Merlin And Miyatovich

We have had four recent references to Merlin:

The Eternal Gospel
The Great Art
MGM
Incubus

For these and earlier blog references, see here. (Scroll down.)

Merlin is not an Andersonian character but shows up anyway. It is that time of night when I want to publish one more post before turning in.

I particularly like the rapport between Dominic Flandry and Gospodar Bodin Miyatovich of Dennitza and might reread the appropriate passages shortly.

Good night, good morning or good day, depending on where you are on Earth.

TO the Ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that ly
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky:		-copied from Comus.

 

Five Authors

See Four Authors.

I missed something, namely a fifth author:

Merlin returns in CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy;

advanced technology stops working in SM Stirling's Change series;

advanced technology stops working because Merlin returns in Peter Dickinson's Changes Trilogy.

(At least, I have been told that Merlin returns in the Changes Trilogy.)

"Four Authors" compares:

Lewis and Tolkien;
Anderson and Tolkien;
Anderson and Stirling;
Stirling and Tolkien.

My advice: read them all.

The Great Art

Operation Chaos, XII.

Professor van Linden of Alchemy:

"...had to use an adaptation of the Dobu yam-calling chant..." (p. 8)

- to find his mislaid copy of the Ars Thaumaturgica. Googling this Ars... discloses only this reference to it so we deduce that it is fictional.

Magic is Ars, the Art:

"'Magister Merline... Sapientissime Britonum, secreti secretorm possessor, incredibili quodam gaudio afficimur quod te in domum nostram accipere nobis - ah - contingit. Scito nos etiam haud imperitos esse magna artis - et - ut ta dicam...'"
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 12, 6, p. 626.

Lewis helpfully provides a footnote:

"Master Merlin, wisest of the Britons, possessor of the secrets, it is with inexpressible pleasure that we embrace the opportunity of - ah - welcoming you in our house. You will understand that we also are not unskilled in the Great Art, and, if I may say so..." (ibid.)

("secreti secretorum possessor" means "possessor of the secret of secrets," not "possessor of the secrets," but I can't find my single-volume That Hideous Strength to compare the footnote in that edition.)

See Ars Magna.

I envy Wither, a twentieth century man, his ability to converse readily in Latin but our study of Latin grammar and texts was never aimed at conversational ability.

A few pages later, we find yet another Biblical quotation:

"All is vanity..." (p. 87)

Addendum:

"Master Merlin, wisest of the Britons, possessor of the secret of secrets..."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength (Pan Books, London, 1979), CHAPTER TWELVE, VI, p. 161, footnote. 

The Sea In The Wind

"I wanted to explore on foot, smelling the sea in the wind."
-Michael Scott Rohan, Chase The Morning (New York, 1992), CHAPTER ONE, p. 4.

This sentence, following a colorful description of a seaside sunset, evokes the sense of adventure that we recognize from Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League series and from SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, Conquistador and The Sky People. Rohan also will transport us into new parallel worlds.

The concluding pages of this 1992 paperback advertise:

a novel by Roger Zelazny in which Merlin must choose between Amber and Chaos;

a Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R. Lawhead with successive volumes highlighting Atlantis, Merlin and Arthur.

There are more such works than anyone will ever read. On this blog, we last saw Arthur and his knights emerging when needed from Glastonbury Tor and we might sometimes feel that all these fantasies by multiple authors are really one long series.

Niall In Combat

"A hostile point struck into [Niall's] targe."
-Poul and Karen Anderson, The Dog and The Wolf, Chapter XI, section 2, p. 217.

"They rallied as before in the swale below...clustered around their tuathal chiefs." (ibid.)

"...the Romans, who worked together like arms and legs on a single man..." (ibid.)

A barbarian chief knows from experience about Roman military discipline and coordination but cannot match it among his own men.

"...the bravest among his men was prone to terror at night, when anything might stalk abroad. Let fear take hold of the host, and at best they would stumble over each other as they fled wailing back to camp." (ibid.)

Brave men afraid of the dark, wailing in terror? Barbarism was a mixture of what we regard as maturity and immaturity. When CS Lewis' Merlin realizes what his Pendragon expects of him, he loses his composure:

"It was horrifying to see that withered and bearded face all blubbered with undisguised tears like a child. All the Roman surface in Merlinus had been scraped off. He had become a shameless, archaic monstrosity babbling out entreaties in a mixture of what sounded like Welsh and what sounded like Spanish.
"'Silence,' shouted Ransom. 'Sit down. You put us both to shame.'
"As suddenly as it had begin the frenzy ended. Merlin resumed his chair. To a modern it seemed strange that, having recovered his self-control, he did not show the slightest embarrassment at his temporary loss of it. The whole character of the two-sided society in which the man must have lived became clearer to Ransom than pages of history could have made it."
-CS Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), p. 654.

The Andersons capture this two-sided society in The King Of Ys. Meanwhile, their rich vocabulary continues to amaze:

"...the lamellar cuirass told of senior rank." (p. 219)

"'I command the vexillation.'" (ibid.)

Powers

"'Sir,' said Merlin, 'what will come of this? If they put forth their power, they will unmake all Middle Earth.'
"'Their naked power, yes,' said Ransom. 'That is why they will work only through a man.'"
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT Chapter 13, 5, p. 653.

"'...we have made the Sword for you, to sever their power and show humankind the truth of things. That much we can do in this turn of the Wheel, without breaking reality asunder with our contentions. All the rest is your burden.'"
-SM Stirling, The Sword Of The Lady (New York, 2010), Chapter Twenty-One, p. 653.

Merlin and Artos are human instruments of the Powers which must work through such an instrument if they are not to unmake Middle Earth or break reality.

Cosmic!

An Or Any

"'The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with an intelligence - and there are some - every one sees the Long Night coming."

-Poul Anderson, We Claim These Stars (New York, 1959), CHAPTER VIII, p. 52.

Regular rereading highlights oddities of phraseology. Perhaps for the first time, we wonder whether "an intelligence" should have been "any intelligence" so we check with two other versions of this text:

"'...with any intelligence...'"

-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Agent of the Terran Empire (London, 1965), pp. 83-187 AT VIII, p. 125.

"'...with any intelligence...'"

-Poul Anderson, "Hunters of the Sky Cave" IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 149-301 AT VIII, p. 210.

Two against one. We have had some of these before, haven't we?

Here is another example. In CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, an English woman (mis)pronounces "Merlin" as "Merling," as well she might. Lewis had a good ear for the spoken language. In the omnibus edition, The Cosmic Trilogy, "Merling" has been corrected (?) or at least changed back to "Merlin." Regular readers spot what publishers and proof readers might miss. But we become familiar only with texts that merit such close study.

A Future History Without Space Travel

The Maurai trilogy, by which I mean the original three short stories, is unusual because:

it is unquestionably a future history series despite being so short;

it involves no space travel.

Of course, there need not be any space travel in the future. Merlin prophesied none. And, even if space travel does occur, a history of the future might recount only Terrestrial events, remaining the history of a single planet. Mankind as a whole does not leave Earth or the Solar System - unless a very large scale evacuation becomes necessary. In some future histories, mankind spreads through the galaxy so that eventually there are more people off Earth than on it but that does not happen immediately. I imagine that, in the Solar Commonwealth period of Poul Anderson's Technic History, I would live quite happily on Earth - until the Troubles start.

Incubus

Christian Theology
Demons are fallen angels.
Angels are pure spirits.
Pure spirits have no bodies and do not reproduce.

Medieval Mythology
Demons in male form, incubi, impregnate women.
In female form, succubi, they take semen from men.
Merlin was a son of an incubus.

The mythology is relevant to:

Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos;
James Blish's Black Easter and The Day After Judgment;
Mike Carey's Lucifer -

- so it might be discussed further here but not tonight. What a day!

From delusion, lead us to truth.
From darkness, lead us to light.
-adapted from Brhadaranyaka Upanisad.

Divine Interventions/Wish Fulfillments

At the end of CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, planetary angels summoned by the current Pendragon of Logres and channeled through the returned Merlinus Ambrosius destroy the demonically controlled National Institute of Coordinated Experiment by imposing on its leaders the Curse of Babel.

(Lewis' political program: when democracy is being subverted, do not campaign either in or out of Parliament but wait for Merlin to return and the gods to descend.)

At the end of Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, Thor, Athena and an Aztec god defeat the demons.

At the end of Anderson's Operation Luna, Native American gods defeat Asiatic demons.

At the end of Anderson's A Midsummer Century, King Arthur and Gwyn ap Nudd defeat the Roundheads.

Four wish fulfillments, pure and simple. There are many conflicts in Britain right now. If Arthur were able to return, which side would he take? Would he impose an overwhelming military solution in favor of the status quo? I would be extremely unhappy with such an outcome. Society has to move forward - somehow.

James Blish reversed the conventional "happy ending." At the end of his Black Easter, the demons win Armageddon. Then Blish wrote a sequel...

Morgan Le Fay And Some Long Sentences

Three Hearts And Three Lions, CHAPTER EIGHT.

King Arthur's sister is a character in Three Hearts... and Arthur himself appears at the end of A Midsummer Tempest. Thus, the Arthurian legend is a strong unifying element in Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix sequence - and also links it to CS Lewis' third Ransom novel which features a returned Merlin.

Sometimes, when we expect a sentence to end, it continues, with prepositions adding extra nouns so that the reader's attention is engaged and drawn onward.

"The procession wound out of the gates..." (p. 53)

- which would have made a complete sentence, instead acquires four additional clauses:

"...over the bridge...
"...across the lawns..
"...toward Elf Hill...
"...of the roses." (ibid.)

The immediately following sentence continues in similar vein:

"Behind him curveted warriors...
"...and horseback... (on horseback?)
"...banners flying...
"...from their lances...
"...musicians playing horns...
"...and harps...
"...and lutes...
"...a hundred lords...
"...and ladies...
"...of Faerie...
"...who danced...
"...as they neared the mound." (ibid.)

We are well on our way into Elf Hill with Holger when Alianora intervenes. What would have happened to Holger if he had entered that Hill?

One Word

"The Snows of Ganymede," IV.

I have this story both as an Ace Double with Poul Anderson's War Of The Wing-Men and in The Complete Psychotechnic League, Volume 2. Rereading the story in the latter collection, I came across:

"Davenant noticed that Weller never lost a chance to needle Halleck - small personal remarks and sights..." (pp. 168-169)

What are "sights"? Is it a misprint for either "signs" or "sighs"?

Turning to the Ace Double, we find:

"Davenant noticed that Weller never lost a chance to needle Halleck- small personal remarks and slights..."
-Poul Anderson, The Snows Of Ganymede (New York, 1958), CHAPTER 4, p. 40.

I would never have guessed "slights" but it is obviously what is meant. It can be helpful to compare alternative editions. In The Hideous Strength, CS Lewis reproduces one of the ways that English people speak English when Mrs. Maggs refers to Merlinus Ambrosius as "'...that Merling man...'" The Pan Books omnibus edition of The Cosmic Trilogy has "'...that Merlin man...'" Maybe someone thought that that was a correction. In any case, I am glad to have got to the bottom of Anderson's "sights."

Future Histories, And Future Historical Periods, Without Space Travel

Before the scientific and industrial revolutions, it was not realized either that there could be technological changes or that these would cause social changes. Accounts of the future Buddha projected the life of the historical Buddha into the future. "The Prophecies of Merlin" in Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History Of The Kings Of Britain assume a continued history of the Kings of Britain. Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time shows historical cycles continuing in the absence of a scientific revolution.

HG Wells did not include space travel in The Shape Of Things To Come but did add it to Things To Come, the film. An escape velocity rocket fuel is about to be produced at the end of the fourth story in Robert Heinlein's Future History. The opening story of Anderson's Psychotechnic History covers only the recovery from World War III. Space travel is absent from Anderson's short Maurai future history although it occurs in the connected volumes, There Will Be Time and Orion Shall Rise. SM Stirling's Emberverse series is an alternative future history where a low tech society has no possibility of space travel.

Future Histories Without Space Travel

Ragnarok
the future Buddha
Prophecy Of Merlin by John of Cornwall
Prophetiae Merlini by Geoffrey of Monmouth
The Shape Of Things To Come by HG Wells
Beyond Thirty by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan
the original Maurai History by Poul Anderson
the Emberverse History by SM Stirling

Not the Biblical Armageddon because, in that, a city flies down from heaven. See here.

Poul Anderson and SM Stirling are, of course, on the list.

ERB's main future history is a Moon trilogy and a sequel to his Martian series.

What Is Magic?

(i) For the answer given in Poul Anderson's Operation... series, see Magic And Goetics. (Sometimes, all the work has already been done in an earlier post.)

How many other meanings are there?

(ii) In one popular meaning and in the Harry Potter series, waving a wand and uttering incantations creates matter and breaks the conservation laws.

(iii) In SM Stirling's Dies The Fire and somtimes on Earth Real, "magic" means Wiccan rituals.

(iv) In James Blish's Black Easter/The Day After Judgment, magic is control of demons which are fallen angels.

(v) The DC universe includes magicians like Zatara, Zatanna, Arion of Atlantis, Merlin, Tim Hunter and John Constantine. The theory is that belief alone is enough to generate supernatural beings and realms and working magic. Kryptonians are vulnerable to magic as to Kryptonite. Many fictions coexist as in Poul Anderson's and Michael Moorcock's multiverses.

An evening of alternative reading usually generates material for a comparative blog post.

From GENESIS To GENESIS

It may be thought that the works listed in the preceding post are too dissimilar in content and quality to be anything more than a nominal sequence. However, that is kind of the point. A long odyssey goes to many places. Geoffrey of Monmouth's History Of The Kings Of Britain, a major source on Arthur and Merlin, begins by tracing the Britons back to Troy just as Virgil's Aeneid had traced the Romans back to Troy.

There are other long sequences.

A Torah scroll in a synagogue

A Bible on an eagle lectern in a church

A Koran in a mosque

A Granth in a gurdwara

Milton's Paradise Lost, retelling the Biblical narrative

fiction quoting scripture

The Bible incorporates the entire text of the Torah.

The Koran incorporates Biblical stories and the prophetic line.

Some Granth hymns were written by Muslims.

Poul Anderson frequently quotes the Bible.

James Blish quotes the Bible and, in The Triumph Of Time, the Koran.

 

Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

Prometheus Unbound by Percy Shelley

Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein Unbound by Brian Aldiss

Genesis by Poul Anderson

 

Anderson's Genesis asks whether it would be right to re-create human beings and thus, by implication, whether it would have been right to create us in the first place. Milton's Adam, quoted on the title page of Frankenstein, asks:

 

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man? did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me...?

-copied from here.

MGM

Operation Chaos, VIII.

In Hollywood after the War, Steve Matuchek acts and werewolfs for Metro-Goldwyn-Merlin, starring in Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Thing Meet Paracelsus. The people of that parallel Earth have a higher tolerance for long film titles. Let us analyze the six elements of that title:

Dracula
Frankenstein
the Wolf Man
the Mummy
the Thing
Paracelsus

But the Grand Master of bizarre juxtapositions in alternative realities is Alan Moore:

In the futuristic sf of Alan Moore's Halo Jones, philosophy and horror fiction have been synthesized (not a serious suggestion!), thus generating titles like Frankenstein Meets Wittgenstein. That imaginary title is not as far-fetched as it might seem because, although Frankenstein and his Monster have become cinematic horror fiction characters, Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley is a reflection, full of Biblical, Miltonic and mythological references, on the consequences of natural philosophy. I suspect that Alan Moore was conscious of this when he wrote a throwaway line in Halo Jones.
-copied from here.

The Eternal Gospel

Operation Chaos, XXI.

I have found an excellent parallel between Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos and James Blish's Doctor Mirabilis. 

In Operation Chaos, the Johannine Church teaches that:

"'The day of the Old Testament, of the Father, was the day of power and fear; the day of the New Testament, of the Son, has been the day of expiation; the day of the Johannine Gospel, of the Holy Spirit, will be the day of love and unveiled mysteries.'" (p. 138)

(OK so far except that John's Gospel is part of the New Testament.)

In Doctor Mirabilis, Roger Bacon reads the Introduction to the Eternal Gospel by Gerard of San Borgo:

"The Eternal Gospel of the title was the work of one Joachim of Flora, who had predicted that an Age of the Holy Spirit would begin in 1260, ushered in by a new Order of monks headed by Merlin..."
-James Blish, Doctor Mirabilis IN Blish, After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 1-318 AT X, p. 224.

"And this, then, was the first year of the Age of the Holy Spirit!"
- Blish, op. cit., XII, p. 236.

Bacon is condemned and imprisoned for Joachism.

See here for Joachim's theory of the three ages and its basis in Revelation 14:6.

Then, Now And Later

The Merman's Children, Book Three, I.

Father Tomislav knows of merpeople, Leshy, domovoi, poleviki and viljai. Is it feasible that such beings were known to exist back then yet are believed never to have existed now? Many medieval accounts that were thought to be fanciful must have been literally true.

If Faeries fades as Christianity advances, will Christianity fade as secularism advances? The Bible recounts what God did miraculously in the past whereas future histories recount what mankind will do technologically in the future. CS Lewis replies with his Ransom novels. A revived Merlin and descending angels will sabotage an attempted scientific reorganization of society. A likely story. Poul Anderson and James Blish show religious belief and doubt continuing to coexist in future.

(I am experiencing difficulty with retrieving images.)

An Alternative Future History

Poul Anderson wrote future histories and alternative histories whereas SM Stirling combines them. Stirling's Island In The Sea Of Time is Volume I of his Nantucket Trilogy which precedes his Emberverse series. Island... was published in the US and Canada on February 1, 1998 and in the UK on March 1, 1998. The history-changing event that is called "the Event" by Nantucketers but "the Change" by Emberversers happens on March 17, 1998. Thus, if the original date of publication is "the present," then the Event/Change occurs in the very near future.

However, Volume I of the Emberverse series, Dies The Fire, was published in 2004. Thus, the Change and its consequences have now become an alternative history. Further, Volume X, The Given Sacrifice, covers the period from Change Year 26/2024 AD to Change Year 46/2044 AD and will show us the grown grandchildren of the hero of Dies The Fire. Thus, this alternative history is also becoming a future history. However, it is a future not of high tech and space travel but of swords and magic. It is future but remains alternative, a new blend, like reading Merlin's Prophecies in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History Of The Kings Of Britain.