Mananaan And The Wind

The Broken Sword, XXII.

Mananaan Mac Lir is an Irish sea god and the son of Lir, one of the Three of Ys. When Mananaan and Skafloc embark for Jotunheim, Mananaan sings to the wind, calling it to blow him on his quest. And indeed a strong breeze springs up so that the boat surges. The wind tosses Mananaan's hair.

He refers to the Tuatha De Danaan as no longer gods or at "'...their full might.'" (p. 155) These powers are fading.

The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon (illustrated by Alicia Austin) is a tale told to Skafloc by Mananaan during their voyage to Jotunheim. Some of Anderson's works have extraordinary intertextual interconnections. (In sf, the Maurai future history is a work of fiction published during the course of the time travel novel, There Will Be Time.) 

An Offering To Mananaan

This evening, I am mainly watching whatever is on television which is such a rare activity that it has novelty value. As ever, something is relevant.

(i) Michael Portillo visited the foreign grave of George Bradshaw.

(ii) The Broighter Horde is believed to have been an offering to Mananaan Mac Lir. (Scroll down.)

Mananaan lived under a Loch in Northern Ireland and had a boat that could travel over land and sea. The boat was also the solar disc. Mananaan and his father, Lir, are important figures in some of Poul Anderson's works. For Lir, see here.

Patrick And Hardrada

Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword (London, 1977) succeeds Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys tetralogy in two respects. It refers not only to Ys but also to Patrick who brought the White Christ to Ireland. The younger Patrick, under an earlier name, is a minor character in the tetralogy.

By inversion, The Broken Sword also anticipates Anderson's Last Viking trilogy. In that work, Harald Hardrada's men, sailing as far north as possible, find not the mythical realm of Jotunheim but increasing cold and icebergs and have to turn back. The trilogy is historical fiction, not fantasy.

By contrast, Skafloc, the hero of The Broken Sword, sails north towards Jotunheim in an earlier period when Faerie still interacted with Midgard. Skafloc and the Irish god, Mananaan Mac Lir, in Mananaan's boat:

"...sailed farther than mortal ship would have gone ere sighting land..." (p. 156)

Tolkien's Silmarillion presents the idea that sailors occasionally follow not the curve of the Earth but the older straight path to the True West. Skafloc and Mananaan sail a similar course but to the north.

Like Harald's men, they too enter colder waters but, for them, "...moon and stars were wheeling awry..." and:

"Skafloc thought this realm could not lie on earth at all, but in strange dimensions near the edge of everything, where creation plunged back into the Gap whence it had arisen. He had the notion that this was the Sea of Death on which he sailed, outward bound from the world of the living." (p. 156)

- an entire page of foul winds, snow, sleet, gales, icebergs, fogs, storms, waves, then at last land with mountains, glaciers, crags, ice-fields, screaming wind, ancient snow and cliffs of appropriate size for Giant Land, under which the god's boat crawls "Antlike...," cliffs so high that the wind above them "...might almost have been blowing between the stars." (p. 159)

This is as close to a space journey as could have been imagined in a period when the way to travel beyond Midgard was not to fly beyond the atmosphere but to sail beyond the horizon, beyond the sunset or, in CS Lewis' Dawn Treader, beyond the sunrise. Ships had not yet become spaceships.

Addendum, 13 Aug 2015: There is a third connection with Ys. Mananaan is the son of Lir, one of the Three of Ys.

Details In "The Pirate" II

"The Pirate."

The Stellar Union has a "'...Scorpian march...'" (p. 151) (We are familiar with marchmen in the Terran Empire of Poul Anderson's Technic History.)

There is a Service base at "'...Lir...'" (p. 150) The sea god Lir is one of the Three of Ys in Poul and Karen Anderson's The King of Ys and his son, Mananaan mac Lir, is a character in Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword. Planetary names link hard sf to mythology and fantasy. The Lir base has been "'...busy with the Storm Queen affair.'" (ibid.) We know nothing of this affair. "Storm Queen" is not the name of a spaceship because it is not italicized.

"The Pirate" twice refers to the planet Nerthus. 

"Ship Harpsong of Nerthus..." (p. 137)

On p. 151, Nerthus is mentioned as a planet that was colonized before it was learned that there was native intelligent life. This reference, relevant to the plot of "The Pirate," is a good example of a future history instalment building on the foundation laid down by earlier instalments.

Two future histories could feature the same alien species. Humanity appears in alternative futures so why not other species? The inhabited planet Lithia is destroyed in 2050 in Volume III of James Blish's After Such Knowledge but still exists millennia later in Book Four of Blish's The Seedling Stars. However, the usual rule is that, if Nerthusians exist in Anderson's Psychotechnic History, then they do not also exist in his Technic History.

Poul Anderson's Past Fantasies

Conan The Rebel is set in a remote and entirely fictional past. In The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson), The Broken Sword and The Merman's Children, pagan gods and other beings retreat as Christianity advances.

The King Of Ys: the Three end their Covenant with Ys and the last King of Ys converts from Mithraism to Christianity;

The Broken Sword: a Greek faun flees to Northern Europe;

The Merman's Children: Christian priests exile "...with bell, book and candle, all beings of heathendom..." (p. 24) from an island named after Aegir, the sea giant.

However, on a nearby uninhabited islet:

"Enough of the sea god's older power lingered that merfolk could approach from the south and go ashore." (ibid.)

Thus, all of these works read like a single long series. The Three of Ys include Lir, god of the sea, and Mananaan Mac Lir (son of Lir) is in The Broken Sword. 

Overwhelmed

When I start to reread a work by Poul Anderson in order to blog about it, I really do not know what is going to come up. We can closely examine textual minutiae, like particular words or phrases, or can instead use the entire text as a launch pad for a discussion of anything from anthropology to zoomorphism. Right now, I am overwhelmed by everything that is coming out of The Demon Of Scattery. For a start, dig this sunset or sunrise photo of Hog Island (p. 147) on the horizon.

"Dreaming" and sailors seeing a sea serpent are two strong parallels between Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman. But they are just parallels. In particular, the two authors make different fictional uses of dreams. Nevertheless, the sheer number of the parallels is quite entertaining.

Mananaan tells Skafloc:

"'Kindred of yours were caught in it, and at the end even I played a part.'" (p. 9)

I have not located Skafloc's kindred yet but Brigit, the former nun, thinks:

"...it is not [Skafloc's] Thor who rules this storm. Mananaan Mac Lir is rising now in wrath." (p. 141)

Thus, Mananaan narrates Brigit thinking about Mananaan. Read on.

Deaths II

See Deaths and combox.

I missed one:

"...Skafloc was dead in her arms."

-Poul Anderson, The Broken Sword (London, 1973), XXVIII, p. 207.

"...Mananaan Mac Lir took away Freda and the body of Skafloc, that he might himself see to the welfare of the one and the honoring of the other."

-ibid., pp. 207-208.

Mananaan is a god of the sea whose name tells us that he is a son of Lir, one of the Three of Ys.

"Here ends the saga of Skafloc Elven-Fosterling." (p. 208)

Like Hamlet, Skafloc dies but only at the end of the narrative so he remains on stage till then.

Thus, we have reviewed deaths in Andersonian works of heroic fantasy, historical fiction and science fiction.

(What is wrong with that cover?)

Appreciating Details

Rereading and blogging involves noticing, appreciating and remembering many details forgotten from two or three previous readings.

(i) A lineage of the Gods: Tiamat, the pre-cosmic Chaos from Babylonian mythology, was the mother of the inhuman, squid- or kraken-like sea God, Lir, Who was the father of the anthropomorphic sea God, Mananaan mac Lir, Who in turn remains active several centuries later in two of Poul Anderson's Viking novels.

(ii) Elven Gardens: This exotically named location in Ys is mentioned several times but the reader has probably forgotten the early description of enclosed paths, topiaries, statues and a stairway to a Temple.

(iii) Ys: The characters refer to the city of Ys as beautiful and a wonder of the world but again we might not remember the occasional descriptions of its wall, friezes and gleaming, colored towers.

(iv) Ysan inns: Five are mentioned and three are described, providing comfortable contexts for character interactions and conversations. They differ, depending on the economic circumstances or life styles of various Ysans and visitors.

(v) Gratillonius' challengers: Long periods can pass without a challenge but one can come at any time. The identities and motivations of the six challengers are an important part of the story.

Meanwhile...And Later

In a fictional universe (or multiverse), we want to know not only what happens to a group of characters over time but also what happens to other groups of characters at the same time and also what are the later consequences of earlier events. Therefore, we are pleased when:

we are told that stories overlap in the Technic History;
characters in other stories refer to van Rijn;
van Rijn himself appears in a fantasy series;
we infer that the Kirkasanters are descendants of the Aenean exiles;
time travelers visit the Maurai History;
Lir sinks Ys, then later Mananaan Mac Lir helps Skafloc who sees the sunken tower of Ys.

According to the blurb for SM Stirling's The Sword Of The Lady, a man seeking the source of the Change comes to:

"...Nantucket, an island overrun with forest, inhabited by a mere two hundred people who claim to have been transported there from out of time."

Thus, a welcome later consequence of the Event in the Nantucket Trilogy.

Some Connections

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys Tetralogy, the city of Ys is inundated.

In Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, Skafloc sees the sunken tower of Ys and he and Mananaan mac Lir, son of one of the Three of Ys, sail to Jotunheim.

In Poul Anderson's and Mildred Downey Broxon's The Demon Of Scattery, Mananaan recounts a story to Skafloc en route to Jotunheim.

The story is about a couple who become the paternal grandparents of Gunnhild, the title character of Poul Anderson's Mother Of Kings.

Thus, these seven volumes are connected (as is much else, of course).

The War In Jotunheim

In The Broken Sword (London, 1977), Poul Anderson summarizes, we read quickly and soon forget. Before Mananaan Mac Lir and Skafloc Elven-Fosterling can escape from Jotunheim with the reforged sword, they:

struggle against the elements;

devise spells to counteract giant magic, to loose storms and to bring mountainsides down on Jotun garths;

kill individual giants;

narrowly evade pursuit;

forage inland;

burn down a great steading, stealing its horses and other treasures;

receive hospitality from lonely crofters who did not ask whence they have come;

 

meet well disposed, human-sized women; 

 

encounter a dragon with a golden hoard, a burning mountain, a bottomless chasm, a giantesses' quern, an everlasting battle and a witch in Iron Wood;

 

fish in a river from hell;

hear the aurora sing.

We are told that, although each of these tales "...would make a saga in itself...they must be left among the annals of Faerie." (p. 166) They are mentioned so briefly that most readers will soon forget them so I have tried to preserve their memory here.

Yet Another Moment Of Realization

The Demon Of Scattery.

"Lightning blazed from end to end of heaven. Thunder rolled, shaking the earth, wheels of a mighty wagon. Halldor caught his breath. His fingers closed tight around the hammershaft. It was as if that flash had shown him what he could still do." (pp. 173-174)

Yet another moment when our hero realizes the solution to his current problem. He catches his breath and tightens his grip, outer lightning causing inner enlightenment.

Halldor initially thinks that the monster is "...The Midgard Snake." (p. 147) Brigit initially thinks that it is "'The Serpent from Eden...'" (p. 163) We interpret new experiences in terms of preexisting ideas. But Brigit has started to change. She realizes that the Christians tried to make the goddess a saint (p. 143) and bravely commands the monster in the name of Mananaan Mac Lir! (p. 168)

Halldor thinks:

"...a man can only do whatever lies within his strength, in whatever span the Norns give him." (p. 174)

I agree. It really does not matter that I do not personify Fate. In fact, the Norns are very depersonalized figures in any case. I can without dishonesty discuss the Norns with a Pagan whereas I cannot with honesty join in a Christian prayer or hymn.

Chronological Links

In The Demon Of Scattery by Poul Anderson & Mildred Downey Broxon, the viking Halldor and the nun Brigit come together. At the end of ...Scattery, its narrator, Mananaan MacLir, tells Skafloc that Brigit's first son became the father of Gunnhild, the witch-queen, who is the title character of Anderson's Mother Of Kings. In his Afterword to Mother..., Anderson tells us that Gunnhild's contemporary, Harald Fairhair, was the great-great-grandfather of Harald Hardrada, who is the title character of Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy. Thus, these three works form a chronological sequence:

The Demon Of Scattery
Mother Of Kings
The Last Viking (3 volumes)

However, Mananaan narrates ...Scattery during an interval in the action of The Broken Sword. Therefore, this volume becomes number three in the sequence.

Set several centuries earlier and in this order are:

The King Of Ys (4 volumes; with Karen Anderson)
War Of the Gods
Hrolf Kraki's Saga

The Broken Sword refers to the sunken city of Ys which was flooded at the end of The King Of Ys, Volume III. Mananaan is the son (Mac) of Lir, one of the Three Gods of Ys. Hrolf Kraki's Saga is narrated to the English King Aethelstan, another contemporary of Gunnhild. Thus, these twelve volumes form a long historical sequence preceded by three novels set Before Christ, three set in the fourteenth century and several set in different historical or prehistorical periods, the last group overlapping with Anderson's futuristic fiction. And there are four contemporary novels between the historical and the futuristic.