The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) đź“•
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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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“A silly qualm,” said Mevrian faintly. “If thou’dst medicine it, show me the sheen of Spitfire’s spears to the northward. The blank land dazzles me.”
So wore the afternoon. Twice and thrice Mevrian went upon the walls, but could see nought save the sea and the firths and the mountain-bosomed plain fair and peaceful in the springtime: no sign of men or of war’s alarums, save only the masts of Gaslark’s ships seen over the land’s brow three miles or more to the southwest. Yet she knew surely that near those ships beside Aurwath harbour must be desperate fighting toward, Gaslark the king engaged at heavy odds against Laxus and Corinius and the spears of Witchland. And the sun wheeled low over the dark pines of Westmark, and still no sign from the north.
“Thou didst send one forth for tidings?” she said to Ravnor, the third time she went on the wall.
He answered, “Betimes this morning, your highness. But ’tis slow faring until a be a mile or twain clear of the castle, for a must elude their small bands that go up and down guarding the countryside.”
“Bring him to me o’ the instant of his return,” said she.
With a foot on the stair, she turned back. “Ravnor,” she said.
He came to her.
“Thou,” she said, “hast been years enow my brother’s steward in Krothering, and our father’s before him, to know what mind and spirit dwelleth in them of our line. Tell me, truly and sadly, what thou makest of this. Lord Spitfire is too late: other else, Goblinland too sudden-early (and that was his fault from of old). What seest thou in it? Speak to me as thou shouldst to my Lord Brandoch Daha were it he that asked thee.”
“Highness,” said the old man Ravnor, “I will answer you my very thought: and it is, woe to Goblinland. Since my Lord Spitfire cometh not yet from the north, only the deathless Gods descending out of heaven can save the king. The Witches number at an humble reckoning twice his strength; and man to man you were as well pit a hound against a bear, as against Witches Goblins. For all that these be fierce and full of fiery courage, the bear hath it at the last.”
Mevrian listened, looking on him with sorrowful steady eyes. “And he so generous-noble flown to comfort Demonland in the blackness of her days,” she said at last. “Can fate be so ungallant? O Ravnor, the shame of it! First La Fireez, now Gaslark. How shall any love us any more? The shame of it, Ravnor!”
“I would not have your highness,” said Ravnor, “too hasty to blame us. If their plan and compact have gone amiss, ’tis likelier King Gaslark’s misprision than Lord Spitfire’s. We know not for sure which day was set for this landing.”
While he so spake, he was looking past her seaward, a little south of the reddest part of the sunset. His eyes widened. He touched her arm and pointed. Sails were hoisted among the masts at Aurwath. Smoke, as of burning, reeked up against the sky. As they watched, the most part of the ships moved out to sea. From those that remained, some five or six, fire leaped and black clouds of smoke. The rest as they came out of the lee of the land, made southward for the open sea under oar and sail.
Neither spake; and the Lady Mevrian leaning her elbows on the parapet of the wall hid her face in her hands.
Now came Ravnor’s messenger at length back from his faring, and the old man brought him in to Mevrian in her bower in the south part of Krothering. The messenger said, “Highness, I bring no writing, since that were too perilous had I fallen in my way among Witches. But I had audience of my Lord Spitfire and my Lord Zigg in the gates of Gashterndale. And thus their lordships commanded me deliver it unto you, that your highness should be at ease and secure, seeing that they do in such sort hold all the ways to Krothering, that the Witchland army cannot escape out of this countryside that is betwixt Thunderfirth and Stropardon Firth and the sea, but and if they will give battle unto their lordships. But if they choose rather to abide here by Krothering, then may our armies close on them and oppress them, since our forces do exceed theirs by near a thousand spears. Which tomorrow will be done whate’er betide, since that is the day appointed for Gaslark the king to land with a force at Aurwath.”
Mevrian said, “They know nought then of this direful miscarriage, and Gaslark here already before his time and thrown back into the sea?” And she said, “We must apprise them on’t, and that hastily and tonight.”
When the man understood this, he answered, “Ten minutes for a bite and a stirrup-cup, and I am at your ladyship’s service.”
And in a short while, that man went forth again secretly out of Krothering in the dusk of night to bring word to Lord Spitfire of what was befallen. And the watchmen watching in the night from Krothering walls beheld northward under Erngate End the campfires of the Witches like the stars.
Night passed and day dawned, and the camp of the Witches showed empty as an empty shell.
Mevrian said, “They have moved in the night.”
“Then shall your highness hear great tidings ere long,” said Ravnor.
“ ’Tis like we may have guests in Krothering tonight,” said Mevrian. And she gave order for all to be made ready against their coming, and the choicest bedchambers for Spitfire and Zigg to welcome them. So, with busy preparations, the day went by. But as evening came, and still no riding from the north, some shadows of impatience and anxious doubt crept
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