both sides expected to mobilise celestial power

[bedlamsbard]

Working through my Spanish Armada paper, as usual, has thrown up some quotes that are relevant to other things which I'm interested in. Here's one that's essential to the way Dust was conceived and a major aspect of the plot:

The voyage of the Armada was therefore seen, even before it sailed, int erms very similar to those, for instance, in which Homer saw the siege of Troy or in which the Nibelungenlied represents the struggles of the ring cycle: in what, however the term myth is defined, could be called classically mythical terms. It was expected to be a terrestrial arena of celestial conflict: an event of this world on which divine attention is focussed and divine power concentrated, with the hosts of heaven actively engaged.

(Fernández-Armesto, F. "Armada Myths: The Formative Phase." In God’s Obvious Design: Papers for the Spanish Armada Symposium, Sligo, 1988. London: Tamesis Books Limited, 1990.)