The Broken Sword « Isegoria

The Broken Sword

Wednesday, April 13th, 2005

While in Amsterdam, I picked up a copy of Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword, a “fantasy masterwork” I’d been meaning to read for quite some time. Michael Moorcock described it as one of his greatest influences, and the similarities to Moorcock’s Elric stories are obvious: the protagonist wields a terrible rune sword with an evil will of its own, it grants him strength but leads him to kill unnecessarily, etc.

It’s written in the style of a Norse saga and includes a few archaic terms that disappeared for no obvious reason:

garth
Pronunciation: ‘g?rth
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old Norse garthr yard; akin to Old High German gart enclosure — more at YARD
: a small yard or enclosure : CLOSE

le?man
Pronunciation: ‘le-m&n, ‘lE-
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English lefman, leman, from lef lief
archaic : SWEETHEART, LOVER; especially : MISTRESS

²rede
Function: noun
1 chiefly dialect : COUNSEL, ADVICE
2 archaic : ACCOUNT, STORY

¹rime
Pronunciation: ‘rIm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English rim, from Old English hrIm; akin to Old Norse hrIm frost
1 : FROST 1b
2 : an accumulation of granular ice tufts on the windward sides of exposed objects that is formed from supercooled fog or cloud and built out directly against the wind
3 : CRUST, INCRUSTATION <a rime of snow>

It also includes a few terms that have little use outside a Norse saga:

¹weird
Pronunciation: ‘wird
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English wird, werd, from Old English wyrd; akin to Old Norse urthr fate, Old English weorthan to become — more at WORTH
1 : FATE, DESTINY; especially : ill fortune
2 : SOOTHSAYER

fey
Pronunciation: ‘fA
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English feye, from Old English f[AE]ge; akin to Old High German feigi fey and perhaps to Old English fAh hostile, outlawed — more at FOE
1 a chiefly Scottish : fated to die : DOOMED b : marked by a foreboding of death or calamity
2 a : able to see into the future : VISIONARY b : marked by an otherworldly air or attitude c : CRAZY, TOUCHED
3 a : PRECIOUS 3 b : UNCONVENTIONAL, CAMPY
- fey?ly adverb
- fey?ness noun

And it includes one archaic-but-not-Norse term:

glaive
Pronunciation: ‘glAv
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, javelin, sword, modification of Latin gladius sword
archaic : SWORD; especially : BROADSWORD

I’m not sure why Anderson chose to use a word like glaive in a quasi-Norse work.

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The Broken Sword

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