's mind into the body of the pirate, Kendrith of Narr, because she wants Greenough's other worldly knowledge to fight a war. For example, Greenough innovates with gliders launched by catapults but, unfortunately, a Warlock on the other side raises a storm that destroys the gliders. Meanwhile, Kendrith must cope as a publisher and lives with Greenough's wife... Or is this what is really happening? I must read on to find out.

Other Works Online

OK. We think that we have answered the questions raised at the end of the previous post.

"The Innocent at Large" by Poul and Karen Anderson was published in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1958, and was collected under the title, "The Innocent Arrival," in Poul and Karen Anderson, The Unicorn Trade (New York, April 1984), pp. 56-85.

Its sequel, "The Moonrakers," was published in If Worlds of Science Fiction (January 1966) and was collected in Poul Anderson, Beyond The Beyond (London, 1973), pp. 133-166.

Having reread earlier posts, I find that I am rediscovering facts that I had discovered before and am still unsure whether the "Great Swindle" occurred in the first story or between stories but am not about to pursue that now.

"Witch of the Demon Seas" is online but we have previously discussed it here.

"The Virgin of Valkarion" is online but we have previously discussed it here.

"The Valor of Cappen Varra" is online but we have previously discussed it here.

I have checked and confirmed that "Security" refers to a "Hemispheric War" as well as featuring those owl-like Martians. Some background information is common to several early stories. 

I think that we have exhausted online stuff for the time being.