The struggle between the Demons and Witches is nothing less than epic; the battles of this modern Iliad rage on land, sea, and air, taking us from the ocean depths to the lofty pinnacles of heaven. Among its finer episodes are the ‘wrastling for Demonland’, which pits Goldry Bluzco against the King of the Witches and sets an entire world aflame; the fog-clouded siege at Eshgrar Ogo; the harrowing ascent of Koshtra Pivrarcha and the struggle there with the beast mantichora; the bloody battle at Krothering Side; the flight of the hippogriff to the gaunt peak of Zora Rach; and the playing of the final trumps at the dark citadel of Carcë.
Eddison’s prose is archaic and often difficult, an intentionally affected throwback to Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. His characters are thus eloquent but long winded; they speak not of killing a man, but of ‘sending him from the shade into the house of darkness’. In his finest moments Eddison ascends to a sustained poetic beauty; listen, for example, to the haunting premonition of the Goblin Gro:
‘in my sleep about the darkest hour, a dream of the night came to my bed and beheld me with a glance so fell that the hairs of my head stood up and pale terror gat hold upon me. And methought the dream smote up the roof above my bed, and the roof yawned to the naked air of the midnight that laboured with fiery signs, and a bearded star travelling in the houseless dark. And I beheld the roof and the walls one gore of blood. And the dream screeched like the screech-owl, crying, Witchland from thy hand, O King!’
At other times the reader is virtually overwhelmed with words. Palaces and armoury were Eddison’s particular vices; he describes them with such ornate grandeur that page after page is lavished with their decoration. The reader should not be deterred by the density of such passages; like a vintage wine a taste for Eddison’s prose is expensively acquired, demanding the reader’s patience and perseverance – and it is worthy of its price. These are books to be savoured, best read in the long dark hours of night, when the wind is against the windows and the shadows begin to walk – books not meant for the moment, but for forever.
The Worm Ouroboros inevitably has been compared with J. R. R. Tolkien’s later and more popular Lord of the Rings trilogy; apart from their narrative ambition and epic sweep, the books share little in common. (Eddison, like Tolkien, disclaimed the notion that he was writing something beyond mere story: ‘It is neither allegory nor fable but a Story to be read for its own sake.’ But, as the reader will no doubt observe, he proves much less convincing.)
If comparisons are in order, then I suggest Eddison’s obvious influences – Homer and the Icelandic sagas – and that most controversial of Jacobean dramatists, John Webster, whose blood-spattered tales of violence and chaos (from which Eddison’s characters quote freely) saw him chastised for subverting orthodox society and religion. The shadow of Eddison may be seen, in turn, not only in the modern fiction of heroic fantasy, but also in the writings of his truest descendants, such dreamers of the dark fantastique as Stephen King (whose own epics, The Stand and The Dark Tower, read like paeans to Eddison) and Clive Barker (whose The Great and Secret Show called its chaotic forces the Iad Ouroboros).
Eddison would have found this line of succession, like the cyclical popularity of his books, the most natural order of events: the circle, ever turning – like the worm Ouroboros, that eateth its own tail – the symbol of eternity, where ‘the end is ever at the beginning and the beginning at the end for ever more’.
You hold in your hands a masterpiece.
DOUGLAS E. WINTER
1990
IT IS thirty years since The Worm Ouroboros was first published in England and twenty-six since I first succumbed to its potent magic. Since then I have reread it several times, always finding new evidence for my belief that this majestic romance is an enduring masterpiece, although a peculiar and imperfect one, and that Eric Eddison is a great master of English prose and a greatly neglected one. His rediscovery is long overdue. Perhaps it will come with the republication of this book.
E. R. Eddison was a successful English civil servant, the author of several minor works and of three of the most remarkable romances in the English language, The Worm Ouroboros, Mistress of Mistresses and A Fish Dinner in Memison. When he died in 1945 he left uncompleted a large fragment of still a fourth [The Mezentian Gate, published after this Introduction was written]. The three completed novels are loosely linked together as separate parts of one vast romantic epic; but the connection of The Worm Ouroboros with the others is remote. And it is unique in the simplicity of its theme, which is heroic adventure. The other two books have double themes, heroic adventure and the symbolical presentation of a moderately abstruse philosophy. For this reason it is best to read The Worm first. It makes an easier introduction into the splendid cosmos of Eddison’s imagination. And anyone who has once savoured the rare delights to be found there will not be content without exploring the uttermost reaches, metaphysical as well as fanciful.
What are the reasons for considering this flawed masterpiece (so noble in concept and so mighty in scope and yet marred with a few irksome failings) worthy of the attention of serious students of literature? First of all, there is the lordly narrative sweep of it, the pure essence of storytelling for its own sake such as has become increasingly rare in our introspective modern world. Second is the splendour of the prose, the roll and swagger and reverberating rhythms and the sheer gorgeousness of much of its deliberate artifice. And third is the blessed sense of vicarious participation in a simpler, more primitive world where wonders still abound and glory is still a word untarnished by the cynical tongues of small-minded men. Before elaborating a little on each of these qualities of The Worm Ouroboros, it seems wise to indicate what Eddison’s story is actually about.
Since this is a romantic epic about an imaginary world, Eddison felt it necessary to set his stage and explain things before launching into his story proper. This he did awkwardly, by sending an English gentleman in a magic dream to the planet Mercury to observe events there. It is a distracting and clumsy notion; but since Eddison forgot all about his earthborn observer after the first 20 pages, no prospective reader should allow himself to be troubled by his fleeting presence. And in Mercury, Eddison chose to call the people of the various nations Witches, Demons, Goblins, Imps, Pixies. This, too, is distracting, but only temporarily. The great war between the Demons and the Witches is the theme of this modern Iliad.
Never has such a war been chronicled before. Suggestions of it may be found in Homer, in the Icelandic sagas and in the Morte D’Arthur. Here are battles on sea and land, perilous journeys, base treacheries and mighty deeds performed by authentic heroes and majestic villains. Scene after scene achieves a pitch of excitement that engraves them indelibly on the memory: the great wrestling match between Lord Goldry Bluszco of Demonland and the monstrous Gorice XI, King of Witchland; the fight between Lord Juss and Lord Brandoch Daha and the horrid beast mantichora; the ascent of the fabulous mountain Koshtra Pivrarcha; the wonderful crimes of those evil dukes of Witchland, Corsus and Corinius; the betrayals of the brave and intelligent Goblin, Lord Gro, doomed by some curse to perpetual treasons.
These heroes and villains, and the beautiful queens and princesses who make brief decorative appearances, are not subtly portrayed individuals. They are epic heroes like Achilles or Roland, colourful, picturesque, unreal and charming,