{"collection":"Sources of Lord of the Ring","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_ring_two_two40_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_ring_two_two40_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_ring_two_two40_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/ring/two/two40.htm","summary":"*The Worm Ouroboros* (1922) is a high fantasy novel by E.R. Eddison, working in the tradition of epic romance and Norse saga. This particular excerpt is the book's annals appendix \u2014 a chronological timeline of the fictional world's history spanning several centuries, anchored to the four-year period (399\u2013403 A.C.C.) that constitutes the novel's main action. The story centers on the war between the lords of Demonland (Juss, Goldry Bluszco, Brandoch Daha, Spitfire) and the sorcerer-kings of Witchland (the successive Gorice dynasty), involving fantastically named nations \u2014 Goblinland, Pixyland, Impland \u2014 across a secondary world of ornate invention. The plot moves through wrestling matches between kings, magical abductions, epic sea battles, mountain quests to rescue an ensorcelled hero from an impossible peak, political betrayals, and a final climactic siege, ending with the complete destruction of Witchland's ruling house. Eddison's distinctive perspective is one of unapologetic aristocratic aestheticism: the chronicle revels in martial glory, dynastic intrigue, and heroic grandeur without irony, presenting war and conquest as beautiful rather than tragic. Readers drawn to densely world-built, archaic-prose epic fantasy \u2014 closer to William Morris or Tolkien's sources than to modern genre fiction \u2014 will find this a foundational and stylistically extreme example of the form.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Worm Ouroboros: Argument: with Dates","tradition":"Sources of Lord of the Ring","translated_text":null,"word_count":1501}