But few of Scott's stories contain fantastic elements in most, the appearance of such is explained away. For instance, the work of Sir Walter Scott was influenced by Scottish folklore and ballads. It also has been influenced by historical fiction. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter notes that the heritage of sword and sorcery is illustrious, and can be traced back to mythology, including the labors of Hercules, as well as to classical epics such as Homer's Odyssey, the Norse sagas, and Arthurian legend. In his introduction to the reference Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers by L. Illustration in Our Island Story: A Child's History of England (1905) Sources Īrthur pulls the magic sword from the stone.
So too does the nature of the heroes most sword-and-sorcery protagonists, travellers by nature, find peace after adventure deathly dull. Their lower stakes and less-than world-threatening dangers make this more plausible than a repetition of the perils of epic fantasy. Many sword and sorcery tales have turned into lengthy series of adventures. Settings are typically exotic, and protagonists often morally compromised. Unlike high fantasy, the stakes in sword and sorcery tend to be personal, the danger confined to the moment of telling. Although many have debated the finer points, the consensus characterizes it with a bias toward fast-paced, action-rich tales set in a quasi-mythical or fantastical framework. Since its inception, many attempts have been made to provide a precise definition of "sword and sorcery". This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also immediately distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword (historical adventure) story-and (quite incidentally) from the cloak-and-dagger (international espionage) story too! I feel more certain than ever that this field should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. He expanded on this in the July 1961 issue of Amra, commenting: Leiber replied in the journal Ancalagon (6 April 1961), suggesting "sword-and-sorcery as a good popular catchphrase for the field". Moorcock had initially proposed the term "epic fantasy".
Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Red Nails" FantasyĪmerican author Fritz Leiber coined the term "sword and sorcery" in 1961 in response to a letter from British author Michael Moorcock in the fanzine Amra, demanding a name for the sort of fantasy-adventure story written by Robert E.
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