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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“The hour should be about striking,” said she. “ ’Tis today or tomorrow my Lord Zigg named to me when they were here a-guesting. If but Goblinland keep tryst it were the prettiest feat, to take them so pat.”
“As your ladyship might clap a gnat ’twixt the palms of your two hands,” said the old man; and he gazed again southward over the sea.
Mevrian set her gaze in the same quarter. “Nothing but mist and spray,” she said after a few minutes’ searching. “I’m glad I sent Lord Spitfire those two hundred horse. He must have every man can be scraped up, for such a day. How thinkest thou, Ravnor: if King Gaslark come not, hath Lord Spitfire force enow to cope them alone?”
Ravnor chuckled in his beard. “I think and my lord your brother were here he should tell your highness ‘ay’ to that. Since first I bowled a hoop, they taught me a Demon was under-matched against five Witches.”
She looked at him a little wistfully. “Ah,” she said, “were he at home. And were Juss at home.” Then on a sudden she faced round northward, pointing to the camp. “Were they at home,” she cried, “thou shouldst not see outlanders insulting in arms on Krothering Side, sending me shameful offers, caging me like a bird in this castle. Have such things been in Demonland, until now?”
Now came a boy running along the battlements from the far side of the tower, crying that ships were hove in sight sailing from the south and east, “And they make for the firth.”
“Of what land?” said Mevrian, while they hastened back to look.
“What but Goblinland?” said Ravnor.
“O say not so too hastily!” cried she. They came round the turret wall, and the sea and Stropardon Firth opened wide and void before them. “I see nought,” she said; “or is yon flight of sea-mews the fleet thou sawest?”
“He meaneth Thunderfirth,” said Ravnor, who had gone on ahead, pointing to the west. “They shape their course toward Aurwath. ’Tis King Gaslark for sure. Mark but the blue and gold of his sails.”
Mevrian watched them, her gloved hand drumming nervously on the marble battlement. Very stately she seemed, muffled in a flowing cloak of white watered silk collared and lined with ermine. “Eighteen ships!” she said. “I dreamed not Goblinland might make so great a force.”
They were silent for a time, watching the ships sail in to the mouth of the firth and make land at Aurwath. “Dear heavens,” she said, “were I a man to help them. Will Spitfire be there in time? The Witches be in great force.”
“Your ladyship may see,” said Ravnor, walking back along the wall, “whether the Witchlanders have slept while these ships sailed to port.”
She followed and looked. Great stir there was in the Witchland army, marshalling before the camp; there was coming and going and leaping on horseback, and faintly on the wind their trumpets’ blare was borne to Mevrian’s ears as she beheld them from her high watchtower. The host moved forth down the meadows, all orderly, a-glitter with bronze and steel. Southward they came, passing at length through the home-meads of Krothering, so near that each man was plainly seen from the battlements, as they rode beneath.
Mevrian leaned forward in an embrasure, one hand on either battlement at her left and right. “I would know their names,” said she. “Thou, that hast oft fared to the wars, mayst teach me. Gro I know, with a long beard; and heart-heaviness it is to see a lord of Goblinland in such a fellowship. What’s he beside him, yon bearded gallant, with a winged helm and a diadem about it, like a king’s, and beareth a glaive crimson-hafted? He looketh a proud one.”
The old man answered, “Laxus of Witchland: the same that was admiral of their fleet against the Ghouls.”
“ ’Tis a brave man to look on, and worthy a better cause. What’s he rideth now below us, heading their horse: ruddy and swarthy and light of build, hath a brow like the thundercloud, and weareth armour from neck to toe?”
Ravnor answered, “Highness, I know him not certainly, the sons of Corund so favour one another. But methinks ’tis the young prince Heming.”
Mevrian laughed. “Prince quotha?”
“So moveth the world, your highness. Since Gorice set Corund in kingdom in Impland—”
Said Mevrian, “Name him prithee Heming Faz: I warrant they trap them now with barbarous additions. Heming Faz, good lack! lording it now in Demonland.
“The prime huff-cap of all,” said she after a little, “holdeth aback it seemeth. O here he comes. Sweet heaven, what furious horsemanship! Troth, and he can sit a horse, Ravnor, and hath the great figure of an athlete. Look where he gallopeth bareheaded down the line. I ween he’ll need more than golden curls to keep his head whole ere he have done with Gaslark, ay, and our own folk gathering from the north. I see he beareth his helm at the saddlebow. To ape us so!” she cried as he drew nearer. “All silks and silver. Thou’dst have sworn none but a Demon went to battle so costly apparelled. O, for a scissors to cut his comb withal!”
So speaking she leaned forward all she might, to watch him. And he, galloping by below, looked up; and marking her so watching, reined mightily his great chestnut horse, throwing him with the check well nigh on his haunches. And while the horse plunged and reared, Corinius hailed her in a great voice, crying, “Mistress, good-morrow!” crying, “Wish me victory, and swift to thine arms!”
So near below was he a-riding, she might scan the very lineaments of his face and read it as he looked up and shouted to her that greeting. He saluted with his sword, and spurred onward to overtake Gro and Laxus in the van.
As if sickened on a sudden, or as if
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