There was a small group of people who all knew each other at the root of 19th century English fantasy. William Morris's wife Jane Burden was the model for some of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's most famous paintings, such as Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Christina Rossetti, Dante's sister, wrote Goblin Market, which is at the root of dark fairy-based fantasy like Hope Mirrlees' Lud-In-The-Mist, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and Neil Gaiman's Stardust. George McDonald published his short stories in the Oxford & Cambridge Magazine, alongside Morris's early work. John Ruskin, the art critic who promoted the Pre-Raphaelites, wrote an early fantasy novel, The King of the Golden River, for his wife-to-be Effie Gray, who modelled for the Pre-Raphaelites and left Ruskin for Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (Not Rossetti as I originally wrote). There's a fantasy story in there, I think.

@PJ818

5 ай бұрын

I'd read a couple George McDonald stories, and saw an influence on Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Neil Gaiman's Stardust.

A long time ago I took a college course called 'Fables and Tales'. I learned more in your 25 minutes than I did all semester of that class.

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

How very kind! I'm glad I was able to share some knowledge with you

You should be a teacher. My favorite instructors weren't just knowledgeable, but they communicated their passion for the subject as well. You manage that beautifully. :)

The ladybird versions of fairy stories were really good back in the day. For older kids they also had versions of Frankenstein and Dracula. In the ladybird version, the monster doesn't build a funeral pyre for himself, he just "plods off into the darkness (of the arctic wastelands)."

I was introduced to Fantasy by my mother who read to my older brother and I when we were smol. She read classic faerie tales, more modern fantasy, The Hobbit, and books I would consider fantasy, though others may not, "The Phantom Tollbooth" falls into this category.

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

My mother also introduced us to fantasy! She read us the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when we were very little :)

I moved from Dr. Suess and Breer Rabbit into Beverly Cleary and The Hobbit. My older brothers were fans of Tolkien's books. Once I discovered Mr. Tolkien I was hooked. I discovered Robert E Howard's Conan at about the same time or a little afterward. The Conan book covers painted by Frank Frazetta always pulled you into the story really well. I read anything I could get my hands on from L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, and eventually Michael Moorcock. I branched off into Science-Fiction (which I consider to be a form of Fantasy) at about that same time. Much of what I read for quite a while was Sword and Sorcery or Science Fiction. Eventually I got around to reading people like John Steinbeck, Gore Vidal and other more serious- minded authors. Not that Fantasy can't be serious. I don't read nearly as much as I used to when I was a kid/young dude back in the 60s and 70s, but I occasionally pick up a book I've read many times before and enjoy it. I especially like David Brin, C.J. Cherryh, Robert Silverberg and all of the Sword and Sorcery authors I've mentioned.

@docsavage8640

5 ай бұрын

Science fiction was a subset of fantasy and recognized as such when it started to be called "scientificition," then "science fiction." And it really still is since it all required fantastic "technology" to explain what is essentially magic. The only distinguishing feature seems to be that these days. Star Wars is just a fantasy set in space.

I discovered fantasy when I came across The Hobbit in my junior high school library. I hope you will cover The Worm Ouroboros and the Gormenghast trilogy

Great video. Very much looking forward to the upcoming series. Important authors not mentioned in this video: Edgard Rice Burroughs. Never been a fan myself, but there is no denying his influence. The Africa of the Tarzan stories is very much a realm of Fantasy. Robert E. Howard. If there is a "founder of modern fantasy" other than Tolkien, it is Howard. Tolkien is often (and rightly) hailed as the founder of Epic or High Fantasy. But Howard is the founder of Sword and Sorcery. Even though Howard was a very different man than Tolkien with a completely different outlook on life, I have always found it interesting that both men at very much the same time were doing much the same thing: imagining a Fantasy world that was NOT an "other" world or faraway realm but our own world in a long-ago lost period of pre-history. Tolkien's Middle-earth is our Earth. Howard's Hyborian Age is our world.

My former stepdad introduced me to fantasy when he taught my brother and I how to play Dungeons & Dragons. I was so taken with that I had to read whatever fantasy type books I could get my hands on at the time, this being the mid ‘80s. I read Terry Brooks’ Sword Of Shannara and that quickly led to The Hobbit and LOTR and The Book of Swords series. Thankfully I had the kind of parents who encouraged reading, never questioning what I chose. I also had a high school English teacher who introduced me to Arthurian Literature and suggested The Once & Future King. Once I read that book I became an addict for Arthurian Literature and now have an entire bookcase dedicated to that specific genre within fantasy. I think having a grandfather who was a Master Storyteller had an influence on my decision to major in English ~ Creative Writing as well. I took all the Epic Fantasy, Folklore, Children’s Literature, and other related classes I could to get my fantasy fix. I had stopped playing D&D years ago until one of my nieces expressed an interest in learning. Now I’m back at it and had been watching a series of KZread videos on the subject, along with LOTR, the last couple years, discovering your series recently. I really enjoy listening to your discussion on these topics.

I love Lord Dunsany "Sword of Welleran" and "Chu-Bu and Shemish". I was wondering if you would do an episode of Fantasy artwork? The Pre-Raphaelites Sidney Sime Pauline Baynes And J.R.R.Tolkien (who drew his own pictures for his stories).

My official introduction to fantasy was probably when my 6th grade librarian introduced me to Anne McCaffrey’s dragon riders of Pern series. I’d always been an avid reader, my mom encouraged that since I was smol, but it wasn’t until middle school I remember books. After that it was Tolkien, LOTR books/films that locked me into fantasy as a genre. I think the movies had just finished by the time I was in 6th grade or been maybe a year out. Harry Potter helped too, with the magic side of fantasy as those books came out when I was young as well. But for the fantasy with dragons and elves it was McCaffrey and Tolkien.

@MountainFisher

6 ай бұрын

I loved that book as well as the Witches of Karres.

I would love to see a video that tackles how the Bible has shaped storytelling and fantasy, since that has been such an influential text in the West and includes a collection of books of different genres, some of which are more fantastical than others (gotta love that Leviathan. And the story of Daniel and the dragon is one of my favorite!). I think it’s a great example of how stories communicate truth, but they do it in different ways (not always primarily literal)

I discovered Fantasy while in middle school. Had a friend in my P.E. class who would spout things like "you don't even know what a hobbit is!" I was in a book store and saw a book called The Hobbit. I bought it and read it within a day. After that I was hooked. I read everything I could find from Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Lieber, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Gene Wolff, and a host of others. In the early 80s I discovered Terry Pratchett when he released the Colour of Magic. I've read all of his books and consider him my favorite fantasy author. Glen Cook wrote the Garrett P.I. books which put detective novels into a fantasy world. Cook also wrote the Black Company series which gave a gritty outlook to a fantasy mercenary company. Thank you for the video Jess. It made me recall many wonderful stories I've read through the years.

This was actually pretty cool. Well done. I read a bunch of Medieval Arthurian literature this year. Reading the Mabinogian is on my TBR. I am currently reading Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival. It originated as a Welsh story in the Mabinogian. Also, I see you have Dune on your shelf. Dune got me to read the Iliad this year because Frank Herbert connects the House Atreides to the House of Atreus. Very cool stuff. Look forward to this series. Subbed. 👍

D&D 2nd edition and Dragonlance was my serious gateway into Fantasy back in the late 80's, and I'm a lifer! 🤘😎🖖🇨🇦🕊️

From the moment that the first anthropoid begun imagining, fantasy was born.

I found The Hobbit by myself, on a school library shelf, and I was very proud of having read it, aged about 8. But my fondest memories are the stories of E.Nesbit. They were still in the original editions; children's books didn't have author bios in those days, so I had no idea who or what E.Nesbit was. The Andrew Lang colour Fairy Books were there too. Unlike Tolkien I liked the French stories, especially the Marquis of Carabas. On the contrary, I must have completely passed over The Black Bull of Norroway and the Red Etin, both nineteenth-century pastiches which DID have profound effects on JRRT (in different ways). That's genius for you!

My first exposure to fantasy was probably through fairy tales that were read to me as a child. But my first awareness of fantasy as a distinct genre came from the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit (which led to my love of Tolkien) and The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (which was my favorite book series as a kid). From that point on, I was hooked. Fantasy has become my favorite genre. I love it because it offers escape from bland or depressing reality. But it can also comment on and reveal truths of the world around us through a veil of imagination.

@RingsLoreMaster

6 ай бұрын

" a viel of imagination, " marvelous way to put it

I was introduced to fantasy as a baby, though those were more akin to fairy-tales, that eventually sparked into an interest in mythology (particularly Greek myth). It wasn't until college (high-school to Americans) that I was introduced to what might be considered true fantasy literature, when a friend recommended me to read Terry Pratchett, and I was able to pick up a copy of _Men At Arms_ in the library. I now own hard-copies of most of his works.

Sadly E.R. Eddisons The Worm Ouroboros gets overlooked today. It is a slightly weird to read book, but I really enjoyed it. As did Tolkin and C.S. Lewis (funnily not a one name author), citing him as inspiration.

Loved the video! There's a brilliant exhibition on at the British Library right now about fantasy worlds that covers a lot of the same themes from Gilgamesh to Skyrim. They even have Gandalf's staff on display!

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

That's so cool!

My dad read the Hobbit to me and my brother when I was 6 and he was 8. Before that I loved The Elves and the Shoemaker. I've loved fantasy all my life.

for me it's lord dunsany with "gods of pegana" - mystical stuff

@gaebren9021

6 ай бұрын

I love "Sword of Welleran" by Lord Dunsany. There is a really good video on youtube with sound and music and all.

I've been consuming fantasy since before I can remember. My parents read The Chronicles of Narnia to me before I could read. I first encountered The Hobbit via a storybook and tape when I was five or six years old. I read MacDonald, Lewis and Tolkien as soon as I could.

Tolkien led to Dungeons and Dragons which led to Record of the Lodoss War which led to one of my favorite types of fantasy, western style Japanese fantasy. Sword World, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest etc.

My mother introduced us to Tolkien and The Hobbit. Which of course grew to Lord of the Rings. She had a friend that worked at the Renn Faire too, so we would attend that growing up too. Which led me to D&D and more fantasy stories.

I love that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is seen as an important step in both fantasy and science-fiction. 😀

As a child, I grew up reading your standard Western fairy tales (*ahem* Disney) eg. Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Bean Stalk, etc. but I was also introduced fairly early on to a handful of lesser known stories and folktales (for modern children, that is) such as Swan Lake, the Nutcracker, and Wind in the Willows. I think I mostly grew up with historical fiction with elements of Fantastic Realism like Asterix, though. I then got introduced to more German and Czech stories by my mother like the Goose Girl, the Salt Prince, Tischlein Deck Dich and the like. Then, just before the sequel came out, they aired How to Train Your Dragon on TV and I went nuts over it! I remember there was this trilogy I loved around the same time in Primary School called 'The Mice of Gerander' which influenced my reading a lot, but to begin with, I didn't really want to get into 'High Fantasy' until Yr 8 when we had to read the Hobbit at school, and I've never looked back... That was a number of years ago now and since then, I've gone through some Tolkien (which is what brought me to this channel!), Naomi Novik, Andrej Sapkowski, and Tui T Sutherland, and the list of books and authors in the Fantasy genre I still want to get to is growing constantly longer and I like it that way!

There was one name that I somehow missed and that was Jules Verne. Other names I expect you will cover in your next videos would be Arthur Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling. And stories like King Kong and Alain Quartermain. There is a mix of Western adventure meeting African and Indian fantasy. I liked this video and am looking forward to this new series.

For me my first fantasy world was the 100 acre wood. Those adventures always sparked my imagination.

I discovered fantasy when I was in probably third grade. The first novel I read was “The Phantom Tollbooth” which I think is a must for any child. Great childrens book! This was right around the time Harry Potter started to get traction here in the US, so naturally I followed up with those first four books and then Holes

I always wondered a lot of the same things about mythology. A lot of those cultures were less concerned with literal "truth" than we are so did they believe those stories were literally true or were they more interested in what they could learn about the world from the stories? Interestingly, I've seen some discussion recently of Navajo origin stories that mesh surprisingly well with the modern scientific understanding of the universe. But you're right--we can definitely learn about what a culture prizes and what it fears from the stories they tell. Great discussion, Jess! Hope your holiday season is off to a great start!

Jess, you've given us an excellent introduction to a complex field. As a young reader, fantasy and science fiction were much the same thing for me. Yes, science fiction has to have some science in it, but otherwise, what's the difference if the fantastical elements are vampires or aliens? Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan the Ape Man series and his Mars and Venus series, along with Jules Verne, were my springboard to F&SF (which is also the name of a magazine to which my parents subscribed in the 60s and 70s). I moved onto what is now called the golden age of science fiction with Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury, Vonnegut, and a score of others and into modern fantasy/sci fi/horror, whatever the label. I read Tolkien in my early college days in the 70s and loved his work. There is some very fine fantasy these days and a lot of schlock, but I expect to keep reading it for the rest of my life. Keep up the good work, Jess! Thank you for sharing your erudition.

Great video. I discovered fantasy with Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Covile back when I was 11 and finally getting the hang of reading. I see fantasy, myth, fairy tales, folk tales, ghost stories, urban legends and legends as all part of the same fabric as they all tell us something about the people who tell them.

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

Well said!

I first discovered fantasy through the Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black & Toni Diterlizzi. You could describe them as modern dark fantasy fairytales. They follow three kids who learn that their great great uncle was a fairy naturalist, and they have to deal with all of the fairy creatures who want to get ahold of his work. The authors use the literary device that the story is true and was reported to them by the children who experienced it, sort of like Tolkien's Red Book of Westmarch. I read the first one when I was 5 (with help from my parents), and for many years after that I believed, or made myself believe, that fairies were real and that if I found myself in the woods or at a crossroads at twilight, I might meet them, and they might be dangerous and wonderful all at once. I still carry that feeling with me today.

The "Foundations" series sounds fantastic. This intro video really sets up a lot of possibilities, I'm looking forward to what you make next!

Fun video. Beowulf and La Morte Darthur are two of my favorite tales.

A great video, thanks for mentioning Morris, he's a great writer and thinker who is often overlooked when it comes to the history of fantasy! I would love it if you would make a video about Lord Dunsany in this series, my favourite author and another huge influence on modern fantasy.

For me it was the two good friends, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. When I was a teenager I read Lewis's Space Trilogy (Out Of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength). which Lewis said were fairy tales for adults. In That Hideous Strength. These stories were quite fantastical, and yet tied into the modern world as if they were real. Also they came out a couple of decades before LOTR, yet contained references to the lost isle of Numenor. Which then led me to LOTR, and I was a goner. When I was a Fantasy was regular literature, like Watership Down was on the shelves in the non fiction section. Then they were Sci Fi, then it was SF (Speculative Fiction), now it's separate.

My first fantasy novel was Through The Eyes Of The Dragon by Stephen King, when I was maybe 15. Ready to revisit it as that was almost forty years ago. Great content! Thank you

How I discovered fantasy? I feel like I've always heard/read/known fantasy! I've loved fairy tales from a very young age and, in the course of my voracious reading habit, have gravitated towards fantasy and science fiction, which I generally see as another type of fantasy!

According to youtube you joined 2 years ago today so, happy anniversary! 😁 I haven't followed you that long but I think I've seen all your videos in the last six months. Your videos are always informative and you're narrative style keeps me engaged. Plus your cosplays are cute. P.S. I think I played against you on a game called Royal Kingdom. If that was you, you won. 😁

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

It's not quite yet my 2 year anniversary of actually making videos, but thank you all the same! I'm glad you enjoy my videos. Unfortunately, I don't play any online games at the moment, so I can't claim that victory as mine.

As a wannabe writer, fantasy has been a central fixture for every creative idea I've explored. At the moment at least, I mostly just write horror with a dash of pulp, so I'm probably not going to explore territories not already pioneered by Lovecraft or Robert E. Howard. But writing is the first thing about myself that I ever really believed in, and I don't want to leave this world before those works are realized.

If you have not read "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her own Making"... then you are missing out on what Fantasy can become. It is the greatest young adult novel... ever written? In my opinion at least.

I really enjoy your videos on the broader context behind Tolkien and the origins of modern fantasy. As always, you bring a thought-provoking perspective to the topics you cover. Another subject I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on is the changing world of Edwardian England, and how that may have shaped Tolkien's imagination. Beyond the well-trodden topic of "machines bad, nature good," I think there are other broader trends occurring in England that are worth examining for their influence. Not least, to me, is the general globalization that arose during that time, that in many ways trivialized and made obsolete formerly important social elements such as small-scale farming and local craftsmanship. Those things became quaint, and of little importance when weighed against the greater world that was imposing itself upon the English landscape, much as the Hobbits were small and quaint, and equally of little importance to the movers and shakers of Middle-Earth. Of course, this just briefly touches on the theme, as I would like to hear your take on it.

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

I'm so glad you like this style of video! It's one of my favorite kinds to make. This would be such an interesting topic! Globalization definitely had a powerful influence on his works. There's also the influence of medievalism as stated in this video. Without the inspirations of Beowulf, the Prose Edda, etc, he never would have had works to "reconstruct" into Middle Earth. Thanks for the idea and for sharing your thoughts!

To be honest with you I can't remember how I discovered fantasy. It's always been a part of my life since I can remember. It was quite literally a life-saver in my childhood, along with sci-fi and horror. It gave me an essential escape and also gave me the need to create more of it, which is why I became a writer. I enjoyed this video and I'm looking forward to the next ones in the series!

Hey Jess. Thanks for doing this channel. I have my own thoughts' on some things you talk about here but its a good video. I just want to say thanks for including MacDonald. Please keep making these.

I’ve always wondered this so I am glad you are covering this.

My good friend was a reader. I was not. He shared a Xanth fantasy novel by Piers Anthony with me. And my imagination took off. I read and reread the Xanth novels, fell in love with reading, and there was no going back

Fairy tales and Disney cartoons, eventually TSR Hobbies' choose-your-own-adventure books based on their game worlds (1 Gamma World, 1 Star Frontiers, and a bunch of D&D-based titles). Eventually discovered Warhammer in high school; the setting back then was like D&D but made much more sense - a Tudor or later country with no guns, even though some of their building features are actually Victorian? The best settings I've gone through since are the Iron Kingdoms and the Bas-Lag trilogy.

I do very much enjoy your deep dives, Jess!! 😊😀👍 Thank you so much for sharing what you do ❤

Apologies if I missed it, but did Lord Dunsany get a mention? His influence can't be understated, especially insofar as fantasy works tend to contain constructed mythologies.

A lot of my early experiences with fantasy were through childrens’ stories, folklore, Shakespeare, and stumbling across Tolkien’s Hobbit in the school library. But that was mostly being young in the late-80s/early-90s and there was already a huge pop culture fantasy industry of books, cartoons, games, movies, magazines, and other media that I had yet to discover. Adding to what you mentioned, I think one of the contributions to contemporary fantasy after Tolkien is pulp and pop fantasy like early pulp fiction and Dungeons and Dragons. I still had a sense as a kid that fantasy proper was still intertwined with literature to some extent, but once I stumbled upon the pop culture incarnation of fantasy, I came to realize that a lot of the genre has come to take on and in many ways become synonymous with the pop culture phenomenon. I’d even say that at this moment, the genre is more informed by dungeons and dragons and other pop media than it is informed by folklore, mythology, or past literature. At least, I’d say that the previous inputs of folklore/mythology are intertwined with distinctly contemporary notions of genre. I mean, who doesn’t think of orcs as fantasy? They were an hazily defined (non-folklore) invention of Tolkien that then was given a life of its own and largely shaped by dungeons and dragons into a fantasy creature. These days you can hardly separate the idea of an orc away from the folklore/mythology ideas of elves, dwarves, or goblins.

Fantasy means a lot to me, I love the works of J.R.R. Tolkien first through the movies and later through the books. It made me feel so good that I started my own middle-earth lore youtube channel ❤

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

How lovely! Best of luck on the channel!

@TheTableOfDurin

6 ай бұрын

@Jess_of_the_Shire Thank you very much 😊

I just cited you in my thesis. Thank you for this video

My encounter with fantasy literature started with the late prose romances of William Morris when I was an undergraduate over fifty years ago, the very first being "The Water of the Wondrous Isles" , followed by "The Well at the World's End"- I read these and Morris' other prose romances in hardcover as my university had a complete set of his Collected Works (this was before Ballantine began publishing Morris in paperback). To this day these two tales remain my absolute favourite works of fantasy and I re-read them every few years, and Birdalone and Ursula are at the top of my list of most beloved literary characters. After Morris I read "The Lord of the Rings" and I came to very much enjoy Tolkien's work - over the years I have also re-read TLotR many times - but I have always been disappointed by the paucity of female characters. Hopefully you will at some point be able to devote a video to Morris and his prose romances.

Well done! Thanks for the great backgrounder.

Al Stewart has a song that retells the Trojan War called, "Helen and Cassandra." The bridge of the song addresses the myth/history aspect, "A whisper in the ear of Homer, perhaps there never was a horse.."

The Epic of Gilagamesh is the oldest known story and it begins with, bascially, "Back in the old days..."

One of my favourite writers is Sir H. Rider Haggard (1856 - 1925), author of classic fantasy novels such as _She_ (1887) and its three sequels, as well as the eighteen Allan Quatermain stories, which are African adventures featuring all sorts of fantastical content, with a heavy focus on reincarnation, Zulu legends, and Ancient Egypt. Tolkien was a big fan of Haggard, saying "I suppose as a boy _She_ interested me as much as anything," and there are several similarities between that book and _The Lord of the Rings_ -- for instance the character of Job in _She_ reminds me of Sam. Other great fantasy writers include Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft, although both of these are as much about horror as about fantasy. The great Rudyard Kipling also wrote some fantasy stories, like the dark "The Mark of the Beast."

the other big fantasy writer for me, beyond tolkien and lewis is the American Fritz Leiber. credited with inventing the term 'swords and sorcery his most famous creations, the characters Fafherd and the Grey mouser were the antithesis of the great quest heroes in their world of Newhon., but he also wrote fantasical stories of people in this world having encounters with the strange with his novel 'conjuor wife' being made into a movie in the 1940's

Fantasy started for me when my older sister was studying Greek mythology and was insightful enough to include me. Years would go by that I was into Star Wars and He-Man, and anything vaguely fantastical. And then the Lord of the Rings movies were announced, and I bought a copy of the book and read it in 2 weeks, and then saw the Fellowship opening night. Also, this video convinced me to patronize your Patreon.

Loved It Ms. Shire. Thank you ❤

After watching a KZread video that made this argument, I wouldn't regard Tolkien as fantasy. Fantasy is Peter Pan, the Lion the Witch and the Wadrobe. What Tolkien was doing was trying to write a Poetic Edda, he was continuing where Beowulf left off. His genre should rightfully be considered Anglo-Saxon Mythos, not fantasy. Fantasy didn't have Anglo-Saxon monsters such as Orc, Ents and Elves, till Tolkein.

16:55 -- RE: Realism is the Necessary Counterpoint for Fantasy to Exist in the Modern Now; I think I'd agree with you there. And here comes another suggestion for light reading: Larry Niven. His science fiction is well salted with ways to get magic and werewolves, too. Niven is the writer who I first noticed using the word "mana" to describe occult and magical power present in the very matter of Reality, itself, on and in the very Earth.

I'm really looking forward to your future videos in this series, This is brilliant,

I read the LoTR books in the mid ‘70s and sought out fantasy novels, some of them tried to compare them to LoTR or Tolkien. Fantasy books then were simpler litrally and would not be published today. It was evolving.

Been awhile! Can’t wait to finish, with this latest post! Thanks, Jess!

It was the myths of Greece and Scandinavia that fanned the flames of my love of fantasy stories, a love that had started with my mum reading the Chronicles of Narnia to me as a nipper 👶🏻

My childhood was shot through with fantasy stories. Astrid Lindgren and Tove Jansson were the first authors I read. When I was seven I read C.S. Lewis's _The Magician's Nephew,_ and I've been hooked since then. I read _the Hobbit_ when I was 8? 9? and Lord of the Rings when I was 10 or 11. I love reading so much.

Jess, brilliant as always. Susanna Clarke's novels move between alternative history - including the world of faerie in 1800 Britain, to an alternative world existing parallel to the current world.

The way Medieval Europe weaved imaginary, hypothetical, and historical figures together into one blurry mix (see "the Nine Worthies") often has me wondering how future generations are going to judge us by SPACE JAM.

I really enjoyed this video Jess! I'm looking forward to the series you have planned.

@Jess_of_the_Shire

6 ай бұрын

I'm so glad you enjoyed!

I read The Hobbit over 50 years ago and then borrowed Lord of the Rings from the school library in 1976 (I still have it). Your channel is fascinating and very well presented. Keep up the good work. Have you read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner?

I honestly don't remember how I discovered fantasy, but it has become my favorite genre ever. I love lotr, Harry Potter, and GoT and my favorite video game series--the Dragon Age series--is fantasy. There's something so innately charming about worlds full of magic, creatures, people, and events we could only dream of. Real life is boring but through fantasy I can experience so much more. I use fantasy as a way to escape this mundane world, which is probably unhealthy but I enjoy it anyway. Fantasy is like a comforting blanket or cup of hot chocolate I can sit with and relax while I let my mind wander.

2:06 just started to watch the video, I would've though a big reason for "fantasy" seeing relatively new is due to our knowledge of the world being relatively new. Mythology, which would be considered fantasy if it were written today, was considered to just be story-telling at the time, and it's only now that we see mythology (except Hebrew mythology) as being fantastical.

Jess, have you ever read any of these books? If so, what did you think of them? Vathek by William Beckford The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Count Jan Potocki Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué Possessed by Witold Gombrowicz Krabat by Otfried Preußler All through my time in Kindergarten and Grundschule (elementary school), my mother read to me the Märchen (fairy tales) by the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm Hauff, and Hans Christian Andersen, and also the Deutsche Heldensagen (German heroic sagas) every night before bedtime. When I was twelve and in Catholic boarding school, we gathered around every evening and took turns reading Krabat to each other. When I was thirteen, I read Die Unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story) by Michael Ende, and when I was fourteen, I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for the first time. Nowadays I'm more of a Sci-Fi guy, and my favorite author is Ursula Le Guin, whose political beliefs I share, if you catch my drift. The Left Hand of Darkness, the aforementioned Undine, the Saragossa Manuscript might be my favorite books of all time. That and the Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Fact, Fiction, and Forecast by Nelson Goodman. Oh, and The Art of Prolog by Sterling and Shapiro. Yes, I sometimes read tech literature for pleasure. I, myself, am strange and unusual.

This is great! Glad I found this channel

Jess hits the Griddy at 6:48

One: thanks for saying that there's going to be more of this, Two: thanks for the shoutout to George Macdonald (sp) and 'At the back of the North Wind'. - another old guy from Canada.

I agree with a lot of the suggestions arriving here but a quick shout out to Tove Jansson's Moomins - I'm pretty sure they fit into this definition.

Great video. For a heavy dose of clarity on the world of King Arthur, I enthusiastically recommend the book King Arthur, by Norma Lorre Goodrich. Her expertise in numerous languages helps her unpick the origins of people and places, and see beyond the romantic world of chivalry that was built around it. Also, while not strictly 'fantasy' I think the original Star Wars might be worth a look, based on the fact that Lucas relied heavily on Joseph Campbell's work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Star Wars is basically a repackaging of the classic hero's journey, which is why the original trilogy resonated so deeply with audiences.

Fascinating video Jess. Although I was already aware of most of the stories you discussed, you made quite a few connections and points that I hadn't previously thought about. Excellent 👍

Thank you Jess, erudite and entertaining as ever. Looking forward to the new series.

Thanks Jess! For the Al Gore Rhythm, no Macarena required!

the xbox game fable was my introduction to fantasy, then fell in love with the genre with the lord of the rings movies, and have been an avid reader since. i tried writing a fantasy book when i was 18 or 19, decided i wasn't happy with it, thought about how much work it would be to do it right so put it off till i felt like writing again, then life got in the way as it often does, still an avid reader of fantasy but no writing. i recently started trying to write my fantasy story again, but this time its going to take more then one book, im on book two,whilst family and friends read my currently finished draft. i recently finished the green bone saga which was a briliant example of fantasy in a more modern setting, highly reccomend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet, and depending on how long ago you read it, it could be worth a reread.

Enjoyably thorough and thoroughly enjoyable.

I've been reading, listening to or watching fantasy stories as long as I can remember. I didn't discover fantasy, for me it was always a natural part of fiction.

I remember when I was little, I didn't have a firm grasp of the difference between reality and fiction. Fantasy stories that didn't include some sort of explicit disclaimer didn't help. So I think my introduction to the quintessential concept of "fantasy" came in a 1977 theater when I read, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

I had a gorgeous fairy tale book and alsoI read the various color fairy books when young. I absolutely loved Tolkein, but also read all the CS Lewis books, the Prydain books by Lloyd Alexander, and later got into the fantasy lore of LeGuin and McCaffery. I loved authors that produced whole series of books!

This was very well put together and presented with both passion and finesse. +1 from a random internet person.

How did i discover fantasy? I was in sixth grade so it would have been 1976. American Schools were a different place then. They were less militarized: no security checkpoints, no metal scanners, the teachers were unarmed and there was no police presence. But… there was less air conditioning, and for whatever reason our school’s library was one of the coolest rooms in the building. As such the library was popular with me and i would hang out there most mornings before the first bell. As you entered the library, there was a low shelf directly in front of you. It had the popular titles, or at least the titles that mrs Ashbee thought should be popular. There were three copies of The Hobbit there. Why do i remember that there were three? I don’t know, but i remember being intimated by the book. it seemed very large to sixth grade me. But i opened it to those famous words: “in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”. i didn’t know it at the time but those words set my life on a different trajectory. The hobbit lead to more fantasy, which lead to hanging out more with my “nerdy” friends and less with the popular croud. It lead to dungeons and dragons, and dune, and oddly, and it’s a totally different story: jazz. The following year Star Wars came out and for a time that eclipsed Tolkien. But… that morning, in that cool library, i stepped into Tolkien’s secondary world. A place that almost 50 years later i visit on a daily basis.

I LOVE these videos! Thank you!

Our patron Saint here in England, is St George who slayed a Dragon.

Please keep making your videos. Thank you.

I have been reading 'fantasy' since the 1960's and sci=fi even earlier than that, mainly Heinlein. Like you, Tolkien is my gold standard but I have also enjoyed Shannara, Sword of Truth, Thomas Covenant (one of the relapse types where a human in our world somehow goes to another parallel world) and even Song of Ice and Fire. I do need to go backwards as I have not read any McDonald nor Morris. Also I probably should get into the Lang Fairy Books (which I understand Tolkien did not much like). Generally, though, I have rather come to resist the very appellation 'fantasy'. After all, every fiction is a fantasy. It may be set in a simulacrum of the real world but as it is art, the contents are selected and hence fail to fully reproduce reality. That makes them images of the real and can be considered as much fantasy as the Wheel of Time or Dune. I think of our so-called 'fantasy' genre as better thought of as 'speculative fiction'. I know that is used for sci fi, but I find that genre to be simply techno-addition to ordinary stories. Like JRRT, I prefer history, real or feigned, and I can't consider sci-fi to be history any more than I can consider The World According to Garp to be 'history'. That said, I consider myself to have quite a limited exposure to the wider genre. When I wander in the book racks I see hundreds of books in dozens of series by authors of whom I know nothing. But I have gleaned a lot from the few I have read and perhaps I will get 'round to the others. As I am approaching 70, one doubts I will be seeking much new. Most of it seems pitched to much younger readers and I should best be looking for other material.

The first recollection of a fantasy story is the movie rendition of The Wonderful Wizard Oz. The most lasting impression I have of the movie is that I had nightmares after watching. Rereading the book, as a teen - and from decades after that time - it is not the air of Oz, or Kansas, that remains, it is that the slippers were silver. In Baum's book, the slippers are silver. Considering the matter, though not thought of as a violent story, there was violence in Oz. The chapter about the Hamer heads is the 1st instance to come to mind. Peculiar how my mind went straight to the wonderful Wizard of Oz and skipped over all the fairy stories I had heard. And they, too, were violent.

I do love your stuff Jess! look forward to it! Old guy from Canada,

I think one of my favorite twists on fantasy comes from Zelda (unsurprisingly) It took me awhile to realize it, but it seems a lot of concepts could be taken as being inspired from some old folk tales and legends etc? Master sword = sword in the stone, hylians = tolkien esque elves, zora = mermaids, rito = harpies, minish/picori = brownies, Gerudo = Amazons, potentially the kokori draw from Peter Pan but not certain, things like korok’s could be taken as similar to woodland sprites (?) There’s tricksters like skull kid which doesn’t feel out of place to me in some of those old tales And yet it took me awhile to realize the obvious parallels just because it’s such a unique take on all of it? In some ways I think of it as how a Japanese view of these legends etc might be? But I’m sure they were eager to have it be their own twist on it I really enjoy a fantasy that draws on tradition but also makes it like new

Congrats on 70k!