This month I’m returning to the work of Anglo-Irish author Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett (1878-1957) better known as Lord Dunsany. I wrote about his wonderful short stories in an early Fantasy Reads post (June 2012) but I’m now recommending one of his novels – The King of Elfland’s Daughter (1924). During the last few years nearly all of Dunsany’s works have become easily available online. There are also current paperback editions of The King of Elfland’s Daughter or, better still, you could seek out an early hardback copy with the original striking frontispiece by S.H.Sime.
The story begins one Spring day in an imaginary English village called Erl. The twelve worthy men who make up the village’s parliament visit the Lord of Erl in his castle with a surprising request.They are tired of their village being thought of as a dull backwater and long for magic and excitement. They ask to be ruled by a magical lord. The current Lord thinks they are foolish but sends for his only son, Alveric and orders him to cross into the lands of Faery and woo Lirazel, the King of Elfland’s daughter. Alveric has heard of the beauty of the elfin princess so he is glad to obey but he knows that he will need magical help.
Alveric has already befriended a lonely witch called Zirooonderel who lives near the village and she agrees to make him an enchanted sword. Armed with the sword, he manages to cross the rampart of twilight that divides the Fields We Know from Elfland. He wins his way through a hostile forest and in the gardens of the King of Elfland’s palace he encounters Princess Lirazel. She has never met a human before and is curious about the realm he comes from. Alveric tells her all about Erl and she agrees to go there with him. After defeating the elfin knights who guard the palace, Alveric carries off the princess before her father has time to speak one of his three deadly runes.
When Alveric arrives back in Erl he discovers that at least ten earthly years have passed and his father is dead. The new Lord of Erl insists that the village Freer (priest) marry him to Lirazel and by the next Spring a son is born to them. Lord Alveric persuades Ziroonderel to come and live in the castle and be baby Orion’s nurse and protector. Meanwhile the King of Elfland sends one of his trolls to find Lirazel and give her a scroll containing a powerful rune. The Princess has not settled well into her new life. She develops little understanding of human ways, fails to worship the Freer’s god properly and is afraid of the effects of Time. After Alveric quarrels with her over what he sees as her heathen behaviour, Lirazel opens her father’s scroll and reads a rune that draws her back into Elfland.
A repentant Alveric looks for his wife but cannot get back into Elfland or even find its twilight frontier. He returns to Erl and assembles a group of five troubled men to help him search the world for a way into Elfland. Alveric’s increasingly desperate quest goes on for many years while his son, Orion, who can hear the Horns of Elfland blowing every evening, grows up obsessed with hunting unicorns. More and more magical creatures are attracted to Erl and in Elfland Lirazel begins to remember her lost husband and son. Can this unhappy family ever be reunited?
Lord Dunsany is a fascinating figure, full of contradictions. On the surface he was the man who had everything, as if only good fairies had come to his Christening. He was a tall handsome aristocrat of Viking descent who married the daughter of an Earl and lived in a castle in Ireland and a manor house in the English countryside. His education at Eton and Sandhurst put him at the heart of the British establishment and yet he never felt that he fitted in anywhere and was widely regarded as hopelessly eccentric. His views were largely conservative but he managed to befriend people of very different political persuasions such as W.B.Yeats, H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Edith Nesbit. He retained a youthful enthusiasm for children’s games but suffered from fits of depression. He was a crack-shot and formidable hunter who worshipped nature (the Dunsany Castle estate is now the largest privately owned nature reserve in Eire). He was a hard-working professional author but was constantly frustrated that most people assumed his life’s work was just a rich man’s hobby. He has always been something of a writer’s writer – his friend and admirer Rudyard Kipling insisted that Dunsany had more imagination than anyone he knew of.
In particular, The King of Elfland’s Daughter has influenced many Fantasy authors from Tolkien to Gaiman. This Fairy Tale written for adults, really gets going just at the point where most traditional tales stop. The hero has rescued the princess but living happily ever after turns out to be the difficult part.There are echoes in the plot of aspects of Dunsany’s life, such as his unhappy childhood (his parents were separated) and his inability to conform to the rules of society, which add depth to the story. Alveric hasn’t of course rescued the princess from a monster but from a loving if over-protective father. Lirazel is caught between a controlling father and a controlling husband but retains her independence of mind.We are told that all human ways are strange to her and she refuses to be guided by old customs or take official religion seriously. Alveric loses his wife because he tries to impose his culture and beliefs on her and is punished by also losing access to the wild beauty of Elfland. His heartbreaking quest to find the blue mountains of Elfland again takes a dark turn because each of his companions has their own agenda. In this story, not all dreamers and visionaries are benevolent.
The most sympathetic character in The King of Elfland’s Daughter is probably the sensible and compassionate witch, Ziroonderel, who uses her broom to sweep away things which shouldn’t be in the world. She is one of a number of Wise Women in Dunsany’s novels and short stories who are usually more intelligent and more powerful than the male characters. Ziroonderel is amused by human failings and elfin arrogance but sometimes intervenes to help Alveric, Lirazel and Orion. When I first read The King of Elfland’s Daughter as a teenager I was horrified by Orion’s unicorn hunting – even though these unicorns are vicious and dangerous beasts. I am more tolerant of the customs of past times than I used to be and I can now see Orion’s hunting as a manifestation of this abandoned child’s longing to overcome his magical heritage and achieve some kind of human normality.
Dunsany’s short Fantasy stories are famous for their very dark humour. In The King of Elfland’s Daughter the humour is of a gentler kind and mainly centres on the experiences which teach the elders of Erl that they should have been more careful what they wished for. The King of Elfland’s troll messenger, Lurulu, is a delightful creation. He is small, brown and endlessly inquisitive. After becoming fascinated by quaint aspects of earthly life that are new to him, he persuades all his fellow trolls to move to Erl where they rapidly cause havoc. Throughout the story Dunsany contrasts the dazzling unchanging beauty of Elfland, where it is perpetual April, with the fleeting beauty of the everchanging English countryside. No-one describes landscapes, whether real or imaginary, better than Dunsany does. You can immerse yourself in beauty by reading this book.
Another of Dunsany’s skills was always choosing the perfect detail to bring something to life or to suddenly change the tone of a scene. Magical swords are common in myth, legend and Fantasy fiction but Alveric’s sword is made from seventeen thunderbolts infused with all the wonders of the English countryside, such as the scent of thyme, the sight of lilac and the sound of the birds that sing before dawn in April. A child is in danger of being lured into Elfland until she remembers that her mother has made a jam-roll that morning while amongst the perfection of the King of Elfland’s palace, Lirazel is haunted by a memory of the fragile beauty of cowslips and violets. Like a genuine myth, The King of Elfland’s Daughter can be interpreted in different ways. There is space within the story for each reader to insert their own feelings. I suspect that many readers will empathise, as I do, with Alveric’s despair at not being able to recapture the intense wonder and beauty of an earlier time in his life. The blue mountains of Elfland always remain just beyond the horizon. Dunsany himself never seems to have lost the ability to travel into dream-worlds. So, if you long for more magic and excitement in your life this Spring, why not try reading The King of Elfland’s Daughter ?