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Time and the Gods
Lord Dunsany was an Irish poet and dramatist. He spent his life living in the famous Dunsany castle in Ireland. Pegana is the home of the Gods in Dunsany's stories. These 20 fantasy tales had an influence on the writings of Tolkein and Usurla LeGuin.
120 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1906
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About the author
Lord Dunsany
688 books849 followersEdward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, eighteenth baron of Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work in fantasy published under the name Lord Dunsany. More than eighty books of his work were published, and his oeuvre includes hundreds of short stories, as well as successful plays, novels and essays. Born to one of the oldest titles in the Irish peerage, he lived much of his life at perhaps Ireland's longest-inhabited home, Dunsany Castle near Tara, received an honourary doctorate from Trinity College, and died in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
June 18, 2016
Time and the Gods is probably one of the most metal things I have ever read. If I make a prog rock concept album, I have my source material:
"Then Slid went backward growing and summoned together the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: 'Tintaggon stands.'"
-The Coming of the Sea.
"And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the night."
-The Legend of the Dawn
"There in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone on the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find it - four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever guess."
-When the Gods Slept
"Then Slid went backward growing and summoned together the waves of a whole sea and sent them singing full in Tintaggon's face. Then from Tintaggon's marble front the sea fell backwards crying on to a broken shore, and ripple by ripple straggled back to Slid saying: 'Tintaggon stands.'"
-The Coming of the Sea.
"And far away Trogool upon the utter Rim turned a page that was numbered six in a cipher that none might read. And as the golden ball went through the sky to gleam on lands and cities, there came the Fog towards it, stooping as he walked with his dark brown cloak about him, and behind him slunk the night."
-The Legend of the Dawn
"There in Pegana lay the gods asleep, and in a corner lay the Power of the gods alone on the floor, a thing wrought of black rock and four words graven upon it, whereof I might not give thee any clue, if even I should find it - four words of which none knoweth. Some say they tell of the opening of a flower towards dawn, and others say they concern earthquakes among hills, and others that they tell of the death of fishes, and others that the words be these: Power, Knowledge, Forgetting, and another word that not the gods themselves may ever guess."
-When the Gods Slept
December 25, 2013
Lord Dunsany is one of the most remarkable authors to have ever lived. If not in the way he wrote his prose, then in the way he lived his life as an adventure. And from this sense of adventure he developed a most remarkable perspective on the universe and fantasy. From this perspective he wrote a new mythology full of childish wonder, simplicity and also beauty. There is an aesthetic of delight to be found in Time and the Gods and it is this aesthetic which is so very appealing to read.
"And as a child stares at the bare walls of a narrow hut, so the gods looked listlessly upon the worlds saying: 'Will no new thing be?'"
What makes Dunsany's work so brilliant here is the way he so simply writes about deities and therefore religion while writing a new mythology. He does not mean to make such brilliant observations and yet he does. There is an ignorance that is refreshingly brilliant in his writing, something new and yet something very old.
"It were better to be birds and have no air to fly in, than to be gods having neither prayers no worship."
It is often raised as a theological question: why does God demand obedience of humanity? Or prayers and worship. To me Dunsany in this one simple line breaks down all kinds of intellectual sensibility and shows a distinct reasoning for why God demands obedience. I do not mean to say that it is foolish reasoning, but that merely it is a thoughtful one: God and gods are well godly. And to be godly is to be worthy of worship - not merely to be powerful entities.
"'We be seductive gods, having a particular remembrance for little prayers.' But the baboons leered fiercely at the Yozis and would have none of them for gods."
Again this quote reinforces the idea of what it is to be a god: to be worthy of worship. The Yozis mentioned in the particular section here however seek out this worship and reveal in this mythology that they are not so powerful as gods for they must actively push for people to worship, worship, worship and end up turning to baboons in the end for desperate prayers.
"...because he knew that thrice in every hour in some dark chamber Death and Famine met to speak two words together, 'The End.'"
"...in a narrower world Ord walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered searching for some gods and finding none."
"'Curse not the gods.' And I said to him: 'Wherefore should I not curse Those who have stolen my sacred places in the night, and trodden down the gardens of my childhood?'"
Not only is Dunsany someone capable of great insight but also of great poetry as shown in the above quotes. And for this alone he deserves to remain known as a great writer.
August 2, 2022
Lord Dunsany is one of influential fantasy writer in pre-Tolkien Period, and it has significant influence on Tolkien. After reading The Elf King's Daughter I must say such a beautiful written book beyond a shadow of doubt could influence later generation of excellent writers like Tolkien. Time and the Gods wrote in early 20 century, the writing is not too flowery to assimilate into, its words not too easy to browse but too laconic not to pay focus on the writing. When I was reading Lord Dunsany's I feel each words are exactly belong to on the pages, those terse descriptions not only easily portray the scenery and nature also arouse the affection to the spirit of the fictional world by Lord Dunsany. This is why I praise Lord Dunsany's writing. Easily visualized scenarios were written by the hand of the wordsmith proffered me extraordinary reading experience that I did not usually have before.
Time and The Gods are about the histories of old gods and new gods, mortals were living with those gods for a while, some chapters are mortals were finding gods or gods were finding followers. Prophets and kings are prominent in this book, they could be interpreted as some premonitory events were going to occur or the witnesses of gods raised and fell. In Time and The gods didn't have any center plots to compel the story. As time moved on, mortals and deities were still trying to find a place to fit in eternal recess of the world that they were living in. Even Time is a slave in this book, it does not care too much of the condition because even gods would know to be afraid of time itself.
Time and The Gods are about the histories of old gods and new gods, mortals were living with those gods for a while, some chapters are mortals were finding gods or gods were finding followers. Prophets and kings are prominent in this book, they could be interpreted as some premonitory events were going to occur or the witnesses of gods raised and fell. In Time and The gods didn't have any center plots to compel the story. As time moved on, mortals and deities were still trying to find a place to fit in eternal recess of the world that they were living in. Even Time is a slave in this book, it does not care too much of the condition because even gods would know to be afraid of time itself.
July 21, 2016
Well... Why give 3 stars and make it Favorite. Well, because not all stories within are excelent. Some are quite weak. But others... ulálá... They are masterpieces. They are the foundation of Fantasy. If Tolkien is considered as the father of Fantasy then Lord Dunsany is the Grandfather of it all.
There are some great tales within this short story collection like The Men of Yarnith; Time and the Gods; The coming of the Sea and probably my second favourite In the Land of Time. In this story you've got them all... I can imagine an epic fantasy writer writing a ten book 1000 pages long each one and still come short to this one...
My favourite was this one... The South Wind Since this story is public domain and is not so big I am going to put here... Don't know if I can but
(you can read them all here http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Time_an...)
The South Wind
Two players sat down to play a game together to while eternity away, and they chose the gods as pieces wherewith to play their game, and for their board of playing they chose the sky from rim to rim, whereon lay a little dust; and every speck of dust was a world upon the board of playing. And the players were robed and their faces veiled, and the robes and veils were alike, and their names were Fate and Chance. And as they played their game and moved the gods hither and thither about the board, the dust arose, and shone in the light from the players' eyes that gleamed behind the veils. Then said the gods: "See how We stir the dust."
It chanced, or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a prophet, one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among the stars. But as he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a player, enormous over Their heads, stretched out to make his move. Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had he been silent it might have still been well with Ord, but Ord went about the world crying out to all men, "There is a power over the gods."
This the gods heard. Then said They, "Ord hath seen."
Terrible is the vengeance of the gods, and fierce were Their eyes when They looked on the head of Ord and snatched out of his mind all knowledge of Themselves. And that man's soul went wandering afield to find for itself gods, for ever finding them not. Then out of Ord's Dream of Life the gods plucked the moon and the stars, and in the night-time he only saw black sky and saw the lights no more. Next the gods took from him, for Their vengeance resteth not, the birds and butterflies, flowers and leaves and insects and all small things, and the prophet looked on the world that was strangely altered, yet knew not of the anger of the gods. Then the gods sent away his familiar hills, to be seen no more by him, and all the pleasant woodlands on their summits and the further fields; and in a narrower world Ord walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered searching for some gods and finding none.
Lastly, the gods took away the fields and stream and left to the prophet only his house and the larger things that were in it. Day by day They crept about him drawing films of mist between him and familiar things, till at last he beheld nought at all and was quite blind and unaware of the anger of the gods. Then Ord's world became only a world of sound, and only by hearing he kept his hold upon Things. All the profit that he had out of his days was here some song from the hills or there the voice of the birds, and sound of the stream, or the drip of the falling rain. But the anger of the gods ceases not with the closing of flowers, nor is it assuaged by all the winter's snows, nor doth it rest in the full glare of summer, and They snatched away from Ord one night his world of sound and he awoke deaf. But as a man may smite away the hive of the bee, and the bee with all his fellows builds again, knowing not what hath smitten his hive or that it shall smite again, so Ord built for himself a world out of old memories and set it in the past. There he builded himself cities out of former joys, and therein built palaces of mighty things achieved, and with his memory as a key he opened golden locks and had still a world to live in, though the gods had taken from him the world of sound and all the world of sight. But the gods tire not from pursuing, and They seized his world of former things and took his memory away and covered up the paths that led into the past, and left him blind and deaf and forgetful among men, and caused all men to know that this was he who once had said that the gods were little things.
And lastly the gods took his soul, and out of it They fashioned the South Wind to roam the seas for ever and not have rest; and well the South Wind knows that he hath once understood somewhere and long ago, and so he moans to the islands and cries along southern shores, "I have known," and "I have known."
But all things sleep when the South Wind speaks to them and none heed his cry that he hath known, but are rather content to sleep. But still the South Wind, knowing that there is something that he hath forgot, goes on crying, "I have known," seeking to urge men to arise and to discover it. But none heed the sorrows of the South Wind even when he driveth his tears out of the South, so that though the South Wind cries on and on and never findeth rest none heed that there is aught that may be known, and the Secret of the gods is safe. But the business of the South Wind is with the North, and it is said that the time will one day come when he shall overcome the bergs and sink the seas of ice and come where the Secret of the gods is graven upon the pole. And the game of Fate and Chance shall suddenly cease and He that loses shall cease to be or ever to have been, and from the board of playing Fate or Chance (who knoweth which shall win?) shall sweep the gods away.
There are some great tales within this short story collection like The Men of Yarnith; Time and the Gods; The coming of the Sea and probably my second favourite In the Land of Time. In this story you've got them all... I can imagine an epic fantasy writer writing a ten book 1000 pages long each one and still come short to this one...
My favourite was this one... The South Wind Since this story is public domain and is not so big I am going to put here... Don't know if I can but
(you can read them all here http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Time_an...)
The South Wind
Two players sat down to play a game together to while eternity away, and they chose the gods as pieces wherewith to play their game, and for their board of playing they chose the sky from rim to rim, whereon lay a little dust; and every speck of dust was a world upon the board of playing. And the players were robed and their faces veiled, and the robes and veils were alike, and their names were Fate and Chance. And as they played their game and moved the gods hither and thither about the board, the dust arose, and shone in the light from the players' eyes that gleamed behind the veils. Then said the gods: "See how We stir the dust."
It chanced, or was ordained (who knoweth which?) that Ord, a prophet, one night saw the gods as They strode knee deep among the stars. But as he gave Them worship, he saw the hand of a player, enormous over Their heads, stretched out to make his move. Then Ord, the prophet, knew. Had he been silent it might have still been well with Ord, but Ord went about the world crying out to all men, "There is a power over the gods."
This the gods heard. Then said They, "Ord hath seen."
Terrible is the vengeance of the gods, and fierce were Their eyes when They looked on the head of Ord and snatched out of his mind all knowledge of Themselves. And that man's soul went wandering afield to find for itself gods, for ever finding them not. Then out of Ord's Dream of Life the gods plucked the moon and the stars, and in the night-time he only saw black sky and saw the lights no more. Next the gods took from him, for Their vengeance resteth not, the birds and butterflies, flowers and leaves and insects and all small things, and the prophet looked on the world that was strangely altered, yet knew not of the anger of the gods. Then the gods sent away his familiar hills, to be seen no more by him, and all the pleasant woodlands on their summits and the further fields; and in a narrower world Ord walked round and round, now seeing little, and his soul still wandered searching for some gods and finding none.
Lastly, the gods took away the fields and stream and left to the prophet only his house and the larger things that were in it. Day by day They crept about him drawing films of mist between him and familiar things, till at last he beheld nought at all and was quite blind and unaware of the anger of the gods. Then Ord's world became only a world of sound, and only by hearing he kept his hold upon Things. All the profit that he had out of his days was here some song from the hills or there the voice of the birds, and sound of the stream, or the drip of the falling rain. But the anger of the gods ceases not with the closing of flowers, nor is it assuaged by all the winter's snows, nor doth it rest in the full glare of summer, and They snatched away from Ord one night his world of sound and he awoke deaf. But as a man may smite away the hive of the bee, and the bee with all his fellows builds again, knowing not what hath smitten his hive or that it shall smite again, so Ord built for himself a world out of old memories and set it in the past. There he builded himself cities out of former joys, and therein built palaces of mighty things achieved, and with his memory as a key he opened golden locks and had still a world to live in, though the gods had taken from him the world of sound and all the world of sight. But the gods tire not from pursuing, and They seized his world of former things and took his memory away and covered up the paths that led into the past, and left him blind and deaf and forgetful among men, and caused all men to know that this was he who once had said that the gods were little things.
And lastly the gods took his soul, and out of it They fashioned the South Wind to roam the seas for ever and not have rest; and well the South Wind knows that he hath once understood somewhere and long ago, and so he moans to the islands and cries along southern shores, "I have known," and "I have known."
But all things sleep when the South Wind speaks to them and none heed his cry that he hath known, but are rather content to sleep. But still the South Wind, knowing that there is something that he hath forgot, goes on crying, "I have known," seeking to urge men to arise and to discover it. But none heed the sorrows of the South Wind even when he driveth his tears out of the South, so that though the South Wind cries on and on and never findeth rest none heed that there is aught that may be known, and the Secret of the gods is safe. But the business of the South Wind is with the North, and it is said that the time will one day come when he shall overcome the bergs and sink the seas of ice and come where the Secret of the gods is graven upon the pole. And the game of Fate and Chance shall suddenly cease and He that loses shall cease to be or ever to have been, and from the board of playing Fate or Chance (who knoweth which shall win?) shall sweep the gods away.
May 9, 2013
Basically like The Gods of Pegana only moreso. Again, these are primarily vignettes or prose poems or fables rather than anything resembling more traditional stories -- those will start appearing in his next book, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories. Again, filled with lovely King James prose and beautiful, evocative names and again not a great jumping-in place if you've never read Dunsany before.
November 15, 2013
I haven't read any Dunsany before, but I'm glad I finally got round to it. Having a whole collection of these stories was maybe a bit much to read in one go (ah, train journeys), but I did enjoy the world Dunsany created, and the mythic language he used to tell it. I should read more by and about Dunsany, I think: I don't actually know anything about him.
September 1, 2016
Short stories, set in the same world as Dunsany's (better) "Gods of Pegana", and many of his other writings.
Dunsany's prose tends to the florid, as befits someone whose full appellation was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. Shoot-the-moon sentences abound, and I suspect that few readers will be neutral -- you'll either enjoy or despise his style.
Some of the stories are quite good. Here, for example, is a taste of Dunsany's prose from "In the Land of Time", where a king goes to war with Time itself.
'"There shall be neither fading nor forgetting, nor ever dying nor sorrow, when we shall have freed the people and pleasant fields of the earth from inexorable Time."
And the armies swore that they would follow the King to save the world and the gods.
So the next day the King set forth with his three armies and crossed many rivers and marched through many lands, and wherever they went they asked for news of Time.
And the first day they met a woman with her face furrowed and lined, who told them that she had been beautiful and that Time had smitten her in the face with his five claws.
Many an old man they met as they marched in search of Time. All had seen him but none could tell them more, except that some said he went that way and pointed to a ruined tower or to an old and broken tree.
And day after day and month by month the King pushed on with his armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they encamped at night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens of flowers, hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate in the dark. Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on rusted chains and houses with broken roofs or crumbling walls. Then the armies would push on apace thinking that they were closer upon the track of Time..."'
An enjoyable read, but not so much as some of his other works -- the tales are more uneven, and perhaps a bit too bitterly atheist for my taste.
3.4 / 5. Available on Gutenberg (though alas, not in an illustrated version, which I believe exists).
Dunsany's prose tends to the florid, as befits someone whose full appellation was Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany. Shoot-the-moon sentences abound, and I suspect that few readers will be neutral -- you'll either enjoy or despise his style.
Some of the stories are quite good. Here, for example, is a taste of Dunsany's prose from "In the Land of Time", where a king goes to war with Time itself.
'"There shall be neither fading nor forgetting, nor ever dying nor sorrow, when we shall have freed the people and pleasant fields of the earth from inexorable Time."
And the armies swore that they would follow the King to save the world and the gods.
So the next day the King set forth with his three armies and crossed many rivers and marched through many lands, and wherever they went they asked for news of Time.
And the first day they met a woman with her face furrowed and lined, who told them that she had been beautiful and that Time had smitten her in the face with his five claws.
Many an old man they met as they marched in search of Time. All had seen him but none could tell them more, except that some said he went that way and pointed to a ruined tower or to an old and broken tree.
And day after day and month by month the King pushed on with his armies, hoping to come at last on Time. Sometimes they encamped at night near palaces of beautiful design or beside gardens of flowers, hoping to find their enemy when he came to desecrate in the dark. Sometimes they came on cobwebs, sometimes on rusted chains and houses with broken roofs or crumbling walls. Then the armies would push on apace thinking that they were closer upon the track of Time..."'
An enjoyable read, but not so much as some of his other works -- the tales are more uneven, and perhaps a bit too bitterly atheist for my taste.
3.4 / 5. Available on Gutenberg (though alas, not in an illustrated version, which I believe exists).
October 23, 2020
A Fantasy Masterwork.
And for its time, it really is something -- creative, lyrical, phantasmagorical.
But, that time was five generations ago, past streaming media and past video games and past television and past moving picture shows and past radio, to when words were the best humans had to evoke and create. Today, it's a long travelogue/textbook of the gods of a fantasy world and the trouble they always cause mortals. (There is, though, a definite feel of inspiration for Neil Gaiman's seven Endless.
And for its time, it really is something -- creative, lyrical, phantasmagorical.
But, that time was five generations ago, past streaming media and past video games and past television and past moving picture shows and past radio, to when words were the best humans had to evoke and create. Today, it's a long travelogue/textbook of the gods of a fantasy world and the trouble they always cause mortals. (There is, though, a definite feel of inspiration for Neil Gaiman's seven Endless.
November 22, 2019
Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany was chess and pistol-shooting champion of Ireland. He loved horses, cricket and dogs (advocating against tail docking, which makes him a Man in my book), drama, adventure, poetry and hunting, most of all. It is during his hunting trips that he'd conceive some beautiful stories of mysticism and wonder, of beginnings of gods and beginning of time, hypnotic creation myths in dreams. In laying down these stories, Lord Dunsany had lain down the very fundamentals of Fantasy, the bedrock on which other Great Men would build new civilisations, new languages, anew. Ah, what friends he and Professor Tolkien would be...
January 1, 2026
The gods of Lord Dunsany's exquisite imagination never had it easy.
First of all their 'swarthy servant' Time, destroyed their pride and joy, the marble city of Sardathrion, without their knowledge. Then a new god called Slid (the seas) came down from the sky to colonize their planet and only the intervention of Tintaggon, an impenetrable black wall, saved the day.
Even when they slept they weren't safe as three malign spirits called Yozis attempted to take their place in the affections of man.
Dunsany's gods, like all gods, hold men in tyranny. The people of the Prosperous Isles were happy before sailors brought them knowledge of the gods, whom they soon learnt herded men like cattle.
Yahn (wealth) destroys men because 'his soul is a usurer's soul.' The gods who inhabit the mountains above the city of Mildeen destroy it every time their priest's carve a hundred false images.
I'm going to quote an unusually long passage because Dunsany's simple yet lyrical prose always speaks best for itself. This comes from the story of the King of Karnith Zo, who went forth to conquer Time and was 'overwhelmed by the hours and the years.' Time may be the servant of the gods but he always prevails over both gods and men. After a long journey the king finally arrives at Time's city:
'And the King said, "Is Time then here?"
And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a steep hill and said: "Therein dwells Time, and we are his people;" and they all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of the villagers spoke again and said: "Whence do you come, you that are so young?" and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to conquer Time to save the world and the gods, and asked them whence they came.
And the villagers said:
"We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but we are the people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything he sends out his hours to assail the world, and you may never conquer Time." But the King went back to his armies, and pointed towards the castle on the hill and told them that at last they had found the Enemy of the Earth; and they that were older than always went back slowly into their houses with the creaking of olden doors. And there they went across the fields and passed the village. From one of his towers Time eyed them all the while, and in battle order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat still in his great tower and watched.
But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and their beards grew and turned grey, and the hours and days and the months went singing over their heads, and their hair turned whiter and whiter, and the conquering hours bore down, and the years rushed on and swept the youth of that army clear away till they came face to face under the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of howling years, and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men.'
By far the longest individual story is 'The Journey of the King', in which King Ebalon meets ten prophets in succession during his 'faint wandering through the dreams of gods,' only to discover that their words undermine each other and none of their wisdom is worth more than wine, women and song.
I could have told him that.
First of all their 'swarthy servant' Time, destroyed their pride and joy, the marble city of Sardathrion, without their knowledge. Then a new god called Slid (the seas) came down from the sky to colonize their planet and only the intervention of Tintaggon, an impenetrable black wall, saved the day.
Even when they slept they weren't safe as three malign spirits called Yozis attempted to take their place in the affections of man.
Dunsany's gods, like all gods, hold men in tyranny. The people of the Prosperous Isles were happy before sailors brought them knowledge of the gods, whom they soon learnt herded men like cattle.
Yahn (wealth) destroys men because 'his soul is a usurer's soul.' The gods who inhabit the mountains above the city of Mildeen destroy it every time their priest's carve a hundred false images.
I'm going to quote an unusually long passage because Dunsany's simple yet lyrical prose always speaks best for itself. This comes from the story of the King of Karnith Zo, who went forth to conquer Time and was 'overwhelmed by the hours and the years.' Time may be the servant of the gods but he always prevails over both gods and men. After a long journey the king finally arrives at Time's city:
'And the King said, "Is Time then here?"
And one of the old men pointed to a great castle standing on a steep hill and said: "Therein dwells Time, and we are his people;" and they all looked curiously at King Karnith Zo, and the eldest of the villagers spoke again and said: "Whence do you come, you that are so young?" and Karnith Zo told him how he had come to conquer Time to save the world and the gods, and asked them whence they came.
And the villagers said:
"We are older than always, and know not whence we came, but we are the people of Time, and here from the Edge of Everything he sends out his hours to assail the world, and you may never conquer Time." But the King went back to his armies, and pointed towards the castle on the hill and told them that at last they had found the Enemy of the Earth; and they that were older than always went back slowly into their houses with the creaking of olden doors. And there they went across the fields and passed the village. From one of his towers Time eyed them all the while, and in battle order they closed in on the steep hill as Time sat still in his great tower and watched.
But as the feet of the foremost touched the edge of the hill Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still came on, an army of older men. But the slope seemed steeper to the King and to every man in his army, and they breathed more heavily. And Time summoned up more years, and one by one he hurled them at Karnith Zo and at all his men. And the knees of the army stiffened, and their beards grew and turned grey, and the hours and days and the months went singing over their heads, and their hair turned whiter and whiter, and the conquering hours bore down, and the years rushed on and swept the youth of that army clear away till they came face to face under the walls of the castle of Time with a mass of howling years, and found the top of the slope too steep for aged men.'
By far the longest individual story is 'The Journey of the King', in which King Ebalon meets ten prophets in succession during his 'faint wandering through the dreams of gods,' only to discover that their words undermine each other and none of their wisdom is worth more than wine, women and song.
I could have told him that.
August 5, 2017
Well, I can definitely see how Lord Dunsany influenced the future world of fantasy lit. His stories are very beautiful, but in a style that makes you dream and drift away into sleep.
There isn't much consistency of characters, names of places and so on, and no background explanations are given, so when you see a lot of name-dropping (with very specific, fantasy-style names) in a text, it can be confusing. I would have loved to see past or future references to those names, but instead they make a one-time brief appearance in a paragraph, without any occasion to understand how it all fits together into a perhaps coherent world. :)
Still, even if this downside makes Lord Dunsany's stories not be the kind of prose to give way to a massive, GoT-style fandom, I still appreciate his work a lot. Ok, so you can't fall in love with characters, but it's all so dreamy and beautiful that you can definitely fall in love with the atmosphere. That's good enough for me, considering when he wrote and the pioneer status of his prose for the genre.
There isn't much consistency of characters, names of places and so on, and no background explanations are given, so when you see a lot of name-dropping (with very specific, fantasy-style names) in a text, it can be confusing. I would have loved to see past or future references to those names, but instead they make a one-time brief appearance in a paragraph, without any occasion to understand how it all fits together into a perhaps coherent world. :)
Still, even if this downside makes Lord Dunsany's stories not be the kind of prose to give way to a massive, GoT-style fandom, I still appreciate his work a lot. Ok, so you can't fall in love with characters, but it's all so dreamy and beautiful that you can definitely fall in love with the atmosphere. That's good enough for me, considering when he wrote and the pioneer status of his prose for the genre.
September 19, 2014
An intriguing blend of speculative fiction and fantastical imagination.
Dunsany has long been cited as an influence on numerous fantasy writers. This Victorian adventurer had an interesting and remarkable life, and this collection of fiction is reflective of that world view.
It is unfortunate that the weakest stories of this collections are the first a reader encounters, because if you do not persevere, you are in danger of missing out on some great fiction. For every thirteen at table, there are five stories in the mould of Carcassonne. And there in lies the crux of this book - at times it can be a frustrating read, at others, you stumble across a hidden gem like the highwayman, inspiring you to want to write your own collections of short stories.
If the mark of a great short story collection is to inspire the reader to pen their own, then Time and the Gods is a roar away success, its strengths, which are legion, more than compensates for any weaker stories.
Dunsany has long been cited as an influence on numerous fantasy writers. This Victorian adventurer had an interesting and remarkable life, and this collection of fiction is reflective of that world view.
It is unfortunate that the weakest stories of this collections are the first a reader encounters, because if you do not persevere, you are in danger of missing out on some great fiction. For every thirteen at table, there are five stories in the mould of Carcassonne. And there in lies the crux of this book - at times it can be a frustrating read, at others, you stumble across a hidden gem like the highwayman, inspiring you to want to write your own collections of short stories.
If the mark of a great short story collection is to inspire the reader to pen their own, then Time and the Gods is a roar away success, its strengths, which are legion, more than compensates for any weaker stories.
July 19, 2015
I've read bad books. I've read boring books. But it's rare to read a book where I have no idea what the heck happened. This is the book to read when your high on drugs or drunk. Some older books are books of there time. This book is just nuts. The only thing I can remember about this book is wanting to buy a bottle of wine and hoping I wake up and somehow got to the last page.
October 13, 2025
Time and the Gods, first published in 1906, was Lord Dunsany's second book. It follows on from The Gods of Pegāna with somewhat the same style, although only the first few stories mentions Pegāna and some of its gods: "The Coming of the Sea" speaks of Slid, the god of the sea, as does "A Legend of the Dawn," which refers also to Pegāna's Limpang Tung, the Lord of Music; "The Vengeance of Men," "When the Gods Slept," and "The King That Was Not" all mention Pegāna, and the latter talks of Mung, the god of death. Many of the other stories speak of the Old Gods, but none refers specifically to Pegāna and its gods.
Time and the Gods contains 19 short stories in Part I and a novella in Part II, "The Journey of the King." While The Gods of Pegāna reads like a kind of fantastical scripture, establishing a new pantheon, Time and the Gods opens out to speak more of kings, and prophets, and great journeys, and such. Dunsany's incomparable imagination is unfolding and developing in this book, as it will continue to throughout his work, gradually to encompass more elements of "the fields we know," to use a Dunsanian phrase. Time and the Gods, however, is still fully fantastic, with no hint yet of our everyday world.
Time and the Gods contains a further ten lovely plates by Dunsany's illustrator, Sidney H. Sime, which are the perfect accompaniment to Dunsany's whimsical and melancholy stories. The cover reproduces THE DIRGE OF SHIMONO KANI, from Chapter V of "The Journey of the King." Shimono Káni is playing a harp and to me his features look much like those of the young Dunsany. Did Sime use Dunsany as a model for this drawing? Dunsany writes,
It seems suitable that this youngest of the gods, Shimono Káni, is the alter-ego of Dunsany himself. Dunsany's writing continues in this same solemn and poetic style through the whole of Time and the Gods.
Time and the Gods contains 19 short stories in Part I and a novella in Part II, "The Journey of the King." While The Gods of Pegāna reads like a kind of fantastical scripture, establishing a new pantheon, Time and the Gods opens out to speak more of kings, and prophets, and great journeys, and such. Dunsany's incomparable imagination is unfolding and developing in this book, as it will continue to throughout his work, gradually to encompass more elements of "the fields we know," to use a Dunsanian phrase. Time and the Gods, however, is still fully fantastic, with no hint yet of our everyday world.
Time and the Gods contains a further ten lovely plates by Dunsany's illustrator, Sidney H. Sime, which are the perfect accompaniment to Dunsany's whimsical and melancholy stories. The cover reproduces THE DIRGE OF SHIMONO KANI, from Chapter V of "The Journey of the King." Shimono Káni is playing a harp and to me his features look much like those of the young Dunsany. Did Sime use Dunsany as a model for this drawing? Dunsany writes,
One by one in the midst of all the worlds, fell dead the gods of Old, still sighing for the things that might not be, all slain by Their own regrets. Only Shimono Káni, the youngest of the gods, made him a harp out of the heart strings of all the elder gods, and, sitting upon the Path of Stars all in the Midst of Things, played upon the harp a dirge for the gods of Old. And the song told of all vain regrets and of unhappy loves of the gods in the olden time, and of their great deeds that were to adorn the future years. But into the dirge of Shimono Káni came voices crying out of the heart strings of the gods, all sighing still for the things that might not be. And the dirge and the voices crying, go drifting away from the Path of Stars, away from the Midst of Things, till they come twittering among the Worlds, like a great host of birds that are lost by night. And every note is a life, and many notes become caught up among the worlds to be entangled with flesh for a little while before they pass again on their journey to the great Anthem that roars at the End of Time. Shimono Káni hath given a voice to the wind and added a sorrow to the sea. (pp. 141-142)
It seems suitable that this youngest of the gods, Shimono Káni, is the alter-ego of Dunsany himself. Dunsany's writing continues in this same solemn and poetic style through the whole of Time and the Gods.
August 11, 2015
I'm giving two stars for the literary value, but I did not enjoy this story at all. It's a similar idea to The Gods of Pegana where the book consists of loosely connected short stories. However, if you asked me for a summary of what I just read, I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm not afraid to admit that most of the author's writing went over my head. Often times my eyes glazed over and my brain wandered elsewhere even as I forced myself to keep reading the words on the page. I'd recommend this for those that enjoy classic literature, but it's definitely not for your average everyday fantasy reader.
January 5, 2021
As in his The Gods of Pegana, Lord Dunsany again offers an excellent literary mythology that evokes primitive cosmologies, but with a more accomplished modern craftsmanship. Many of these brief stores (though unfortunately not nearly all) are both beautiful and memorable, and one could easily envision a culture repeating these for generations. Favorites include the title story, "The Coming of the Sea", "The Vengeance of Men", "When the Gods Slept", "Night and Morning", "The Secret of the Gods", "In the Land of Time" and "The Relenting of Sardinac". The last, and far longest, framework of tales ("The Journey of the King") is the least successful in my eyes, though even it has its moments and interesting ideas which might better have stood alone (e.g. section IX).
Again, this work and the related works of Dunsany might have been an influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, but overall I find these more interesting (and less influenced by Christianity).
Again, this work and the related works of Dunsany might have been an influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, but overall I find these more interesting (and less influenced by Christianity).
July 9, 2024
Mine eyes did dutifully and ever so laboriously trudge over this monotonous gibberish and I liked it not. Indeed, forsooth, eventually I chanced upon a lonely line of verbiage that, nay, didn't immediately pass into a foggy haze of forgetfulness: "I like not these strange journeys nor this faint wandering through the dreams of gods like the shadow of a weary camel that may not rest when the sun is low" and thought to myself: "Lo, do I ever so know the feeling."
May 9, 2019
This is "Gods of Pegana" squared :)
This is strange, hypnotic, inspiring, confusing. All at once.
Some of the short stories were a little meh, but others were amazing. They are a mythology of a dream world - like stories of creation and what happened next :)
only 3 stars, because while some stories are sublime, others are just bad.... But keep reading for the gems!
This is strange, hypnotic, inspiring, confusing. All at once.
Some of the short stories were a little meh, but others were amazing. They are a mythology of a dream world - like stories of creation and what happened next :)
only 3 stars, because while some stories are sublime, others are just bad.... But keep reading for the gems!
December 26, 2018
What really intrigued me about this book was that I found an old copy with Beardley-esque drawings by S.H. Sime, except the drawings are even more fantasy-oriented. There are a number of tales revolving around the contested relationship between the Gods and Time. These are what Christians would call Pagan gods. You might guess who would win in the struggle between them and Time. The language is purposefully antiquated: "There nought shall hinder thee among thy dreams, for even the gods may harass thee no more when flesh and earth and events with which They bound thee shall have slipped away." So I think readers will either relax and get into it the poetic feel of the work, or think it is effected and back off. For me, the old illustrated edition put me in the mood for the language. The Irish author's "real" name is Edward Plunkett, but he was the actual 18th Baron of Dunsany.
May 2, 2018
"Once when the Gods were young and only their swarthy servant Time was without age, the Gods lay sleeping by a broad river upon earth."
This is a collection of beautiful creation myths for a fictional world. Every culture and religion has its own creation stories, and Lord Dunsany encountered many on his travels throughout the Middle East and Africa, in addition to a keen awareness of the Norse mythology which his native country Ireland adopted for centuries before conversion to Christianity. There was great bravery needed to write these alterative creation stories in conservative, Christian Britain, but Lord Dunsany has created a lyrical lullaby of worlds in parallel timelines. The pre-scientific thirst to explain the origin of cosmological and geological phenomena daily encountered is depicted here with a child-life joy and a gentleness that is not present in the often xenophobic and bloody Norse myths themselves. There is a lot of thought-provoking analysis of what faith does to humanity, and the plurality of truths in faith, all bound together in prose that verges on poetry. It is difficult to see many of these stories individually outside the whole collection, however I will have a go.
The and the Gods ****
Introducing the Old Gods, they bask in their creations and especially their beloved city Sardothrian. They believe Time to be their servant, a swarthy and silent figure who gives the impression of always moving his fearful hands. "fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his nimble sword" But the gods learn to fear Time. For they know that with his beginning, there is also their own end.
The Coming of the Sea ****
Once, the planet was covered by land until the new God Slid marched into existence, covering the land with his waves that surge forwards with military precision. "Slid suddenly launched five oceans out of the deep all to attack Tintagon." The Old Gods raise a great basalt mountain to halt Slid and his waves in an eternal stalemate. This was my first encounter of Dunsany's unique and compelling anthropomorphisation of abstract concepts, in this case the waves, which works excellently here.
The Legend of the Dawn *****
My favourite story in the collection for its sheer gentleness, this detail the story of the God-Child Inzana and how she creates night and day as she tosses her golden ball. "When the worlds began the Gods were stern and old and they saw eyebrows hoar with year, all but Inzana, their child, who played with her golden ball. Inzana was the child of all the Gods." When Inzana throws the Sun into the sky, it comes to rest on earth and a human child plays with it for the rest of the day until the Gods claim it back from under the child's pillow at night. The humanity of the Gods really came across through their interaction with Inzana.
The Vengeance of Men **
In this world, only a very small fraction of prayers are answered. But they need to be made, because the Gods have viler servants than Time. "the green eyes of Pestilence had looked into their souls." The plagues come to discipline humanity.
When the Gods Slept *****
This was another one of my favourite stories. It has the flow of a parable and a brilliant subversive message. When the Old Gods are asleep, malicious spirits sneak into their hall and read the secrets of the Gods, becoming all powerful in themselves and descend to earth to seek worship. "'We be three gods that it were well to worship, gods powerful in the granting of prayer.'" But the human population, those who believe in the Old Gods, idols, or abstract concepts revere their own tradition and the culture their religion brings them more highly than the promise of some granted prayers. In a dark twist, the evil spirits eventually find worshipers among the apes, on a promise that they are given the outward appearance of men in exchange for their faith.
The King That Was Not ***
A creative deception worthy of Loki, in this story the Gods punish a lofty king by leaving him intact but causing the rest of universe to forget that he exists or has ever existed. I enjoy the playfulness and deliberate tease of this punishment.
The Cave of Kai ****
In an uplifting contrast to the vengeance of the Gods, this is the tale of a musician whose art helps a king cheat Time. "'I have a golden harp, and to its strings have clung like dust some seconds of those forgotten hours'" Instead of losing his acomplishments for all eternity to the Cave of Kai, the musician catches moments and deed on his strings. It's a subtle and ingenious origin story for music, and gives that sweet victorious sense that Time can be delayed when even the Gods cannot stop him.
The Sorrow of Search ***
Another dark parable, this concerns a philosopher-prophet whose gift is that he can literally glimpse the outlines of the gods on the high mountains. "'It is well that the sorrow of the search come only to the wise, for the wise are very few.'" He sees shapes of higher gods beyond the Old Gods, and follows these on an iterative quest to find the true highest gods, losing followers and friends at every stage only to find the Old Gods themselves waiting for him at the pinnacle of the mountain.
The Men of Yarnith **
I honestly don't remember this one very well, which is why I can't give it a higher star rating. The plot of the story is a rather hopeless one, which is perhaps why it made less of an impression on me. The men of Yarnith worship a mountain which they are not permitted to look at, and only approach when famine is destroying them as a people. They never learn this mountain is not a God.
For the Honour of the Gods ***
Sometimes I wonder if Lord Dunsany was having mood swings between joy and despair when writing this book. This is one of the despair moments again. It examines the expendability of humanity to the Gods, that mortal life is a form of reality television for them. The people of the peaceful islands are introduced to religion. "the people of the Islands played like children and had no gods and went not forth to war." Which immediately turns the Islands into the Middle East today as theological conflicts arise.
Night and Morning ****
A tale of beautiful naïve Morning being charmed by the tales of Night as the dawn steals over them like forbidden lovers, until dawn breaks and Morning forgets all the delights and wonders Night has told her for another radiant day. There is a hint of reciprocal love which I was not expecting at all from these polar oposites.
Usury ****
This is another grim one, I'm afraid. The god Yahn is a banker. He amasses jewels made from human souls, which he lends out to bodies that live human lives upon earth. Suffering increases the value of the jewels, and Yahn encourages his lenders to "cut them with human griefs until they gleamed anew". It's a crystal clear yet incredibly bleak outlook on the origin of beauty in human culture.
Mlideen **
Another of the less memorable stories. A city begins carving its own idols and is buried by the Gods. Pombo the idolator from The Book of Wonder is much more entertaining.
The Secret of the Gods ****
The Gods don't like people forgetting about them, but they also don't like people thinking about them too much. For example, working out that prophets manipulate people's thoughts. "the prophets of a man's city are as many gardners who weed and trim" They especially don't like their darkest secret being revealed, that the Gods will wither and die without human worship. This idea is fascinating, that the creators are sustained by the created. It appears to have been rediscovered by Levie Tidhar in recent years, but I was amazed to see the idea first recorded here by a writer from conservative Victorian England.
The South Wind **
A very dark little experiment carried out by the Gods in the spirit of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's Monster. An old Man named Ord is gradually stripped of all his senses and copes remarkable well until the Gods take his memory and his body and trust him into the sea to serve as the South Wind.
The Land of Time ****
The swarthy Time is back, this time fighting off a King and his forces who have dared to overthrow Time in the name of eternal youth. "Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still passed on" But Time cannot be overthrown. In a mind-warp reminiscent of general relativity, Time throws years like arrows which wash over the whole world, aging the army in a moment but wreaking slow decay over their loved ones and their city far away.
The Relenting of Sarnidac ****
One of the most uplifting of all the stories in this collection. A nations Gods are leaving its faithless people, abandoning them and walking off into the sky. Sarnidac, a dwarf with a speech impediment, follows the Gods but does not ascend with them as he is human. The men of the nation mistake him for a small God who has taken pity on them and stayed behind, finally treating him like a human being after years of mistreatment.
The Jest of the Gods ***
A one page comeuppance for the Old Gods, in which the soul of a great king that they put in the body of a beggar defies his social roots and speaks scorn against them.
The Dreams of a Prophet ****
Contrasting with the other tales presented here, this is the story of a world that has lost its Gods but goes on without them. Whether anyone has discovered their secrets or not, the Gods have died of lack of worship in a changing world. "'Cans't thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?' and I looked long on those curved and beautiful white bones that could no longer hurt the smallest creature on the worlds that they had made." The author once despised the Gods for their callous use of humanity but on their death experiences mixed feelings, pity and remorse at the vulnerability of the Gods, and an instant nostalgia for their reign. Expanded upon brilliantly in The Exiles' Club featuring in The Last Book of Wonder.
The King's Journey ****
The longest in the collection, this makes a fitting conclusion to the discussion of creation and meaning in a pre-industrial world. The king summons all the most intelligent and sacred prophets to him asking what lies beyond the world. He gets a plethora of answers. "'It is not as he has said, but as I - and I!'" All the accounts are deeply personal, revealing that God is often in the way we interact with the world and is shaped as a concept by the minutiae of our own experiences. The different philosophies put forwards are illuminating in themselves. One prophet sees the moving oceans as the world's only permanence, one says Time shall cease to exist and all times will be the present after death, another that reincarnation occurs and is both punishment and second chance, others that the cosmos is a caravan of souls, others that all that is left after life are dreams, one prophet tells the king that he will see humankind develop beyond his understanding, and old Ulf that nothing awaits us all. The most moving was the account of a shepherd that his friend could hear the voices of the Gods and became so fixated on understanding what they said that he lost all commitment to human life.
"When Time and worlds and death are gone away all that will remain are regrets and the Things that once were Gods."
This is a collection of beautiful creation myths for a fictional world. Every culture and religion has its own creation stories, and Lord Dunsany encountered many on his travels throughout the Middle East and Africa, in addition to a keen awareness of the Norse mythology which his native country Ireland adopted for centuries before conversion to Christianity. There was great bravery needed to write these alterative creation stories in conservative, Christian Britain, but Lord Dunsany has created a lyrical lullaby of worlds in parallel timelines. The pre-scientific thirst to explain the origin of cosmological and geological phenomena daily encountered is depicted here with a child-life joy and a gentleness that is not present in the often xenophobic and bloody Norse myths themselves. There is a lot of thought-provoking analysis of what faith does to humanity, and the plurality of truths in faith, all bound together in prose that verges on poetry. It is difficult to see many of these stories individually outside the whole collection, however I will have a go.
The and the Gods ****
Introducing the Old Gods, they bask in their creations and especially their beloved city Sardothrian. They believe Time to be their servant, a swarthy and silent figure who gives the impression of always moving his fearful hands. "fingering with his dripping fingers the hilt of his nimble sword" But the gods learn to fear Time. For they know that with his beginning, there is also their own end.
The Coming of the Sea ****
Once, the planet was covered by land until the new God Slid marched into existence, covering the land with his waves that surge forwards with military precision. "Slid suddenly launched five oceans out of the deep all to attack Tintagon." The Old Gods raise a great basalt mountain to halt Slid and his waves in an eternal stalemate. This was my first encounter of Dunsany's unique and compelling anthropomorphisation of abstract concepts, in this case the waves, which works excellently here.
The Legend of the Dawn *****
My favourite story in the collection for its sheer gentleness, this detail the story of the God-Child Inzana and how she creates night and day as she tosses her golden ball. "When the worlds began the Gods were stern and old and they saw eyebrows hoar with year, all but Inzana, their child, who played with her golden ball. Inzana was the child of all the Gods." When Inzana throws the Sun into the sky, it comes to rest on earth and a human child plays with it for the rest of the day until the Gods claim it back from under the child's pillow at night. The humanity of the Gods really came across through their interaction with Inzana.
The Vengeance of Men **
In this world, only a very small fraction of prayers are answered. But they need to be made, because the Gods have viler servants than Time. "the green eyes of Pestilence had looked into their souls." The plagues come to discipline humanity.
When the Gods Slept *****
This was another one of my favourite stories. It has the flow of a parable and a brilliant subversive message. When the Old Gods are asleep, malicious spirits sneak into their hall and read the secrets of the Gods, becoming all powerful in themselves and descend to earth to seek worship. "'We be three gods that it were well to worship, gods powerful in the granting of prayer.'" But the human population, those who believe in the Old Gods, idols, or abstract concepts revere their own tradition and the culture their religion brings them more highly than the promise of some granted prayers. In a dark twist, the evil spirits eventually find worshipers among the apes, on a promise that they are given the outward appearance of men in exchange for their faith.
The King That Was Not ***
A creative deception worthy of Loki, in this story the Gods punish a lofty king by leaving him intact but causing the rest of universe to forget that he exists or has ever existed. I enjoy the playfulness and deliberate tease of this punishment.
The Cave of Kai ****
In an uplifting contrast to the vengeance of the Gods, this is the tale of a musician whose art helps a king cheat Time. "'I have a golden harp, and to its strings have clung like dust some seconds of those forgotten hours'" Instead of losing his acomplishments for all eternity to the Cave of Kai, the musician catches moments and deed on his strings. It's a subtle and ingenious origin story for music, and gives that sweet victorious sense that Time can be delayed when even the Gods cannot stop him.
The Sorrow of Search ***
Another dark parable, this concerns a philosopher-prophet whose gift is that he can literally glimpse the outlines of the gods on the high mountains. "'It is well that the sorrow of the search come only to the wise, for the wise are very few.'" He sees shapes of higher gods beyond the Old Gods, and follows these on an iterative quest to find the true highest gods, losing followers and friends at every stage only to find the Old Gods themselves waiting for him at the pinnacle of the mountain.
The Men of Yarnith **
I honestly don't remember this one very well, which is why I can't give it a higher star rating. The plot of the story is a rather hopeless one, which is perhaps why it made less of an impression on me. The men of Yarnith worship a mountain which they are not permitted to look at, and only approach when famine is destroying them as a people. They never learn this mountain is not a God.
For the Honour of the Gods ***
Sometimes I wonder if Lord Dunsany was having mood swings between joy and despair when writing this book. This is one of the despair moments again. It examines the expendability of humanity to the Gods, that mortal life is a form of reality television for them. The people of the peaceful islands are introduced to religion. "the people of the Islands played like children and had no gods and went not forth to war." Which immediately turns the Islands into the Middle East today as theological conflicts arise.
Night and Morning ****
A tale of beautiful naïve Morning being charmed by the tales of Night as the dawn steals over them like forbidden lovers, until dawn breaks and Morning forgets all the delights and wonders Night has told her for another radiant day. There is a hint of reciprocal love which I was not expecting at all from these polar oposites.
Usury ****
This is another grim one, I'm afraid. The god Yahn is a banker. He amasses jewels made from human souls, which he lends out to bodies that live human lives upon earth. Suffering increases the value of the jewels, and Yahn encourages his lenders to "cut them with human griefs until they gleamed anew". It's a crystal clear yet incredibly bleak outlook on the origin of beauty in human culture.
Mlideen **
Another of the less memorable stories. A city begins carving its own idols and is buried by the Gods. Pombo the idolator from The Book of Wonder is much more entertaining.
The Secret of the Gods ****
The Gods don't like people forgetting about them, but they also don't like people thinking about them too much. For example, working out that prophets manipulate people's thoughts. "the prophets of a man's city are as many gardners who weed and trim" They especially don't like their darkest secret being revealed, that the Gods will wither and die without human worship. This idea is fascinating, that the creators are sustained by the created. It appears to have been rediscovered by Levie Tidhar in recent years, but I was amazed to see the idea first recorded here by a writer from conservative Victorian England.
The South Wind **
A very dark little experiment carried out by the Gods in the spirit of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's Monster. An old Man named Ord is gradually stripped of all his senses and copes remarkable well until the Gods take his memory and his body and trust him into the sea to serve as the South Wind.
The Land of Time ****
The swarthy Time is back, this time fighting off a King and his forces who have dared to overthrow Time in the name of eternal youth. "Time hurled five years against them, and the years passed over their heads and the army still passed on" But Time cannot be overthrown. In a mind-warp reminiscent of general relativity, Time throws years like arrows which wash over the whole world, aging the army in a moment but wreaking slow decay over their loved ones and their city far away.
The Relenting of Sarnidac ****
One of the most uplifting of all the stories in this collection. A nations Gods are leaving its faithless people, abandoning them and walking off into the sky. Sarnidac, a dwarf with a speech impediment, follows the Gods but does not ascend with them as he is human. The men of the nation mistake him for a small God who has taken pity on them and stayed behind, finally treating him like a human being after years of mistreatment.
The Jest of the Gods ***
A one page comeuppance for the Old Gods, in which the soul of a great king that they put in the body of a beggar defies his social roots and speaks scorn against them.
The Dreams of a Prophet ****
Contrasting with the other tales presented here, this is the story of a world that has lost its Gods but goes on without them. Whether anyone has discovered their secrets or not, the Gods have died of lack of worship in a changing world. "'Cans't thou be angry with these beautiful white bones?' and I looked long on those curved and beautiful white bones that could no longer hurt the smallest creature on the worlds that they had made." The author once despised the Gods for their callous use of humanity but on their death experiences mixed feelings, pity and remorse at the vulnerability of the Gods, and an instant nostalgia for their reign. Expanded upon brilliantly in The Exiles' Club featuring in The Last Book of Wonder.
The King's Journey ****
The longest in the collection, this makes a fitting conclusion to the discussion of creation and meaning in a pre-industrial world. The king summons all the most intelligent and sacred prophets to him asking what lies beyond the world. He gets a plethora of answers. "'It is not as he has said, but as I - and I!'" All the accounts are deeply personal, revealing that God is often in the way we interact with the world and is shaped as a concept by the minutiae of our own experiences. The different philosophies put forwards are illuminating in themselves. One prophet sees the moving oceans as the world's only permanence, one says Time shall cease to exist and all times will be the present after death, another that reincarnation occurs and is both punishment and second chance, others that the cosmos is a caravan of souls, others that all that is left after life are dreams, one prophet tells the king that he will see humankind develop beyond his understanding, and old Ulf that nothing awaits us all. The most moving was the account of a shepherd that his friend could hear the voices of the Gods and became so fixated on understanding what they said that he lost all commitment to human life.
"When Time and worlds and death are gone away all that will remain are regrets and the Things that once were Gods."
Currently reading
September 11, 2025Preface ✔️
Part I:
"Time and the Gods"✔️
"The Coming of the Sea": ⭐️⭐️: Land vs. Sea, Army vs. Navy
"A Legend of the Dawn": rated separately
"The Vengeance of Men": ⭐️⭐️: Not the Bats!
"When the Gods Slept": ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: It's terrible to compare men and baboons! Baboons are noble creatures (relatively)!
"The King That Was Not": ⭐️⭐️: Anthropomorphic gods are an abomination unless they look like me.
"The Cave of Kai"
"The Sorrow of Search"
"The Men of Yarnith" rated separately
"For the Honour of the Gods"
"Night and Morning"
"Usury"
"Mlideen"
"The Secret of the Gods"
"The South Wind"
"In the Land of Time"
"The Relenting of Sarnidac"
"Jest of the Gods"
"The Dreams of the Prophet"
Part II:
"The Journey of the King": rated separately
Part I:
"Time and the Gods"✔️
"The Coming of the Sea": ⭐️⭐️: Land vs. Sea, Army vs. Navy
"A Legend of the Dawn": rated separately
"The Vengeance of Men": ⭐️⭐️: Not the Bats!
"When the Gods Slept": ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: It's terrible to compare men and baboons! Baboons are noble creatures (relatively)!
"The King That Was Not": ⭐️⭐️: Anthropomorphic gods are an abomination unless they look like me.
"The Cave of Kai"
"The Sorrow of Search"
"The Men of Yarnith" rated separately
"For the Honour of the Gods"
"Night and Morning"
"Usury"
"Mlideen"
"The Secret of the Gods"
"The South Wind"
"In the Land of Time"
"The Relenting of Sarnidac"
"Jest of the Gods"
"The Dreams of the Prophet"
Part II:
"The Journey of the King": rated separately
September 1, 2016
Definitely read "The Gods Of Pegana" first. Then if you enjoy the mythology there, know that you can pick this one up for more stories set in that universe. Lord Dunsany's not for everybody, but personally I found that, like with Shakespeare, once I got into the rhythm of the language it no longer became a difficulty. And the names! Oh my goodness, the names in this book. I had to stop and savor a few of them out loud.
March 16, 2021
This story, or related set of rambling philosophical attempts at myth, is pretty, and pleasant reading, but sadly unmemorable. It has taken me literal years to get through this slim piece, and while I had completely forgotten most all that had gone before, it didn’t seem to matter for the last little bit. More like reading fragments of prose poem than anything else.
August 17, 2011
Dunsany's writing is beautiful. This is a collection of short stories and vignettes tied together by a (roughly) shared world. Reading this and his other work, one could be forgiven for thinking that all of the future of fantastic literature is contained in miniature herein.
November 6, 2018
Time and the Gods is Dunsany's second book about the fictional mythology of Pegana. Fictional mythology is a rather odd genre. Let's face it, most myths are not very good. I'm not talking about works built upon mythology, like Homer, and Beowulf, and whatever else -- indeed, it often seems that the only reason we read myths is to better appreciate their legacy -- but the actual myths themselves. If we lay aside our reverence for antiquity, and approach the matter as we would any other text, we would of course acknowledge the richness of imagination that could serve as raw material for poems, songs, paintings, temples, but find that this raw material itself has many blatant and fundamental shortcomings. Just why do the Twelve Olympians keep changing? So did Nyx or Chaos come first? How exactly is Jesus both the son of God and a descendant of David? It just wouldn't make it past a modern editor.
So why then read made up myths that have not served as the raw material for poems, songs, paintings, temples? Well, in The Gods of Pegana, Dunsany has shown us that in the hands of a capable author myth can, in deed, be a beautiful thing in itself. Time and the Gods tries to offer more of the same, but unfortunately it falls short of the mark in many respects.
First of all, the book suffers the common fate of unwanted sequels. The Gods of Pegana was structurally complete, which was no small part of its beauty: it began with the creation of the world, then the origin of the gods, then introduced us to these gods in details until we grew to know them as well as gods from any other mythos, went on to a body of prophetic works by the inhabitants of Pegana, and finished at the end -- of the worlds, of the gods, of everything, at least until Mana-Yood-Sushai dreams again. So straight away Time and the Gods is put into an awkward position -- it can either tell a completely different cosmogony, or it can serve the role of "More Tales of Pegana, Collected Haphazardly". I think it tries a bit of both. I think, because the book lacks any real structure, and while some stories in it mention the familiar characters of Pegana's mythos, others could well have come from anywhere else.
A second problem is the lack of repetition. The Gods of Pegana, like any real body of myths, was tied together through repetition of certain terms and concepts like "all gods but one" and "the sign of Mung" which served as an aid for remembering and growing familiar with the theology presented. It's what made all the stories feel like they belong in the same book. In Time of the Gods there is a lot less of this. Time makes an appearance a couple of times, Fate and Chance return for a cameo, but overall there is not enough of this to make the stories feel like they belong in the same corpus. Whereas by the end of The Gods of Pegana the reader felt that he knew the basic tenets of the Peganese religion well enough, at the end of Time and the Gods the only fitting response is "What the hell did I just read."
Still, Dunsany is a master of language. The real reason for reading this book is to uncover the occasional gem like:
As far as similies go, "like an old sorrow dimly felt by happy men" has to rank with the best the English language has to offer.
So why then read made up myths that have not served as the raw material for poems, songs, paintings, temples? Well, in The Gods of Pegana, Dunsany has shown us that in the hands of a capable author myth can, in deed, be a beautiful thing in itself. Time and the Gods tries to offer more of the same, but unfortunately it falls short of the mark in many respects.
First of all, the book suffers the common fate of unwanted sequels. The Gods of Pegana was structurally complete, which was no small part of its beauty: it began with the creation of the world, then the origin of the gods, then introduced us to these gods in details until we grew to know them as well as gods from any other mythos, went on to a body of prophetic works by the inhabitants of Pegana, and finished at the end -- of the worlds, of the gods, of everything, at least until Mana-Yood-Sushai dreams again. So straight away Time and the Gods is put into an awkward position -- it can either tell a completely different cosmogony, or it can serve the role of "More Tales of Pegana, Collected Haphazardly". I think it tries a bit of both. I think, because the book lacks any real structure, and while some stories in it mention the familiar characters of Pegana's mythos, others could well have come from anywhere else.
A second problem is the lack of repetition. The Gods of Pegana, like any real body of myths, was tied together through repetition of certain terms and concepts like "all gods but one" and "the sign of Mung" which served as an aid for remembering and growing familiar with the theology presented. It's what made all the stories feel like they belong in the same book. In Time of the Gods there is a lot less of this. Time makes an appearance a couple of times, Fate and Chance return for a cameo, but overall there is not enough of this to make the stories feel like they belong in the same corpus. Whereas by the end of The Gods of Pegana the reader felt that he knew the basic tenets of the Peganese religion well enough, at the end of Time and the Gods the only fitting response is "What the hell did I just read."
Still, Dunsany is a master of language. The real reason for reading this book is to uncover the occasional gem like:
And thou shalt sail away till like an old sorrow dimly felt by happy men the worlds shall gleam in the distance like one star, and as the star pales thou shalt come to the shore of space where aeons rolling shorewards from Time's sea shall lash up centuries to foam away in years.
As far as similies go, "like an old sorrow dimly felt by happy men" has to rank with the best the English language has to offer.
July 26, 2019
This book as a very easy read since each line poetically rolls off the page into the reader's thoughts. However, I need to separate my review into two parts; world-building and story.
For world building, I'm giving this 5 stars. Lord Dunsany did a fantastic job of creating a world of gods and man. His descriptions of settings borderline on poetry. He isn't shy on descriptors and it works in his favor. I found myself looking out to rolling hills, up at towering mountains, walking across marbled lawns, and wandering through forests. He purposely instills sense of tangibility for the gods of old.
I struggled with the story, though. For story, I'm giving this 3 stars. While descriptions of the book refer to it as a series of short-stories, they are presented in a format that loosely relates a story. The story is as high in the sky as the gods themselves, sparsely touching upon man as a singular focal point. In fact, the gods aren't really a focal point either. The story seems to be a telling of Pegāna (the fantasy world), its gods, and both their struggles against time itself. While that makes for a mystical and enchanting tale, it doesn't fair very well when characters and names are tossed here and there with little expounding of them.
In the end, I definitely deem this worth a read, especially if you are a fan of Middle Earth. The similarities are striking. Replace gods with elves, replace other deities with 'servants of the enemy', and then tie the people of Middle Earth in with the people of Pegāna. Even the Undying lands that lie to the west. It's easy to see where Tolkien found his inspiration for Middle Earth.
For world building, I'm giving this 5 stars. Lord Dunsany did a fantastic job of creating a world of gods and man. His descriptions of settings borderline on poetry. He isn't shy on descriptors and it works in his favor. I found myself looking out to rolling hills, up at towering mountains, walking across marbled lawns, and wandering through forests. He purposely instills sense of tangibility for the gods of old.
I struggled with the story, though. For story, I'm giving this 3 stars. While descriptions of the book refer to it as a series of short-stories, they are presented in a format that loosely relates a story. The story is as high in the sky as the gods themselves, sparsely touching upon man as a singular focal point. In fact, the gods aren't really a focal point either. The story seems to be a telling of Pegāna (the fantasy world), its gods, and both their struggles against time itself. While that makes for a mystical and enchanting tale, it doesn't fair very well when characters and names are tossed here and there with little expounding of them.
In the end, I definitely deem this worth a read, especially if you are a fan of Middle Earth. The similarities are striking. Replace gods with elves, replace other deities with 'servants of the enemy', and then tie the people of Middle Earth in with the people of Pegāna. Even the Undying lands that lie to the west. It's easy to see where Tolkien found his inspiration for Middle Earth.
June 25, 2020
Dunsany doubles down on his removed, arbitrary, petty gods, expanding his pantheon from Pegana into pantheons of eld and newsprung deities, both distant and crafted. He begins with aetiological myth but spends most of this volume in the interplay of man and god through his naturalist lens. He adds some new thematic exploits, the most interesting of which is the aesthetic dilemma of the materialist.
“O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left the earth you shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched out hope from the dim future. There shall be no strange cries at night time half understood, nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died with last year's flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet of early dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth and not take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the still blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves and little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by firesides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry and one kiss, and a memory of one pool with rushes, and each one the best, shall the gods take to whom the best belongs, when the gods go.”
“O gods, rob not the earth of the dim hush that hangs round all Your temples, bereave not all the world of old romance, take not the glamour from the moonlight nor tear the wonder out of the white mists in every land; for, O ye gods of the childhood of the world, when You have left the earth you shall have taken the mystery from the sea and all its glory from antiquity, and You shall have wrenched out hope from the dim future. There shall be no strange cries at night time half understood, nor songs in the twilight, and the whole of the wonder shall have died with last year's flowers in little gardens or hill-slopes leaning south; for with the gods must go the enchantment of the plains and all the magic of dark woods, and something shall be lacking from the quiet of early dawn. For it would scarce befit the gods to leave the earth and not take with Them that which They had given it. Out beyond the still blue spaces Ye will need the holiness of sunset for Yourselves and little sacred memories and the thrill that is in stories told by firesides long ago. One strain of music, one song, one line of poetry and one kiss, and a memory of one pool with rushes, and each one the best, shall the gods take to whom the best belongs, when the gods go.”
April 6, 2025
3-4 stjerner. Bogen fungerer som en samling af fiktive mytologiske historier, nærmest som en novellesamling, og kvaliteten af historierne svinger fra det lettere trivielle og overfladiske til virkelig gode historier med dybde og indsigt. Bogen er en fortsættelse af historierne fra The Gods of Pegana. De er i dag nok mest læseværdige hvis man ønsker at kende den litterære baggrund for meget af den moderne fantasy litteratur, og dele af science fiction. Dunsany var en af de første rigtige fantasy forfattere der skabte hele nye verdener, modsat eventyrslitteraturen, og hans Gods of Pegana univers fik netop sin betydning ved at vise hvordan man således kunne skabe et helt litterært univers med gudefortællinger, heltehistorier, hele universer og en internt forbundet mytologi, uden nogle direkte sammenhæng med den virkelige verden og dens religioner og folkelige overtro. Desværre er det at være en af de første ikke det samme som at være en af de bedste, og mens bøgerne ikke er dårlige, så er de heller ikke fantastiske (om end dele af historierne i Time and the Gods er virkelig gode) og den litterære kvalitet lider under forsøget på at være nytænkende og på at kopiere den måde virkelige religioner skriver mytologi på, inklusiv korte semi-afbrudte historier og visse mangler på konsistens i universet. Som litteratur er hans senere, mere "almindelige" fantasy bøger og novellesamlinger langt bedre, men er man litteraturhistorisk interesseret så er The Gods of Pegana og Time and the Gods, bestemt værd at læse og man kan flere steder spotte hvordan de inspirerede senere forfattere indenfor fantasy og science fiction.
July 20, 2024
Score: 3.1;
Time and the Gods continues the tradition laid out in the Gods of Pegana. The mythos of Pegana and its gods are further chronicled in a frenzied fairy-tale style.
The strength of Lord Dunsany's writing comes in his use of imagery and his ability to wrap up moral lessons within these tiny narratives. The images evoked in relation to the story involving the Dawnchild and the golden ball are vivid; the lessons learned by the King wanting to fight against Time are rather pointed. To that end, Lord Dunsany has created a mythos that serves its "intended" purpose of painting a mosaic while teaching structured moral lessons. He captures that essence fairly well, notwithstanding the fact that it lacks many component of story-telling of creating an engaging, emotionally-driven, thematically-compelling narrative.
Compared to its predecessor, this collection is a lot more uneven. Some of the stories here are better, but a lot of the stories here are a lot more dreadful to read through. Plenty stories feel meandering and pointless in the grand scheme of things. Contradictions are abound, and many elements feel to disjointed or lacking proper attention. The last story in particular story followed a similar dreadful style that was repeated ad nauseum 11 times, making the point moot because of how often it is repeated.
Thus, my estimation of Times and the Gods is a tad more pessimistic and make smore cautious in attempting more stories by Lord Dunsany, as outside of his ability to paint a scene, his writing offers not much else.
Time and the Gods continues the tradition laid out in the Gods of Pegana. The mythos of Pegana and its gods are further chronicled in a frenzied fairy-tale style.
The strength of Lord Dunsany's writing comes in his use of imagery and his ability to wrap up moral lessons within these tiny narratives. The images evoked in relation to the story involving the Dawnchild and the golden ball are vivid; the lessons learned by the King wanting to fight against Time are rather pointed. To that end, Lord Dunsany has created a mythos that serves its "intended" purpose of painting a mosaic while teaching structured moral lessons. He captures that essence fairly well, notwithstanding the fact that it lacks many component of story-telling of creating an engaging, emotionally-driven, thematically-compelling narrative.
Compared to its predecessor, this collection is a lot more uneven. Some of the stories here are better, but a lot of the stories here are a lot more dreadful to read through. Plenty stories feel meandering and pointless in the grand scheme of things. Contradictions are abound, and many elements feel to disjointed or lacking proper attention. The last story in particular story followed a similar dreadful style that was repeated ad nauseum 11 times, making the point moot because of how often it is repeated.
Thus, my estimation of Times and the Gods is a tad more pessimistic and make smore cautious in attempting more stories by Lord Dunsany, as outside of his ability to paint a scene, his writing offers not much else.
July 13, 2018
These are the tales of the hubris of gods and men - and of Time, that servant with no master, who evermore looms, and lurks, and waits, his hands red with blood.
Edward John Moreton Drax (daaamn, I want these middle names) Plunkett, Baron of Dunsany, proves himself not a writer, but a wright of made up mythology (ignore paradoxicality of statements)... His tories realy have the weight, that not quite describable gravitas of actual myth - only with the thematic coherence providable only by a single author.
Or maybe I'm exaggerating because archaic-sounding, well-constructed, myth-like pretentious prose happens to touch in a good way most of my buttons.
Also, Time and the Gods could be existential dread fuel. My kind of fantasy stories, basically.
Edward John Moreton Drax (daaamn, I want these middle names) Plunkett, Baron of Dunsany, proves himself not a writer, but a wright of made up mythology (ignore paradoxicality of statements)... His tories realy have the weight, that not quite describable gravitas of actual myth - only with the thematic coherence providable only by a single author.
Or maybe I'm exaggerating because archaic-sounding, well-constructed, myth-like pretentious prose happens to touch in a good way most of my buttons.
Also, Time and the Gods could be existential dread fuel. My kind of fantasy stories, basically.
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