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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Of the council of war; and how the Lord Corsus, being rejected of the King, turned his thoughts to other things; and of the last conjuring that was in Carcë and the last wine-bibbing; and how yet once again the Lady Prezmyra spake with the lords of Demonland in Carcë.
Gorice the King held in his private chamber a council of war on the morrow of the battle before Carcë. The morning was overcast with sullen cloud, and though all the windows were thrown wide the sluggish air hung heavy in the room, as if it too were pervaded by the cold dark humour that clogged the vitals of those lords of Witchland like a drowsy drug, or as if the stars would breathe themselves for a greater mischief. Pale and drawn were those lords’ faces; and, for all they strove to put on a brave countenance before the King, clean gone was the vigour and warlike mien that clothed them but yesterday. Only Corinius kept some spring of his old valiancy and portly bearing, seated with arms akimbo over against the King, his heavy under-jaw set forward and his nostrils wide. He had slept ill or watched late, for his eyes were blood-shotten, and the breath of his nostrils was heavy with wine.
“We tarry for Corsus,” said the King. “Had he not word of my bidding?”
Dekalajus said, “Lord, I will summon him again. These misfortunes I fear me hang heavy on his mind, and, by your majesty’s leave, he is scarce his own man since yesterday.”
“Do it straight,” said the King. “Give me thy papers, Corinius. Thou art my general since Corund gat his death. I will see what yesterday hath cost us and what power yet remaineth to crush me these snakes by force of arms.”
“These be the numbers, O King,” said Corinius. “But three thousand and five hundred fighting men, and well nigh half of these over much crippled with wounds to do aught save behind closed walls. It were but to give the Demons easy victory to adventure against them, that stand before Carcë four thousand sound men in arms.”
The King blew scornfully through his nostrils. “Who told thee their strength?” said he.
“It were dangerous to write them down a man fewer,” answered Corinius. And Hacmon said, “My Lord the King, I would adventure my head they have more. And your majesty will not forget they be all flown with eagerness and pride after yesterday’s field, whereas our men—”
“Were ye sons of Corund,” said the King, breaking in quietly on his speech and looking dangerously upon him, “but twigs of your father’s tree, that he being cut down ye have no manhood left nor vital sap, but straight wither in idiotish dotage? I will not have these womanish counsels spoke in Carcë; no, nor thought in Carcë.”
Corinius said, “We had sure intelligence, O King, whenas they landed that their main army was six thousand fighting men; and last night myself spake with full a score of our officers, and had a true tale of some few of the Demons captured by us before they were slain with the sword. When I say to you Juss standeth before Carcë four thousand strong, I swell not the truth. His losses yesterday were but a flea-biting ’gainst ours.”
The King nodded a curt assent.
Corinius proceeded, “If we might contrive indeed to raise help from without Carcë, were it but five hundred spears to distract his mind some part from usward, nought but your majesty’s strict command should stay me but I should assault him. It were perilous even so, but never have you known me leave a fruit unplucked at for fear of thorns. But until that time, nought but your straight command might win me to essay a sally. Since well I wot it were my death, and the ruin of you, O King, and of all Witchland.”
The King listened with unmoved countenance, his shaven lip set somewhat in a sneer, his eyes half closed like the eyes of a cat couched sphinx-like in the sun. But no sun shone in that council chamber. The leaden pall hung darker without, even as morning grew toward noon. “My Lord the King,” said Heming, “send me. To overslip their guards i’ the night, ’tis not a thing beyond invention. That done, I’d gather you some small head of men, enough to serve this turn, if I must rake the seven kingdoms to find ’em.”
While Heming spoke, the door opened and the Duke Corsus entered the chamber. An ill sight was he, flabbier of cheek and duller of eye than was his wont. His face was bloodless, his great paunch seemed shrunken, and his shoulders yet more hunched since yesterday. His gait was uncertain, and his hand shook as he moved the chair from the board and took his seat before the King. The King looked on him awhile in silence, and under that gaze beads of sweat stood on Corsus’s brow and his underlip twitched.
“We need thy counsel, O Corsus,” said the King. “Thus it is: since our ill-faced stars gave victory to the Demon rebels in yesterday’s battle, Juss and his brethren front us with four thousand men, whiles I have not two thousand soldiers unhurt in Carcë. Corinius accounteth us too weak to risk a sally but and if we might contrive some diversion from
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