Here Be Dragons (45 page)

114
. J. R. R. Tolkien, “Nomenclature of
The Lord of the Rings
,” in Hammond and Scull,
Reader's Companion
, 775.

115
. Robinson and Petchenik,
Nature of Maps
, 61 ff.

116
. Christopher Tolkien discusses this mistake in
The Return of the Shadow
; see J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien,
The Return of the Shadow
, vol. 1 (London: HarperCollins, 2002), 387n10; see also Hammond and Scull,
Reader's Companion
, lx. From the second edition of
The Lord of the Rings
, it is clear from the text that the Yale is an area: “[the road] bent left and went down into the lowlands of the Yale” (FR, I, iii, 75).

117
. “Note on the Maps” found at the end of each volume in Tolkien,
Lord of the Rings
(1993). See also Hammond and Scull,
Reader's Companion
, lv.

118
. J. R. R. Tolkien,
The Silmarillion
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), 22, 54.

119
. See the first sentence in note 127.

120
. See Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” 37, and Shippey,
Road
, 101.

121
. Shippey,
Road
, 100–101.

122
. For their respective roots, see Hammond and Scull,
Reader's Companion
, lxiii, 769–70, 774–75.

123
. For further discussion about this ambivalence, see the thought-provoking piece by Verlyn Flieger, “Taking the Part of Trees,” and in particular part II in Dickerson and Evans,
Ents
. See also the discussion about Lothlórien in
chapter 3
of this book. The meeting between nature and culture will be explored further in
chapter 4
.

124
. Jourde,
Géographies imaginaires
, 126–28.

125
. Black,
Maps and Politics
, 101–2.

126
. Padrón, “Mapping,” 275.

127
. Both Elrond and Treebeard mention how there were forests reaching from the Misty Mountains to the Blue Mountains; according to Elrond, the Old Forest is a remnant of that ancient woodland, and Treebeard explains how Fangorn Forest is but the easternmost part of the great forests (FR, II, ii, 258; TT, III, iv, 457). For further discussion on Tom Bombadil and Treebeard as the oldest beings, see David Elton Gay, “Tolkien and the
Kalevala
: Some Thoughts on the Finnish Origins of Tom Bombadil and Treebeard,”
Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader
, ed. Jane Chance (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), and Matthew R. Bardowell, “J. R. R. Tolkien's Creative Ethic and Its Finnish Analogues,”
Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
20, no. 1 (2009).

128
. Padrón, “Mapping,” 275.

129
. More if the appendices are taken into account; they trace not only the remaining members of the Fellowship but also their families. See also
chapter 5
, note 11.

130
. The hero's journey seen from a Campbellian perspective will be discussed further in
chapter 3
.

131
. For Fangorn, see note 127. Lothlórien's relation to time and history is discussed in
chapter 3
; also in, e.g., Verlyn Flieger,
A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie
(Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1997), ch. 4; and Stefan Ekman, “Echoes of Pearl in Arda's Landscape,”
Tolkien Studies
6 (2009).

132
. Attebery,
Strategies
, 15.

133
. The significance of the Fangorn and Lothlórien juxtaposition, and the disappearance of magic foreboded by it, is similarly evident in Peter Jackson's
The Lord of the Rings
movies, the first of which opens with Treebeard's words, but spoken by Galadriel/Cate Blanchett; see Peter Jackson, dir.,
The Fellowship of the Ring
(New Line Cinema, 2001).

3. BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES

1
. John Clute, “Thresholds,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 945.

2
. John Clute, “Borderlands,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 128.

3
. Clute, “Thresholds,” 945; John Clute, “Crosshatch,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 237.

4
. Clute, “Borderlands,” 128; Clute, “Crosshatch,” 237.

5
. Clute, “Thresholds,” 945.

6
. John Clute, “Land,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 558.

7
. Roz Kaveney, “Maps,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 624; David Langford, “Talents,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 919–20.

8
. “threshold, n.,” 2a,
OED Online
, December 2011 (Oxford University Press).

9
. Clute, “Thresholds,” 945.

10
. See Clute, “Taproot Texts.”

11
. J. R. R. Tolkien,
Smith of Wootton Major
(1967; London: HarperCollins, 2005), 38, cf. 46.

12
. Lord Dunsany,
The King of Elfland's Daughter
(1924; London: Gollancz-Orion, 2001), 2 et passim.

13
. Neil Gaiman, introduction to
The King of Elfland's Daughter
, by Lord Dunsany (London: Gollancz-Orion, 2001), xii.

14
. “Mundanity, n.,” 3,
OED Online
, December 2011 (Oxford University Press).

15
. Clute, “Crosshatch,” 237.

16
. References to Steven Brust,
Taltos
.
The Book of Taltos
(1988; New York: Ace, 2002), and Steven Brust,
The Paths of the Dead
(New York: Tor, 2002), are given parenthetically in the text.

17
. So far, that is. The Vlad Taltos series is scheduled to be nineteen books in total, but as of August 2012 only thirteen had been published.

18
. The Khaavren Romances are written as a pastiche (or, as Brust calls it, a “blatant rip-off”) of Alexandre Dumas's d'Artagnan Romances. The first novel is thus called
The Phoenix Guards
(1990), the second
Five Hundred Years After
(1994), and the third
The Viscount of Adrilankha
. The last novel is published in three volumes:
The Paths of the Dead
(2002),
The Lord of Castle Black
(2003), and
Sethra Lavode
(2004). See Steven Brust, “Books by Steven Brust,”
The Dream Café
, last modified October 25, 2006,
http://dreamcafe.com/books.html
.

19
. See Dante Alighieri,
Inferno
, trans. Robert M. Durling, vol. 1 (1320?; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), xiv, xvi.

20
. “[T]he descent into Avernus is easy […] but to retrace your steps and return to the upper air, that is the task and the toil.” Virgil,
Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I-VI
(c. 19 B.C.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999): bk. 6 (my translation).

21
. References to Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess,
Stardust: Being a Romance within the Realms of Faerie
(1997–98; New York: DC Comics, 1998), are given parenthetically in the text. Quotations come from the illustrated edition. Page references within square brackets are to the text-only edition: Neil Gaiman,
Stardust
(New York: Avon, 1999). As there are textual differences between the two editions, discrepancies may exist between the quotations given here and the corresponding text in the text-only edition.

22
. See Genette,
Paratexts
, 1–2.

23
. Attebery,
Strategies of Fantasy
, 131.

24
. In 1838: Queen Victoria was on the throne; furthermore “Mr. Charles Dickens was serializing his novel
Oliver Twist
; Mr. Draper had just taken a photograph of the moon” and “Mr. Morse had just announced a way of transmitting messages down metal wires” (7 [5]). The Morse code was presented in 1838. Queen Victoria had ascended the throne in June 1837 and
Oliver Twist
ran until April 1839. Since the Market is on May Day, it must be in 1838. (This does not fit with Draper's photograph of the moon, however, which was taken in 1840 in the actual world.)

25
. Among the most notable examples are the tales of Oisín/Ossian, who believes himself to spend three years in the Land of the Young but returns to find that three centuries have passed; and Thomas the Rhymer, who returns after a time in Elfland to find that seven years have gone by. Fantasy examples range from adaptations of folktale themes or entire stories to more imaginative uses. Examples of the former include the fairy hill in which one night corresponds to a century on the outside in Poul Anderson's
Three Hearts and Three Lions
, the Faerie land of the “nether forest”
where time stands still in some regions (in part two of Bertil Mårtensson's series Maktens vägar:
Vägen tillbaka
[The Roads of Power: The Road Back; 1980]), and Ellen Kushner's
Thomas the Rhymer
(1990). More imaginatively, Jeffrey Ford creates a Faerie (“Twilmish”) time scale predicated on the duration of the sand castle a Twilmish inhabits (“The Annals of Eelin-Ok” 2004).

26
. David Langford, “Time in Faerie,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 948.

27
. Evelyn Edson,
Mapping Time and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World
, vol. 1 (London: British Library, 1997), 16. The thirteenth century Hereford world map provides numerous examples of such monsters; see, e.g., Harvey,
Medieval Maps
, especially the detail of Africa (33). For a more thorough discussion, see Mittman,
Maps and Monsters
, ch. 3.

28
. Erin C. Blake, “Where Be ‘
Here Be Dragons
'?”
MapHist
, April 1999,
http://www.maphist.nl/extra/herebedragons.html
.

29
. Which, it should be noted, is changed to “anyone” in the text-only edition.

30
. “Dionysus,” in
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: Academic Edition
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010); Ovid,
Metamorphoses
, trans. Mary M. Innes (c. 8 A.D.; London: Penguin, 1955), 94 [bk. 4].

31
. “thyrsus,” in
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online: Academic Edition
(Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010).

32
. Together with the man in the silk top hat, Charmed stands behind Dunstan during his first meeting with the fairy girl who is to become Tristran's mother (23), and once she regains her freedom from Madame Semele, he watches from the shadows (203). The hairy little man also watches when Yvaine gives the Power of Stormhold to Tristran (206). Finally, Charmed can be seen in the illustrations on pages 7 and 9 among the people arriving at Wall for the Market without being mentioned in the text. He obviously manages to keep out of sight, however. When Tristran asks around for him at the Market, no one admits to having seen him (204 [316]).

33
. John Clute, “Thinning,” in
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy
, 942.

34
. Clute, “Thinning,” 942.

35
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, 3.

36
. Vess explains that he had free rein when painting this particular picture, since very little had been written about the book or the characters yet. It is therefore rife with people from history and fiction: the Victorian fairy painter Richard Dadd, Ludwig van Beethoven, Merlin and Nimue, Hayao Miyazaki's anime characters Kiki and Totoro, Prince Valiant, and many others, including Neil Gaiman and Vess himself. He adds that for the appearance of the goblin market sellers, he was inspired by Lawrence Housman's illustrations for Christina Rossetti's poem
Goblin Market
(Charles Vess, email message to author, February 15, 2006).

37
. Tolkien, “On Fairy-stories,” 37.

38
. William Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.
The Norton Shakespeare
, eds. Stephen Greenblatt et al. (1600; New York: Norton, 2008), 5.1.7–8. Gaiman and Vess have used this line to connect imagination and Faerie before. In their “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” Shakespeare's play is performed in front of Auberon, Titania, and a nightmarish fairy court. The imaginations proclaimed by the text
are revealed as truths by Vess's accompanying illustrations; see Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” in
The Sandman: Dream Country
(New York: DC Comics, 1995), 82.

39
. References to Garth Nix,
Sabriel
(New York: HarperCollins, 1995); Garth Nix,
Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr
(New York: HarperCollins, 2001); Garth Nix,
Abhorsen
(New York: Eos-HarperCollins, 2003); and Garth Nix, “Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case,” in
Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories
(New York: Eos-HarperCollins, 2005), are given parenthetically in the text.

40
. The name suggests that the country mirrors the Old Kingdom; Fr.
ancien
“old” and
terre
“land, domain.” A number of names suggest a Francophone origin, for instance the Ancelstierran mist-covered capital Corvere; Fr.
couvert
“covered, overcast.”

41
. James Frazer,
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
(1922; Ware, UK: Wordsworth Editions, 1993), 594.

42
. Mendlesohn,
Rhetorics
, 1, 3.

43
. Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
(1949; London: Fontana-HarperCollins, 1993), 30, 36–38.

44
. See Attebery,
Strategies
, 87–88.

45
. Campbell,
Hero
, 217. What Campbell refers to as worlds may, in my terminology, equally well be domains.

46
. Campbell,
Hero
, 217.

47
. Ibid., 77–78.