The Broken Sword, Original And Revised, Part One, by Nicholas David Rosen

I was at college in the first half of the 1980s when I found and bought a copy of THE BROKEN SWORD; it was the revised 1971 edition, with a preface by Poul Anderson, explaining how he had cleared the “wordbrush” and substituted one Person for another in a brief but important scene.  Elsewhere, Sandra Miesel expressed the view that the revised edition was an improvement, and wrote that subsequent quotations in her essay were from the revised edition.

I recently found a trade paperback of the original version on sale, with an introduction by Michael Dirda, and bought and read that.  The remainder of this post is directed primarily to Anderson fans who have read the book, but should also be of interest to book lovers who have not; while I will not recount the plot, those who do not want to learn anything about the events before reading the book had best cease to peruse this post.

The writing of the original version is less polished than the revision, and contains various typographical errors, although I do not know whether they were slavishly copied from the first printing, or newly introduced.  Plural possessives throughout the book use double quotation marks instead of single apostrophes.  “Monsters of the Wood of Grendel” should be “Monsters of the Brood of Grendel”, and a troll speaks of lying beside a human man, where “human may” (maiden) seems much more likely.

There are other changes which, in my view, improve the revised edition.  The revised edition describes Orm, at the grace-ale for his son Ketil, maintaining his cheer “as befitted a warrior who had contempt for death”, a memorable phrase lacking in the original.  In the revised edition, as I recall it, Imric describes his foster son Skafloc’s enthusiastically war-loving verses upon receiving his new steel weapons and armor as well said “if a little boyish.”  In the original, Imric’s words do not include this sound critical comment.

In both editions, milk from the infant Skafloc’s elfin wet-nurse Leea was sweet fire in his mouth and veins, but in the revised edition, “her milk” becomes “the milk which she brought forth by no natural means.”

Although the writing of the first version left room for improvement, in the author’s opinion, Sandra Miesel’s, and my own, the twenty-seven year old Poul Anderson accomplished more than telling a gripping, heroic, and tragic tale in a fully adequate prose style.  He wrote the book in several prose styles, using a spare, saga-like style for the opening tale of Orm, a lusher prose to describe Skafloc’s childhood and coming of age among the elves, and a style suggestive of a late medieval romance to describe Ketil’s being led astray and coming upon the witch in the guise of a beautiful young woman.  Anderson also composed a number of poems in alliterative verse (some rhymed as well) for the characters to recite in a variety of contexts and moods.  This would have been an impressive achievement for a writer of fully mature skill.

If you have not read the book, and are at all attracted to heroic fantasy of a grim Nordic sort, where heroes, villains, and bystanders are slain, and any women not dead themselves are left to grieve their heart-breaking losses, yet people dree their weirds bravely, with undaunted resolution, THE BROKEN SWORD is for you.  I prefer the revised edition, but either version provides a gripping tale and exceptional literary experience.

The Broken Sword, Original And Revised, Part Two, by Nicholas David Rosen

There is something more to be said about the differences between the two versions of THE BROKEN SWORD; saying this does not give away the whole story by any means, but it does hint at what will happen in the course of the tale, so those who have not read THE BROKEN SWORD and hope to do so may wish to refrain from reading further.

In the original version of the book, the witch summons Satan twice.  The first time, he advises her on how she can achieve revenge against her enemies (including the wife and children of the Viking chief who slaughtered her family and took their land).  The second time, a band of elves dispatched by Earl Imric are seeking her life, so she calls upon her master Satan to preserve her.  He refuses, calling himself the lord of evil, which is futility, and leaving her to be killed.  It is nothing to him whether she lives to see her revenge completed, and he tells her that she is not his servant, but his slave.

In the revised version, the first summoning appears to be much the same, with the prose tightened somewhat, but the witch sees Someone departing who appears to match the description of Odin.  It does not matter much to her with whom she deals, provided she can avenge her son and other kindred.  When she summons Satan again, the genuine enemy of souls replies to her, but this time says, in addition to his other icy words, that she did not deal with him, but with another.  He also makes another chilling statement absent from the original version:  “Mortals never sell me their souls.  They throw them away.”

Whether or not one believes literally in the Christian God and the chief fallen angel, there is a warning in that.

As a literary matter, both versions work: Odin is also active and plotting in the novel, and could have helped the chain of events along by appearing to the witch in another’s guise; or the Devil could have given the witch evil counsel to assist her in doing his work.  I prefer the revised version, both because the writing is improved, and because the advice which the witch hears the first time, although directed to an evil purpose, is wise and poetic.  It seems more natural coming from the mouth of Odin, who is Machiavellian but not all bad, than from the mouth of Satan, who is.