Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/4



The Shining Land Found Again

LTHOUGH "Lost Elysium" in this number is a sequel to "The Shining Land" (, July, 1945) author Edmond Hamilton writes us that he had no thought of a follow-up yarn when he wrote that first novelette.

"But after it appeared," Hamilton says, "I began to realise how many interesting possibilities there were for a second yarn."

Herewith are some further notes on the story, forwarded by Edmond Hamilton:

"Lost Elysium," like "The Shining Land," had its source in my long interest in Celtic mythology. Years ago I stumbled on Roleston's "Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race," in my estimation still the best popular account, and ever since then have read everything I could find on this fascinating subject.

It has always seemed to me that the Celtic tales have more imaginative splendor than any other mythology. They do not have the graceful perfection of the Greek legends, nor the dark, grim power of the great Norse saga of the doomed Aesir, but in sheer, magic beauty they are incomparable.

Perhaps the most remarkable and distinctive feature of Celtic mythology is the predominance of their strange conception of an Otherworld or Elysium, distinct from the ordinary Earth. It was called Tir Sorcha, or the Shining Land, but was also called Tir nan Og, the Land of Youth, or Tir n'Aill, the Other World.

It was not primarily, like the Greek Elysium, an abode of the dead. Rather it was conceived as a realm of wondrous, golden beauty that existed somewhere in the Western Ocean but could not be seen by ordinary eyes because it was detached magically from our Earth. It was persistently pictured as consisting of many islands, and the Celts believed that more than one adventurer had managed to enter it and wander through the enchanted archipelago. "The Voyage of Bran" and the "Voyage of Maledune" are accounts of such adventures, the latter having been turned into a fine poem by Tennyson.

The great Cuchulain, hero of the later Ultonian myths, also entered this Elysium and there met and loved Fand, one of the great figures of the superhuman Tuatha race. But the Tuatha, more correctly the Tuatha de Dannan, had themselves previously invaded Earth in the fourth of the five great invasions listed by Celtic chronology, and had here fought and defeated the dark and evil Fomorians who were the most hated and dreaded of prehuman races.

From all this dramatic material, which I must emphasize is here only briefly summarized and has many variant versions, I tried to select those incidents and characters which could be woven into a story that would illustrate the richness of the old Celtic lore without doing too much violence to its traditions.

It may be of interest to note that one of the most famous of 20th Century (Continued on Page 32)

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