Volume 9 Number 1 Article 1

4-15-1982

"All Shall Love Me and Despair": The Figure of Lilith in Tolkien, Lewis, Williams and Sayers

Meredith Price Independent Scholar

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Recommended Citation Price, Meredith (1982) ""All Shall Love Me and Despair": The Figure of Lilith in Tolkien, Lewis, Williams and Sayers," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 9 : No. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol9/iss1/1

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Abstract Examines Lilith-figures in Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, and Sayers, discussing how each demonstrates certain attributes of the archetypal temptress character.

Additional Keywords Lewis, C.S.—Characters—Jadis; Lewis, C.S.—Characters—Lady of the Green Kirtle; Lilith (archetype) in literature; Sayers, Dorothy L.—Characters—Helen (“The Devil to Pay”); Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Galadriel; Williams, Charles—Characters—Lily Sammile; Williams, Charles—Characters—Succubus (Descent Into Hell); Nancy-Lou Patterson

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol9/iss1/1 MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 page 3

"All Shall Love Me and Despair"The Figure of Lilith in Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, & Sayers

Meredith Price

Who is L ilith? According to Hebrew tradition, she measure of a common set of attributes: 1) association was the first wife of Adam, cast out of Eden for insub­ with the garden m otif, 2) great beauty (or at least, ordination and doomed to roam the world a m alevolent allure), 3) im m ortality, 4) association with the cold sp irit. Mother of the Jinn, her name means "the Noctur­ or with darkness, 5) dominion over (or at least truck nal One," and she is the sp irit of whirlwinds and des­ with) a host of hideous creatures. truction. Able to assume the shape of a beautiful woman, she is the sm otherer and devourer of children, To begin w ith, each author at some point associ­ seducer and strangler of men. Long an archetype in ates each of the L ility figures with some manner of C hristian and Heorew literatu re, she sometimes appears garden, recalling to the reader's mind The Garden in as the w ife of Satan and occasionally emerges as "Dame which God created L ilith and from which He later barred H ell,"1 synonymous w ith the Devil him- (or should we her. For example, the M irror of G aladriel, beside say "her-"?) self. which Frodo w itnesses the Lady's potential for evil, stands w ithin "an enclosed garden" (FR, 468).8 S im i­ Three im portant C hristian authors of the famous larly, Lewis portrays Jadis, unable to pass the gates Oxford w riters' group, the Inklings, made use of the of A slan's garden, scaling the w alls to steal the L ilith image. Charles W illiams did so quite explicitly apples from the Tree of L ife (MN, 159-60) w hile the in his Descent into H e l l , 2 where aspects of L ilith are Green W itch first appears beside a fountain near a wood readily apparent both in the person of Lily Samnile where the court went maying (SC, 51). Later, both (whose character also incorporates the Sem itic storm - attem pt to seize control of the garden paradise of Nar­ d em o n Sam ael3 ) and in the false Adela or succubus. By nia (LWW, SC). Likewise, Sayers, who uses the L ilith contrast, J.R.R. Tolkien's use of the m otif in The figure more openly, has Helen (L ilith) remind Faustus Fellowship of the Ring4 is the least explicit, to be (Adam) of th eir love "in the old, innocent garden" be­ found in the figure of G aladriel—not as she is, but fore the coming of Eve (DP, 66). W illiams also employs as she would become under the influence of the One the garden m otif: the chapter entitled "Return to Eden" Ring. C. S. Lewis falls somewhere in the middle with (DH) sees the succubus lead Wentworth down into the his portraits of Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, an false, internal paradise of his own body; afterw ards, enchantress descended from L ility (LWW, 77) and sharing he must carry her across the threshold into his own many of her attrib u tes, and in the Emerald Witch (The garden—she cannot pass the gate herself (DH, 129). Silver Chair5) who is "one of the same crew" (SC, 22).6 Meanwhile, Mrs. Sammile stands "at the gate—of In addition to the three Inklings, another C hristian (Pauline's) garden or world or soul" (DH, 111), en­ author, Dorothy L. Sayers (who had contact w ith the treating Pauline to let her enter and lead the way to group through Lewis) also employed the L ilith m otif in G o m o r r a h .9 her Faustian drama, The Devil to Pay.7 Here L ilith emerges as synonymous w ith the pagan Helen, whose In addition to each author's linking the L ilith beauty destroyed the Trojans and ravaged the Greeks. figure with the garden m otif, an attrib u te shared by These six figures are all recognizable descendants from a ll, a ll six also partake in some respect or beauty, a cannon prototype in that they all partake in large usually a superhuman loveliness in association with MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 page 4

century A.D. Greek legend makes her, like her brothers the D ioscuri, undying. Finally, W entworth's youthful succubus is "m illions of years older than" Pauline's dying grandmother (DH, 134), and L ily Sam nile, though "an old woman pretending youth," is an "ancient w itch" (EH, 208), existing from time out of mind. L ilith is, then, for these authors, an eternal sp irit, tireless, recurring, a demon which the individual may reject but not destroy.

Finally, ld lith 's beauty and im m ortality make her the m istress of darkness, in association with the hideous, inhuman creatures of the night: Frodo's vision of L ilith-in-G aladriel occurs at night, and the armies of Sauron (who is a m asculine version of what Galadrie^ would become were she to take the Ring) include the ores and tro lls, Balrogs and Nazgul: creatures which shun the light of day. Likewise, Jadis' army consists of horrors, cruels, and incubuses; ghouls and were­ wolves; ogres and m inotaurs (LWW, 132, 148), w hile her sacrifice of the Lion takes place at night. So too, the Bnerald W itch, w ith her sunless Underworld of ugly gnomes (SC).12 Glen GoodKnight discusses th is "stealer of the light" m otif as well as that of the demon hoard and Sauron's sim ilarity to the L ilith figure in his "L ilith in N arnia," appearing in the Narnia Conference Proceedings, 1969. Sim ilar to these characters of Lewis and Tolkien, W entworth's nocturnal, false Adela is one of Satan's succubi (DH, 126), while L ilith pat­ ters through the night on B attle H ill and crouches in her sunless graveyard shack (the endless floor of which slants down to H ell), surrounded by the w raiths of the damned (DH, 206). So, too, Sayers' Helen, attended by devils, M ephistopheles' creature, who woos stature. Tolkien's G aladriel, for example, an elf- Faustus to his damnation, symbolized by a darkened maiden already fa ir and ta ll (FR, 459) would become m irror and an eclipse of the sun (DP, 23, 71, 115). under the influence of the Ring "beautiful and terrib le as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the The garden, beauty, inm ortality, darkness and Sun and the Snow" (FR, 473). Lewis's Jadis is also demons: these, then, are a few of the key attributes ta ll and breathtakingly beautiful (MN, 48),10 but is shared to a great degree by the L ilith figures of stern and cold as well (LWW, 27). Likewise the fair Lewis, Tolkien, W illiam s, and Sayers. But when one Bnerald W itch who, though m errier-seem ing (SC, 75), is examines other attributes, particularly the nature of "green as poison" (SC, 51). The legendary beauty of L ilith 's power over m ortals, one discovers two dis­ Sayers' Helen is, of course, "Beyond a ll splendour of tin ct poles toward one or both of which a ll six figures stars" (DP, 40), and in W illiam s' tale, Wentworth gravitate: the celestial pole versus the chthonian finds the succubus both beautiful and infinitely se­ one.13 The celestial L ilith (I choose the term be­ ductive (EH). Only Lily Samnile seems at first to be cause of the star imagery Tolkien and Sayers use in odd woman out, but she, too, has something to do with connection with herl4) i s sp irit of outwardly di­ beauty. Though Pauline as first perceives her to be rected power: a queen, indeed, almost a goddess, capa­ short and unattractive, with "cheeks...a little ble of overwhelming her resisters by main force. She macabre" and eyes having a "hint of hollow about them, is a cosmic vision, "The sp irit of power" (DP, 98), she realizes "Mrs. Samm ile's face...had once been inspiring war. G aladriel, for example, were she to beautiful." Moments later, as Pauline begins to fall take the Ring, would doubtless overthrow "the Dark under the demon's influence, L ilith becomes more Lord (an d )...set up a Queen" (FR, 473) by means of attractive as Pauline reconsiders: "she had been un­ some great warhost not unlike those of Sauron and Sar- just to Mrs. Sanm ile's eyes. They were not restless uman. Jadis, too, fought a great war against her ____ They were soothing; they appealed and comforted siste r for dominion of her own dying world (MN, 60-61) at once" (DH, 59). Later, the mere touch of L ilith 's and later amasses troops to put down the Narnian rebels hand is enough to tempt Pauline w ithin an inch of (LWW). The Emerald W itch likew ise plots the conquest damnation. Doubtless the four authors stress the of Narnia, sending R ilian w ith "A thousand Earthmen at beauty and allure of L ilith to symbolize the unearthly (his) back...(to) fall suddenly on (her) enemies, slay magnetism of things forbidden and desired. their chief men, cast down th eir strong places" (SC, 137-38). Sim ilarly, Helen inspired the bloody Trojan But if L ilith is beautiful, she is also inm ortal: War, and later Faustus turns from altru istic acts of G aladriel is already so, without becoming L ilith , for charity to mass m artial slaughter after she seduces the Lady of Lorien has lived "though ages" for "years h im . uncounted" (FR, 462), and though she "w ill dim inish, and go into the West" (FR, 474), she cannot die. Ja­ But alongside th is awesome vision of an all-pow er­ dis, too, slept among her ancestors in the hall of ful, irresistable ravisher runs another conception of images for "hundreds of thousands of years" and more L ilith 's might. Besides the celestial stands the (MN, 62) and after eating the apple of youth, becomes chthonian L ilith: L ilith the serpent,15 the cunning im nortal (MN, 161).11 The sem i-divine, eternally persuader, L ilith the seducer. This is not one to con­ young Helen in Sayers' drama is, of course, transported quer another against his w ill. Hers is a far more across the from pre-C lassic tim es to the sixteenth personal damnation—she beguiles only "longing eyes and MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 page 5

eager hands" (DH, 126, enphasis m ine). Those who come guiled R ilian her hand in m arriage. Wentworth attains to this L ilith come of their own free w ill (thereby an idealized "personalized" copy of Adela. But for losing it), and though only seme of our authors' L ilith women, the g ift is beauty itse lf, as when the L ilith figures gravitate toward the celestial pole, a ll in­ in G aladriel offers the Lady such beauty that "'A ll clude seme aspect of the chthonian tem ptress. Went­ shall love me and despair!'" (FR, 473). w orth's succubus is the best exanple: it is "quite sub­ ordinate to him" (DH, 86), an object for him to "de­ In addition to beauty, L ilith also offers knowledge lightfully tyrannize" and which "cajoled him—in the beyond that of most m ortals. G aladriel reveals visions p rettiest way—to love her" (DH, 127). Likewise to Frodo and Sam which they cannot understand.17 Simi­ W illiam s' Lily Sanmile can only invite, entreat, offer: larly, along with Helen, the devil offers Faustus "Give me your hand and I 'll give you a foretaste now" "m aster(y) of the words of power" (DP, 41), and Jadis (DH, 110, enphasis mine)—she cannot take Pauline's tem pts Digory w ith "knowledge th at would have made you hand, force the forbidden knowledge on her: th is happy a ll your life" (MN, 160). Lily Sanmile offers chthonian L ilith can be resisted. Sayers' Helen, too, Pauline forbidden experience, "sights and sounds, is plainly the seducer with siren 's call, "0 love, touches and th rills" (DH, 110) and bids her, '"Think hast thou forgotten (me)?" (DP, 65). Lew is's charac­ what you might be m issing!'" (DH, 109) w hile Wentworth ters as well have elements of the tem ptress. The seems to see things clearer in the m ist (DH, 84). In Bnerald W itch, for example, woos R ilian w ith visions, the latter three cases, in which the L ilith is genuine, inviting him to came to her (SC, 50-51), and Jadis be­ the knowledge offered is not only beyond the realm of guiles Ednund w ith enchantment, pretended kindness, proper human experience, but beyond the realm of per- and prom ises (LWW, 30-36). Even G aladriel, who would, m issable experience as w ell. It is taboo, forbidden like Wentworth, be her own seducer, must w restle w ith fru it, no less that "Turkish" (i.e ., un-C hristian) de­ the decision whether to accept the Ring from Frodo and l i g h t . become L ilith , or reject it "and remain G aladriel" (ER, 4 7 3 - 7 4 ) . But whether it be knowledge, beauty, or power, what L ilith really offers is inm utability: first a change The polarizations, then, are far from complete, for the better (only the dissatisfied turn to L ilith) and it is at this second pole—the "chthonian" pole of and then that desired state fixed eternally—perpetual tem ptation and seduction—that L ilith becomes most and unchanging. G aladriel wishes that Lorien would not keenly L ilith . The tenptations she offers are many and fade. Lily Sanmile offers Pauline eternal permanence varied. She is, in fact, "all things to all men" (DP, (DH, 209). Wentworth retreats into his quiet inner 97). She proffers "Crowns for the victor, crowns,/ world, flees frem the changing world outside. Likewise Riches and wisdom, honour and glory and blessing" (DP, lew is's Jadis seeks to keep Narnia "Always w inter and 208) in Sayers' drama. Fbr W illiam s, she hold out never Christm as" (LWW, 16), and turns her enemies to "health, ... money, ... life, ... good looks and good stone, while Faustus desires perpetual youth and the im­ luck, ___ peace and contentment" (EH, 208). Indeed, m ortal unchanging Helen (DP, 70). Such inm utability, she offers "Everything, anything; anything, everything" however, the four authors make clear, goes against the (EH, 112). In short, she would give to each person his laws of God. Sayers' Judge proclaim s, "'A ll things God heart's desire (which seems inevitably to fa ll into one can do, but th is thing He w ill not: / Unbind the chain or more of three categories: beauty, power, knowledge16) and she often uses a dual approach, appealing to her victim 's alturism and narcissism sim ultaneously.

On the altru istic side lies power, the power to do good for others. At one point, Pauline is almost in­ duced "to indulge...in the sp iritu al necromancy of Gcmorrah" (DH, 209) out of pity for the pathetic Lily Sanmile. So, too, Digory wants the apple of youth to heal his mother (MN, 162), w hile Edmund envisions im­ proving the road system of Narnia (LWW, 87). In the same vein, Faustus demands power to end world poverty (DP, 42); R ilian only desires to please his lady in conquering Narnia (SC, 132, 134), and G aladriel would preserve Lothlorien (ER, 473). However, another side often exists to the power L ilith offers, a narcissistic side. Jadis first offers Digory the apple for him­ self (MN, 161). Eckmund desires to be crown prince "to pay Peter out for calling him a beast" (LWW, 85). Likewise, after pledging his soul to Helen (DP, 70), Faustus turns his power to ev il, and G aladriel knows her power would eventually corrupt. Power alone is enough for some, a ll good intentions absent: Sayers' Emperor longs for the power of Helen solely that he might "Crush the Pope...and...be sovereign of the world" (DP, 89), and Wentworth wants his own in terio r world where he alone is God (DH. 86-87).

If L ilith appeals both to the individual's self- love and to his love of others through her g ift of power, she appeals wholely to human vanity w ith her g ift of beauty. For men, this beauty resides in the form of a beautiful woman, carnal possession of whom the m asculine ego demands. The Emperor and Faustus both desire Helen. The Emerald Witch offers the be­ MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 page 6

L ilith 's gifts, then, are a cheat. The four auth­ ors agree whole-heartedly on this point. Not only does the recipient w ither and fade, but the g ifts them­ selves do as w ell,18 for they are nothing: illusions, images, air. With sw eet-sm elling smoke and a subtle music, the Queen of the Underworld seeks to convince R ilian, the children, and the Marshwiggle that the Sun­ lit Lands are but "foolish dreams" copied "from the real world, this world of mine" (SC, 157). But the words of L ilith are nonsense, Unreason, the "meaning­ less gabble"19 of "the guardian of a ll the circles of hell" (DH, 207). Jadis' food is sweet, but it cannot satisfy; L ilith "desired infinitely to seem to give suck" (DH, 207), but her breasts are dry. H e le n 2 0 " i s vanished! M elted away / Clean from our hands—only her garments left! 0 sorcery:” (DP, 1 0 0 ) . So, too, Went­ w orth's succubus—im perceptible to a ll but one: damned Adela, already halfway into H ell—which is but "a pban- taan ( ), evoked from and clouded and thickened with the dust of the earth or the sweat of the body or the shed seed of man or the water of ocean, so as to bewil­ der and deceive" its w illing consort (DH, 126). This "Image w ithout incarnation" (DH, 127) fades frcm exis­ tence the moment Wentworth shuts the door (DH, 136). And Sauron's kingdom, b u ilt upon the Power of the Ring, exists largely in the surreal half-w orld of the Ring- w raiths. Its counterpart, Lothlorien, though as solid and intensely real as the Lady is fair, is also based upon the One Ring's power. Its time flows outside that of the rest of Middle Earth (FR, 503), and it, too, w ill perish with the destruction of the Ring (FR, 472).

L ilith, then, our authors agree, is not the marve­ lous enchantress beautiful and desirable, giver of g ifts of cause and consequence, / Or speed tim e's arrow back­ and teller of tales all true. So she would have her w ard'" (DP, 109), and the redeemed Pauline exclaim s to blinded victim s to think, but she is a liar. She offers L ilith, "'I only want everything to be as it is. ... and not the heart's desire, but bitterness, not joy but if it changes, it shall change as it must, and I shall self-deception. Cut off from communion w ith humanity, want it as it is then.' 'Change,'" m utters L ilith. denying them selves outward sustenance, her victim s col­ "'I don't change.'" (DH, 209). lapse in upon them selves like burned-out stars, recede inward toward damnation and death. Worse yet, the de­ generation takes place without the victim 's knowledge But L ilith 's follow ers do not, in fact, experience (L ilith is, as Sayers calls her, "a worm in the brain,” endless v itality and youth. Instead of finding satis­ DH, 98): Lewis’s R ilian did not know he was enchanted, faction, they become "Insatiate" (DH, 109). The food nor W illiam s' Wentworth, nor Sayers' Faustus. Were Jadis offers Edmund is "enchanted... (so) that anyone Tolkien's G aladriel to take the Ring, she would, like who had once tasted it would want more and more of it" Bilbo, fall beneath its influence insideously. L ilith (LWW, 33) much like Lily Sammile 's food, "The nourish­ is, for these four authors, truly "She of the N ight," ment of (which) ... disappeared at once" (DH, 206). demon patroness of the tim e when shadows sh ift, forms The damned soul is then left with nothing but itse lf to fade into indistinction, and dreams d rift in to cloud "live and feed and starve" upon (DH, 174), and a hideous one’s reason. U ltim ately, all four w riters portray her degeneration begins. W illiams speaks of "they whom she as a sham, a shell, the sound-seeming rind of the rotted (L ilith) overtook ... found drained and strangled in the pumpkin: not goodness and love and beauty, but only the morning" (DH, 89). Wentworth descends into u tter psych­ semblance of them. For the Inklings and Sayers, she osis under the influence of the succubus, which itse lf symbolizes vanity and glamour, a ll that seemeth and is decays into "an im becile face (that) stared blankly.... not. To love her, they warn—to go with her, to enjoy The movements of its body ... jerky and inorganic" (DH, her favors—is to find not happiness, but wormwood and 134) and "a low voice which stammered now as it had not d e s p a i r . before; as if it were as much losing control as was his own mind" (DH, 200), and the hordes of sp irits crowding about Lily Samm ile in the grave-shed of Gomorrah are N o te s starved w raiths, "famished at the dry breasts of the witch" (DH, 206). The victim s in the other tales also 1Sayers plays upon th is theme when she reminds us degenerate: Faustus' soul transform s into a black dog. that Helen (L ilith) is "hell-born, hell-named, / Hell Jadis turns her victim s into statues, incapable of in the cities, hell in the ships, and hell / In the speech or movement, and as the gnomes enslaved by the heart of man" (DP, 40-41), an English paraphrase of the Emerald Witch lose their capacity for joy or indepen­ wordplay in lines 687-690 of A escylus' Agamemnon: dent thought, R ilian becomes a blithering idiot. Even G aladriel, who swears she would "not be dark, but beautiful" (FR, 473) deceives herself. The Ring of ...." (Helen, fittingly in that regard crusher of Power corrupts all who possess it—Sauron was once fair ships, slayer of men, destroyer of cities). to look upon. Gollum once a hobbit. What, indeed, would the fa ir Elven-woman become, were she to take the Ring, give in to L ilith? 2To be abbreviated DH. All page numbers refer to MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 p a g e 7

the W illiam B. Eerdmans Publishing Company edition Even-star had come down to rest upon her hand." (FR, (paperback). 472). This is Nenya, one of the three elven rings of power, upon which Lorien is founded. As for Sayers, follow ing the classic myth that Helen did not die but 3Samael is also the name for Satan among K abalis- was made a star by Zeus, M ephistopheles invokes Helen tic m ystics. From Non-Christian Religions A to Z, w ith these words: "Rise up, thou star of evening, called Horace L. F riers, supervising ed. (New York: G rosset & by night / Hesperus, but in the morning, Lucifer, / And Dunlap, Inc., Publishers, 1963), p. 172. sometimes Venus, lady of love" (DP, 97). One notes with interest the association between L ilith and Luci­ 4To be abbreviated FR. A ll page references from fer, the Light-bearer, best and brightest of the B allantine Books paperback edition. angels, a star now fallen. G aladriel's name, also, means "Lady of Light" — but she rem ains unfallen. 5SC. C ollier Paperbacks. 15Here my term inology comes from the conception of L ilith as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, tem pting 6The Lion, The W itch and the W ardrobe; Prince Cas­ Eve to facilitate the fall of man. Lewis actually por­ pian; The M agician's Nephew. Abbreviated LLW, PC, and trays his Emerald W itch as a serpent (SC). Most of the MN, respectively. C ollier Paperbacks edition. This C lassical chthonian figures of Greek mythology had character, also called the Lady of the Green K irtle, snakes as th eir attribute: Hecate, the Gorgon (said by embodies aspects of Morgan Le Fay. Her relationship Euripides to have been earthborn), Erichthonios, Kek- with R ilian (enchantress to her captive knight) is dis­ r o p s . tin ctly A rthurian, reminding one of the green-girdled lady under M organ's direction in the medieval poem S ir Gawain and the Green Knight and of sim ilar enchanted 16Interestingly, these are the three categories knight episodes in M alory's Morte D arthur. represented by the goddesses A phrodite, Hera, and Athena who each offered Paris a bribe that he might judge her the fairest. Aphrodite offered Paris Helen, 7DP. In Two Plays about God and Man, the Vineyard the most beautiful woman in the world, as his love. Books paperback edition. Hera offered him dominion over a ll Europe and A sia. Athena offered his unparalleled wisdom and knowledge. 8Galadriel, who is not yet (nor ever w ill be truly) Sayers incorporates the Judgement of Paris into her L ilith, is free to enter the garden. Also, in a sense, Devil to Pay, conceiving of the Golden Apple as syn­ Lothlorien is her garden, a paradise set off from the onymous w ith Eve's fru it of the Tree of the Knowledge rest of Middle Earth and into which the evil Eye of of Good and E vil. Lewis, too, uses the m otif of Sauron cannot penetrate. L ilith and apples, portraying her not, as Sayers does, tem pting man to cast back the fru it and give up the knowledge of good and evil. Rather, Jadis tem pts 9Compare the behavior of vam pires and Lamias (fe­ Digory to accept the apple of the Tree of Life and live male vam pires) who cannot cross any threshold unless in­ f o r e v e r . vited by th eir intended victim s.

17But she is not L ilith , only potential L ilith , and 10At least, she is beautiful to men (.Digory, the through her guidance, the hobbits do not m isinterpret m agician, and Edmund). Polly, however, "couldn't see the visions, thereby endangering them selves and a ll anything specially beautiful about her" (MN, 48). Aunt Middle Earth by abandoning th eir quest. L etty, too, is far from dazzled (MN, 79-80).

18Compare th is to the m otif of "fairy gold" found 11Not even Aslan can k ill the w itch, as becomes in other folklores, the crock of gold granted by lepre­ apparent in the sequel to LWW, Prince Caspian. See chauns in numerous Irish folktales, for example. The page 165: the hag says, "his dear little M ajesty recipient must spend the treasure before morning, for needn't mind about the W hite Indy—th a t's what we call it w ill transform to bones and ashes at the first ray her—being dead. (W)ho ever heard of a witch that of dawn. Recall also the g ifts of C inderella's fairy really died? You can always get them back." godmother, which last only until m idnight. At the stroke of twelve, the gown goes back to rags, the horses 12The gnomes, of course, though s till ugly, are not to mice, the coach to the hollowed pumpkin shell. such a bad lo t once freed from the w itch's spell. 19Compare Aunt L etty 's reaction to the m agical in­ 13In his 1969 article, "L ilith in N arnia," Good- cantation uttered by Jadis: "I thought as much. The Knight also perceives "a two-sided picture of the fig­ woman is drunk. Drunk! She can't even speak clearly." ure of L ilith" in literature: the "witch-hag" as (M N, 3 1 ) opposed to the "beautiful, dream -like seductress." How­ ever, unlike my dichotomy, which stresses the d iffer­ 20Compare T olkien's Nazgul, who ex ist m ostly in the ences in L ilith 's method of operation (brute force sp irit world but wear real cloaks and ride m ortal versus tem ptation), GoodKnight divides the L iliths by steeds in order to be perceptible on Middle Earth. th eir victim s: children stolen by the hag and young men seduced by the dream lady. B ibliogra[hy

14Tolkien: G aladriel's M irror reflects the stars as T h e T e x t s she stands beneath "earendil, the Evening Star ____ S o bright — that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim Lewis, C. S. The Lion, the W itcn, and the W ardrobe, shadow" w hile "Its rays glanced upon a ring about her Book I of The Chronicles of N arnia. New York: finger ___ and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Collier Books, 1970. continued on p. 25 MYTHLORE 31: Spring 1982 p a g e 26 authors have created. While I value Mythlore's The change-over to the new format with larger articles for their insights and intellectual stim ula­ print, and the addition of the Subject Index, have tion, it is the pictures that I look at and say, meant less room for Reviews and Letters for this "Yes, th is person sees something of the same vision I issue. If we can increase our subscribers by about do," or, better yet, "This person has given me a new 15 to 20% we can add at least six additional pages vision of the world I love." Poetry has something of for each issue and other improvements. the same effect; it too appeals to the heart rather than the head. Both of these things help to make 1983 Mythopoeic Conference Mvthlore the very special journal it is. At this point there has been no definite interest shown in the organization of the 1983 Conference. Jerry L. Daniel 419 Springfield Ave. Those interested should write this this year's Chair­ Westfield, NJ 07092 man of the Council of Stewards, Christine Lowentrout, C.S. Lewis had a brief letter published on the dust 115 5th St. #2, Seal Beach, CA 90740 for guidelines. cover of Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (London; Sidgwick & Jackson, 1954). (G34 in Walter Hooper's continued from page 7 second bibliography). This letter was not reprinted ______. Prince Caspian, Book II of The Chron­ on any subsequent edition, and the few copies of the icles of Narnia. New York: C olliers Books, 1970. 1954 edition I've located have lacked the dust cover. I have exhausted all avenues of search of this letter! ______. The Silver C hair, Book IV of The I've checked hundred of libraries, including those Chronicles of Narnia. New York: C olliers Books, reported to have a large collection of science fiction. 1 9 7 0 . I've checked with the publisher, with Walter Hooper, and even with Arthur C. Clarke himself. No luck. ______. The M agician's Nephew, Book VI of The Surely some reader of Mythlore owns the Sidgwick & Chronicles of N arnia. New York: C ollier Books, Jackson edition. It would mean a great deal to me 1 9 7 0 . to get a photocopy of the Lewis letter. Sayers, Dorothy L. The Devil to Pay. In Two Plays (Please try to write letters of comment within a month about God and Man. Norton, Connecticut: Vine­ of receiving an issue, so that timely letters can be yard Books, Inc., 1973. included in the next issue. — Editor ) Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring, Part I of The Lord of the Rings. New York: B allantine Books, 1968.

LOOKING AHEAD W illiams, Charles. Descent into H ell. Grand Rapids, M ichigan: W illiam B. Eercknans Publishing Editorial Notes - Glen GoodKnight Con5>any, 1975. Reference Works

As a response to readers' interest, the next issue Aeschyli septum quae supersunt tragoediae, recensuit w ill be a special one focusing on The Silm arillion, G ilbertus Murray . . . Accendunt tetralogiarun ad U nfinished T ales, and The L etters of J. R. R. Tolkien. has fabulas pertinentium fragm enta, marmoris p arii As part of that issue, we would like to publish read ers' testim onia. Gxonii, e typographeo Carendoniano, com m ents on how these books have affected and changed ( 1 9 5 5 ) . their previous view of Tolkien. A sheet is enclosed for your com m ents for possible publication. Aldington, Richard, and Delano Ames, trans. New Larousse Encyclopoedia of M ythology. New Yoris: In the follow ing issue, we w ill m ark the 15th anni­ Putnam, 1959. versary of The M ythopoeic Society. We would like to include com m ents from readers on what the Society Bonnerjea, Siron. A D ictionary of Superstitions and has and does mean to them . The sam e enclosed sheet Mythology. Book Towers, n. p. : Singing Tree can be used for this. Press, 1969.

I hope you w ill take part in both of these to share Cam ell, Corbin. "Six C haracteristics of the Arthurian your thoughts and feelings. Enchantress," from a class lecture on the movie L ilith , Robert Rossen, director. EH 281 (Intro­ The changes that w ere begun in the last issue have duction to Film ), U niversity of Florida, W inter brought very favorable com m ents from many quarters. Q uarter (26 January) 1975. Your support is vital for M ythlore's ongoing im prove­ m ent. Please make its w elfare your personal concern Foster, Robert. A Guide to Middle Earth. Baltim ore, by: encouraging your friends to subscribe; giving M aryland: M irage, 1971. gift subscriptions; becom ing a patron; posting the flyer that was enclosed in the last issue in libraries, Friess, Horace L ., sup. ed. Non-Christian Religions English D epartm ents, etc. (m ore copies are available A t o Z . New York: Gosset & Dunlap, In c., Pub­ on request); requesting or asking a faculty m em ber lishers, 1963. to request that your library subscribe; and resub­ scribing yourself before we need to send you a renew al R aster, Joseph. Putnam's Concise M ythological l e t t e r . D ictionary. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1 9 6 3 . You, the individually involved and concerned reader, are the m ost im portant reason for M ythlore's success. Sykes, Egerton, com piler. Everyman's D ictionary of Only through us w orking together with a sense of com ­ N on-Classical Mythology. New York: E. P. Dutton mon purpose can M ythlore continue to im prove. & Co., Inc., 1952.