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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“Difficult indeed, O my Lord the King,” said Corsus. His glance shifted round the board, avoiding the steady gaze bent on him from beneath the eaves of King Gorice’s brow, and resting at last on the jewelled splendour of the crown of Witchland on the King’s head. “O King,” he said, “you demand my rede, and I shall not say nor counsel you nothing but that good and well shall come thereof, as much as yet may be in this pass we stand in. For now is our greatness turned in woe, dolour, and heaviness. And easy it is to be after-witted.”
He paused, and his under-jaw wobbled and twitched. “Speak on,” said the King. “Thou stutterest forth nothings by fits and girds, as an ague taketh a goose. Let me know thy rede.”
Corsus said, “You will not take it, I know, O King. For we of Witchland have ever been ruled by the rock rather than by the rudder. I had liever be silent. Silence was never written down.”
“Thou wouldst, and thou wouldst not!” said the King. “Whence gottest thou this look of a dish of whey with blood spit in it? Speak, or thou’lt anger me.”
“Then blame me not, O King,” said Corsus. “Thus it seemeth to me, that the hour hath struck whenas we of Witchland must needs look calamity in the eye and acknowledge we have thrown our last, and lost all. The Demons, as we have seen to our undoing, be unconquerable in war. Yet are their minds pranked with many silly phantasies of honour and courtesy which may preserve us the poor dregs yet unspilt from the cup of our fortune, if we but leave unseasonable pride and see where our advantage lieth.”
“Chat, chat, chat!” said the King. “Perdition catch me if I can find a meaning in it! What dost thou bid me do?”
Corsus met the King’s eye at last. He braced himself as if to meet a blow. “Throw not your cloak in the fire because your house is burning, O King. Surrender all to Juss at his discretion. And trust me the foolish softness of these Demons will leave us freedom and the wherewithal to live at ease.”
The King was leaned a little forward as Corsus, somewhat dry-throated but gathering heart as he spake, blurted forth his counsel of defeat. No man among them looked on Corsus, but all on the King, and for a minute’s space was no sound save the sound of breathing in that chamber. Then a puff of hot air blew a window to with a thud, and the King without moving his head rolled his awful glance forth and back over his council slowly, fixing each in his turn. And the King said, “Unto which of you is this counsel acceptable? Let him speak and instruct us.”
All did sit mum like beasts. The King spake again, saying, “It is well. Were there of my council such another vermin, so sottish, so louse-hearted, as this one hath proclaimed himself, I had been persuaded Witchland was a sleepy pear, corrupted in her inward parts. And that were so, I had given order straightway for the sally; and, for his chastening and your dishonour, this Corsus should have led you. And so an end, ere the imposthume of our shame brake forth too foul before earth and heaven.”
“I admire not, Lord, that you do strike at me,” said Corsus. “Yet I pray you think how many Kings in Carcë have heaped with injurious indignities them that were so hardy as give them wholesome counsel afore their fall. Though your majesty were a half-god or a Fury out of the pit, you could not by further resisting deliver us out of this net wherein the Demons have gotten us caught and tied. You can keep geese no longer, O King. Will you rend me because I bid you be content to keep goslings?”
Corinius smote the table with his fist. “O monstrous vermin!” he cried, “because thou wast scalded, must all we be afeared of cold water?”
But the King stood up in his majesty, and Corsus shrank beneath the flame of his royal anger. And the King spake and said, “The council is up, my lords. For thee, Corsus, I dismiss thee from my council. Thou art to thank my clemency that I take not thy head for this. It were for thy better safety, which well I know thou prizest dearer than mine honour, that thou show not in my path till these perilous days be overpast.” And unto Corinius he said, “On thy head it lieth that the Demons storm not the hold, as haply their hot pride may incense them to attempt. Expect me not at supper. I lie in the Iron Tower tonight, and let none disturb me there at peril of his head. You of my council must attend me here four hours ere tomorrow’s noon. Look to it well, Corinius, that nought shalt thou do nor in any wise adventure our forces against the Demons till thou receive my further bidding, save only to hold Carcë against any assault if need be. For this thy life shall answer. For the Demons, they were wisest praise a fair day at night. If mine enemy uproot a boulder above my dwelling, so I be mighty enow of mine hands I may, even in the nick of time that it tottereth to leap and crush mine house, o’erset it on him and pash him to a mummy.”
So
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