Instead of an ISBN, you just get a link this time where you can go read the whole book if you wish.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61077/pg61077-images.html

The King of Elfland's Daughter is one of those works that masquerades as a children's book while inhabiting a space that only adults can fully parse. As with many pieces of literature from the era in which Lord Dunsany, the pen name of Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, a baron, wrote---the audience is best described as ostensibly children in our modern thinking. During his time, though, it appears that it was known that he was writing more for adults. This is considered to be factual since his work had an impact on writers like Tolkien. Tolkien, of course, counts among his readers now many legions of stoners and children, but we see no shortage of adults that admire his contributions.

The King of Elfland's Daughter has a troubling aspect to the way in which the story unfolds. Whereas Tolkien and C.S. Lewis have a good vs evil motif that is apparent, apprehensible, and ubiquitous, The King of Elfland's Daughter is not troubled by this convention. One knows the Eye of Sauron is bad early in the narrative of Tolkien. One knows the Winter Queen is not a friendly, seasonal "light-dusting" kind of Queen in Lewis. No such courtesy is to be found in The King of Elfland's Daughter because one is not sure who one should be cheering for if anyone.

Rather instead of a clear protagonist, everyone in the narrative wants what they want until they get it. Alveric, the mortal king, wants his elf wife, Lirazel. Lirazel wants Alveric, then later longs for her homeland and her father, the Elf King. The entire town counsel of Erl in the earth kingdom Alveric is Lord over wants magic, gets it, and then decides they made a mistake.

A troubling character behind the scenes of many of these cross desires is a witch whose name is Ziroonderel. She is not an especially good-natured entity, but develops as the book moves toward its conclusion. She, for instance, "merges with darkness" and disappears in it.
Alveric, however, to start his quest into Elfland, gets a sword enchanted by her which he must have in order to defeat certain nemeses in the Elfland territory that are not harmed by mortal swords.

A not very reassuring leitmotiv that incessantly chirps like an unwelcome wren throughout the story is that most of the characters in Elfland are eternally damned and sort of like it that way. Lirazel, for instance, cannot wrap her head around any kind of Christian worship and gets everything backwards. The Freer, obviously a kind of Christian proxy in the reading, is busy damning unicorns, trolls, and Will-of-the-Wisps. He damns the union between Lirazel and Alveric with which to start, and of course, when they have a child and name it Orion, he is not especially keen on him either.

The Elf King is not friends with the witch and seems to hate her for reasons not explained fully. There is something about a conversation they had long ago, and how the witch does not get on well with the Elf King, who is mostly concerned about keeping his realm in Elfland secure and free from the influence of time.

It is always the same day in Elfland. When a person goes from the Earth over to the side where it exists, though, they might come back ten years older. The trolls who live in Elfland find time and its passage fascinating, and also find mortal men to be ridiculous.

Orion, the fruit of the union between elf and human, is conflicted as one might be if they were half-blooded to something that Dunsany writes to be possibly forever subject to the dominion of Hell.

Orion, in his childhood, for instance, is raised by the witch who becomes his babysitter. She seems to be good at being a babysitter, but then one cannot help but also remember that she is a dark witch which makes the role she occupies uncomfortable. By the time a troll shows up in the nursery, one is almost thankful for something that has a definitive moral character and bearing.

Orion becomes a hunter, of course, and starts off killing deer in a forrest, but then moves on to killing unicorns with his pack of troll-controlled dogs.
Alveric, during this whole "bloodsport-makes-for-awesome-hunting" time of Orion's life, goes off in search of Elfland with a retinue of crazy people and social outcasts who mostly become disenchanted with the quest as the years roll on and drop out and even prevent Alveric, through a kind of jealously, from achieving the aim of his quest in many instances.

Everything is a swirled-up jumble in terms of morality and magical alignments in this work, but what one walks away with, if one does not damn the whole work to Hell like the Freer, is someone who was especially gifted when it came to writing about the idea of magic, and what rules might apply should one actually find it. Lord Dunsany loves magic, and one cannot help but see him placing much of his own philosophy in the mouth of the witch at a certain key point in the novel which cannot here be disclosed without ruining the journey for the reader. The other character who is, perhaps, another aspect of this philosophy is the Elf King himself as in the end he is faced with what the purpose of magical power is and how to use it.

The tale is as close to talking about the love of Messiah as one can get without actually talking about Messiah and instead using elves and witches to learn an essential truth that the Messiah embodies. It is a peculiar omission, though, to use so much of a cast of characters and avoid the clear mapping to the truth of the Messiah that is obviously suggested by the cautionary parable indicated. One infers that Christianity had and was existing in the twilight before Lewis and his crew had made certain theological bridges and was therefore antagonistic to anything that smacked of Unicorns. Never mind the Re'em in the Bible. A witch? Well, she is a little misunderstood. Sure, she disappears into the darkness, and sure, she forges swords using some recondite, forbidden incantation, and sure, it ruins the lives of things in Elfland, but otherwise, she is okay and after all, she is a witch, so do not expect that much from her. Some bridges are not meant to be crossed. Not suffering a witch to live is a hard stretch to allow a witch---especially a dark one---to live. This is the scaffolding, though, that Dunsany erects the tale upon.

Whatever someone wants to say about The King of Elfland's Daughter one thing is certain, it is categorically not a children's book. A discerning adult can learn much from the tale, but one should be sure that they are first, a discerning adult, and not a child that happens to occupy an adult body.

Original post over at the booklight!