Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy
by Douglas A. Anderson (Editor)

4 out of 5 stars

This collection of short stories, poems, and plays includes works that influenced J.R.R. Tolkien, or are similar to his fantasy style in some way. This list includes George MacDonald, Andrew Lang, William Morris, H. Rider Haggard, Edith Nesbit, L. Frank Baum, Lord Dunsany, E.A. Wycke-Smith, and David Lindsay among others.

“The Elves” by Ludwig Tieck is about a little girl, Mary, who stumbles into a fairy estate hidden in the middle of a rich farmland. The whole area is blessed and fertile because of the fairies there. She stays with them for a few days, and returns to her family to find that it has actually been years, and she has grown up without realizing it. When Mary leaves them, the fairies make her promise to tell no one about them, but she slips up and tells, and then the fairies have to leave the area, and the farmland falls into famine. Mary wastes away from grief and dies. Ugh. Charming. But very typical of traditional fairy tales, where you are punished for betraying the fae.

“The Golden Key” by George Macdonald is about two young people, Mossy and Tangle, a boy and girl who go searching all across the world for the golden key that will bring them to the land of happiness. They go through many adventures to the depths of the earth where they meet the oldest being, and the depths of the forest where they meet the magical grandmother, and the depths of the ocean where they are cleansed, and finally they find the golden key and journey to the land of happiness. This is very rich with symbolism just like all of George Macdonald’s fantasy. It’s whimsical and beautiful!

“Puss-Cat Mew” by E. H. Knatchbull-Hugussen is a fairy tale about Joe Brown, who traveling through the forest of the fairies. He falls in love with a young fairy named Puss-Cat Mew, because she can change her shape into a cat. The ogres and evil dwarfs are terrorizing the forest, and the fairies ask Joe to help them defeat the ogres with trickery and magic. This story is quite violent as they battle against the ogres, and there are lots of descriptions of body parts being blown up and heads being chopped off. But I loved all the trickery and magic of the fairies!

This book has been screened on the Screen It First website for violence and other sensitive content. https://screenitfirst.com/book/tales-before-tolkien-1996893

“The Griffin and the Minor Canon” by Frank R. Stockton tells about a griffin who visits a town of men because he has heard that they have a stone griffin on their church that is his very image. The griffin decides to stay in town, but the townspeople are terrified of him, so they send the canon (a priest) to deal with the griffin. The griffin develops a liking for the canon and they become hesitant friends, but the townspeople turn against them both until the griffin can set things right. The twists in this plot gave me whiplash! The griffin is delightfully funny and weird.

I really hated “The Demon Pope” by Richard Garnett. It’s about the pope who has just been newly elected, and the Devil offers him a deal for power and fame, but he refuses, and he tricks the devil into taking on his appearance and flushing out some frauds among the other cardinals and bishops. It’s really nasty and evil, and the bishops ask for the devil’s help in the most atrocious deeds. But in the end, the good pope humbles them all.

“The Story of Sigurd” is retold by Andrew Lang, and although it is violent and sometimes distressing, I really enjoy the richness of these old legends. Sigurd hears of the treasures guarded by Fafnir the Dragon, and he asks Regin to make him a sword to kill the dragon. The dragon’s gold has a curse on it, and it brings ruin to Sigurd and all his kin. It’s tragic, like most of the old myths, but I still appreciate it for its dark beauty and for the obvious influence on Tolkien.

“The Folk of the Mountain Door” by William Morris is about a king who entertains some very strange guests at the feast. They speak in riddles and make a prophecy about the king’s son being in danger. The king follows them on their journey up into the mountains, seeking answers about how to protect his son. If he builds a tower in the Dale of the mountains, his son will be safe there. Then the strange Folk disappear in a magical door in the mountains, and the king is grateful for their help and warning. This story has a lot of poetry, as the Folk speak in riddles. It’s beautifully written and haunting and full of deeper hidden meanings.

“Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll” by H. Rider Haggard is an adventure story about an evil white trader, Hadden, who is running from the law in Africa. He flees into Zulu territory and asks permission of their king to do some hunting on their lands. He is assigned a bodyguard, the good-hearted Nahoon, to guide him and watch him. Hadden betrays Nahoon and tries to seduce his fiancé and run away with her. His evil actions get them all killed. There is a lot of violence and witchcraft in this story. The adventure is amazing, but some of the content was a bit too dark for me.

“Dragon Tamers” by Edith Nesbit is about a medieval family who discovers that there is a door in their cellar leading to a dragon’s cave. They trick the dragon into being chained up in the cellar, and they charge admission to come see him. They feed him on bread and milk. This fairy tale is so funny and cute! I just love the dragon who tries to be ferocious, but ends up being adorable.

“The Far Islands” by John Buchan is about a young man who grows up daydreaming of far-off magical islands that he can never reach. He dreams of trying to get to the imaginary islands in a boat, but always a mist obscures them and he is lost. When he goes to battle in the World War, he is shot and killed and finally arrives at the islands of his dreams in the afterlife. This was so tragic and sad and pretty weird. It’s odd how this young man is unsociable and holds himself away from everyone, because he is obsessed with his imaginary islands. He’s a very weird dude.

I really hated “The Drawn Arrow” by Clemence Housman, which is about a king who is on the run from rebels in his country. In the desert, he finds a tribesman who is still loyal to the king. The tribesman is captured by the rebels and tortured, but he won’t tell where the king is hiding. When he comes back into power, the king wants to reward the tribesman, but first he wants to test his loyalty further, so he makes some very bad decisions. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s really horrible and tragic! Such a horrible story! I just hated this so much. It made me so sad.

“The Enchanted Buffalo” by L. Frank Baum is about a young buffalo, Prince Oknu, who must fight for the throne of his father when an evil buffalo, Barrag, usurps the throne. Barrag has magic to help him stay in power, so he tries to put a spell on Oknu, but the spell backfires and they fight to the death. This was such a great magical adventure, and I love that it is a completely American fairy tale. It has that great American Old West/Frontier flavor in the writing style!

“Ghu-bu and Sheemish” by Lord Dunsany is a story about two minor gods who are jealous of each other, so they each create an earthquake to show their power and get more worship from the townspeople, but their earthquakes end up destroying their own temple, and no one worships them anymore. This was really silly and hilarious!

“The Baumoff Explosive” by William Hope Hodgson is probably the worst story in this book. It’s about a scientist, Dr. Baumoff, who does an experiment to recreate the crucifixion pain of Christ in an attempt to recreate the darkness that the Bible says came over the land during the crucifixion. But the darkness unleashes a terrible spiritual force of evil and Dr. Baumoff dies in agony. It’s very gruesome and scary, and I had to skip to the end because it was freaking me out!

“The Regent of the North” by Kenneth Morris is about an old Viking who is unwilling to give up his belief in the Norse gods when the rest of his nation has turned to Christianity. He travels into the far North, and lives with some Laplanders for awhile, before setting off alone into the artic tundra where he fights off wolves and meets Odin and Balder. I liked this story okay. I admired the old Viking’s courage, but he was very foolish and stubborn and wouldn’t listen to the Christians. I didn’t really like him. He had a bad temper.

I also hated “The Coming of the Terror” by Arthur Machen, which is about a series of gruesome accidents and murders that are unsolved when people are dying in mysterious circumstances. During World War II, the local British towns start to notice that there are many unexplained deaths, many of them very violent and gruesome, and a doctor and a reporter start to put together some of the clues. This story is just so violent and so so so many deaths, women, children, men, entire families slaughtered in their front yard. I couldn’t stomach it, but the mystery was so intriguing that I had to keep reading. The solution was fascinating, but the ending was kind of disappointing because they never really pinpoint the exact cause of the violence. It’s very psychological and weird, but it had a certain dark fascination.

“The Elf Trap” by Francis Stevens is about a scientist Theron, who goes on a vacation to the Appalachian mountains, where he meets a beautiful gypsy girl. He is enchanted with her, but dismayed to know that she comes from a gypsy group that are known for thieving and dirty living. But when he goes to visit her at the gypsy camp, he is astonished that they are not gypsies at all, but beautiful artists and craftsmen living in lovely homes with gardens and fountains all around. He has fallen into the elf trap. This is another American fairy tale that I enjoyed very much! It was astonishing to see this logical pragmatic scientist gradually succumb to the magic of the elves.

“The Thin Queen of Elfhame” by James Branch Cabell is a very weird story about a knight named Anavalt who leaves his wife and family and goes in search of the Thin Queen of Elfhame. Along the road, he meets many guardians who are supposed to stop knights from entering Elfhame, but when they hear his reasons for searching for the Queen, they let him pass, sensing that his soul is empty. He is delighted to find that the Queen is just a facade without a soul too, and she has no expectations from him like his wife and family had. What a creepy protagonist! The guy leaves his wife because she expects him to love his family and have a soul and be a human. But he seeks out the artifice of Elfhame where he fits in with the Queen without a soul, without love. Super creepy. Hated it.

“The Woman of the Wood” by A. Merrit is about McKay who is vacationing in Eastern France after the first World War, and is drawn to a magical copse of trees across the lake from his hotel. The spirits of the trees ask him to help them against the forester Polleau and his two sons who cut down the trees on their land by the lake. The tree spirits fill McKay with a murderous rage, and he goes to confront Polleau with disastrous results. This was just horrible. You wouldn’t think that trees would be so violent and hateful, but they are absolutely evil! The writing is so powerful that you can really feel the rage of both sides of this war between humans and trees, and the seductiveness of the tree magic. Brilliant, but horrible.

“The Story of Alwina” by Austin Tappan Wright was really boring with very little dialogue. It tells about a Queen Alwina and all the battles and armies and alliances of her country during her reign. It reads like the Silmarillion with this extensive fantasy lore, but it feels like a history book, not a fictional story with dialogue. If I were already invested in the land of Islandia, then I might have enjoyed it more.

“A Christmas Play” by David Lindsay is an adorable fairy tale about Emerald, a fairy who wants to give three poor woodcutter’s daughters a prince to marry for Christmas. She has to get the help of the old witch Nightshade to work the spell for the girls, with wild results because there aren’t enough princes to go around. Each girl must decide what kind of relationship she wants, to marry for love or power or riches. This was a complete delight in every way!

Overall, I enjoyed a lot of the stories in this collection, and some I did not enjoy because of the dark content.