# Major new Wolfe story online *The Urth list — 8 messages, 6 voices, 07 May 2002* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Nicholas Gevers *07 May 2002, 04:18* GW's new story, "Under Hill", a sort of mediaeval romance by the look of things, is now online on THE INFINITE MATRIX (www.infinitematrix.net). Hurrah! --Nick Gevers. --- ### Andy Robertson *07 May 2002, 10:27 · follows Nicholas Gevers* Thank you!! But actually it seems quite minor. The theme is that life is preferrable to peace, or more succintly that Peace = Death. It is a nice little thing, but I spy no depths in it. Does anyone differ? hartshorn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicholas Gevers" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 5:18 AM Subject: (urth) Major new Wolfe story online --- ### Adam Stephanides *07 May 2002, 21:17 · follows Andy Robertson* So Wolfe is a Kai Lung fan. I had no idea. I've seen the "princess on a glass mountain" motif twice before: in a novel called THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Leonard Wolf, which I haven't read, and in a Fractured Fairy Tale (in which the rescuer was a giant frog). Given this, I'd expect that it occurs in some genuine fairy tale or medieval romance, but nothing comes to mind. Like hartshorn, I didn't see any hidden depths to the story, at least on first reading. --Adam --- ### Dan'l Danehy-Oakes *07 May 2002, 21:20 · follows Adam Stephanides* > I've seen the "princess on a glass mountain" motif twice before: in a > novel called THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Leonard Wolf, which I haven't read, > and in a Fractured Fairy Tale (in which the rescuer was a giant frog). > Given this, I'd expect that it occurs in some genuine fairy tale or > medieval romance, but nothing comes to mind. It appears in a number of places. Here's one version: http://www.darsie.net/talesofwonder/pgm.html --- ### Matthew Davis *07 May 2002, 21:00 · follows Dan'l Danehy-Oakes* ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Adam Stephanides" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:17 PM > Subject: Re: (urth) Major new Wolfe story online > So Wolfe is a Kai Lung fan. I had no idea. > > I've seen the "princess on a glass mountain" motif twice before: in a > novel > called THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Leonard Wolf, which I haven't read, and in a > Fractured Fairy Tale (in which the rescuer was a giant frog). Given this, > I'd expect that it occurs in some genuine fairy tale or medieval romance, > but nothing comes to mind. The "princess and the glass hill" by andrew lang http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LanBlue.sgm&images=image s/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=33&division=div1 which I found by this nifty index to Lang's fairy tales http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~emily/Docs/lang.html#p But does the title allude to anything? One of the hobbits went under the false name "Mr Underhill" but nothing else leaps to mind. --- ### Andy Robertson *07 May 2002, 20:20 · follows Matthew Davis* Traditionally the fairies, the Sidhe, the "little people", live "Under the hill". This derives from a confusion of old Celtic burial mounds. ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Matthew Davis" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:00 PM > Subject: Re: (urth) Major new Wolfe story online > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Adam Stephanides" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:17 PM > Subject: Re: (urth) Major new Wolfe story online >> So Wolfe is a Kai Lung fan. I had no idea. >> >> I've seen the "princess on a glass mountain" motif twice before: in a >> novel >> called THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Leonard Wolf, which I haven't read, and in >> a >> Fractured Fairy Tale (in which the rescuer was a giant frog). Given >> this, >> I'd expect that it occurs in some genuine fairy tale or medieval >> romance, >> but nothing comes to mind. > The "princess and the glass hill" by andrew lang http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LanBlue.sgm&images=image s/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=33&division=div1 > which I found by this nifty index to Lang's fairy tales > http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~emily/Docs/lang.html#p > > But does the title allude to anything? One of the hobbits went under the > false name "Mr Underhill" but nothing else leaps to mind. > > > -- --- ### Josh Geller *07 May 2002, 23:35 · follows Andy Robertson* > On Tue, 7 May 2002, Matthew Davis wrote: > "Adam Stephanides" writes: >> So Wolfe is a Kai Lung fan. I had no idea. >> I've seen the "princess on a glass mountain" motif twice before: in a >> novel called THE GLASS MOUNTAIN by Leonard Wolf, which I haven't read, >> and in a Fractured Fairy Tale (in which the rescuer was a giant frog). >> Given this, I'd expect that it occurs in some genuine fairy tale or >> medieval romance, >> but nothing comes to mind. > The "princess and the glass hill" by andrew lang > http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LanBlue.sgm&images=image > s/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=33&division=div1 > which I found by this nifty index to Lang's fairy tales > http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~emily/Docs/lang.html#p > But does the title allude to anything? One of the hobbits went under the > false name "Mr Underhill" but nothing else leaps to mind. 'Under Hill' is an old. old euphemism for what's often called 'Faerie' ('faerie' is also a euphemism; this is the land of the Dead we are talking about (see my post with the subject 'Mound Dwellers')). The main fairy in John Crowley's "Little, Big" is called Mrs. Underhill. --- ### Josh Geller *07 May 2002, 23:41 · follows Josh Geller* > On Tue, 7 May 2002, Andy Robertson wrote: > Traditionally the fairies, the Sidhe, the "little people", live "Under the > hill". This derives from a confusion of old Celtic burial mounds. They are not just Celtic. In fact, the best source I know for information on these ancient religious/magickal practices is the Icelandic sagas. Also it's not always an artificial mound. Often it is a natural hill or mountain. What matters is that it have the proper alignment to the Sky, basically. Kings and priests and so on are buried in these places, from which they are sometimes held to have returned (see my post with the subject "Mound Dwellers"). ---