The Perilous Realm

 

Author: The Saxon Cross

 

 

“Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold… The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords.”
– On Fairy-Stories, J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Where do our myths and legends and folktales exist? Somewhere deep in our history, somewhere deep in our subconscious? Are they just symbols, are they metaphors, or are they something more?

 

Professor J.R.R. Tolkien coined the name “The Perilous Realm” to describe this place where our legends live. Its the realm of warriors and heroes, elves and goblins, lords of darkness and gods from the far North. It is also where every dead king goes to await his rebirth, where boys go to fight dragons, where young girls go to dance with Nymphs in silver rivers.

 

It is a realm infinitely larger than our own.

 

This is the first of a series of posts where I’ll be broadly exploring this lost realm, and all the myths, symbols, characters, and archetypes that live within.

 

So to get this series started, we will have to begin with some definitions. What is the Perilous Realm? What genres count as “Faerie” stories? What counts as Fantasy in the realm of modern literature?

 

A Faerie-story is simply a story that takes place in the Realm of Faerie, also known as the Perilous Realm. Specifically, they are usually stories about humans that journey into this realm- these stories don’t necessarily have to include any mythic creatures like elves or the “Fae” at all.

 

This Realm is not a separate “universe” from our own, to use a modern term, rather it should be thought of as a sundered world or realities that lies just under (or above) our own. It is essential to understand that they do NOT take place in the land of “make believe”.

 

The most helpful way to conceptualize it may be with the Germanic idea of the “realms” of the world. Our own, Midgard, or “Middle-Earth” in modern English, lies at the center. Above, below, around, and at certain times overlapping with our own world lie other realms. There are roads and gates on Earth that lead to these other worlds. These are the many realms of “Faerie”.

 

To clarify the idea, the “Faerie” realms include all realms outside our own with the exception of the highest and the lowest- heaven and hell. The Fae are not demons, nor are they angels.

 

“O see ye not yon narrow road, So thick beset with thorns and briers? That is the path of righteousness, Tho after it but few enquires. “And see ye not that braid braid road, That lies across that lily leven? That is the path of wickedness, Tho some call it the road to heaven. “And see not ye that bonny road, That winds about the fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elfland, Where thou and I this night maun gae.

 

Now that we know where the Perilous Realm is, we can define what types of stories take place there. We should start by defining what is decidedly not a Faerie story. We will lean on Tolkien’s definitions once again. Essentially, because of the above definition, the realm of Faerie cannot contain anything that is not said or implied to have actually happened somewhere, sometime. The Faerie story must be actually taking place, it must be told with an air of history, even if it is in a separate realm from our own.

 

As the Professor writes, “It is at any rate essential to a genuine fairy-story, as distinct from the employment of this form for lesser or debased purposes, that it should be presented as ‘true’.

 

Tolkien didn’t repeatedly make the distinction that his world of Middle-Earth was a previous era of our world just because he liked the idea. It wasn’t just some quirk or fanciful idea that he did not mean to be taken seriously. He did it because it was absolutely necessary for the tale to work.

 

Even Star Wars sort of understood this- “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”. George Lucas had some understanding that his story had to have actually happened.

 

With this definition, we can definitively say the Perilous Realm does not include:
“It was all a dream” stories like Alice in Wonderland. Dreams play a role in true fantasy, but these stories use dreams subversively. If Alice had actually, literally fallen into Wonderland, it would have been a Faerie story. A story like A Midsummer Night’s Dream toes this line as it is not immediately obvious whether the events are truly just a dream.

 

“Talking Animal” morality tales like Aesop’s fables. Theses stories are not told as true events, but as symbols to convey some moral or “message”

 

“Traveler’s” tales like Gulliver’s Travels. These stories never leave our reality, even if the adventurers find incredible new lands.
Science Fiction. Much like the traveler’s tale, these stories don’t leave our reality either.

 

Much of the modern make-believe D&D style “Fantasy” genre. These stories certainly leave our reality, but so much so that they don’t even land in Faerie. There is no longer any hint of truth or history or legend in them. They are pure fiction.

 

 

Clearly defining what stories do take place in the Perilous Realm is a bit more difficult. True “Faerie Stories” haves their roots in these three genres:

 

• World mythologies
• Regional Folklore
• Historical Legends such as Beowulf, The Iliad, or the Norse Sagas

 

 

Obviously, this is a huge realm. These genres are all made out of the same “stuff”. The stuff of myth, which includes our histories, heroes, archetypes, symbology, subconscious, legends, fears, and dreams. It is a genre that is inherently true in a deep sense. These stories are close to history than they are to fiction. Personal opinions on how true they really are are irrelevant, what matters is that the story teller is telling you something that he believes happened. They happened in our deep history, and in the Perilous Realm.

 

It is easy to identify mythology and folklore, as well as their modern retellings. Where it becomes difficult is in the realm of modern fiction and fantasy.

 

You can make the distinction on what is true Fantasy by comparing it to the above definitions. Is the story told with an air of myth and legend? Or is it science fiction with swords instead of plasma-blasters? Does it take place in the Perilous Realm, or in the land of make-believe?
We can separate modern fantasy into three categories.

 

The first is authors who know exactly what they are doing, they intentionally write myth while they write their “fantasy”. These authors use mythology correctly. They know the archetypes, they know the history. They are telling stories framed as if they are plausibly real. They are the modern legend makers, taking part in the same work as the writers of our oldest legends. Some may call their work fantasy, some may explicitly call their world folklore or fairy tales. These authors may write a version of the Arthurian legend, write a mythology like Tolkien’s, or write something set in the prehistoric Ice-Age like Conan the Barbarian. Up until recently, most fantasy still fell into this category.

 

Then there is the grey area. The gray area is where it becomes unclear whether a story is set in the real of Faerie or in a setting entirely fictional. For example, much of Tolkien’s annoyance with his friend C.S. Lewis was that Lewis toed this line too closely. He used mythic characters in ways that they are not supposed to be used. He threw things together too randomly. It was too close to being a dream. Now, I don’t think Lewis ever crossed the line, his work is still true fantasy, but he pushed the boundaries. Another example would be The Witcher. It uses Slavic mythologic fantastically. But is the story itself Fantasy or fiction? I think that as long as a work can just slightly be framed as history, if there is still a hint of true myth and folklore, if there is any journey into the Perilous realm, it passes as a Faerie Story. Faerie is not a black and white place, so we can leave lots of room in this grey area.

 

But finally, we have a large portion of modern fantasy that has totally lost the plot. Authors will just make up anything, use mythic symbology and archetypes however they choose. There is no implication that the story is in any way true, even in another realm. There is no attempt to use to stuff of myth. Think dungeons and dragons, or It is pure fiction. Again, that doesn’t make it bad necessarily, but it is a completely separate genre from true fantasy and myth. It is Tolkien-themed fiction, nothing more.

 

The current frustration with Fantasy is that many producers have adopted an attitude of “its fiction, so we can do anything”, which alienates the fans of true fantasy and myth. No, you actually can’t do anything in a myth. No, you can’t make dragons and devils misunderstood antiheroes. The Rings of Power flopped because they turned it from a mythology into D&D style fiction.

 

I hope this article provided some clear definitions. The Realm of Faerie is vast, but with very real borders. Myth and Legend cannot be mixed with fiction.

 

 

Author: The Saxon Cross