Lud-in-the-Mist

by Hope Mirrlees

In that land grow fruit,

the proper nourishment for the souls of man.

Sebastian Thug,

gillyflowers beyond the hills?

Who? Question

the widow Gibberty

Never you make a pet of a dead man. For the dead are dirty curs and bite the hand that has fed them”;

Question

“Endymion Leer and Clementina Gibberty, I find you guilty of murder, and I consign your bodies to the birds, and your souls to whence they came. And may all here present take example from your fate, correcting their conduct if it needs correction, or, if it be impeccable, keeping it so. For every tree can be a gallows, and every man has a neck to hang.”

Miss Primrose Crabapple.

she believed in loveliness though she had never seen it.”

Haha

A gibbet - editor!

strange silvery peals of laughter were heard proceeding from the room where long ago Duke Aubrey’s jester had killed himself.

Triple simile

“He must be powerful fond of that little chap,”

Haha - YES!

Doctor Leer can’t have been in the right when he said all them Magistrates were played out, for it’s the bravest thing has ever been done in Dorimare.”

the invisible cicerone of dreams, who is one’s other self,

a sort of heath, dotted with the white booths of a fair. “That is the market of souls,”

Haha

Dead silence, and blazing sun.

Haha

Haha

“It is not long,” said the invisible cicerone, “since that little boy was stolen from the mortals. He still can weep.”

the solemn innocent world of children, a world sans archness, sans humor, sans vulgarity, where they had sounded as pure and silvery as a shepherd’s pipe.

living on frangipane and sillabubs of peaches and cream;

While mothers-in-law, shrewish wives, falling in love — they were just pretty words like brightly-colored beads, strung together without meaning.

young sparks returning from the tavern at midnight,

the market gardeners — their stalls were simply thronged.

fairy fruit;

he had the curious feeling that one sometimes has in dreams, namely, that he himself was inventing what was happening to him, and could make it end as he chose.

the top of a red head,

Willy Wisp,

Prunella,

This is not Fairyland — it is only the Elfin Marches.

Chanticleer the dreamer, who has never tasted fruit.”

“Father, your have saved us! You and the Law.”

That’s a dream feature for sure

“They are looking for the bleeding corpse,” whispered the invisible cicerone,

unspeakable horror.

At every street corner he came on a dead man, guarded by a stone beggar with a face like the herm in the Gibberty’s orchard.

horror

t...

whatever happens, I shan’t mind, because it isn’t real.”

Maybe it’s a *combination* of real and invented. Question

Portunus.

in summoning him he must be very careful to use the correct ritual formulary.

creatures made of red lacquer.

suddenly the streets were pullulating with strange semi-human fauna:

It’s either LSD or indigestion.

dressed in beetles’ shards.

they were only figures on a piece of tapestry flapping in the wind!

I guess only those brave enough, and committed enough, can get through the Ellen Marches.