Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea Series)

Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea Series)

by Ursula K. Le Guin
Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea Series)

Tales from Earthsea (Earthsea Series)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Overview

The tales of this book explore and extend the world established by the Earthsea novels—yet each stands on its own. It contains the novella "The Finder," and the short stories "The Bones of the Earth," "Darkrose and Diamond," "On the High Marsh," and "Dragonfly." Concluding with with an account of Earthsea's history, people, languages, literature, and magic, this collection also features two new maps of Earthsea.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780547773704
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 09/11/2012
Series: Earthsea Series
Pages: 480
Sales rank: 34,247
Product dimensions: 4.20(w) x 6.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 12 - 17 Years

About the Author

About The Author
URSULA K. LE GUIN was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929, and passed away in Portland, Oregon, in 2018. She published over sixty books of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, children’s literature, and translation. She was the recipient of a National Book Award, six Hugo and five Nebula awards, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
 

Hometown:

Portland, Oregon

Date of Birth:

October 21, 1929

Place of Birth:

Berkeley, California

Education:

B.A., Radcliffe College; M.A., Columbia University, 1952

Read an Excerpt

The Finder

I. In the Dark Time

This is the first page of the Book of the Dark, written some six hundred years ago in Berila, on Enlad:
"After Elfarran and Morred perished and the Isle of Sol"a sank beneath the sea, the Council of the Wise governed for the child Serriadh until he took the throne. His reign was bright but brief. The kings who followed him in Enlad were seven, and their realm increased in peace and wealth. Then the dragons came to raid among the western lands, and wizards went out in vain against them. King Akambar moved the court from Berila in Enlad to the City of Havnor, whence he sent out his fleet against invaders from the Kargad Lands and drove them back into the East. But still they sent raiding ships even as far as the Inmost Sea. Of the fourteen Kings of Havnor the last was Maharion, who made peace both with the dragons and the Kargs, but at great cost. And after the Ring of the Runes was broken, and Erreth-Akbe died with the great dragon, and Maharion the Brave was killed by treachery, it seemed that no good thing happened in the Archipelago.

"Many claimed Maharion's throne, but none could keep it, and the quarrels of the claimants divided all loyalties. No commonwealth was left and no justice, only the will of the wealthy. Men of noble houses, merchants, and pirates, any who could hire soldiers and wizards called himself a lord, claiming lands and cities as his property. The warlords made those they conquered slaves, and those they hired were in truth slaves, having only their masters to safeguard them from rival warlords seizing the lands, and sea-pirates raiding the ports, and bands and hordes of lawless, miserable men dispossessed of their living, driven by hunger to raid and rob."

The Book of the Dark, written late in the time it tells of, is a compilation of self-contradictory histories, partial biographies, and garbled legends. But it's the best of the records that survived the dark years. Wanting praise, not history, the warlords burnt the books in which the poor and powerless might learn what power is.

But when the lore-books of a wizard came into a warlord's hands he was likely to treat them with caution, locking them away to keep them harmless or giving them to a wizard in his hire to do with as he wished. In the margins of the spells and word lists and in the endpapers of these books of lore a wizard or his prentice might record a plague, a famine, a raid, a change of masters, along with the spells worked in such events and their success or unsuccess. Such random records reveal a clear moment here and there, though all between those moments is darkness. They are like glimpses of a lighted ship far out at sea, in darkness, in the rain.

And there are songs, old lays and ballads from small islands and from the quiet uplands of Havnor, that tell the story of those years.

Havnor Great Port is the city at the heart of the world, white-towered above its bay; on the tallest tower the sword of Erreth-Akbe catches the first and last of daylight. Through that city passes all the trade and commerce and learning and craft of Earthsea, a wealth not hoarded. There the King sits, having returned after the healing of the Ring, in sign of healing. And in that city, in these latter days, men and women of the islands speak with dragons, in sign of change.

But Havnor is also the Great Isle, a broad, rich land; and in the villages inland from the port, the farmlands of the slopes of Mount Onn, nothing ever changes much. There a song worth singing is likely to be sung again. There old men at the tavern talk of Morred as if they had known him when they too were young and heroes. There girls walking out to fetch the cows home tell stories of the women of the Hand, who are forgotten everywhere else in the world, even on Roke, but remembered among those silent, sunlit roads and fields and in the kitchens by the hearths where housewives work and talk.

In the time of the kings, mages gathered in the court of Enlad and later in the court of Havnor to counsel the king and take counsel together, using their arts to pursue goals they agreed were good. But in the dark years, wizards sold their skills to the highest bidder, pitting their powers one against the other in duels and combats of sorcery, careless of the evils they did, or worse than careless. Plagues and famines, the failure of springs of water, summers with no rain and years with no summer, the birth of sickly and monstrous young to sheep and cattle, the birth of sickly and monstrous children to the people of the isles¾all these things were charged to the practices of wizards and witches, and all too often rightly so.

So it became dangerous to practice sorcery, except under the protection of a strong warlord; and even then, if a wizard met up with one whose powers were greater than his own, he might be destroyed. And if a wizard let down his guard among the common folk, they too might destroy him if they could, seeing him as the source of the worst evils they suffered, a malign being. In those years, in the minds of most people, all magic was black.

It was then that village sorcery, and above all women's witchery, came into the ill repute that has clung to it since. Witches paid dearly for practicing the arts they thought of as their own. The care of pregnant beasts and women, birthing, teaching the songs and rites, the fertility and order of field and garden, the building and care of the house and its furniture, the mining of ores and metals-these great things had always been in the charge of women. A rich lore of spells and charms to ensure the good outcome of such undertakings was shared among the witches. But when things went wrong at the birth, or in the field, that would be the witches' fault. And things went wrong more often than right, with the wizards warring, using poisons and curses recklessly to gain immediate advantage without thought for what followed after. They brought drought and storm, blights and fires and sicknesses across the land, and the village witch was punished for them. She didn't know why her charm of healing caused the wound to gangrene, why the child she brought into the world was imbecile, why her blessing seemed to burn the seed in the furrows and blight the apple on the tree. But for these ills, somebody had to be to blame: and the witch or sorcerer was there, right there in the village or the town, not off in the warlord's castle or fort, not protected by armed men and spells of defense. Sorcerers and witches were drowned in the poisoned wells, burned in the withered fields, buried alive to make the dead earth rich again.

So the practice of their lore and the teaching of it had become perilous. Those who undertook it were often those already outcast, crippled, deranged, without family, old-women and men who had little to lose. The wise man and wise woman, trusted and held in reverence, gave way to the stock figures of the shuffling, impotent village sorcerer with his trickeries, the hag-witch with her potions used in aid of lust, jealousy, and malice. And a child's gift for magic became a thing to dread and hide.

This is a tale of those times. Some of it is taken from the Book of the Dark, and some comes from Havnor, from the upland farms of Onn and the woodlands of Faliern. A story may be pieced together from such scraps and fragments, and though it will be an airy quilt, half made of hearsay and half of guesswork, yet it may be true enough. It's a tale of the Founding of Roke, and if the Masters of Roke say it didn't happen so, let them tell us how it happened otherwise. For a cloud hangs over the time when Roke first became the Isle of the Wise, and it may be that the wise men put it there.
Copyright ©2001by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Harcourt, Inc. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Tales from Earthsea Foreword
The Finder
Darkrose and Diamond
The Bones of the Earth
On the High Marsh
Dragonfly
A Description of Earthsea

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A writer of depth who recognizes that not all fantasy venues are created equal…Le Guin’s combination of opaque simplicity and transparent complexity, the quotidian and the miraculous, as well as her sharp and subtle characterizations, make for stories that stand shoulder to shoulder with ancient archetypal fairy tales and fables.” —The Washington Post Book World

“In the canon of great adult fantasy literature, right next to Tolkien…If you’ve had enough of Harry Potter-style kid-wizardry, Le Guin offers a powerful tonic. These tales are intense, moving, engaging and best of all, character-driven: Le Guin knows people, wizards or not.” —The Boulder Daily Camera

Tales from Earthsea…has poetry and true magic. Furthermore, it has a great writer’s love of an imaginary land that once existed only in her mind and now exists as a treasure in the real world for all lovers of fantasy, today and tomorrow and forever.” —The Orlando Sentinel

“Earthsea’s magic serves as a metaphor for the writer’s own sorcery…there is no hint of by-the-numbers allegory here. This book should appeal to two entirely different sets of readers. Those familiar with the earlier Earthsea books will rejoice in the way Le Guin fills in some of the chronological blanks. Readers coming upon Earthsea for the first time will find stories about strong characters facing decisions that, while they arise from purely personal conflicts, always have the potential to affect the fate of the world…Memorable.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Takes readers back into the past of the author’s imaginary universe to relate the founding of a school of magic…and the story of a young wizard who became a legend…This volume not only stands alone but also serves as an introduction to new readers. Strong work from a master storyteller; highly recommended.” —Library Journal

“Long before Harry Potter ever set foot in Hogwarts…there was a school for wizards in a place called Earthsea. The invention of grande dame of letters Ursula K. Le Guin, Earthsea is a realm that has been compared to Tolkien’s Middle Earth and C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, a place of high fantasy that generated a series of award-winning, enduring bestsellers…all beloved by a wide audience of adults as well as younger readers.” —Publishers Weekly

“Le Guin is a marvelously astute observer of human nature, and these tales derive their wonder not so much from magic as the strength and dignity of people…she conveys powerful emotions and landscapes—both lovely and despoiled—with simple, evocative language; sometimes her words are breathtakingly apt and beautiful.” —The Boulder Daily Camera

“A treasure…at the top of any list of fantasy to be cherished.” —Andre Norton

“It has been years since the last Earthsea book, but LeGuin hasn’t lost her touch. She draws us into the magical land and its inhabitants’ doings immediately. Earthsea mavens must rejoice, and relative newcomers will profit from the Earthsea history and two maps that round out the book.” —Booklist

“Le Guin seduces deliciously; draws you in with the sure, calm hand of a master to wander her magical archipelago of Earthsea.” —Nalo Hopkinson, author of Brown Girl in the Ring

“It held my attention so firmly that I read it straight through from beginning to end in one sitting. Nobody writing in English today has Le Guin’s mastery of the extended fable and extended parable.” —Suzette Haden Elgen, author of The Ozark Trilogy

“Such welcome lucidity. Such a seasoned approach to power and life’s traumas…fully matured.” —Faren Miller, Locus

“One of the most fully realized fantasy settings in the genre, and one of the most popular…[Tales from Earthsea is] witty, thoughtful, and will make you believe that magic could really work.” —Science Fiction Chronicle

“Le Guin’s Earthsea is one of a handful of genuinely iconic settings in modern fantasy. [Tales from Earthsea] represents her own discovery that Earthsea has changed in unexpected ways since she last visited it, and that it still holds a few secrets…compelling…elegantly structured.” —Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“Enchants from start to finish.” —Nina Kiriki Hoffman, author of The Thread That Binds the Bones

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