“After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

THE HUNTING OF THE DRAGON

~G.K. Chesterton

WHEN we went hunting the Dragon

In the days when we were young,

We tossed the bright world over our shoulder

As bugle and baldrick slung;

Never was the world so wild and fair

As what went by on the wind,

Never such fields of paradise

As the fields we left behind:

For this is the best of a rest for men

That should rise and ride

Making a flying fairyland

Of market and country-side,

Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,

Wings upon pot and pan,

For the hunting of the Dragon

That is the life of a man.

For men grow weary of fairyland

When the Dragon is a dream,

And tire of the talking bird in the tree,

The singing fish in the stream;

And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,

And the wonder is stiff with scorn;

For this is the honour of fairyland

And the following of the horn;

Beauty on beauty called us back

When we could rise and ride,

And a woman looked out of every window

As wonderful as a bride:

And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,

And the children cheered and ran,

For the love of the hate of the Dragon

That is the pride of a man.

The sages called him a shadow

And the light went out of the sun:

And the wise men told us that all was well

And all was weary and one:

And then, and then, in the quiet garden,

With never a weed to kill,

We knew that his shining tale had shone

In the white road over the hill:

We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,

We knew that the sunset fire

Was red with the blood of the Dragon

Whose death is the world’s desire.

For the horn was blown in the heart of the night

That men should rise and ride,

Keeping the tryst of a terrible jest

Never for long untried;

Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,

Never in cup or can,

The death of a deathless Dragon,

That is the life of a man.

“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”

Marcus Aurelius

THE RAFT-BUILDERS

By Lord Dunsany

“All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.

When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.

They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces before the ship breaks up.

See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest things—small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden evenings—and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow whole ships.

See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis.

For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor strewn with crowns.

Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first.

There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.”

Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes of Assos

“Most glorious of Immortals, mighty God,

Invoked by many a name, O sovran King

Of universal Nature, piloting

This world in harmony with Law,—all hail!

Thee it is meet that mortals should invoke,

For we Thine offspring are, and sole of all

Created things that live and move on earth

Receive from Thee the image of the One.

Therefore I praise Thee, and shall hymn Thy power

Unceasingly. Thee the wide world obeys,

As onward ever in its course it rolls

Where'er Thou guidest, and rejoices still

Beneath Thy sway: so strong a minister

Is held by Thine unconquerable hands,—

That two-edged thunderbolt of living fire

That never fails.

Under its dreadful blow

All Nature reels; therewith Thou dost direct

The Universal Reason which, commixt

With all the greater and the lesser lights,

Moves thro' the Universe.

How great Thou art,

The Lord supreme for ever and for aye!

No work is wrought apart from Thee, O God,

Or in the world, or in the heaven above,

Or on the deep, save only what is done

By sinners in their folly.

Nay, Thou canst

Make the rough smooth, bring wondrous order forth

From chaos; in Thy sight unloveliness

Seems beautiful; for so Thou hast fitted things

Together, good and evil, that there reigns

One everlasting Reason in them all.

The wicked heed not this, but suffer it

To slip, to their undoing; these are they

Who, yearning ever to secure the good,

Mark not nor hear the law of God, by wise

Obedience unto which they might attain

A nobler life, with Reason harmonized.

But now, unbid, they pass on divers paths

Each his own way, yet knowing not the truth,—

Some in unlovely striving for renown,

Some bent on lawless gains, on pleasure some,

Working their own undoing, self-deceived.

O Thou most bounteous God that sittest throned

In clouds, the Lord of lightning, save mankind

From grievous ignorance!

Oh, scatter it

Far from their souls, and grant them to achieve

True knowledge, on whose might Thou dost rely

To govern all the world in righteousness;

That so, being honoured, we may Thee requite

With honour, chanting without pause Thy deeds,

As all men should: since greater guerdon ne'er

Befalls or man or god than evermore

Duly to praise the Universal Law.”

“And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament the things that are cast away. And there he sitteth lamenting the broken things until the worlds be ended, or until someone cometh to mend the broken things. Or sometimes he sitteth by the river's edge to lament the forgotten things that drift upon it. A kindly god is Jabim, whose heart is sore if anything be lost.”

Excerpt from The Gods of Pegana

by Lord Dunsany

G.K. Chesterton on fairy tales

“SOME solemn and superficial people (for nearly all very superficial people are solemn) have declared that the fairy-tales are immoral; they base this upon some accidental circumstances or regrettable incidents in the war between giants and boys, some cases in which the latter indulged in unsympathetic deceptions or even in practical jokes. The objection, however, is not only false, but very much the reverse of the facts. The fairy-tales are at root not only moral in the sense of being innocent, but moral in the sense of being didactic, moral in the sense of being moralising. . . .

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other – the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard’s wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that they do not eat one fruit: they eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth.

This great idea, then, is the backbone of all folk-lore–the idea that all happiness hangs on one thin veto; all positive joy depends on one negative. Now, it is obvious that there are many philosophical and religious ideas akin to or symbolised by this; but it is not with them I wish to deal here. It is surely obvious that all ethics ought to be taught to this fairy-tale tune; that, if one does the thing forbidden, one imperils all the things provided. A man who breaks his promise to his wife ought to be reminded that, even if she is a cat, the case of the fairy-cat shows that such conduct may be incautious. A burglar just about to open some one else’s safe should be playfully reminded that he is in the perilous posture of the beautiful Pandora: he is about to lift the forbidden lid and loosen evils unknown. The boy eating some one’s apples in some one’s apple tree should be a reminder that he has come to a mystical moment of his life, when one apple may rob him of all others. This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which, so far from being lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding (like common books of ethics) a rationalistic basis for each Commandment, they find the great mystical basis for all Commandments. We are in this fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The vetoes are indeed extraordinary, but then so are the concessions. The idea of property, the idea of some one else’s apples, is a rum idea; but then the idea of there being any apples is a rum idea. It is strange and weird that I cannot with safety drink ten bottles of champagne; but then the champagne itself is strange and weird, if you come to that. If I have drunk of the fairies’ drink it is but just I should drink by the fairies’ rules. We may not see the direct logical connection between three beautiful silver spoons and a large ugly policeman; but then who in fairy tales ever could see the direct logical connection between three bears and a giant, or between a rose and a roaring beast? Not only can these fairy-tales be enjoyed because they are moral, but morality can be enjoyed because it puts us in fairyland, in a world at once of wonder and of war.”

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,

Ash nazg thrakutulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,

Seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,

Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

The Nereid

Clark Ashton Smith

Her face the sinking stars desire:

Unto her place the slow deeps bring

Shadow of errant winds that wing

O'er sterile gulfs of foam and fire.

Her beauty is the light of pearls.

AII stars and dreams and sunsets die

To make the fluctuant glooms that lie

Around her; and low noonlight swirls

Down ocean's firmamental deep

To weave for who glimmers there

Elusive visions, vague and fair;

And night is as a dreamless sleep:

She has not known the night's unrest

Nor the white curse of clearer day;

The tremors of the tempest play

Like slow delight about her breast.

The berylline pallors of her face

Illume the kingdom of the drowned.

In her the love that none has found,

The unflowering rapture, folded grace,

Await some lover strayed and lone,

Some god misled, who shall not come

Though the decrescent seas lie dumb

And sunken in their wells of stone.

But nevermore of him, perchance,

Her enigmatic musings are,

Whose purpling tresses float afar

In grottoes of the last romance.

Serene, an immanence of fire

She dwells for ever, ocean-thralled,

Soul of the sea's vast emerald.

Her face the sinking stars desire.

Modern Elfland

BY G. K. CHESTERTON

I cut a staff in a churchyard copse,

I clad myself in ragged things,

I set a feather in my cap

That fell out of an angel’s wings.

I filled my wallet with white stones,

I took three foxgloves in my hand,

I slung my shoes across my back,

And so I went to fairyland.

But lo, within that ancient place

Science had reared her iron crown,

And the great cloud of steam went up

That telleth where she takes a town.

But cowled with smoke and starred with lamps,

That strange land’s light was still its own;

The word that witched the woods and hills

Spoke in the iron and the stone.

Not Nature’s hand had ever curved

That mute unearthly porter’s spine.

Like sleeping dragon’s sudden eyes

The signals leered along the line.

The chimneys thronging crooked or straight

Were fingers signalling the sky;

The dog that strayed across the street

Seemed four-legged by monstrosity.

‘In vain,’ I cried, ‘though you too touch

The new time’s desecrating hand,

Through all the noises of a town

I hear the heart of fairyland.’

I read the name above a door,

Then through my spirit pealed and passed:

‘This is the town of thine own home,

And thou hast looked on it at last.’

quote from A Defence of Nonsense.

Recompense

By Robert E. Howard

I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazen bugles call,

But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.

I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,

But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.

I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,

But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.

I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,

But I have walked a city's street where no man else had trod.

I have not raised the canopies that shelter revelling kings,

But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.

I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid queen,

But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.

I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall,

But I have seen a woman leap from a dragon's crimson stall,

And I have heard strange surges boom that no man heard before,

And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.

And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind's cold breath,

And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walk the roads of Death,

And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the gloom,

And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.

I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad's haste,

But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy waste.

I have not died as men may die, nor sin as men have sinned,

But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite wind.

A Thing Of Beauty (Endymion)

by John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its lovliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways 
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
We have imagined for the mighty dead; 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

The Jest of the Gods

By Lord Dunsany

Once the Older gods had need of laughter. Therefore They made the soul of a king, and set in it ambitions greater than kings should have, and lust for territories beyond the lust of other kings, and in this soul They set strength beyond the strength of others and fierce desire for power and a strong pride. Then the gods pointed earthward and sent that soul into the fields of men to live in the body of a slave. And the slave grew, and the pride and lust for power began to arise in his heart, and he wore shackles on his arms. Then in the Fields of Twilight the gods prepared to laugh.

But the slave went down to the shore of the great sea, and cast his body away and the shackles that were upon it, and strode back to the Fields of Twilight and stood up before the gods and looked Them in Their faces. This thing the gods, when They had prepared to laugh, had not foreseen. Lust for power burned strong in that King’s soul, and there was all the strength and pride in it that the gods had placed therein, and he was too strong for the Older gods. He whose body had borne the lashes of men could brook no longer the dominion of the gods, and standing before Them he bade the gods to go. Up to Their lips leapt all the anger of the Older gods, being for the first time commanded, but the King’s soul faced Them still, and Their anger died away and They averted Their eyes. Then Their thrones became empty, and the Fields of Twilight bare as the gods slunk far away. But the soul chose new companions.

from Time and the Gods (1905)