# The Well at the World's End *and The Wood Beyond the World — William Morris's prose romances* - Work: Novel - Date: 1896 (The Wood Beyond the World, 1894) - Made by: William Morris (Author, designer and printer) - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-well-at-the-worlds-end/ > A king's youngest son rides out of his quiet valley in search of a legendary well whose water grants long life — the quest romance, set in a world wholly invented, that taught Tolkien and Lewis how fantasy could work. **Why it matters:** William Morris's late romances are widely considered the first modern fantasies set in an invented secondary world; Tolkien took Mirkwood and the mood of the Dead Marshes from Morris, and through Tolkien the model reached every fantasy map. ## Quick answers **When was The Well at the World's End first published?** The Well at the World's End was first published in 1896 (The Wood Beyond the World, 1894). **Who created The Well at the World's End?** The Well at the World's End was made by William Morris (author, designer and printer). **What kind of work is The Well at the World's End?** The Well at the World's End is a novel in the High / Epic Fantasy and Fairy-Tale Fantasy tradition. **Why is The Well at the World's End important?** William Morris's late romances are widely considered the first modern fantasies set in an invented secondary world; Tolkien took Mirkwood and the mood of the Dead Marshes from Morris, and through Tolkien the model reached every fantasy map. ## Overview In the last decade of his life, [William Morris](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/william-morris/) — designer, poet, socialist, translator of sagas and founder of the Arts and Crafts movement — wrote a series of prose romances set in lands that exist nowhere on any real map. *The Wood Beyond the World* (1894) and *The Well at the World's End* (1896) are the best known. Written in a deliberately archaic English modeled on medieval romance and printed in handsome editions by Morris's own Kelmscott Press, they tell of young men who ride out from home into forests, walled cities and wastelands in pursuit of love and a marvel. They are often called the first modern fantasies set in a fully invented world — neither a dream, nor a far corner of our own Earth, nor an allegory, but a place that simply is. That idea, which [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/) would name the [Secondary world](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/secondary-world/), is the foundation of [High / Epic Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/high-fantasy/). ## Origins Morris came to his romances through his love of the Middle Ages and of Northern literature. In 1870 he and the Icelandic scholar Eiríkr Magnússon published an English translation of the *Völsunga saga*, and in 1876 Morris retold the story in his long poem *Sigurd the Volsung*. His first prose romances, *The House of the Wolfings* (1889) and *The Roots of the Mountains* (1890), set Germanic tribes against the Roman Empire in a quasi-historical northern past; the Goths of *The House of the Wolfings* live in the forest of Mirkwood. From there Morris moved into pure invention with *The Story of the Glittering Plain* (1891), *The Wood Beyond the World*, and *The Well at the World's End*, which appeared in 1896, the year of his death. ## The story In *The Wood Beyond the World*, Golden Walter, a merchant's son, is haunted by a vision of three strangers: a stately Lady, her Maid marked by an iron ring, and a hideous dwarf. Following them across the sea, he comes to an enchanted wood ruled by the Lady, a sorceress, and escapes with the Maid through cunning and magic, eventually to become king of a city called Stark-wall. *The Well at the World's End* is longer and grander. Ralph, youngest son of King Peter of Upmeads, slips away from his small, peaceful realm in search of adventure and hears of a well whose waters give long life and good fortune. His journey takes him through strange towns, the cruel lordship of Utterbol ruled by the tyrant Gandolf, and the love and loss of the mysterious Lady of Abundance. With Ursula, a young woman who has set out on the same quest, he crosses mountains and deserts past the Dry Tree to drink from the Well. Then — in a turn that sets it apart from most quest stories — they come home, and must use what they have gained to defend Upmeads from war. ## Reception & impact Morris's romances were admired but never widely popular in his lifetime; the archaic prose deterred some readers. Their influence came through a handful of writers who read them young. [C. S. Lewis](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/c-s-lewis/) loved *The Well at the World's End* and wrote an essay on Morris; he praised its treatment of the fading of magic as "an image of the truth". Tolkien, awarded the Skeat Prize for English at Oxford in 1914, spent part of the money on books by Morris. Tolkien's debt shows in names and landscapes. His Mirkwood echoes Morris's (both descend from the *Myrkviðr* of Norse poetry). In a letter of 1960 he wrote that the Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owed something to northern France after the Battle of the Somme, but "more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as in *The House of the Wolfings* or *The Roots of the Mountains*". Scholars have also noticed that the villain of *The Well at the World's End* is named Gandolf and that a horse in the book is called Silverfax. ## Legacy Morris's romances found a second life in the paperback boom that followed *[The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/)*. [Lin Carter](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/lin-carter/), building the [Ballantine Adult Fantasy](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/ballantine-adult-fantasy/) series as a library of Tolkien's predecessors, published *The Wood Beyond the World* as its third title in July 1969 and *The Well at the World's End* in two volumes in August and September 1970. Few games cite Morris directly — he is not among the authors in Gary Gygax's [Appendix N](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/appendix-n/) — but his influence runs through them by way of Tolkien. The idea that a fantasy story takes place in a coherent, invented geography, with its own towns, roads, borderlands and history, is exactly what a map-driven roleplaying game or a computer RPG's world map requires. Morris's pattern of the hero who travels out to the edge of the world and then returns home to face what has happened there, stronger for the journey, reappears in *The Hobbit*'s "there and back again" and in the arc of countless campaigns that end where they began. ## Facts - Morris is often called the first modern writer to set a supernatural story in a wholly imaginary world. - Tolkien wrote in 1960 that the Dead Marshes owed more to 'William Morris and his Huns and Romans' than even to the Somme. - The Goths of Morris's The House of the Wolfings (1889) live beside a forest called Mirkwood. - The Well at the World's End features a villainous lord named Gandolf and a horse called Silverfax. - Ballantine's Adult Fantasy series made The Wood Beyond the World its third title, in July 1969. - With the Icelander Eiríkr Magnússon, Morris translated the Völsunga saga into English in 1870. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Well_at_the_World%27s_End) - [The Wood Beyond the World (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wood_Beyond_the_World) - [The House of the Wolfings (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Wolfings) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.