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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But when they were come to the higher ground and the scrub and underwood, then the King whistled his eagle off his fist. She flew from him as if she would never have turned head again, yet presently upon his shout came in; then soaring aloft waited on above his head, till the hounds started a wolf out of the brake. Thereon she swooped sudden as a thunderbolt; and the King lighted down and helped her with his hunting-knife; and so again, thrice and four times till four wolves were slain. And that was the greatest sport.
The King made much of his eagle, giving her the last wolf’s lights and liver to gorge herself withal. And he gave her over to his falconer, and said, “Ride we now into the flats of Armany, for I will fly my haggard: my haggard eagle caught this March in the hills of Largos. Many a good night’s rest hath she cost me, to wake her and man her and teach her to know my call and be obedient. I will fly her now at the big black boar of Largos that afflicteth the farmers hereabout these two years past and bringeth them death and loss. So shall we see good sport, if she be not too coy and wild.”
So the King’s falconer brought the haggard and the King took her on his fist. A black eagle she was, red-beaked and glorious to look on. Her jesses were of red leather with little silver varvels whereon the crab of Witchland was engraved in small. Her hood was of red leather tasselled with silver. First she bated from the fist of the King, screaming and flapping her wings, but soon was quiet. And the King rode forth, sending his great brindled hounds before him to put up the boar; and all his company followed after.
In no long time they roused the boar, that turned red-eyed and moody-mad on the King’s hounds, and charged among them ripping up the foremost so that her bowels gushed out. The King unhooded his eagle and flew her off his fist. But she, wild and ungentle, fastened not upon the boar but on a hound that held him by the ear. She fixed her cruel claws in the hound’s neck and picked his eyes out ere a man might speak two curses on her.
Gro, that was by the King, muttered, “O, I like not that. ’Tis ominous.”
By then was the King ridden up, and thrust the boar through with his spear, piercing him above and a little behind the shoulder so that the blade went through the heart of him and he sank down dying in his blood. Then the King smote his eagle in his wrath with the butt of his spear-shaft, but smote her lightly and with a glancing blow, and away she flew and was lost to sight. And the King was angry, for all that the boar was slain, for the loss of his hound and his haggard, and for her ill behaviour. So he bade his huntsmen skin the boar and bring home his skin to be a trophy, and so turned homeward.
After a while the King called to him the Lord Gro to ride forward a little with him and out of earshot of the rest. The King said to him, “Thou hast a discontented look. Is it that I send not Corund into Demonland to crown the work he began at Eshgrar Ogo? Thou babblest besides of omens.”
Gro answered, “My Lord the King, pardon my fears. For omens, indeed ’tis oft as the saw sayeth, ‘As the fool thinketh, so the bell clinketh.’ I spake in haste. Who shall weep Fate from her determined purpose? But since you did name Corund’s name—”
“I named him,” said the King, “because I am still ringing in the ears with women’s talk. Whereto also I doubt not thou art privy.”
“Only so much,” answered he, “that this is my thought: he were our best, O King.”
“Haply so,” said the King. “But wouldst have me therefore hold my stroke in the air while occasion knocketh at the gate? I’ll tell thee, I am potent in art magical, but scarce may I stay time’s wing the while I fetch Corund out of Impland and pack him westaway.”
Gro held his peace. “Well,” said the King, “I will hear more from thee.”
“Lord,” he answered, “I like not Corsus.”
The King gave him a frump to his face. Gro held his peace again awhile, but seeing the King would have more, he said, “Since it likes your majesty to demand my counsel, I will speak. You know, Lord, of all your men in Carcë Corinius is least my friend, and if I back him you will be little apt to think me moved by interest. In my clear judgement, if Corund be barred from this journey (as reason is, I freely embrace it, he must bide in Impland, both to harvest there his victories and to deny the road to Juss and Brandoch Daha if haply they return from the Moruna, and besides, time, as you most justly say, O King, calleth for speedy action): if he be barred, you have no better than Corinius. A complete soldier, a tried captain, young, fierce, and resolute, and one that sitteth not down again when once he standeth up till that his will be accomplished. Send him to Demonland.”
“No,” said the King. “I will not send Corinius. Hast thou not seen hawks that be in their prime and full pride for beauty and goodness, but must be tamed ere they be flown at the quarry? Such an one is he, and I will tame him with harshness and duress till I be certain of him. Also
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