Sources of Lord of the Ring

The Worm Ouroboros: XXIV. A King in Krothering

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*The Worm Ouroboros* is a 1922 high fantasy novel by E. R. Eddison, written in a deliberately archaic, Jacobean prose style that imitates Renaissance English. This excerpt depicts a confrontation at a victory banquet in conquered Demonland, where the occupying lord Corinius attempts to coerce the captive Lady Mevrian — sister of the defeated king — into accepting him as her consort and queen. Mevrian refuses with cold, aristocratic composure, meeting his drunken advances with pointed wit and open contempt until she simply walks out, leaving Corinius sprawled on the floor after tripping over a bench in his lunge to stop her. The scene's most distinctive element is Mevrian's moral authority: though a prisoner, she controls every exchange, and the narrative frames her departure as a kind of victory while Corinius is reduced to comic humiliation. Meanwhile, three of Corinius's own officers — Gro, Laxus, and Heming — secretly conspire to help Mevrian escape, motivated by a mix of jealousy, decency, and political calculation. The passage exemplifies Eddison's characteristic blend of heroic grandeur and ironic undercutting, with its title's promise of divine aid for the worthy fulfilled not by gods but by enemies turned unlikely rescuers.

The Worm Ouroboros: XXIV. A King in Krothering

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