Pulp Fantasy Library: The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth

Were I to be so bold as to enumerate the commonest elements of fantasy literature, magic swords would almost certainly appear near the top of the list. Whether it be Excalibur, Hrunting, Tizona, or Durendal from myth or Orcrist, Graywand, Stormbringer, or Terminus Est from literature, fantasy tales, particularly those of the sort that most strongly influenced the creation of D&D and other roleplaying games, are replete with named and enchanted weapons. 

I thought about their prevalence the other day as I re-read "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth" (hereafter "Sacnoth") by Lord Dunsany. Originally published in the 1908 collection entitled The Sword of Welleran, "Sacnoth" presents the reader with a rural village called Allathurion, whose people lived in peace with "all the folk who walked in the dark ways of the wood," as well as "among themselves and between them and their lord, Lorendiac." Despite this,

there was trouble in Allathurion, for of an evening fell dreams were wont to come slipping through the tree trunks and into the peaceful village; and they assumed dominion of men's minds and led them in watches of the night through the cindery plains of Hell. 

The village magician "made spells against those fell dreams; yet still the dreams came flitting through the trees." Consequently, "men grew afraid of sleep … And they grew worn and pale, some through the want of rest, and others from fear of the things they saw on the cindery plains of Hell." Deeply concerned by this, the magician retired to his tower to cast spells to uncover the source of the nightmares that held Allathurion and its people in its grip.

In time, he came to know that

the dreams were from Gaznak … the greatest magician among the spaces of the stars. And he read to the people out of the Book of Magicians, which tells the comings of the comet and foretells his coming again. And he told them how Gaznak rides upon the comet, and how he visits Earth once in every two hundred and thirty years, and makes for himself a vast, invincible fortress and sends out dreams to feed on the minds of men, and may never be vanquished but by the sword Sacnoth.

 This is the first mention of the titular sword in the story, which we soon learn has not yet been wrought, "for it lies as yet in the hide of Tharagavverug, protecting his spine." Tharagvverug is 

the dragon-crocodile who haunts the Northern marshes and ravages the homesteads by their marge. And the hide of his back is of steel, and his under parts are of iron; but along the midst of his back, over his spine, there lies a narrow strip of unearthly steel. The strip of steel is Sacnoth, and it may be neither cleft nor molten, and there is nothing in the world that may avail to break it, not even leave a scratch upon its surface. It is of the length of a good sword, and of the breadth thereof. 

Leothric, son of the villagers' lord, offers to slay Tharagvverug so that he might acquire Sacnoth and use it to defeat Gaznak and end his depredations upon the village of Allathurion.

One could be forgiven for assuming that the slaying of the dragon-crocodile would take up the bulk of the story. In point of fact, Leothric's quest to defeat Tharagvverug and obtain the sword Sacnoth goes entirely according to plan and therefore ends quite quickly. This certainly surprised me, because the slaying of a dragon – or a similarly dangerous monster – is the basis for a great many classical fantasy stories. That Dunsany reduced the slaying of Tharagvverug to the prolog of the larger story of defeating Gaznak is a bold move and is part of why it stands out, even within Dunsany's larger body of work.

"Sacnoth" is also beautifully written and a joy to read. Dunsany's command of language is remarkable, drawing on both Greek poetry and the Bible in its lyricism. Unlike, for example, Lovecraft, who admired and was influenced by his work, Dunsany somehow manages to evoke a mythic past without recourse to archaism or pedantry. For that reason, it's a story that practically demands to be read aloud and I think one's enjoyment of it would be increased if it were. Regardless, I highly recommend "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth." It's readily available online and not very long. Like me, I suspect you'll not only enjoy it, you'll want to read more of Dunsany's tales.  

(And, as a largely unrelated aside, Sacnoth is the name for an important world within GDW's Third Imperium setting for Traveller. I think I encountered the name through this game long before I ever read the story from which it comes.)