“Was it worth it?” “Eh?” “Achieving the Grail? Was it worth it?” Sir Bors blinked in confusion at the question. “Why do you ask?” Sir Gawain paused nervously, seeming surprised at his own boldness. The two knights sat in the great hall, and it was empty and dark. All the other members of the Court had departed following the feast, to sport or to hunting or to further feasting in private chambers — or, in the case of a few of that esteemed company’s more venerable members, to bed. Only Bors and Gawain had remained, for they had had a…
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There was once a young woman who lived with her mother in a cottage at the edge of night and the beginning of the sunrise; and the trees all about were dark and silent. Yet they were happy together, for the mother loved her daughter, and the daughter was full-glad in her mother’s company. And the daughter was merry and beautiful and gentle, as kindly as the day and as fair as the fields of flowers that she took delight in. Verily would she have been loved by many, but this was not so. For the mother was wise in…
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I’m back! …kind of. This has been a very slow year for the blog. Since January, I’ve only managed to write four posts, and one of those was a post explaining the lack of posts, which does feel like a bit of a cheat. I have been writing this blog since 2020. I started it in the first place because I wanted to be writing more, and every year since I started it, I have indeed found myself writing more and more. Every year, I have possessed greater motivation, found more time, generally done more. In short, the blog’s absolutely…
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Out of the East he came, far-traveller and great-hearted, and they welcomed him with song and merriment and awe. For mighty he seemed in their company, and strange were the tales of those deeds by which he had won renown, the aged hero come now to rest. In starlit truesilver was he clad, and girt gleaming at his side was ancientry forged by their own forefathers in the height of their fearsome splendour, and many were the sad years that had passed since their glory failed. Threadbare worn was his cloak, for far and wide had he roamed, the great…
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Recovery, Escape, Consolation These three functions are presented by Tolkien in On Fairy Stories as being the noble and proper graces that Faerie and fairy-tale provides; the functions that both serve in their proper form. Fairy stories, Tolkien says, lend a metaphysical comfort and keen succour to the reader who willingly enters into their sub-created enchantment. This is, in a way, a theological function of Faerie – to provide the reader with some fleeting (though not untrue) measure of spiritual bliss. It is perhaps no surprise that the ideas of Recovery and Consolation have often been considered in light of…
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