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The Arthurian legend endures because its themes and characters resonate globally. Elfindale is my conception of that myth, and its ramifications for contemporary culture. It's universally understood by mystics an androgynous psyche is mandatory for higher forms of consciousness. By restoring Morgan le Fay to her rightful place as Merlin's soul mate Elfindale embodies this sacred truth. Elfindale is also a Gaia novel, for Merlin and his magnificent dog Thunder, obedient vassals of nature, are summoned to train a modern girl in the arts of sorcery and politics, since her generation is charged with husbanding the world, before humanity pays the catastrophic price of a multifaceted global suffering generated by its cumulative folly. Because "A lesson humorously delivered is a lesson retained," the great themes of Elfindale are presented with love, laughter, and a spirit of adventure, in a novel that nurtures the young while challenging seasoned souls. Ian Lauder About the Author Bunking for over sixty years with diverse strata of societal pyramids (from penniless prisoners to mega-rich bluebloods), experiencing a gamut of habitats (from wilderness solitude to teeming megalopolis), Ian Lauder lives a literary life uniquely honed for cautioning malfeasant man, while celebrating Divinity's gifts of life, laughter, and love. Elfindale, his first public proffering, is one of dozens of disparate volumes penned and polished over decades, all to be published in due course. Painting shares equal billing with writing, in Ian's art-obsessed firmament, as does filmmaking, cartooning, sculpture, and photography - showcased on his Mud Valley Productions Inc. web site: www.mudvalley.com.
Peace Arch News Review
There's a touch of the blarney... Peace Arch News Review Ian Lauder doesn't do things by halves. Although it took her a year to awaken to it, the two years Merlin deemed necessary to 'train' Morgan to the full flowering of sorcery were as unnecessary as her flirtations. No exercises were required, no meditations, no pouring over dusty tomes. Merlin saw, from day one, she was capable, at eighteen, of assuming his mantle forthwith, but he refrained from telling her this and teaching her the one spell she couldn't master without his assistance. He did so because he feared she might, in her youthful exuberance, do some small harm to the world, like interfering with the full flowering of Christianity; and because he wanted to enjoy her companionship for a while before entering his great, rejuvenating sleep. Surprisingly, the impatience of her youth didn't wear on him, and the calmness of his age didn't wear on her, so those two years unfolded like a dream; but, like all dreams, no matter how pleasurable, their brief idyll soon came to an end and he found himself, shortly after the 'passing' of Arthur, teaching her that one last enchantment. By this time they were friends: comrades of the highest order; so when she uttered the fateful spell and made the sign that 'imprisoned' him in his famous crystal cave, it wasn't in the spirit of betrayal but in the spirit of compassion. Compassion for one of the grandest souls who ever lived. Compassion for a revered elder in need of a much-deserved rest. It would be inhuman to expect, despite the charm of their friendship, Morgan wouldn't, for a brief period at least, enjoy the limelight for a while after her 'enchantment' of Merlin; after all, his was a very long and famous shadow to stand in indeed. She soon found herself however, feeling neither fish nor fowl, as Faerie increasingly faded from the world of man, Christianity having raised its sterner and sterner hand, till its presence, then visits from its denizens, became a rarity rather than the norm. Nymphs, the first to go, eventually stopped sporting altogether in the streams of Earth, preferring the less tangible but safer waters of 'not here' - then dragons, griffins, fauns, satyrs, goblins, elves, trolls, nature spirits, and finally, even unicorns, bade a silent farewell, until their very existence was considered but base superstition. Alone in the world, and, paradoxically, in hiding for her life for having 'betrayed' Merlin - the greatest of all pre-Christian men - Morgan committed a final act of 'pique' before setting sail for Ireland: she befuddled the exact time and location of Camelot in the consciousness of all, and thus, made it the stuff of legend evermore. No sad remnants of its foundation and flourishing would be found, to tarnish its glory in the mind of man. No broken lance mounts, no pottery shards, no forlorn shoe buckles. Nothing would remain of Camelot down through the ages but a memory of its wondrous rise and fall. A memory man would take to the stars when he shook loose the bonds of gravity and voyaged out into the galaxy and beyond. A memory we all need. A memory that said, for a while at least, Glory and Justice existed side by side on Earth; then faded, as all things must. The choice of a crystal cave on Earth to harbour Merlin's rejuvenation and peace was by no means because it possessed merely the virtue of seclusion, for some of its crystals were dragon's teeth; teeth from the great, slumbering earth-monster that formed the spine of 'Prospero's Island' - the dragon who'd become his fearsome mount when the great sorcerer fully rejoined the world, to battle Ignorance once again - since his destined work would not be complete until Faerie and Earth wed. Until Science, Religion, and Magic became indefatigable allies in the breast of wholesome humanity. Until his peers were numerous, his solitude over. On a practical level of course, crystals on Earth, in their natural state and abundant, are the subtlest and best-to-be-offered of all the world's healing ministrations because they, like the apples of Avalon in Faerie, rejuvenate slowly, and thus, to a depth and duration of body, mind and soul that mere medicaments, unguents, and glacial waters could ever do. Beauty and refraction were factors as well: beauty for his soul and aesthetic pleasure, and refraction to multiply his image ten thousand fold, should some malignant power discover his seclusion; for being unable to focus forthwith on the actual corporeality of Merlin, few would have the courage to violate the privacy of his sanctuary long enough to instigate any harm, before he summoned a surprise he'd kept even from Morgan.
The effect of all of this, its ambience, made the crystal cave, as one would expect, a very special place indeed; as our travellers discovered, when, to their surprise, they suddenly materialized into a void. A void so dark, all they could see were the flashing rainbows dancing on Thunder's invisible coat. Rainbows that, as they flashed, caused the crystals in the cave to ring with a pleasant delicacy, which gradually increased in timbre until our voyagers felt themselves to be nothing but triumphant, joyous sound. Sound beyond, but akin, to the exultant tolling of Christmas bells throughout a peaceful realm. Saturated by this exciting and harmonious ringing, the very personification of audile celebration, the three stood in silent, egoless awe and basked in a perfect marriage of serenity and bliss - then the crystals began to visually manifest, glowing at first with a delicate blue flame, that was never lost, but added to, by further subtle hues beyond normal human perception - until the cave was flooded with dazzling, euphoric light surpassing the glorious sounds which had given it birth, that gradually quieted, as it grew. |
