Modernization

Falkayn stayed in Castle Afon in the sacred Old Quarter of Ardaig where there are gray stone buildings with fantastic turrets and battlements. See here. By Flandry's time, there have been at least three major changes:

Castle Afon is now occupied not by the Hand of the Vach Dathyr but by the Roidhun of a unified Merseia, who is elected from among the landless Vach Urdiolch;

most government business has moved to the new co-capital, antipodal Tridaig;

however, Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory, Fleet Admiral in the Merseian Space Navy and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, has had the new Navy office block, Admiralty House, built in Ardaig.

The shadow of the new tower's gleaming tiers engulfs Afon while aircraft swarm around the tower's beacon-topped upper flanges like seabirds. Although Admiralty House clashes with the modern skyline around the bay, it is a culmination of "...the battlements, dome roofs, and craggy spires of the old quarter." (Young Flandry, p. 90)

The location of Admiralty House in Ardaig is convenient because it is close to the Ynvory Castle Dhangodhan but it is also appropriate:

"...that the instruments of Merseia's destiny should have roots in Merseia's eternal city." (p. 89)

No city is eternal but they can seem that way.

Gaius Julius Caesar: Rome is the mob.
Marcus Licinius Crassus: No! Rome is an eternal thought in the mind of God.
Caesar: I'd no idea you'd grown religious.
Crassus: [laughs] It doesn't matter. If there were no gods at all I'd still revere them. If there were no Rome, I'd dream of her.
-copied from here.

I thought that Crassus said "...in the minds of the gods..." but this is the dialogue as I have found it on google. The Terran Empire is modeled on the Roman Empire and the Merseian Roidhunate is the rival of the Terran Empire. It is appropriate to quote the dramatic characters, Caesar and Crassus. Young Flandry, when he is older, will meet their Terran equivalents.

Life Details

In Poul Anderson's works, close attention even to the seemingly minor details always yields interesting results. Thus, merely listing Merseian names disclosed:

(i) the Wilwidh system of a personal name followed by a nickname;

(ii) the fact that the nickname can change;

(iii) the still surviving Lafdiguan system with the syllable "hu" between first and second names;

(iv) yet another alternative system that seems to be simply a personal name followed by a surname;

(v) a man with two names, Anglic and Eriau, possibly because he was born in the Roidhunate.

I would have completely forgotten (v) if I had not scoured the texts for Merseian names. There are other examples of inter-species interaction, e.g.:

(a) Terran-derived tea is grown throughout the Roidhunate (the British might comment that, in that case, Terra has half conquered them already!);

(b) "Before [Djana] flashed the image of a Merseian Christ, armed and shining, neither compassionate nor cruel but the Messiah of a new day...She hadn't heard of any such belief among them. Maybe they had no need of redemption; maybe they were God's chosen..."
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 298.

There is no such belief among them. Their deity, "the God," is neither immanent nor incarnate but wholly transcendent. Thus, "...the image of a Merseian Christ..." is a synthesis between Djana's Christianity and Ydwyr's Merseianity. What might some of the human beings living within the Roidhunate believe? Djana does on an emotional level what Fr Axor, a Wodenite, does on an academic level, conceives of the idea of a non-human incarnation - and Axor may have made some progress in his researches by the end of The Game Of Empire.

Morruchan Long-Ax, Hand of the Vach Dathyr, receives David Falkayn, representing the Polesotechnic League, in the audience chamber of Castle Afon. Centuries later, Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, receives Mark Hauksberg and Max Abrams, representing the Terran Empire, in the audience chamber of Castle Afon. The castle is now the primary residence of the Roidhun who, by law, is always of the Vach Urdiolch. Thus, the castle has changed hands - as well as Hands. The League has fallen; Merseia has been unified; Terra and Merseia have become empires. This is one occasion when we know for certain that characters living in different periods have stood in the same place.

Dynamic Renewal

Even after multiple rereadings, Poul Anderson's  Technic History remains dynamic. The characters and their interactions are continually renewed:

David Falkayn stands in the audience chamber of Castle Afon, saves Merseia and later founds Avalon;

Tabitha Falkayn, Daniel and Christopher Holm and many others defend Avalon against the Terran Empire while the Merseian Roidhunate grows in a remote region of space;

Max Abrams stands in the audience chamber of Castle Afon and defends the Empire against the Roidhunate.

Of course, we can also mention Dominic Flandry. However, Flandry's mentor, Abrams, happens to fit more directly into this particular historical sequence.

In fact, the two (or three) main sections of the Technic History fit together much more closely than might have been expected. The series should be reread periodically.

Old Wilwidh

A while ago, I suggested a possible screen adaptation of the opening section of Poul Anderson's Dominic Flandry story, "The Game of Glory." A shorter passage in the novel, Ensign Flandry, has also made an impression. I imagine this single paragraph read aloud as part of an audio or audiovisual presentation of extracts from Anderson's works.

Castle Afon in the old Merseian capital, Ardaig, is the Roidhun's official primary residence. Brechdan Ironrede, Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, i.e., Prime Minister of a unified Merseia, receives representatives of the Terran Empire in the audience chamber of Castle Afon:

"Entering the audience chamber, a human was at first dazed, as if he had walked into a dream. He needed a moment to make sense of what he saw. The proportions of long, flagged floor, high walls, narrow windows arched at both top and bottom, sawtoothed vaulting overhead, were wrong by every Terran canon and nonetheless had a rightness of their own. The mask helmets on suits of armor grinned like demons. The patterns of faded tapestries and rustling battle banners held no human symbology. For this was Old Wilwidh, before the machine came to impose universal sameness. It was the wellspring of Merseia. You had to see a place like this if you would understand, in your bones, that Merseians would never be kin to you."
- Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 141.

The omniscient narrator concludes this paragraph with a forceful assertion of the kind that would normally be expressed as an opinion by one of the characters: "...Merseians would never be kin to you." No? Human colonists and Merseian immigrants are well integrated on the planet Dennitza, a human mother even singing a Merseian lullaby.

The green-skinned Brechdan, who is also the Hand of the Vach Invory, stands in a black robe "...beneath a dragon carved in black wood..." (ibid.) (Try to picture the scene.)

Each Merseian, at least in the dominant Wilwidh culture, is identified by a personal name, by Vach membership, by military or civil rank and also by a nickname, like "Ironrede." Brechdan's bailiff, Chwioch, in his red tunic, green trousers and high-collared cape, is "...called the Dandy..." (p. 23). A dying cyborg spy says:

"'Will you remember my name? I was Dwyr of Tanis, once called the Merry. They made me into this...Remember Dwyr...Now let me die. If you open the main plate you can turn off my heart.'" (p. 132)

There is something irreconcilable in the Wilwidh culture. Brechdan says to a human Intelligence officer:

"'Commander...your young man makes me proud to be a sentient creature. What might our united races not accomplish? Hunt well.'" (p. 145)

- but Brechdan and his ilk can conceive of only one kind of inter-racial union. Speaking to a fellow Merseian, he acknowledges that he likes the Terrans, adding:

"'They were magnificent once. They could be again. I would love to see them our willing subjects...Unlikely, of course. They're not that kind of species. We may be forced to exterminate.'" (p. 92)

Be forced to! (Like Doctor Who's opponents, the Daleks, who say "Exter-minate!" as often as Nazis said "Seig Heil!")

Later, approaching the "farce" of a welcoming festival for a Terran delegation, Brechdan, even more callously, thinks:

"If we must exterminate the Terrans, we will at least have rid the universe of much empty chatter." (p. 93)

Chatter is preferable to war and enslavement, Hand.

The Audience Chamber Of Castle Afon

Centuries apart, both David Falkayn and Max Abrams stand in the audience chamber of Castle Afon in Ardaig on Merseia. Falkayn is Nicholas van Rijn's protege and Abrams is Dominic Flandry's mentor.

Falkayn sees:

a high, gaunt, echoing chamber of unhuman proportions;
woven tapestries on stone walls;
windows arched at top and bottom;
battle banners hanging from rafters;
a hearth with a fire big enough to roast an elephant;
armored, demon-masked troopers lining the hall, bearing curved swords, barbed pikes and guns;
the Hand of the Vach Dathyr in orange robes and horned miter.

Abrams sees:

long, flagged floor;
high walls;
narrow windows arched at top and bottom;
sawtoothed vaulting;
proportions wrong by Terran criteria but not here;
demonic mask helmets on suits of armor;
faded tapestries;
rustling battle banners;
unhuman symbology;
a dragon carved in black wood;
the black-robed Hand of the Vach Ynvory lifting a spear and crashing it down in salute.

Some of us might remember James Blish's Jack Loftus in the audience room of the Hegemon of Malis (here).

Merseia

Astronomical:

in the system of the Sol-like star Korych;
four moons - Neihevin, Seith, Lythyr and Wythna;
lethally close (about one parsec) to the supernova, Valendary.

When visited by a ship of the Grand Survey:

an industrial revolution starting by the Wilwidh Ocean in the northern hemisphere;
scientific method invented;
heliocentric astronomy;
post-Newtonian, pre-Maxwellian physics;
chemistry beginning;
a well-developed taxonomy;
speculations about evolution;
steam trains;
political power fragmented among the Vachs;
scientists, engineers and teachers each under the patronage of a Hand of a Vach.

When visited, two hundred years later, by the trader team:

the Vachs have confederated;
in the social dislocation following the industrial revolution, the baronial tradition survives as the Gethfennu, organised crime;
the most powerful Vach, Dathyr, is based in Castle Afon in the city of Ardaig;
other Vachs - Hallen, Ynvory, Rueth, Isthyr, landless Urdiolch;
the Republic of Lafdigu in the southern hemisphere;
interplanetary travel;
inconclusive space battles;
a Gethfennu colony on the planet Ronraud;
Star Believers regarding galactics as divine;
Demonists regarding them as demonic;
Adzel addresses a Believer gathering of clients, commoners and city proletariat. 

When visited, several centuries later, by Ensign Dominic Flandry:

the capital planet of an interstellar empire, the Roidhunate;
unified under the Roidhun, who is of Vach Urdiolch;
Brechdan Ironrede, current Hand of the Vach Ynvory, is Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council;
twin capitals, ancient Ardaig on the bay of the River Oiss on the Wilwidh Ocean and modern antipodal Tridaig;
Castle Afon, the Roidhun's official primary residence, and the newly built Admiralty House are in Ardaig.

When Flandry is an Admiral:

his opposite number, Tachwyr the Dark, has become Hand of the Vach Dathyr and Protector of the Grand Council.

Sources: "Day of Burning"; Ensign Flandry; The Game of Empire.

Ancestors

The Game of Empire, CHAPTER SIX.

Tachwyr addresses the Grand Council whose faces he sees on a multi-screened communication set that he:

"...had had brought out onto a towertop of his castle. At this tremendous moment he wanted to stand overlooking the lands of his Vach, while its ancient battle banners snapped above him in the wind." (p. 264)

When Brechdan Ironrede chooses to receive the Terrans in Castle Afon, Max Abrams reflects:

"He's shaken... He's rallying quick, but he needs the help of his ancestors."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 141.

Tachwyr wants ancestral lands and banners when he is triumphant. Brechdan wants his ancestors when he is shaken. Abrams thinks:

"I wish my ancestors were around." (ibid.)

Whether our ancestors are around is largely a matter of how we see it. In the Roman Empire, displaced slaves left their gods behind - unless they came to believe in a single omnipresent god. Abrams rallies himself by remembering his home planet, Dayan, then:

"I too have a place in the cosmos. Let me not forget." (ibid.)

"If I forget thee..."

Ardaig And Tridaig

Ensign Flandry, CHAPTER TEN.

What better arrangement for an interstellar imperial planet than to have antipodal co-capitals?

Ardaig

ancient

the original Merseian capital

surrounding the bay where the River Oiss enters the Wilwidh Ocean

a megalopolis stretching east to the Hun foothills

traditional, ceremonious, leisurely

the planetary cultural and artistic centre

the location of the annual Grand Council

the site of Castle Afon, the Roidhun's main residence

also the location of the new Admiralty House, aircraft swarming around its upper flanges

close to Castle Dhanghodan, seat of the Vach Ynvory

Tridaig

young

technological

brawling

lively

occasionally violent

Brechdan Ironrede, fleet admiral, currently Hand of the Vach Ynvory and Protector of the Grand Council, had ordered that Admiralty House be built in Ardaig, not Tridaig, because:

"...he simply knew it was right that the instruments of Merseia's destiny should have roots in Merseia's eternal city." (p. 89)

There are powerful connotations in the phrase, "eternal city."

Roidhun

Dominic Flandry meets a nephew of that Merseian who is:

"'...in the glory of the God, Almighty Roidhun of Merseia, the Race, and all holdings, dominions, and subordinates of the Race.'"
Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), pp. 193-365 AT pp. 281-282.

The Roidhun:

may or may not be a figurehead, depending on circumstances;
is elected by the Hands of the Vachs and heads of states;
is always of the landless Vach Urdiolch, presumably "...in part [as] a check on his powers..." (p. 282);
is regarded by all with awe and pride;
stands for "...the God, the unity, and the hope of a warrior people..." (ibid.);
never comes on-stage in the Technic History;
is represented by the Protector of the Roidhun's Council;
resides in Castle Afon in the ancient Wilwidh capital of Ardaig.

When the Merseians needed to unite their planet, did they decide that, to give the supreme position to a member of any landed Vach would be to empower that Vach too much as against the others and that therefore the only solution was to elevate a member of the one landless Vach? (See here.)

A humorous parallel: Doctor Who was originally aimed at children but came to be watched by teenagers and University students. One country had to be entrusted with data that it could notionally misuse to its own advantage. The Brigadier solemnly intoned, "And, of course, the only country that all other governments would trust not to misuse the information was Great Britain!" University students laughed while school children got a dose of nationalist propaganda. Was the Brigadier's dialogue satire, propaganda or both - deliberately aimed at two different audiences?

Japanese Gardens

(I found a lot of images of Japanese gardens here.)

David Falkayn is in the third-story guest apartment of an Ikranankan Imperial palace. From the balcony, he sees the palace gardens which suggest Old Japanese:

rocks;
low plants;
subtle colors;
a fountain in a glass column to control evaporation.

On his next mission, Falkayn will see another garden reminiscent of Japanese. See In And Around Castle Afon.

Alien Halls

David Falkayn in the audience chamber of Castle Afon on Merseia:

a high gaunt hall;
strange proportions;
windows arched above and below;
stone walls;
woven tapestries;
battle banners hanging from rafters;
echoes;
hearth fire large enough to roast an elephant;
demon-masked, armored troopers with curved swords, barbed pikes and guns;
winter-chill air;
gravity slightly higher than Terrestrial;
ice-blue sky glimpsed outside;
Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr, on a dais.

Centuries later, Max Abrams in the same audience chamber:

strange proportions;
windows arched above and below;
faded tapestries;
rustling banners;
unhuman symbology;
suits of armor with mask helmets grinning like demons;
Old Wilwidh, the wellspring of Merseia;
Brechdan Ironrede, the Hand of the Vach Invory and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council, black-robed, holding a spear, beneath a carved black wooden dragon.

In a different timeline, Carl Donnan in the hall of the Dragar on Vorlak:

a single long room;
massive dark timbers;
carved screens;
gaping sea monsters' heads carved on beam-ends;
fluorescent globes;
extraplanetary booty of polished cups, shields, crowns and guns;
bronze plaques of Dragar emblems;
flames roaring up a chimney;
at the far end, the shadowed statue of the Overmaster;
battle banners hanging from dim rafters;
open doors;
noise of surf;
shrill birds;
a saurian's roar;
cold unfamiliar smells;
Dragar enthroned, holding golden goblets, down the length of the hall;
wooden serpents trellised on the throne of Hlott Luurs, the Draga of Tolbek and president of the Dragar Council;
beside Hlott, Ger Nenna, an imperial scholar-bureaucrat representing the Overmaster.

In The Hall Of The Mountain King, Whether On Earth Or On Merseia

The hall of troll-king Illrede:

in a mountain cave;

vast;

hewn out of rock;

stolen gems and tapestries on the walls;

expensive goblets and cloths on ebony and ivory tables;

fires burning down the length;

rich garments on troll lords and ladies;

elf, dwarf and goblin thralls carrying trenchers of human, Faerie and animal meat and cups of southern wine;

snarling music;

smoky air;

ruddy light;

guards, "...moveless as heathen idols...," (The Broken Sword, p. 64) with glinting spears;

gobbling, guzzling, quarrelling trolls;

a thunderous din;

quiet lords in carven seats;

Illrede, fat and wrinkled, with long green tendrils for a beard and wearing a gold crown.

Colorful, barbaric and vividly imagined. Since trolls are large, green, humanoid and hostile, comparisons with Poul Anderson's alien Merseians are inevitable. In the audience chamber of Castle Afon:

"The mask helmets on suits of armor grinned like demons. The pattern of faded tapestries and rustling battle banners held no human symbology. For this was Old Wilwidh, before the machine came to impose universal sameness. It was the well-spring of Merseia. You had to see a place like this if you would understand, in your bones, that Merseains would never be kin to you." (Young Flandry, p. 141)

Past Posts About Merseia

With our present emphasis on Merseians, we ought to reread "Day of Burning" but my copy is packed at present.

However, see:

luminous streets (Scroll down)

Chee Lan In Flight

Castle Afon

Star Believers

Gethfennu

Ardaig

That is quite a lot of past posts about Merseia, with some repetition.

Falkayn On Merseia

How does a single planet appear to its diverse inhabitants or even, hypothetically, to an extraplanetary visitor? A native and a visitor are bound to perceive a planetary environment differently but then so do different inhabitants, e.g., Donald Trump and me on Earth. We might as well be on different planets or at least on different parallel Earths. His is better than mine because it has no climate crisis.

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, our first sight of the planet Merseia is through the eyes of David Falkayn. This Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League had appeared in three earlier stories and Merseians had appeared in a few earlier-written Dominic Flandry stories so "Day of Burning," whose action begins with Falkayn confronting Morruchan Long-Ax, Hand of the Vach Dathyr, interconnects originally separate narrative strands, thus making a pivotal contribution to a complex future history series.

Falkayn, like Abrams centuries later, sees the audience chamber of Castle Afon. In both cases, we see Merseian symbols and ceremonial but through the eyes of a human being.

Falkayn On Merseia

If we have read about Merseians in the Dominic Flandry series, then we are overjoyed when Master Merchant David Falkayn converses with Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr, near the beginning of "Day of Burning." The Earth Book Of Stormgate is a treasure house of such moments in the Technic History. We recognize not only that the being confronting Falkayn is identified by a personal name, a nickname and a Vach but also that he is the Hand of his Vach. Even more than this, they are in the audience chamber of Castle Afon where Max Abrams will later have to face Brechdan Ironrede, Hand of the Vach Ynvory and Protector of the Roidhun's Grand Council.

Two historical moments resonate. The first concerns the future of Merseia. The second concerns the future of Terra.

Pragmatism And Idealism

David Falkayn, Master Merchant of the Polesotechnic League, negotiates with Morruchan Long-Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr, in the audience chamber of Castle Afon in the city of Ardaig on the planet, Merseia:

"Falkayn relaxed a bit. Morruchan seemed to be his own kind despite everything, not awestruck, not idealistic, not driven by some incomprehensible nonhuman motivation, but a shrewd and skeptical politician of a pragmatically oriented culture.
"Seems to be, the man cautioned himself. What do I really know about Merseia?"
-Poul Anderson, "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 209-272 AT p. 216.

Falkayn is realistic and cautious as well as competent and ambitious. I respect his role in this setting. If I were on Merseia, then it would be as an academic member of the earlier Grand Survey team. I would hope to meet idealistic Merseians motivated by the good of their species and by an aspiration to cooperate harmoniously with other intelligent species. I would also be realistic enough to realize that I might not find what I hoped for.

Alien Audience Chambers

The Peregrine, CHAPTER IX.

See:

Alien Halls
The Audience Chamber Of Castle Afon
In The Hall Of The Mountain King...
Old Wilwidh

To these, we add the audience chamber on Erulan:

roof lost in dusk;
narrow windows;
thick-piled rugs;
bloody lances of sunlight;
gold;
jewels;
banners;
tapestries;
lines of rigid guards;
a swarm of prostrating slaves;
enthroned nobles;
blowing trumpets;
thundering kettledrums;
the robed, crowned Arkulan.

Human beings have conquered barbarians and have become barbarized. The text, "What shall it profit a man...?" is quoted twice to good effect in the Psychotechnic History.

"Day of Burning" And MIRKHEIM

Dominic Flandry first appeared in "Tiger by the Tail" (January, 1951) and his continuing antagonists, the Merseians, first appeared in "Honorable Enemies" (May, 1951) although references to Merseians were written into a revised version of "Tiger by the Tail" some time before these stories were collected in The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume V, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (February, 2010).

When "Day of Burning" first appeared as "Supernova" in Analog, January 1967, it might have surprised some readers that Master Merchant David Falkayn stood before Morruchan Long Ax, the Hand of the Vach Dathyr, in Castle Afon. This is not Flandry but Falkayn on Merseia. However, by this time, two discrete futuristic sf series, one about the rising Polesotechnic League, the other about the declining Terran Empire, had fused into a single future history series about the rise and fall of Technic civilization. This new post-Western civilization has come into existence at the time of the second of the forty-three instalments in the series and ceases to exist between the thirty-ninth and fortieth instalments.

If we read the Technic History not in the magazines but only in the sequence of single-volume novels and collections, then Mirkheim (1977) informs us that many Merseians have joined the Baburite space navy because:

"'Mostly they belong to the aristocratic party at home and have no love for the League, considering how it shunted their kind aside and dealt instead with the Gethfennu group.'"

-Poul Anderson, Mirkheim IN Anderson, Rise Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, March 2011), pp. 1-291 AT VI, p. 96.

That is Sheldon Wyler addressing David Falkayn.

"Day of Burning," collected in The Earth Book of Stormgate (1978), reveals that it was Falkayn himself that had led the League delegation which bypassed the aristocrats to deal with the Gethfennu, Merseian organised crime.

Hloch, introducing "Day of Burning" in the Earth Book, informs his readers that he can at least reveal:

"...the part that the Founder-to-be took...'"

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION to "Day of Burning" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 209-210 AT p. 209 -

- in the crucial events on Merseia. (The Founder-to-be is Falkayn.)

In The Technic Civilization Saga, "Day of Burning" and Mirkheim are in their proper chronological order, the former in Volume II and the latter in Volume III.

Brechdan In Ardaig

Ensign Flandry.

CHAPTER TEN, pp. 89-100, returns to Brechdan as viewpoint character. He is in Ardaig where the trader team were. Castle Afon has become the official primary residence of the Roidhun whom we never see. A new co-capital, Tridaig, has been founded in the antipodes but the new Admiralty House is in Ardaig. Brechan is not only the Hand of his Vach and the Protector of the Grand Council but also a fleet admiral. His office occupies the top floor of Admiralty House.

"...[Brechdan's] tail ached from the weight on it." (p. 92)

So they do feel the weight when squatting tripodally, which might be why another Merseian, in A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, uses a stool. 

Brechdan casually and callously remarks that the Merseians might have to exterminate humanity. Apart from what this says about his moral sense, is it even possible to exterminate a rational species that is not only powerful but also dispersed among many planetary systems?

Two Incomplete Planetary Unifications

This similarity between Ythrians and Merseians differentiates them from Terrans. 

Van Rijn informs Coya that not all of Hirharouk's crew are of his choth and some have no choth:

"'Ythrians got as much variation as the Commonwealth - no, more, because they not had time yet for technology to make them into homogeneouses.'"

-"Lodestar," p. 347.

Dominic Flandry reflects that Cnif hu Vanden, Merseian xenophysiologist:

"...belonged to no Vach; his ancestors before unification had lived in the southern hemisphere of Merseia, in the Republic of Lafdigu, and to this day their descendants maintained peculiarities of dress and custom, their old language and many of their old laws. But Cnif was born in a colony; he had not seen the mother world until he came there for advanced education, and many of its ways were strange to him."

-Poul Anderson, A Circus Of Hells IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, January 2010), pp. 193-365 AT CHAPTER THIRTEEN, p. 286.

A yellow tinge to Merseian green skin shows Lafdiguan ancestry and their national language is not Eriau.

The tapestries and banners in the audience chamber of Castle Afon in Ardaig display:

"...Old Wilwidh, before the machine came to impose universal sameness. It was the wellspring of Merseia."

-Poul Anderson, Ensign Flandry IN Young Flandry, pp. 1-192 AT CHAPTER FOURTEEN, p. 141.

But the machine has not imposed much sameness according to Flandry's reflection on Cnif!

Both Ythrians and Mersians acquired interstellar technology from Technic civilization.