Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
Encyclopedia
Tad Williams
Robert Paul "Tad" Williams, born in San Jose, California, is the author of several fantasy and science fiction novels, including Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, the Otherland series, and The War of the Flowers....
's epic fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
, comprising The Dragonbone Chair
The Dragonbone Chair
The Dragonbone Chair is the first novel in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. The saga follows a young man named Simon as he is caught up in an epic adventure.-Plot introduction:...
(1988), Stone of Farewell
Stone of Farewell
Stone of Farewell is the second novel in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. The saga follows a young man named Simon as he is caught up in an epic adventure.-Plot introduction:...
(1990), and To Green Angel Tower
To Green Angel Tower
To Green Angel Tower is the third and final novel in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. Due to the length of the novel, the paperback version had to be split into two separate volumes, known as To Green Angel Tower: Part 1 and Part 2...
(1993). The paperback publication of To Green Angel Tower was divided into two volumes, so paperback readers may consider Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn to be a tetralogy
Tetralogy
A tetralogy is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works, just as a trilogy is made up of three works....
rather than a trilogy.
The World of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
The books are set on the continent of Osten Ard, whose inhabitants include SithiSithi
The Sithi are a cryptic, near-immortal elder race from the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams....
(elf
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
-like immortals), Qanuc (troll
Troll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
-like mountain-dwellers), and other races, as well as several distinct human nations. The youthful conquests of King John the Presbyter (also called Prester John) united most of the human world into a single realm, but by the beginning of the first book, the former conqueror is too old and feeble to stop his sons from quarrelling. As the conflict widens throughout their world and beyond, a young orphan struggles to understand enough of it to survive.
The world and story draw upon many sources from history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
. Several characters' elements and experiences mirror the legends of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and other lands (e.g., King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
and Sir Lancelot
Lancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
, Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
, Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga
Baba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
, and Amaterasu
Amaterasu
, or is apart of the Japanese myth cycle and also a major deity of the Shinto religion. She is the goddess of the sun, but also of the universe. the name Amaterasu derived from Amateru meaning "shining in heaven." The meaning of her whole name, Amaterasu-ōmikami, is "the great August kami who...
). The dominant Erkynlanders resemble the medieval English, with Anglo-Saxon/Biblical-sounding personal names in addition to the usual castle-based feudal/agrarian setting of stock fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
. The other peoples of Osten Ard also have identifiable real-world parallels in their names, cultures, and native tongues:
- Hernystiri: IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
/ScotlandScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
/WalesWalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²... - Rimmersmen: VikingVikingThe term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
s and early GermanicGermanic peoplesThe Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
cultures - Nabbanai: Ancient RomansRoman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, medieval ByzantinesByzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
, and RenaissanceRenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and... - Thrithings: Horse nomads of the SteppeSteppeIn physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
such as the Magyars, Kipchaks, and Mongols - Qanuc: InuitInuitThe Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
- Wrannamen: Indigenous peoplesIndigenous peoplesIndigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
of Africa/Australia/Asia/Americas - SithiSithiThe Sithi are a cryptic, near-immortal elder race from the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams....
/Norns: JapanJapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
Also, despite lingering polytheistic echoes of Germanic
Germanic paganism
Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...
and Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
, the main human religion is a reinvented fantasy version of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
mixed with Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
; its primary figure, Usires Aedon, was executed by being nailed upside-down to a tree, reminiscent of the crucifixion of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
and of Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
being tied to the world tree Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil
In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology. It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed...
.
The Dragonbone Chair
The kitchen boy Simon (known as "Mooncalf") muddles his way through the daily routines of castle drudgery in the last days of the old reign and the first few months afterward. As the new reign curdles into suspicion and discontent, the new ruler forms a supernatural alliance with the Sithi Storm-King. Simon is forced to flee into the wilderness, armed only with his mentor's biography of Prester John.As Osten Ard is torn apart, the narrative widens into other parts of the realm through secondary viewpoint characters such as Duke Isgrimnur of Rimmersgard; Maegwin, the daughter of the Hernystiri client king; and Tiamak, a scribe in the marshes of the distant South. Despite terror, starvation, and general bewilderment, Simon manages to find sanctuary with the help of various human and inhuman fellow-travelers.
Three legendary swords — Minneyar ("Year of Memory"), Sorrow, and Thorn — are the only hope against the combined power of the two High Kings, the ancient Sithi and the new-crowned human, who between them have possession of at least one of the swords already. But another sword, once thought lost to the depths of the sea, may still exist in the frozen heights of the north....
Stone of Farewell
Now known as Simon Snowlock, because of the white tuft of hair on his forehead, the former kitchen boy continues his arduous journey in the service of the rebel Prince Josua, brother to the (human) High King, and enters the last great citadel of the Sithi.A nationwide bestseller in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, the novel was well-received by book critics at its 1990 publication. The reviewer for Locus
Locus (magazine)
Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
called it "an epic fantasy you can get lost in for days, not just hours" (it is over seven hundred pages long), and Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
said that Stone of Farewell is a "panoramic, vigorous, often moving sequel to The Dragonbone Chair".
To Green Angel Tower
To Green Angel Tower concludes the taleNarrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
set in the fictional world of Osten Ard.
As the forces of the undead Sithi
Sithi
The Sithi are a cryptic, near-immortal elder race from the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams....
Ineluki, the Storm King, prepare for the kingdom-shattering culmination of their dark sorceries and King Elias is drawn ever deeper into their nightmarish, spell-spun world, the loyal allies of Prince Josua desperately struggle to rally their forces at The Stone of Farewell. And with time running out, the remaining members of the now-devastated League of the Scroll have also gathered there to unravel mysteries from the forgotten past. For if the League can reclaim these age-old secrets of magic long-buried beneath the dusts of time, they may be able to reveal to Josua and his army the only means of striking down the unslayable foe.
But whether or not the League is successful in its quest, the call of battle will lead the valiant followers of Josua Lackhand across storm tossed seas brimming with bloodthirsty kilpa, through forests swarming with those both mind- and soul-lost, through ancient caverns built by legendary Dwarrows and to the haunted halls of Asu'a itself—the Sithi's greatest stronghold.
When first published in the spring of 1993, the book proved problematic for publisher DAW Books
DAW Books
DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company therefore claims to be "the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy." The first DAW Book published was...
, as it was simply too big to be printed in one volume. The U.S. hardcover
Hardcover
A hardcover, hardback or hardbound is a book bound with rigid protective covers...
was well over 1,000 page
Page (paper)
A page is one side of a leaf of paper. It can be used as a measurement of documenting or recording quantity .-The page in typography:...
s long. The paperback
Paperback
Paperback, softback or softcover describe and refer to a book by the nature of its binding. The covers of such books are usually made of paper or paperboard, and are usually held together with glue rather than stitches or staples...
, however, clocked in at 1,600 pages and was thus split into two volumes. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
the two paperback volumes were named Siege and Storm.
External links
- Tad Williams discusses The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower.
- Memory Sorrow and Thorn wiki