20th Century Sword & Sorcery Characters: Cappen Varra, created by Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson’s (1926-2001) entry at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database runs to hundreds of novels, stories, and poems. His contributions to science fiction and fantasy are nearly without parallel. His work earned three Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and many others. He was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 1997 and inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2000. His work was heavily influenced by his knowledge of physics and by his mastery of the sagas and epic poetry of Scandinavia (he was of Danish descent).

His main contributions to sword and sorcery are no doubt the novels The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions. He also, however, wrote extensively at shorter lengths, and among those many stories are the three tales of Cappen Varra. The wandering bard and fencer is probably best known from Anderson’s contribution to the first volume of the popular Thieves’ World shared world series in 1979, but the character actually debuted over twenty years earlier in the pages of Fantastic Universe, then reappeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction over twenty years later. Cappen Varra is memorable for his courage, which is largely dependent on a protective amulet which may or may not actually be efficacious, and his encounters with powerful women—a troll-wife, an amanuensis, and a goddess.

Anderson was capable of striking imagery and beautiful prose. Here is the opening paragraph of the final Cappen Varra story, “The Lady of the Winds.”

“Southward the mountains lifted to make a wall across a heaven still hard and blue. Snow whitened their peaks and dappled the slopes below. Even  this far under the pass, patches of it lay on sere grass, among strewn boulders—too early in the season, fatally too early. Dry motes blew off in glittery streaks, born on a wind that whittered and whirled. Its chill searched deep. Westward, clouds were piling up higher than the heights they shrouded, full of darkness and further storm.”

“The Valor of Cappen Varra” | Fantastic Universe vol. 7, # 1, ed. Hans Stefan Santesson, January 1957 | short story

“The Gate of the Flying Knives”  | Thieves’ World, ed. Robert Asprin, Ace Books, 1979 | novella

“The Lady of the Winds”  | The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, vol. 101, #s 4 & 5, Whole # 600, ed. Gordon Van Gelder, October/November 2001 | novelette

Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry

Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry

Wikipedia entry

Cappen Varra article at Dark Worlds Quarterly

Detail from Thieves' World cover by Rowena Morrill

Cover of Fantastic Universe by Hannes Bok

entry by Christopher Rowe