THE SUNDERING FLOOD was completed in 1896, just a few weeks before its author died. Of the four fantasy-novels, this still uses archaic diction, but Morris no longer seems to use forty words when four will do, as in the other novels. Perhaps the writer sensed that he no longer had time to waste, and chose to tell his last story more concisely.
FLOOD is also the only Morris fantasy that evokes the
magical potential of what Lin Carter calls the “imaginary-world novel.” In the other three books, Morris avoids depicting
acts of magic, or magical beings, save where they’re strictly necessary to the
plot. Thus one character possesses a magical boat that gets her where she needs
to go, and another character sees visions of people he has met or is fated to
meet. But in contrast to most later fantasy-authors, Morris has no interest in
the dynamics of the faerie world. It may be that he was just too strongly
influenced by the historical fiction of his time, as produced by writers like
Dumas and Scott.
FLOOD, though, evokes faerie very strongly in its early
chapters, though again, it’s for the purpose of empowering the hero, whose
central conflict is one of overcoming mundane opponents. As a child the
parent-less Osberne encounters a capricious dwarf who demonstrates his ability
to cut off his own head and survive. Osberne refuses to let the trick be played
on him, and his physical resistance wins the dwarf’s respect—so much so that
the dwarf gives him a special knife. A little later Osberne, while standing
guard over a sheep-flock, uses the knife to kill a pack of wolves. This heroic
deed apparently wins the approval of another denizen of faerie, for at the age
of thirteen, long before Osberne is deemed a man, a strange knight named
Steelhead visits Osberne’s village and gives him two gifts: arrows that never
miss their target, and a huge sword named Broadcleaver.
The sword presents a problem: Osberne is not yet strong
enough to wield it. What follows might be termed the medievalist’s version of
endowing a hero with some special abilities. In modern times heroes are
empowered by mutant genes or the bites of radioactive nightcrawlers, but
Steelhead empowers Osberne by the venerable medieval method known as “the
laying-on of hands.”
“And the lad stood still before [Steelhead], and Steelhead
laid his hands on the head of him first, and let them abide there a while; then
he passes his hands over the shoulders and arms of the boy, and his legs and
thighs and breast, and all over his body…”
In our current culture there’s no way that we can read
this scene—which takes place when both thirteen-year-old Osberne and apparently
adult Steelhead are standing naked in a pool—and not think “gayboys!” I can’t
absolutely deny that Morris might have written the scene with some mild gay-curious
sentiment. But it’s worth pointing out that in the same section, Steelhead
states that he’s performing the laying-on of hands because it’s considered the
duty of a father, and he says of his deed: “Thus then have I done to thee to
take the place of a father to thee.” I
think that while a gay sentiment is not impossible, it’s more likely that this
ritual is a rite of passage, in which the adult only touches the
different sections of the child’s whole body in order to bless them. And the
result is indeed that thirteen-year-old Osberne gains the magical strength to
wield the huge sword, and thus to become the village’s premiere warrior.
Osberne’s prowess also leads to a heterosexual conclusion.
In place of the “older woman-younger woman” constellation seen in the other
novels, here older women are no threat to Osberne’s relationship with his
“Woman of Innocence.” The only opponent
to his tryst with Elfhild, girl of a neighboring village, is “Mother Earth,” for
the villages of Osberne and Elfhild are separated by a titanic river-torrent
that goes on for miles. This “Sundering Flood” prevents them from doing
anything more than talking to one another across opposing river-banks, and thus
builds good narrative tension for the early section of the novel.
Evil deeds break the impasse, as raiders called “the Red
Skinners” take Elfhild prisoner. Osberne gathers some companions and pursues
the raiders until he finally reaches a point where the Sundering Flood
ends—culminating in the defeat of the raiders and the final union of the
romantic couple.
Of Morris’ four fantasy novels SUNDERING FLOOD is the
easiest to read, in addition to having the most compelling storyline. It’s
slightly disappointing that all trace of faerie drops out of the story once
Osberne goes in quest of Elfhild, but it may be that on some level Morris
simply wasn’t as “bullish” as Tolkien with regard to “dreaming of dragons” and
all the other tropes of fantasy. Morris, it seems, made use of faerie “as
needed.” For this reason none of his
four “imaginary world” novels rate among the best of their subgenre. Still,
William Morris continues to deserve the appropriate honors for forging a new
pathway, along which others chose to build more impressive structures.
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