The Worm Ouroboros: XXI. The Parley Before Krothering

This is a chapter excerpt from E.R. Eddison's 1922 high fantasy novel *The Worm Ouroboros*, written in an archaic, Jacobean prose style that self-consciously imitates Renaissance English. The passage covers a military campaign: the Witchland general Corinius has conquered most of Demonland and marches west with five thousand troops, motivated by both tactical logic and an obsessive desire for Lady Mevrian — sparked solely by finding her portrait among a defeated lord's possessions. Corinius dispatches the reluctant Lord Gro, a Goblinland-born turncoat now serving Witchland, to deliver an ultimatum to Mevrian at Krothering Castle: marry Corinius as queen of Demonland or face violent conquest. Mevrian refuses with contempt, invoking her personal memory of Gro from his more honorable past to shame him, then delivers her rejection publicly while privately hinting that her cousin Spitfire is marshaling a relief army. Distinctively, Eddison renders Mevrian as the chapter's moral and intellectual center — calm, sharp, and openly disdainful — while Gro is portrayed with genuine sympathy as a man of conscience trapped in ignoble service, torn between loyalty to his master and his own sense of decency. The excerpt showcases Eddison's hallmark blend of epic military geography, romantic chivalric tension, and richly ornate diction that sets *The Worm Ouroboros* apart from contemporaneous fantasy.

The Worm Ouroboros: XXI. The Parley Before Krothering

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