Lord Dunsany (1878–1957)

"In vino veritas"

What an utterly charming story! I smiled or chuckled at least 50 times while I read. A feel-good story if ever there was one.

This is the story for a dog-lover. Unlike the film--which is magnificent--the dog does not die and there is no Peter O'Toole character, but never mind, you will love it anyway because the dreamy recollections of Sam Neil are all here. Plus more of them.

Our narrator, a self-styled scientific writer, has noticed that local Dean Spanley acts somewhat out show more of the ordinary for his position and invites him for drinks to dig for more information that is not of your typical collegiate ordained perspective. After a few drinks, the Dean slips and talks as if he is remembering his previous life--a quite perfectly pleasant and robust life--as a dog. The drink that brings the Dean's canine recollections back most reliably is Imperial Tokay, at just the right amount, not too much, not too little, and accompanied by the most delicate of verbal encouragements. Else, the Dean will snap out of it, back to the dull, respectable dean with his wide white collar.

The scientist narrator is absolutely convinced of the truth of the Dean's recollections and is driven to discover the keys of transmigration so that he can pass this amazing revelation on to the whole of other European fellows, astounding them with proofs that the Eastern religion is right. It takes him many dinner invitations to Dean Spanley, many glasses of Imperial Tokay, and also the enticement of a few friends to help things along.

He ultimately does learn the secrets he wanted to know. And that's all I can say.

Dean Spanley (aka Wag, aka Moon-chaser) says of man's secret to creating fire, "On the day that he gives to dogs that secret, as he one day will, dogs and men shall be equal."

It wouldn't take much to convince me that dogs are already equal. Quite possibly superior. show less

A beautifully-written, Edwardian faerie story for adults - not that there's any "adult" content, and were it published today, it would probably be classed as YA (despite some rather unpleasant hunting). However, it only gets 3*, as a reflection of my enjoyment of it; I prefer things a little darker, even though the moral is perhaps "Be careful what you wish for".

Plot
It is essentially a tale of young love across a cultural chasm (human Alveric and elfin Lirazel), the quest of Orion (not the show more Greek god), and features a witch, a faerie, elves, trolls, a magical sword, runes, unicorns and many other staples of the genre.

Language
It is written in a florid style, lauding the beauty and harmony of the natural world ("the autumn-smitten garden"), and suggesting the ephemeral, not-quite-there nature of Elfland (the other side of "the rampart of twilight").

The poetic feel is emphasised by some recurring phrases, in particular the contrast between "the fields that we know" (the normal, non-magical world) and places "that may not be told of but in song" (Elfland).

Furthermore, the word "glamour" is often used in its archaic sense, to mean casting enchantment over something. I'm less sure what to make of the two references to the King of Elfland's tower having "brazen steps"!

Then, about half way through, the magic is suddenly broken when the author addresses the reader directly with comments about real history. It jarred.

Elfland - (how) can we know it?
I liked the ideas of how Elfland is occasionally but unconsciously perceivable by mortals:
"now lost to them but for dreams, a song of such memories as lurk and hide along the edges of oblivion, now flashing from beautiful years of glimpse of some golden moment, now passing swiftly out of remembrance again, to go back to the shades of oblivion, and leaving on the mind those faintest traces of little shining feet which when dimly perceived by us are called regrets."

Artists of all kinds are most receptive and "have had many a glimpse of that country, so that sometimes in pictures we see a glamour too wonderful for our fields; it is a memory of theirs that intruded from some old glimpse." Similarly, Elfland's "flowers and lawns, seen only by the furthest travelling fancies of poets in deepest sleep".

As well as being geographically abstract, Elfland exists, to some extent, outside time: time there passes V E R Y slowly in comparison with here. This is understandably disconcerting for the few who travel between the two realms. Coming to the fields that we know, "even the shadows of houses moved" as part of a "vortex of restlessness"

Quotes

• "So strong lay the enchantment... that not only did beasts and men guess each other's meaning well, but there seemed to be an understanding even, that reached from men to trees and from trees to men."

• "a hare, who was lying in a comfortable arrangement of grass, in which he had intended to pass the time till he should have things to see to."

• "The glamour that brightens much of our lives, especially in the early years, comes from rumours that reach us from Elfland" and "all manner of little memories".

• "In a forest wherein it quieted the trembling of myriads of petals of roses, it stilled the pools where the great lilies towered, till they and their reflections slept on in one gorgeous dream. And there below motionless fronds of dream-gripped trees, on the still water dreaming of the still air, where the huge lily-leaves floated green in the calm, was the troll Lurulu, sitting on a leaf."

• "Little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happenings that are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark time, and save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us, over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten hills."

• Spring is "a mild benediction that blessed the very air and sought out all living things."

• "The hall that was built of moonlight, dreams, music and mirage."

• And a dash of humour when a troll tells others about the world of men, "They listened spell-bound... and then, when he told of hats, there ran through the forest a wave of little yelps of laughter".

See also

Dunsany went darker - and better - in the short story, The Bureau d'Echange de Maux, which I reviewed HERE. show less

If you’re interested in character development or a fast-moving, action-packed plot, Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter will probably disappoint you. On the other hand, if you remain curious about the origins of the fantasy genre beyond Tolkien but were put off by the recurrent battles of Eddison’s Zimiamvian series, then this might be more to your taste.
Yet be forewarned: there is bloodshed here, too. In addition to numerous stags, even unicorns. When I shared this show more information with a fantasy fan, he gasped, “not unicorns!” But it turns out that the unicorns, because of their stuck-up ways, aren’t beloved of their fellow creatures of Elfland, so the aptly-named Orion has little difficulty recruiting a troll to help hunt them.
Orion is the offspring of an earthling, Alveric, prince of Erl, and Lirazel (to whom the book’s title refers). Alveric enters Elfland, which turns out to be just through the hedge at the edge of Erl, to get her as his bride.
The idea was not his to begin with, though. It arose when Erl’s parliament petitioned Alveric’s father, the king of Erl, to liven up Erl with some magic. Alveric’s consent comes readily enough, nor does Lirazel hesitate to take his hand and scamper earthward through the hedge. That surprised me.
This lack of resistance gave me the feeling in the book’s first part that not much was happening. But, of course, Alveric can’t just stroll through the hedge. To hack through the life-threatening ivy that clads the giant oaks beyond, he needs a sword forged from thunderbolts by a helpful witch.
When Lirazel bears their son, Orion, the same witch is deemed the only suitable nurse.
Orion’s dual heritage gradually reveals itself. At first, Erl’s parliament (twelve village elders who do their planning in the evening while imbibing generous bowls of mead) are pleased their desire has come to fruition but then regret it. So in one way, the story illustrates the old adage, be careful what you wish for. Indeed, Lord Dunsany’s portrayal for this group’s ability to get it wrong suggests that he shares fellow fantasist Eddison’s disdain for democracy. We’re overdue for a creative fantasist to imagine a well-working democracy; I think we could use it now.
The book also illustrates a second adage, the one about the grass always greener and so on. This is the aspect of the book I most enjoyed. It’s no surprise that Elfland exerts a pull on some earthlings. It is lit by neither sun nor moon but bathed in perpetual twilight by the king’s effulgence. He has mastered time so that it moves so slowly that seemingly nothing changes (a point stylistically underlined by the author’s generous repetition of descriptive details as motifs whenever he writes about Elfland). The twist is that earth also fascinates some of Elfland’s creatures. Each day is announced by a glorious dawn and seen off by a radiant sunset. Spring seems to pass in a heartbeat. To Lirazel, as well as to Lurulu, the adventurous troll, earth’s transience is part of its beauty.
Is there a way to satisfy this mutual attraction? In Erl, Lirazel had missed her homeland; but then, after she yields to her father’s magical blandishment to return, she longs for her son (and her husband, too—at least a bit). This adds a mood previously unknown in Elfland: Sadness. The only way for her father to assuage it is to risk Elfland’s future survival. show less

Brilliant novel if you can get through the lack of much conflict and if you can get into the prose which is fairly whimsical and airy. The setting and the way that the events of the world relate to each other are so unique and interesting. Causality is super strange and beautiful and, possibly because it was written before too many modern fantasy conventions had had time to develop, nothing that you think is bound to happen ever does. I loved it.