STARLOG Article: Number 19
| This Christmas season,
prepare to meet: |
| The
phooka- a chameleon-like creature with the ability to transform itself
into any beastial shape and take hapless travelers for the ride of their
terrified lives.
The glaistig- a water nymph,
half-woman, half-goat, who seductively lures men into an earthly dance
before disposing of them vampire style.
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©
Brian Froud
|
The
spriggans- a race of ugly, magical creatures who can grow to titanic proportions
at will.
The jack-in-irons- a Yorkshire
giant who haunts lonely roads late at night, seeking out stray hitchhikers.
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| All of these wondrous
(and slightly dangerous) beings and others grace the pages of Faeries,
an eye-boggling book tracing the life and times of Britain's most magical
denizens. Written and illustrated by fantasy masters Brian Froud
and Alan Lee, Faeries is the big Christmas book being offered
this year by Harry Abrams Publishers, the company that brought the world
Gnomes in 1977. Faeries is the brainchild of two publishing
talents, the legendary Ian Ballantine and Andy Stewart, president of
Abrams. It was Ballantine, a long-time SF supporter (in fact,
together with wife Betty, the first publisher to actually release science
fiction in paperback form on a regular basis during the 1950s) who first
suggested the project to Stewart. |
©
Brian Froud
|
"Ian had brought us the
Gnomes book from Europe," Stewart recalls, "and people loved
it. It was an uplifting book and it appealed to a great many people,
both literarily and visually. We were looking for a logical follow-up.
He suggested Faeries and it turned out to be perfect."
Working in conjunction
with Betty, Ballantine helped put together the inspired team of Froud
and Lee and editor David Larkin. His goal? To create a
realistic excursion into fantasy that even the most orthodox of science-fiction
fans would find captivating. "This is a very special work,"
beams the ever-enthusiastic Ballantine. "It's not at all juvenile.
It represents the thinking of a group of people who have done a lot
of research on faeries; serious research. It contains a lot
of marvelous fantasy material, material that a reader can take and
conjure with, elaborate upon and enjoy the creation of a very special
world."
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| Seated in Stewart's New
York City base of operations, the science-fiction publisher relishes
the thought for a moment. "You know, at one time, a book like
this wouldn't have been possible. Science-fiction people used
to think that fantasy was not the proper material for a dyed-in-the-wool
SF reader. They rejected it. But I think that Tolkien broke
that barrier completely. The joy of participating in a fanasy
really utilizes the same imaginative muscles that are used when you
are enjoying science fiction. You experience that same sense of
wonder."
And wonder, according to
Stewart, is what Faeries is all about. "This is a trip
into a very strange realm. There are no stereotypes allowed.
As a result, it's more interesting than those endless conjectures
on sweet little wood nymphs. You can only take ten or twelve
pages of that fairy-tale stuff before you pass out. Our book
has things in it that are a little shocking, a little spooky, a little
dangerous. It's a mysterious journey, with hints of evil running
all through it. That's what makes it work. There's adventure.
Visually, there's a greaty beauty in all this but there's menace present
as well."
Ballantine seconds the
emotion. "The book let's you know that those faeries at the
bottom of your garden well are not what you think they are.
The sooner you realize that, the safer you'll be. Peter Pan
would not feel comfortable reading this book. To prove his point,
Ballantine opens a copy of the work and flips to a page showing a
particularly hideous green female thing, wallowing in a stagnant pond.
"This is Jenny Greenteeth," Ballantine chuckles by way of introduction.
"Jenny lives in slimy ponds. When little girls turn their backs
on the slimy ponds, Jenny comes a-calling. The little girls
are never seen again."
Ballantine puts the book
down gently. "All the faeries in this book are based on actual
legends," he stresses. "And the book is both a field guide and
a history. It identifies faeries and tells you what to do if
you have a faerie encounter. There are also stories in the book,
detailing the history of faerie folk."
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|
"And faeries really do figure into
the real-life history of England," Stewart adds. "Britain is
a very strange place in that we know what happened there from the
time of Christ until about 300 AD. But there's practically nothing
known about the country from 300 AD until about 1000AD. There're
six hundred years that are practically unaccounted for. It was
during that period that the mythological takes concerning King Arthur,
Merlin and the various faeries came about. By the time 1066
came around and England reentered the history books, all these legends
had already flourished. Nobody is exactly sure where they came
from," he finishes, choosing his words carefully, "...or why."
|
©
Brian Froud
|
| "And it's very important
for modern man to know about their world," Ballantine states.
"People today are interested in nature and in natural things, correct?
Well, it's frequently the case that faeries are on the side of
nature. Man continually gets in trouble when he attacks nature,
and what really happens is that he runs across a particular faerie who
is defending that part of the realm of nature. Part of this book
teaches you how to defend yourself against a faerie's power, how to
recognize different types. There are over 200 kinds of faeries
accounted for in the book." |
©
Brian Froud
|
Included in Faeries are
tales and descriptions of various dwarfs, goblins, pixies, brownies
and nymphs with stunning visual portrayals offered by Froud and Lee.
"Those two men captured everything there is to capture about faeries,"
Ballantine marvels. "They worked together out of the same house
for over a year. Betty and I would fly over to England from time
to time and check on their progress. Their finished artwork, is,
well, fantastic." |
©
Brian Froud
|
| The two publishers begin
to compare notes about their favorite creatures captured on paper, flipping
through the hardcover with wild abandon. One likes the bwca (booka),
a butter-churning brownie on the Welsh variety. Another prefers
the gentle selkie, a seal creature capable of becoming a beautiful girl.
But what about the leprechauns, those rakish Irishmen with tales of
gold?
In the midst of this
magical revelry, Stewart looks up from Froud and Lee's captivating
protraits. "The thing to remember," he says, "is that, in a
sense, this book is factual. You have to think about the fact
that there are faeries out there, but to meet one you have to know
what they look like, know where they live. If you're ever going
to have a faerie experience, this book will lead you to it better
than any other ever printed."
The two men return their
proud gaze to their phantasmagoric field guide and behold the image
of a twisted, cyclopian terror known as the fachan. Both publishers
smile at the creature's snarl. Ballantine was right. Peter
Pan would not feel comfortable reading this book... but "It, the Terror
from Beyond Space" probably would.
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