Re-Commendation: The King of Elfland's Daughter
Now, of all my recent Tolkien-adjacent recommendations, this one is probably the least Tolkien-adjacent.
Sep 9, 2022 Sep 9, 2022 J.B. Norman
In brief, Lord Dunsany is one of the most prominent pre-Tolkien Fantasy authors — Tolkien didn't invent the genre but most of what we consider recognisably Fantasy-y does come from Tolkien.
Tolkien is on record as reading Lord Dunsany, and certain elements of certain Dunsany stories did influence certain elements of Tolkien. I'm unclear on if Dunsany ever read Tolkien — he died a couple years after Lord of the Rings was published and Lord of the Rings didn't get really popular, well, until the movies, but did get its first big wave of popularity in the 60s.
It was HUGE with hippies…
All of this is to say, there's not much of a direct connection between Dunsany and Tolkien. I mostly want to point out that they had very similar conceptions of Elfland.
Now, the whole "fairies–as–tiny–women–with–butterfly-wings" thing, while ingrained in the popular consciousness, is a fair(l)y modern thing, starting more or less in the Victorian era.
Picture included for its relevance
and not just because she's gorgeous.
Photo by Olenka Sergienko on Pexels.com
In Pre-modern folklore, "fairy" is basically shorthand for "any magical creature from Otherworld" and is basically synonymous with "Elf", a fact that modern Pop Culture has sort of lost sight of, due largely to the aforementioned "fairies-as-tiny-women-with-butterfly-wings" thing and concurrent "Elves are pointy-eared and better than you."
Now, I think this largely stems from the fact that most modern Fantasy essentially boils down to "Tolkien, but less talented". Now, Tolkien's Elves are, in fact, better than you, but Tolkien was also a wise enough and theologically-minded enough man to work out a complicated metaphysical justification as to why — the short version is that Elves and Men have souls that operate in fundamentally different ways.
Tolkien's Elves also retain certain traces of traditional folkloric Elves: the magic, the weapons and artifacts, living in a realm outside the mortal world. But, of course, most subsequent readings of the Legendarium have been rather superficial, so the state of modern Fantasy Elves has made them much, much less interesting.
Sidebar: Tolkien also wrote about Christmas Elves.
Photo by Marta Wave on Pexels.com
Now, I am, in fact, going somewhere with this, I promise. All that preamble is to drive home the whole "Elves as Fairies" tradition, because my current recommendation is quite literally a Fairy Tale.
I can only assume this is the traditional Elven Safety Dance…
Meadow Elves: Nils Blommér Image via Wikipedia. Public domain.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Boy meets Girl, Girl is Elf Princess, Boy marries Girl, Girl can't find joy in the world of mortals and goes back to Elfland, Boy goes on epic quest to find Girl. Magic ensues and eventually, everybody lives happily ever after.
And that's basically The King of Elfland's Daughter. A book written by this handsome fellow:
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, popularly known as "Lord Dunsany".
Image via Wikipedia. Public domain.
Lord Dunsany is notable for being one of the prolific Fantasy authors to predate Tolkien. Granted, Tolkien didn't invent the genre, but due to his singular influence upon said genre, remains a pretty handy point of reference to compare everything that came before with everything that came after.
Also, given that Lord Dunsany was writing about Elves even before Tolkien was, it's not exactly surprising that he's also drawing from the "Elves as Fairies" traditions and depicting Elves that are a lot closer to Irish folklore than Dungeons & Dragons.
In general, Lord Dunsany's stories tend to be really outlandish and just plain weird — that's not a bad thing, by the way. The King of Elfland's Daughter isn't really an exception to that, as you'd perhaps expect from a book about a dude questing through the world of the Elves.
It's pretty weird top-to-bottom: weird characters do weird things, events and places are described with weird imagery and turns of phrase, the plot doesn't really get into boring, mundane details. It feels less like a modern novel and more like an old Fairy Tale. Hardly surprising, given that it is, like I said, literally a Fairy Tale.
The upside to this is that the prose itself is so well-written and evocative that even when the story is dragging on (which it definitely does towards the end of the middle third, or so), actually reading the story is still worthwhile because the style of how its written and the choice and use of words and language is always just so sublimely overawing.
Much as, I imagine, it would be to behold the Elven Safety Dance with mortal eyes…
Now, I wouldn't necessarily call The King of Elfland's Daughter hugely influential on me in and of itself. Especially not where Realmgard is concerned, given that my Elves are Romans. However, I have to admit that the kind of story that The King of Elfland's Daughter is has indeed been hugely influential on some of my non-Realmgard stuff.
I'm working on some stories about a mortal warrior in love with an Elf woman and I am consciously drawing on the thematic elements of The King of Elfland's Daughter, along with a depiction of the Elves more in line with Lord Dunsany and Tolkien's Elves than most modern Elves.
Also, I absolutely, positively love Lord Dunsany's phrase "the fields we know" to refer to the mortal world and the idea of going beyond the fields we know to cross into Elfland.
Also, I named my first Fire Emblem Awakening character Lirazel in honour of the character that "King of Elfland's Daughter" refers to.
So, yeah, take a chance on visiting the Perilous Realm and going beyond the fields we know. Just be mindful of finding your way back…
Also, the epilogue chapter of Forward, the Lyte Brigade went live earlier today:
Forward, the Lyte Brigade: Epilogue
You know the drill:
Posted in RecommendationsTagged Books, Elf, Fairies, Fairy Tales, Fantasy, ICYMI, Recommendation, Repost, Tolkien
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