The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes
The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes
Two collections of fantasy short stories by Sterling E. Lanier. They center on the exploits of retired brigadier Donald Ffellowes, told by him to the patrons of a club he belongs to, always to mixed reactions of awe and skepticism. The basic format of an adventurer telling fantastical tall tales was pioneered by the Jorkens stories of Lord Dunsany (one of the most innovative and influential fantasy writers of all time, despite his relative obscurity - one day I'll discuss his works in greater detail), but where Joseph Jorkens is a comical figure and his tales are almost always goofy and lighthearted, Ffellowes's stories are grim and eerie in tone. That being said, I wouldn't go so far as to call them horror, as they're simply too action-packed, lively, and generally just fun.
The common theme that unites most of these stories is the idea of essentially recontextualizing ancient mythologies and folklore. In each story, Ffellowes encounters elements of or believers in a particular belief system, but sees it stripped of myth and presented in a more modern fantastical context. And typically, that means he discovers a monster or a cult at the bottom of it all. It's a great idea, and it's very enjoyable to see how Lanier interprets each religion. But then when the story focusing on Irish folklore comes around...this was such a groaner for me. The subject of Samhain, the Celtic harvest festival comes up, and the story makes it clear that the characters pronounce it as sam-hayne. It's actually a plot point. Ffellowes hears the name and thinks it's someone named "Sam Hayne," not realizing until the last second what it refers to. That's not how it's fucking pronounced. I've always heard it pronounced as sow-win, and I guess other regions have slightly different ways to pronounce it, like sah-win, but in no Celtic country has it ever been pronounced as sam-hayne. These stories were written back in the sixties, and I know they didn't have the Internet back then, but they had encyclopedias. Imagine just assuming that a foreign word is pronounced the same way an English word of the same spelling would be and not bothering to do any research to confirm it.
But that facepalm aside, these stories are delightful romps.