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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“Why wilt thou rage so beastly?” said the King. “The man is drunk. No more wild words.”
“Thou canst not daff me so. I will know the truth,” said La Fireez.
“So thou shalt,” said Corinius. “This it is: that we Witches be better men than thou and thy hen-hearted Pixies, and better men than the accursed Demons. No need to hide it further. Two of that brood we have laid by the heels, and nailed ’em up on the wall of the old banquet hall, as farmers nail up weasels and polecats on a barn door. And there shall they bide till they be dead: Juss and Brandoch Daha.”
“O most villanous lie!” said the King. “I’ll have thee hewn in pieces.”
But Corinius said, “I nurse your honour, O King. We must no longer skulk before these Pixies.”
“Thou diest for it,” said the King, “and it is a lie.”
Now was dead silence for a space. At last the Prince sat down slowly. His face was white and drawn, and he spake unto the King, slowly and in a quiet voice: “O King, that I was somewhat hot with you, forgive me. And if I have omitted any form of allegiance due to you, think rather that in my blood it is to chafe at such ceremonies than that I had any lack of friendship unto you or ever dreamed of questioning your overlordship. Aught that you shall require of me and that lieth with mine honour, aught of ceremony or fealty, will I with joy perform. And, save against Demonland, is my sword ready against your enemies. But here, O King, tottereth a tower ready to fall athwart our friendship and pash it in pieces. It is known to you, O King, and to all the lords of Witchland, that my bones were whitening these six years in Impland the More if Lord Juss had not saved me from the barbarous Imps that followed Fax Fay Faz, who besieged me four months with my small following shut up in Lida Nanguna. My friendship shall you have, O King, if you yield me up my friends.”
But the King said, “I have not thy friends.”
“Show me then the old banquet hall,” said the Prince.
The King said, “I will show it thee anon.”
“I will see it now,” said the Prince, and he rose from his seat.
“I will dissemble with thee no longer,” said the King. “I do love thee well. But when thou askest me to yield up to thee Juss and Brandoch Daha, thou askest a thing all Pixyland and thy dear heart’s blood were unable to purchase from me. These be my worst enemies. Thou knowest not at what cost of toil and danger I have at last laid hand on them. And now let not thy hopes make thee an unbeliever, when I swear to thee that Juss and Brandoch Daha shall rot and die in prison.”
And for all his gentle speeches, and offers of wealth and rich advantage and upholding in peace and war, might not La Fireez shake the King. And the King said, “Forbear, La Fireez, or thou wilt vex me. They must rot.”
So when the Prince La Fireez saw that he might not move the King by soft words, he took up his fair crystal goblet, egg-shaped with three claws of gold to stand withal welded to a collar of gold about its middle bossed with topazes, and hurled it at Gorice the King, so that the goblet smote him on the forehead, and the crystal was brast asunder with the force of the blow, and the King’s forehead laid open, and the King strook senseless.
Therewith was huge uproar in the banquet hall; nor would Corund that any should have speedier hand therein than he, but catching up his two-edged sword and crying, “Look to the King, Gro! Here’s distressful revels!” he leaped upon the table. And his sons likewise and Gallandus and the other Witches seized their weapons, and in like manner did La Fireez and his men; and there was battle in the great hall in Carcë. Corinius, whose left hand only might as now wield weapon, even so sprang forth in most gallant wise, calling upon the Prince with many vile words to abide his onset. But the fumes of unbridled potations, that being flown to his brain had made him frantic mad, wrought in his legs more foggily, dulling their wonted nimbleness. And his foot sliding in a puddle of spilt wine he fell backward a grievous fall, striking his head against the polished table. And Corsus that was now well nigh speechless and quite stupefied with drink, so that a baby might tell as well as he what meant this hubbub, reeled cup in hand, shouting, “Drunkenness is better for the body than physic! Drink always, and you shall never die!” So shouting he was smitten square in the mouth by a breast of veal flung at him by Elaron of Pixyland, the captain of the Prince’s bodyguard, and so fell like a hog athwart Corinius, and there lay without sense or motion. Then were the tables overset, and wounds given and taken, and swiftly ran the tide of vantage against the Witches. For albeit the Pixies were none such great soldiers as they of Witchland, yet this served them mightily that they were well nigh sober and their foes as so many casks filled with wine, staggering and raving for the most part from their long tippling and quaffing. Nor did Corund’s amethyst avail him throughly, but the wine clogged his veins so that he waxed scant of breath and his strokes lighter and slower than they were wont.
Now for the love he bare his sister Prezmyra and for his old kindness sake for Witchland, the Prince charged his men to fight only for the overpowering of the Witches, slaying none if so it might be, and on their lives
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