The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕
Description
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.
Read free book «The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: E. R. Eddison
Read book online «The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕». Author - E. R. Eddison
“What devil is this thou speakest of?” asked Juss.
“He hath come,” he answered, “over the mountains out of the north country, that alone was able to answer Fax Fay Faz. And the voice of his speech is like unto the roaring of a bull.”
“Out of the north?” said Juss, giving him more wine, and exchanging glances with Spitfire and Brandoch Daha. “I would hear more of this.”
Mivarsh drank, and said, “O devils transmarine, ye give me strong waters which comfort my soul, and ye speak me soft words. But shall I not fear soft words? Soft words were spoke by this devil ultramontane, when he and cursed Philpritz spake soft words unto us in Orpish: unto me, and unto Fax Fay Faz, and Gandassa, and Illarosh, and unto all of us, after our overthrow in battle against him by the banks of Arlan.”
Juss asked, “Of what fashion is he to look on?”
“He hath a great yellow beard beflecked with gray,” said Mivarsh, “and a bald shiny pate, and standeth big as a neat.”
Juss spake apart to Brandoch Daha, “There’s matter in it if this be true.” And Brandoch Daha poured forth unto Mivarsh and bade him drink again, saying, “O Mivarsh Faz, we be strangers and guests in wide-flung Impland. Be it known to thee that our power is beyond ken, and our wealth transcendeth the imagination of man. Yet is our benevolence of like measure with our power and riches, overflowing as honey from our hearts unto such as receive us openly and tell us that which is. Only be warned, that if any lie to us or assay craftily to delude us, not the mantichores that lodge beyond the Moruna were more dreadful to that man than we.”
Mivarsh quailed, but answered him, “Use me well, you were best, and you shall hear from me nought but what is true. First with the sword he vanquished us, and then with subtle words invited us to talk with him in Orpish, pretending friendship. But they are all dead that harkened to him. For when he held them closed up in the council room in Orpish, himself went secretly forth, while his men laid hands on Gandassa Faz and on Illarosh Faz, and on Fax Fay Faz that was greatest amongst us, and on Lurmesh Faz, and cut off their heads and set them up on poles without the gate. And our armies that waited without were dismayed to see the heads of the Fazes of Impland so set on poles, and the armies of the devils ultramontane still threatening us with death. And this big bald bearded devil spake them of Impland fair, saying these that he had slain were their oppressors and he would give them their hearts’ desire if they would be his men, and he would make them free, every man, and share out all Impland amongst them. So were the common sort befooled and brought under by this bald devil from beyond the mountains, and now none withstandeth him in all Impland. But I that had held back from his council in Orpish, fearing his guile, hardly escaped from my folk that rose against me. And I fled into the woods and wildernesses.”
“Where last saw ye him?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered him, “A three days’ journey northwest of this, at Tormerish in Achery.”
“What made he there?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered, “Still devising evil.”
“Against whom?” asked Juss.
Mivarsh answered, “Against Zeldornius, which is a devil transmarine.”
“Give me some more wine,” said Juss, “and fill again a beaker for Mivarsh Faz. I do love nought so much as tale-telling a-nights. With whom devised he against Zeldornius?”
Mivarsh answered, “With another devil from beyond seas; I have forgot his name.”
“Drink and remember,” said Juss; “or if ’tis gone from thee, paint me his picture.”
“He hath about my bigness,” said Mivarsh, that was little of stature. “His eyes be bright, and he somewhat favoureth this one,” pointing at Spitfire, “though belike he hath not all so fierce a face. He is lean-faced and dark of skin. He goeth in black iron.”
“Is he Jalcanaius Fostus?” asked Juss.
And Mivarsh answered, “Ay.”
“There’s musk and amber in thy speech,” said Juss. “I must have more of it. What mean they to do?”
“This,” said Mivarsh: “As I sat listening in the dark without their tent, it was made absolute that this Jalcanaius had been deceived in supposing that another devil transmarine, whom men call Helteranius, had been minded to do treacherously against him; whereas, as the bald devil made him believe, ’twas no such thing. And so it was concluded that Jalcanaius should send riders after Helteranius to make peace between them, and that they two should forthwith join to kill Zeldornius, one falling on him in the front and the other in the rear.”
“So ’tis come to this?” said Spitfire.
“And when they have Zeldornius slain,” said Mivarsh, “then must they help this baldpate in his undertakings.”
“And so pay him for his redes?” said Juss.
And Mivarsh answered, “Even so.”
“One thing more I would know,” said Juss. “How great a following hath he in Impland?”
“The greatest strength that he can make,” answered Mivarsh, “of devils ultramontane is as I think two score hundred. Many Imps beside will follow him, but they have but our country weapons.”
Lord Brandoch Daha took Juss by the arm and went forth with him into the night. The frosted grass crunched under their tread: strange stars blinked in the south in a windy space betwixt cloud and sleeping earth, Achernar near the meridian bedimming all lesser fires with his pure radiance.
“So cometh Corund upon us as an eagle out of the sightless blue,” said Brandoch Daha, “with twelve times our forces to let us the way to the Moruna, and all Impland like a spaniel smiling at his heel; if indeed this simple soul say true, as I think he doth.”
“Thou fallest all of a holiday mood,” said Juss, “at the first scenting of
Comments (0)