Dwarves And Swords

Operation Luna, 25, p. 234.

The speaking sword, Fotherwick-Botts, says that dwarves made:

Sigurd's dragon-killer;
Skofnung (scroll down);
Tyrfing;
himself.

All of this has been said before as the links show but I do not remember it over the years.

Recent references to Stamford Bridge and to the Varangian Guard (see The Sword) linked Operation Luna to Poul Anderson's The Last Viking Trilogy. Skofnung (see the Wikipedia article, here) is a link to Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga whereas Tyrfing (Wikipedia, here) is a link to his The Broken Sword.

Thus, even more than before, Operation Luna feels like a later installment of a single long series although at the same time each of these works is complete in itself:   

The Last Viking is historical fiction;
Hrolf Kraki's Saga is an adapted saga;
it and The Broken Sword are heroic fantasies;
Operation Luna is an alternative history novel and, I think, is sf, not fantasy, because its magic is scientifically rationalized;
Operation Luna is also part of a longer sequence, as we know.

Magic Swords Again

Poul Anderson, Operation Luna (New York, 2000), Chapter 25, p. 234.

The magic sword stolen and used by the Matucheks, incredibly both conscious and vocal, refers to four dwarf-forged swords:

Sigurd's dragon-killer;
Skofnung (scroll down);
Tyrfing;
himself -

- thus linking Anderson's Operation... series to the same author's heroic fantasies and even indirectly to his Time Patrol series.

Exorcised demons are colonizing the Moon so human beings need to get there soon but as yet lack an adequate space vehicle. The sword advises: get the dwarf Fjalar to forge a steel broomstick. Anderson is unfailingly consistent in deducing the consequences of even the most absurd of fantasy premises.

Magic Swords

The sword Tyrfing connects Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword (New York, 1973) back to an Eddaic poem and a saga but also forwards to Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga which lists four "...magical swords...":

Sighurd's Gram;
"...Tyrfing the accursed...";
Skofnung, given to Hrolf by an elven woman;
Lovi, of which more will be told later in the Saga (p. 129).

Magic swords never rust and always bite although Excalibur is not listed here.

Poul and Karen Anderson wrote a King of Ys tetralogy;
The Broken Sword refers to Ys;
The Demon Of Scattery refers to The Broken Sword;
War Of The Gods, like The Broken Sword, features Odin;
Hrolf Kraki's Saga, like War Of The Gods, describes Odin's descendants;
Hrolf Kraki's Saga refers to the broken sword.

Thus, here are eight connected volumes: four by Anderson; four by the Andersons.

Jurisdictions

Before a bauta stone, Skuld's elven mother gives Hrolf the sword Skofnung.

(Bauta stones commemorate the dead or the absent living. For the second purpose, they are appropriate to Poul Anderson's Starfarers:

When we see a name on an ancient monument, we know that the named person is dead but, when Kith traders see the names Jean Kilbirnie and Timothy Cleland on Monument Stone in the Kith village on the planet Harbor in the system of Tau Ceti, they know that Jean and Tim, unaged, are on a ten thousand year round trip, still alive but as inaccessible as if they were dead.
- copied from here.)

Svipdag, swearing brotherhood, calls to witness:

"...Frey of the earth, Njord of the sea, and Thor of the heavens." (Hrolf Kraki's Saga, p. 131)

So far, we have seen references to Aegir of the Sea but Njord is more appropriate since he is a god. This reminds us of other divine triads -

Olympian
Jupiter, sky
Neptune, sea
Pluto, underworld

Ysan
Taranis, sky
Belisama, earth
Lir, sea