Some weird and fascinating stories. The language and structures of these stories is archaic and it takes a little work to follow where the author is going. The effort is worth the trip in most cases. Lord Dunsany has a wild imagination and takes the reader for quite a ride. ( )

Review of just the title story:

The city of Merinma's heroes and defenders are legendary. Just the rumors of their martial prowess have effectively protected the city into an age of peace and safety. Which has been a good thing, since all the heroes are long-dead, leaving only statues and monuments behind. But when the city finally faces emboldened invaders, the spirit of those heroes enters the populace... but also causes them to realize that an era is passed and gone.
Dunsany's artificially elevated language may be slightly off-putting to some, but this is an interesting, thought-provoking tale. ( )

The professor, speaking the truth, has no fault, but he and the ones who declared the commercial success of the "tolkenian" vision of fantasy (Terry Brooks and Dungeons & Dragons above all) were a curse for this genre. Today, any writer of fantasy must deal with the pattern elves-dwarves-orcs-humans-hobbits/halflings to embrace it, deny it or parody it, at least to some extent.Maybe fantasy was much more simple for Lord Dunsany: there was no Tolkien, no Terry Brooks, no Weis-Hickman; he had not to care about what other fantasy writers had written before him because there had been nearly none. Maybe he had heard something about William Morris and George Macdonald, and read some of their books, but even so fantasy at those times was like a virgin forest, waiting to be discovered. Nowadays I imagine this same forest crossed by a highway and its trees cut down to build a metropolis... but that's another story.
Yes, maybe fantasy was much more simple for Lord Dunsany: in no other ways I can explain his originality, the freshness of his tales, the sense of wonder he is able to move in the reader. Lord Dunsany writes fantasy and he doesn't feel any shame in using elements which today fantasy(less) writers will firmly refuse: he makes talk an Earthquake and a Hurricane; he makes one of his characters speak with a Whirlpool resting on the sand (!!!); he makes your spine chill with his honiric landscapes (oh my god, the dreams of Gaznak); he summons the reader in his tales. And then he leaves him free.
Of course, some novels in the collection are more exciting than others: I loved "In the twilight"and "The fortress Unvanquishable, save for Sacnoth" while "The Fall of Babbulkund" bored me a little.
Somewhere you will find christian-influenced elements and maybe you too, you will think "Oh no, another Lewis!" as I did at first. But keep on reading: you will notice that the religious parts too, far from being moral lessons for the "pious" reader, are well inserted in the context, enriching the story.
Am I forgetting something? Yes, the language. Well it's not so difficult: sometimes you will need a little patience, but nothing compared to William Morris's The wood beyond the world. So don't worry. Four stars, no doubt. And now the gods of Pegana await me. ( )

There's no overt connection between the short stories making up this collection, but there's a common theme of what might be called dreamlikeness. Some, notably the title story and "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth", are very good, some, like "The Kith of the Elf-folk", marred by the author's (affectedly naive?) anti-modernism.

Présentation de l'éditeur : ' Je parvins un jour à une roule qui vagabondait en accordant si peu d'attention à son but qu'elle convenait parfaitement à mon humeur. ' Ainsi commence ' Le Seigneur des villes ', l'avant-dernier conte de L'Épée de Welleran - précieux recueil qui mêle avec déchirement les mondes imaginaires pétris de Bible et d'Iliade chers au rêveur Dunsany, et les noires contingences du réel. Les amoureux des deux ' Livres des merveilles ' entreront dans L'Épée de Welleran comme en une maison familière aux trésors toujours renouvelés. Les nouvelles du maître irlandais n'ont jamais la pesanteur d'une épopée: qu'elles parlent de cités trop riches pour leur bonheur, de fantômes, de vents contraires, d'elfes ou de guerriers morts qui défendent en rêve leurs remparts, elles sont autant de visions fugitives sur la route errante de l'écrivain. Chaque nom, chaque créature, chaque histoire ajoute une épaisseur supplémentaire au monde de Dunsany, terre aussi ironique qu'onirique. Miracle du livre - ou des livres : ces visions fragiles, le lecteur peul les retrouver à tout moment, et, comme l'héroïne du ' Peuple des elfes ' vivre à demi dans les rêves. Avec L'Épée de Welleran, Terres fantastiques poursuit une aventure éditoriale singulière, riche déjà du Livre des merveilles, du Dernier livre des merveilles, des Dieux, de Pegana et du Temps et les dieux.
Biographie de l'auteur : Edward John Moreton Draw Plunkett, XVIIIe baron Dunsany, naît en 1878 à Londres dans une vieille famille irlandaise. IL fera ses études à Eton, puis à Sandhurst, le ' Saint-Cyr britannique '. Mais la carrière de la plume prévaut sur celle des armes et Lord Dunsany se lance à corps perdu dans l'écriture. Professeur, journaliste, conférencier, il particpera également activement au développement de l'Abbey Theatre avec son ami W. B. Yeats. Son œuvre, encore mal connue en France, puise sa force aux sources de la mythologie celtique. Il meurt en 1957, reconnu par de nombreux auteurs, parmi lesquels le flamboyant H. P. Lovecraft, comme un des maîtres de la littérature fantastique. ( )