During 12th Century, perhaps during the reign of King Stephen an event occurred which is perhaps the most unexplained mystery till today.
On a Sunny day the villagers of Woolpit discovered two children, a brother and sister, beside one of the wolf pits that gave the village its name.Their skin was green, they spoke an unknown language, and their clothing was unfamiliar.
I’ve heard of the story of the green children. It’s a standard legend about visitors from Fairy land, because in folklore fairies always have either green skin or green hair or green eyes, and they live in an underground kingdom where there is no sun, which you reach by stepping through a magical portal which is there sometimes but not at other times. I had never heard the variation about the teleportation experiment from another planet. That’s pretty good, and most appropriate that it appeared in a science fiction magazine.
It’s fun to make up speculative stories about travel to or from other dimensions. In the same vein there are also legends of mortals stepping through one of those hidden doorways never to be seen again. I like the one about Oliver Larch, who supposedly disappeared after being sent to fetch water one winter evening. His family supposedly heard him calling for help, but when they rushed outside there was no sign of him. His footprints in the snow led halfway to the well and just vanished. These stories are fun, but it’s a good idea to keep in mind how much is fiction and how much is verifiable fact. In this case verifiable fact is virtually nil.
I’m a fantasy fan from way back in the 80’s, and have read tons of fantasy books. I’m not so in love with the newer ones out that are all about political intrigue an stuff like that, for me it’s all about the hero fighting bad guys and monsters- I’ll take a Forgotten Realms book over ‘The Wheel of Time’ any day.
Because I love putting myself in the role of the heroes, my favorite story-line is when an average person somehow goes to the ‘other side’, thus allowing my imagination to really take-off with the idea of, “what if it was me who went to the ‘other side’”?
I haven’t found that many books with that premise, so if you have any good ideas, let me know (I’ve read the Narnia books.)
Having the green kids come here is an interesting reversal of what I like, and could make a cool story too.
Another variation is accidentally stepping through a doorway into time itself (like in “Planet of the Apes” when Taylor thinks he is on another planet until he suddenly realizes that he has merely traveled a thousand or more years into the future). Not long ago I was watching one of those mystery mongering television shows claiming that Liverpool, England is currently a hotspot for that sort of thing. To hear them tell it you can’t walk down a street in Liverpool without finding yourself in some other time period, if only for a few minutes.
Advocatus, would you put Terry Brooks’ Shannara books in that category?
I don’t think he states it explicitly in his books, but I remember being partway through “The Elfstones of Shannara”, and realizing that the ruins they were walking through were of a modern city that was destroyed long ago. It really changed the way I looked at that world after that.
This was back in the mid-80’s, and I was in high school. I had just found fantasy by reading LotR, and the Shannara series were the first books I had ever bought.
If I recall correctly, some of Brook’s books were set in our contemporary times, and when u read them all, u eventually see that the Shanarra books were set in our future.
I’ll have to go back and reread them. I never kept up with the series because I got onto other great authors and never went back. Looks like I’ll have to dig mine out and hit the library for the ones I’m missing.
There are so many Shanarra books, but Brooks wrote the original ones, way back when. But in the 90’s he wrote the Word and Void series. The setting is more or less our modern times world, u won’t recognize that it has any relation to the Shanarra novels. But then after that series (in setting) 100 yrs later is the setting of Genesis of Shanarra.
I do vaguely seem to recall that in “The Sword of Shannarra”, at one point the wizard pulls out what is obviously a flashlight. And at the time (this must have been the 80’s right?) my friends and I discussed the possibility the whole thing was set in a post-apocalypse future (although the characters didn’t step through some portal to get there). But I’m probably the wrong one to ask since I didn’t like the novel very much. I still have a copy of the book, which I take out and read when I have insomnia. It puts me right to sleep!
And yes, Terry Brooks also has a Knight of the Word series, set in contemporary times.
Crikey! I just looked at the list of Shannara books on the Terry Brooks website, and I’m blown away with the number of them. The guy’s been pumping them out for 40 years.
Genesis of Shannara
Armageddon’s Children
The Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
Legends of Shannara
Bearers of the Black Staff
The Measure of the Magic
The Original Shannara Novels
The Sword of Shannara
The Elfstones of Shannara
The Wishsong of Shannara
A Shannara Novella - Indomitable (in the Legends II anthology)
A Shannara Graphic Novel - Dark Wraith of Shannara
The Heritage of Shannara
The Scions of Shannara
The Druid of Shannara
The Elf Queen of Shannara
The Talismans of Shannara
A Shannara Prequel - First King of Shannara
The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara
Ilse Witch
Antrax
Morgawr
High Druid of Shannara
Jarka Ruus
Tanequil
Straken
The Dark Legacy of Shannara
Wards of Faerie
Bloodfire Quest
Witch Wraith
Defenders of Shannara
The High Druid’s Blade
The Darkling Child
The Sorcerer’s Daughter
The Fall of Shannara
The Black Elfstone
The Skaar Invasion (in stores now)
Book 3 (forthcoming May 28, 2019)
Book 4 (forthcoming)
Oh, how have I been so blind for all these years?!? Hopefully I can enjoy them half as much as I did back in the 80’s. I hope Garet Jax is around in some of them, he’s on my short list of “Best Fantasy Fighters.”
That looks like the Shannara books. But I don’t think that the list includes his books that had a contemporary-like setting that lead up to within 100 yrs of the origins (or oranges as our POTUS would say) of Shannara.
