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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Whereat all they laughed. But Corsus’s face grew red as blood.
On such wise brake up the council. Corinius with the sons of Corund and of Corsus went upon the walls ordering all in obedience to the word of Gorice the King. But that old Duke Corsus betook him to his chamber in the north gallery. Nor might he abide even a small while at ease, but sate now in his carven chair, now on the windowsill, now on his broad-canopied bed, and now walked the chamber floor twisting his hands and gnawing his lip. And if he were distraught in mind, small wonder it were, set as he was betwixt hawk and buzzard, the King’s wrath menacing him in Carcë and the hosts of Demonland without.
So wore the day till suppertime. And at supper was Corsus, to their much amaze, sitting in his place, and the ladies Zenambria and Sriva with him. He drank deep, and when supper was done he filled a goblet saying, “My lord the king of Demonland and ye other Witches, good it is that we, who stand as now we stand with one foot in the jaws of destruction, should bear with one another. Neither should any hide his thought from other, but say openly, even as I this morning before the face of our Lord the King, his thought and counsel. Wherefore without shame do I confess me ill-advised today, when I urged the King to make peace with Demonland. I wax old, and old men will oft embrace timorous counsels which, if there be wisdom and valiancy left in them, they soon renounce when the stress is overpast and they have leisure to afterthink them with a sad mind. And clear as day it is that the King was right, both in his chastening of my faint courage and in his bidding thee, O King Corinius, stand to thy watch and do nought till this night be worn. For went he not to the Iron Tower? And to what end else spendeth he the night in yonder chamber of dread than to do sorcery or his magic art, as aforetime he did, and in such wise blast these Demons to perdition even in the spring-tide of their fortunes? At no point of time hath Witchland greater need of our wishes than at this coming midnight, and I pray you, my lords, let us meet a little before in this hall that we with one heart and mind may drink fair fortune to the King’s enchantery.”
With such pleasant words and sympathetical insinuations, working at a season when the wine-cup had caused unfold some gayness in their hearts that were fordone with the hard scapes and chances of disastrous war, was Corsus grown to friendship again with the lords of Witchland. So, when the guard was set and all made sure for the night, they came together in the great banquet hall, whereas more than three years ago the Prince La Fireez had feasted and after fought against them of Witchland. But now was he drowned among the shifting tides in the Straits of Melikaphkhaz. And the Lord Corund, that fought that night in such valiant wise, now in that same hall, armed from throat to foot as becometh a great soldier dead, lay in state, crowned on his brow with the amethystine crown of Impland. The spacious side-benches were untenanted and void their high seats, and the cross-bench was removed to make place for Corund’s bier. The lords of Witchland sate at a small table below the dais: Corinius in the seat of honour at the end nearest the door, and over against him Corsus, and on Corinius’s left Zenambria, and on his right Dekalajus son to Corsus, and then Heming; and on Corsus’s left his daughter Sriva, and those two remaining of Corund’s sons on his right. All were there save Prezmyra, and her had none seen since her lord’s death, but she kept her chamber. Flamboys stood in the silver stands as of old, lighting the lonely spaces of the hall, and four candles shivered round the bier where Corund slept. Fair goblets stood on the board brimmed with dark sweet Thramnian wine, one for each feaster there, and cold bacon pies and botargoes and crawfish in hippocras sauce furnished a light midnight meal.
Now scarce were they set, when the flamboys burned pale in a strange light from without doors: an evil, pallid, bale-like lowe, such as Gro had beheld in days gone by when King Gorice XII first conjured in Carcë. Corinius paused ere taking his seat. Goodly and stalwart he showed in his blue silk cloak and silvered byrnie. The fair crown of Demonland, wherewith Corsus had been enforced to crown him on that great night in Owlswick, shone above his light brown curling hair. Youth and lustihood stood forth in every line of his great frame, and on his bare arms smooth and brawny, with their wristlets of gold; but somewhat ghastly was the corpse-like pallor of that light on his shaven jowl, and his thick scornful lips were blackened, like those of poisoned men, in that light of bale.
“Saw ye not this light aforetime?” he cried, “and ’twas the shadow before the sun of our omnipotence. Fate’s hammer is lifted up to strike. Drink with me to our Lord the King that laboureth with destiny.”
All drank deep, and Corinius said, “Pass we on the cups that each may drain his
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