Alianora to Holger:
"'All folk know the Pharisees canna endure broad daylight, so 'tis forever twilit in their realm.'" (p. 37)
Queen Titania to Hamnet Shakespeare:
"There is no night in my land, pretty boy, and it is forever summer's twilight."
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Dream Country (New York, 1995), p. 78, panel 7.
The first denies day, the second denies night, both affirm twilight.
When Timothy Hunter asks Titania whether her palace is far, she replies:
"It is as close as the harvest moon in the evening sky, as distant as a dream on wakening; near as a rainbow, and so remote you could walk for ever and never reach it.
"Is it far?
"No, Timothy. Not far." (Pointing at the palace.)
-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic, Book III, The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 33, panels 4-5; p. 34, panel 1.
Anderson and Gaiman! When I finish blogging this evening, I will return to The Sandman.
Elves were "mysterious" and arcane.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteWhile what Stirling wrote above is true, it's a mark of the influence of Tolkien on fantasy that, because his stories don't show elves as being troubled by sunlight, other writers have taken up that idea.
Anderson's "Strangers" gives us a science fictional treatment of how humans were like elves on another world. Complete with being unable to endure the sun of that planet and being very long-lived compared to the short-lived natives of that world.
I should also mention "Interloper" (1959) where Anderson rationalized elves as being a separate species of intelligent beings which had co-evolved alongside mankind on Earth.
Ad astra! Sean