The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕
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The Worm Ouroboros is considered to be one of the foundational texts of the high fantasy genre, influencing later authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Ursula K. Leguin, and James Branch Cabell. It is most frequently compared to The Lord of the Rings in its epic scope set against a medieval, magic-laced backdrop—a world called “Middle Earth” by Eddison, thirty-two years before Tolkien’s—and in its almost mythical portrayal of larger-than-life heroes and villains.
The plot begins simply enough: The Lords of Demonland, a group of heroic warriors enjoying a strained peace, are called upon by an emissary of the warlock king of Witchland, Gorice XI. The emissary demands that Demonland submit to the King of Witchland—but the proud Demons refuse, setting off an epic war that spans their entire world. The heroic struggles of the Demons and their allies against the Witches reflect the circular nature of human history: the snake eating its own tail of the title.
The novel is written in a purposefully archaic, almost Jacobean style. The rich, surprising vocabulary and unusual spelling are testaments to Eddison’s expertise at reading and translating medieval-era texts. To this day, it remains perhaps unique in fantasy literature in the accuracy and precision of its highly affected prose style, perhaps matched only by the out-of-time strangeness of the prose in Hodgson’s The Night Land. But where critics often find The Night Land’s prose obtuse and difficult, they have nothing but praise for Eddison’s beautiful, quotable style.
Eddison had already imagined the story and its heroes as a child, and drawings he made as a youth of events in the book are preserved in the Bodleian library. While the novel is without a doubt the work of a mature and skilled writer, and while some of the events and characters are portrayed differently in the novel than they were in his youthful sketches, the names of many of the characters and places remain unchanged. Some of his contemporaries, like Tolkien, wondered about the strange naming style; others criticized it as taking away from the more serious subject matter.
The Worm Ouroboros remains one of the most influential works in the high fantasy genre to this day, and traces of the foundation it laid can be still be found in genre books a century after its publication.
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- Author: E. R. Eddison
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By E. R. Eddison.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Dedication Epigraph The Worm Ouroboros The Induction I: The Castle of Lord Juss II: The Wrastling for Demonland III: The Red Foliot IV: Conjuring in the Iron Tower V: King Gorice’s Sending VI: The Claws of Witchland VII: Guests of the King in Carcë VIII: The First Expedition to Impland IX: Salapanta Hills X: The Marchlands of the Moruna XI: The Burg of Eshgrar Ogo XII: Koshtra Pivrarcha XIII: Koshtra Belorn XIV: The Lake of Ravary XV: Queen Prezmyra XVI: The Lady Sriva’s Embassage XVII: The King Flies His Haggard XVIII: The Murther of Gallandus by Corsus XIX: Thremnir’s Heugh XX: King Corinius XXI: The Parley Before Krothering XXII: Aurwath and Switchwater XXIII: The Weird Begun of Ishnain Nemartra XXIV: A King in Krothering XXV: Lord Gro and the Lady Mevrian XXVI: The Battle of Krothering Side XXVII: The Second Expedition to Impland XXVIII: Zora Rach Nam Psarrion XXIX: The Fleet at Muelva XXX: Tidings of Melikaphkhaz XXXI: The Demons Before Carcë XXXII: The Latter End of All the Lords of Witchland XXXIII: Queen Sophonisba in Galing Argument: With Dates Bibliographical Note on the Verses Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
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To W. G. E. and to my friends K. H.
and G. C. L. M. I dedicate this book
It is neither allegory nor fable but a Story to be read for its own sake.
The proper names I have tried to spell simply. The e in Carcë is long, like that in Phryne, the o in Krothering short and the accent on that syllable: Corund is accented on the first syllable, Prezmyra on the second, Brandoch Daha on the first and fourth, Gorice on the last syllable, rhyming with thrice: Corinius rhymes with Flaminius, Galing with sailing, La Fireez with desire ease: ch is always guttural, as in loch.
E. R. E.
9th January 1922
True Thomas lay on Huntlie bank,
A ferlie he spied wi his ee;
And there he saw a Lady bright
Come riding down by the Eildon Tree.
Her skirt was o the grass-green silk,
Her mantle o the velvet fyne,
At ilka tett of her horse’s mane
Hung fifty siller bells and nine.
True Thomas he pulld aff his cap,
And louted low down on his knee:
“Hail to thee, Mary, Queen of Heaven!
For thy peer on earth could never be.”
“O no, O no, Thomas,” she says,
“That name does not belang to me;
I’m but the Queen of fair Elfland,
That am hither come to visit thee.
“Harp and carp, Thomas,” she says,
“Harp and carp alang wi me.
And if ye dare to kiss my lips,
Sure of your bodie I will be.”
“Betide me weal, betide me woe,
That weird shall never daunton me.”
Syne he has kissed her rosy lips,
All underneath the Eildon Tree.
There was a man named Lessingham dwelt in an old low house in Wastdale, set in a gray old garden where yew-trees flourished that had seen Vikings in Copeland in their seedling time. Lily and rose and larkspur bloomed in the borders, and begonias with blossoms big as saucers, red and white and pink and lemon-colour, in the beds before the porch. Climbing roses, honeysuckle, clematis, and the scarlet flame-flower scrambled up the walls. Thick woods were on every side without the garden, with a gap northeastward opening on the desolate lake and the great fells beyond it: Gable rearing his crag-bound head against the sky from behind the straight clean outline of the Screes.
Cool long shadows stole across the tennis lawn. The air was golden. Doves murmured in the trees; two chaffinches played on the near post of the net; a little water-wagtail scurried along the path. A French window stood open to the garden, showing darkly a dining-room panelled with old oak, its Jacobean table bright with flowers and silver and cut glass and Wedgwood dishes heaped with fruit: greengages, peaches, and green muscat grapes. Lessingham lay back in a hammock-chair watching through the blue smoke of an after-dinner cigar the warm light on the Gloire de Dijon roses that clustered about the bedroom window overhead. He had her hand in his. This was their House.
“Should we finish that chapter of Njal?” she said.
She took the heavy volume with its faded green cover, and read: “He went out on the night of the Lord’s day, when nine weeks were still to winter; he heard a great crash, so that he thought both heaven and earth shook. Then he looked into the west airt, and he thought he saw thereabouts a ring of fiery hue, and within the ring a man on a gray horse. He passed quickly by him, and rode hard.
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