A Prayer For The End Of The Captain Flandry Series

We have quoted quite a few prayers. See:

Bodin's Prayer

Two Concluding Prayers

Another Prayer 

A Prayer 

Flandry's Prayer

Flandry's Prayer II

 

The joyous prayer at the end of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows concludes the Captain Flandry series which began with "Tiger By The Tail" although two works could not be more different. Before that, in fictional chronological order, is the Young Flandry Trilogy. After A Knight..., Flandry has become an Admiral. Thus, the prayer of thanks for Gospodar Bodin becomes an appropriate dramatic climax for Captain Flandry although he is not named in it. Flandry was behind Bodin's raid which brought peace for Dennitza during the Gospodar's lifetime.

Both the Technic History and the Time Patrol series have an important installment ending in a heartfelt prayer.

Two Concluding Prayers

Poul Anderson's "Star of the Sea" recounts a potential turning point in European history and a personal turning point for Manson Everard of the Time Patrol whereas Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows recounts a political turning point in Technic History and a personal turning point for Dominic Flandry of the Terran Empire. Both works end with a heart-felt prayer.

For "Star of the Sea," see A Prayer and Devotion. In fact, here is the entire prayer, which I do not seem to have quoted in full before:

"Mary, mother of God, mother of sorrows, mother of salvation, be with us now and at the hour of our death.
"Westward we sail, but night overtakes us. Watch over us through the dark and bring us on into day. Grant that this our ship bear the most precious of cargoes, your blessing.
"Pure as yourself, your evenstar shines above the sunset. Guide us by your light. Lay your gentleness on the seas, breathe us forward in our faring and home again to our loves, carry us at last by your prayers into Heaven.
"Ave Stella Maris!"
-Poul Anderson, "Star of the Sea" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), pp. 467-640 AT IV, pp. 639-640.

We enter imaginatively into such a prayer in a work of fiction even if we cannot also do so while kneeling in a church. And the same is true of the Prayer of Bodin's Return - see here.

Bodin's Prayers

"In glory did Gospodar Bodin ride home.
"Maidens danced to crown him with flowers. The songs of their joy rang from the headwaters of the Lyubisha to the waves of the Black Ocean, up the highest mountains and down the fairest glens; and all the bells of Zorkagrad peeled until Lake Stoyan gave back their music.
"Springtime came, never more sweet, and blossoms well nigh buried the tomb which Gospodar Bodin had raised for St Kossara. There did he often pray, in after years of his lordship over us; and while he lived, no foeman troubled the peace she brought us through his valor. Sing, poets, of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!
"And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.
"Amen."
- Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 605-606.

I have quoted this concluding passage of Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows in full first because of its beauty and secondly because it continues the line of thought of the previous two posts, Flandry's Prayer and Flandry's Prayer II. Like "Star Of The Sea" in Anderson's Time Patrol series, A Knight... ends with a prayer. Before that, we are told that Bodin prayed at St Kossara's tomb and that she brought peace through his valor. The intercession of saints is a specifically Orthodox and Catholic belief. Human Dennitzans are Orthochristians. I can agree at least that Bodin's valor was strengthened by his devotion to Kossara.

The first person to pray to St Kossara after her death had been her grieving fiance, the agnostic Dominic Flandry. Flandry goes his way, remembering Kossara, while her people go their way, praying to St Kossara.

Conclusion II

(St. Clement's Cathedral, Prague.)

Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows ends with Bodin's Prayer (see here) after the bombardment of Chereion (see here).

Before the bombardment, Flandry tells Gospodar Bodin that the Dennitzan action should spark a quarrel that will enable Emperor Hans to force appeasers out of his regime. Hopefully including Lord Hauksberg, if he is still around?

Bodin hopes that Dennitza will survive the Empire.
John Ridenour expects that Freehold will survive.
Flandry expects that Nyanza and Vixen will.

The Long Night is coming but is well prepared for.

Six Dennitzan Heroes And One Saint

"...the olden heroes, Yovan Matavuly who led the Founders the long lightless way to this our Morning Star, Toman Obilich who slew wild Vladimir on the crown of the Glacier, Gwyth who dared the storms of the Black Ocean, Stefan Miyatovich - great ancestor of Gospodar Bodin - who in the depths of the Night Years cast back the reavers from our very homes."
-Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (New York, 2012), pp. 341-342.

Although they inhabit its surface, the Dennitzans call their colony planet their Morning Star - a new beginning. In Constitution Square, a bronze fountain depicts Toman's fight with Vladimir. A table in the Council Hall of Novi Aferoch is made from timber out of Gwyth's ship. Stefan Miyatovich exactly parallels Brian McCormac, defender of Aeneas during the Troubles and ancestor of Hugh McCormac. Dennitzans call the Troubles "the Night Years," not to be confused with the later Long Night, which we hope Dennitza will survive.

So far, four heroes:

Yovan;
Toman;
Gwyth;
Stefan.

To these, we add:

Andrei Simich, the poet who celebrated the previous four;
Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich, who led "Bodin's raid" (p. 341);
St Kossara, Bodin's niece, who brought peace through his valor.

That peace lasted through his lifetime, a real happy ending. His return from the raid was celebrated by songs, bells and dancing maidens crowning him with flowers.

In Anderson's historical fiction, some characters believe that, e.g., Thor is a real being that can intervene on their behalf. In his historical fantasies, Thor is a real being that can intervene on their behalf. In the hard sf of A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, pagan ychani believe that Aferdhi, Blyn and Haawan are real beings that can be held afar by a sign and a prayer while Orthochristians believe that St Kossara is a real being who sends them peace through Bodin's valor.

Packaging Poul Anderson's Technic History

(I am unable to attach a cover image of Flandry's Legacy. Have I used up my entitlement to free internet images? No, it has come on.)

I think of:

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows
A Stone In Heaven
The Game Of Empire

- as three "Children of Empire" novels and of:

"A Tragedy of Errors"
The Night Face
"The Sharing of Flesh"
"Starfog"

- as the four post-Imperial installments of the Technic History. Thus, these two sequences could provide the contents of the two concluding omnibus volumes of the Technic History.

However, in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga:

Volume VII comprises all the above works except A Knight...;
Flandry is a Captain throughout Volumes V and VI;
Vol VI concludes with A Knight...;
"Bodin's Prayer" is a highly appropriate concluding passage for Vol VI.

In A Stone... and The Game..., Flandry is an Admiral at last, still in Intelligence with a staff loyal to him and choosing his own assignments. He also finally marries and The Game... is potentially the beginning of a new series about his daughter in Intelligence.

Thus, maybe Baen Books' packaging makes sense.

Real Religious Feeling

I think that there is real religious feeling in at least four passages written by Poul Anderson. What do I mean by "real religious feeling"? A response to life including a sense of transcendence combined with mythological imagination and moral aspiration?

See:

Two Concluding Prayers which links to:

Bodin's Prayer

See also:

On Identifying "Top Gods"

- and Father Tomislav's sermon as quoted in:

Through The Western Gate

Our Hope

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XX.

Bodin Miyatovich to Dominic Flandry:

"'Between us, my friend, I dare hope myself that what I care about will still be there when the Empire is gone. However, that scarcely touches our lifetimes.'" (p. 604)

St. Kossara brings peace through Bodin's valor: 

"Sing, poets, of his fame and honor! Long may God give us folk like these!

"And may they hearten each one of us. For in this is our hope.

"Amen." (p. 606)

With Bodin and with the anonymous author of this heartfelt prayer, we hope that the Dennitzan peace continues long after the Fall of the Terran Empire.

Ends Of Eras

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, both Mirkheim and A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows are good "end of an era" novels although they are completely different eras.

Mirkheim is the beginning of the end of the Polesotechnic League and is the last time that we see the League, van Rijn, Falkayn and the trader team. Despite its "end" status, Mirkheim is the opening installment of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire. In the following installment, Falkayn's son, born near the end of Mirkheim, is an adult and his son has been born.

Every end is a new beginning, as we are told at the end of James Blish's Cities In Flight, Volume I, - and even more forcefully at the end of the concluding Volume IV when the mutual annihilation of two old universes is followed by the creation of several new universes. See here. I am meant to be discussing Poul Anderson but comparisons between future histories are inevitable.

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows is, appropriately, the concluding installment in Volume VI, Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra. What ends in this novel is not the Terran Empire but:

legitimate rule in the Empire;
the threat to the Empire posed by the last surviving Chereionite, Aycharaych;
Dominic Flandry's second chance of happiness with a woman that he really wanted to be with.

The novel ends with:

the bombardment of Chereion;
the prayer of Bodin's return, which signals the beginning of a happy era on Dennitza.

Despite all this, we are pleased when Flandry returns in the first two of the six installments collected in Volume VII, Flandry's Leagacy. In this volume, he is first named at the very end of the opening chapter of A Stone In Heaven. We were not necessarily going to see Flandry again but fortunately we do.

Dennitza Revisited

I think that Dennitza is my favorite fictional planet in the Poul Anderson canon. See:

search result for The Kazan
In Zorkagrad Old Town
In Zorkagrad
Bodin's Prayers
Imaginative Multiverse
Protective Merseians
The Wind
Retirement In The Technic History
Log Cabin
Fast Action
Constitution Square
A Necessary Causal Link
Mesyatz
Dennitzan Cultural Blending
Kossara Vymezal
Six Dennitzan Heroes And One Saint
At The Moment Of Death
Dennitza And Ys: Their Contrasting Fates
Two Beginnings And Two Endings
Prayers
Conclusion
Flandry's Prayer II
Conclusion II
Kossara Vymezal In St Clement's Cathedral
Explicit Pathetic Fallacy
Dead Leaves
Inter-Species Politics