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amberfox, and anyone else who's yet to discover Bordertown:
Terri Windling's official site for the series: http://www.endicott-studio.com/brdrlnd1.html
Nathan's page - the Bordertown BBS! Wherewintersweet, crimmycat, vurtsnake, photognome and I first met: http://www.player.org/pub/u/nathan/border/
And, below the cut, the introduction to the world...
Introduction (from "Borderland")
Copyright ©1986, 1992 Terri Windling. Used by permission.
Blow bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
Blow bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson;"The Horns of Elfland"
Once upon a time (isn't that the way humans always start a story?) there was magic in the world, or so your bards and storytellers of old have always claimed: elvin lords in dark forests and sumptuous halls beneath the hills, dragons curled in
mountain caverns sleeping upon hoarded gold, Nereids in woodland streams, mermen in the cold, gray sea.
Then there was none.
The tales differ as to why this happened (and I am not at liberty to confirm or deny them). Some say it was industrialization and the use of iron that drove the elvin folk away, some say the spread of Christianity; some say they "flitted" to a more hospitable world; some say magic did not die but merely lay sleeping with King Arthur in Avalon,
waiting for a new age to begin. Whatever the cause, magic vanished -- and mysteriously and completely.
Then one day it came back again. We came back again.
And that's when the shit really hit the fan.
Now, as every schoolchild knows, Elfland has reappeared and lies just beyond the Border that separates it from the World. Between the two lands is the Borderlands, and at the edge of the Borderlands sits that infamous city Bordertown, where elves trade with humans and control passage through the single gate that leads from world to world.
Humans, of course, are not allowed into Elfland, just as we've not exactly been welcome with open arms into your world.Yet here on the Border, where our magic and your technology work equally sporadically and unpredictably, elves and humans mingle in an uneasy truce. You have to be crazy to live here, crazier still to travel in the open Borderlands, where magic runs amok. But if you're willing to chance it (and many do, seeking easy money or the artistic muse or magic or thrills or out of sheer perversity), then come along. Here is one story of the past -- when everything Changed -- and three stories of the present, now that Bordertown has grown out of and beyond the ruins of the old city, with a culture quite unlike anything else this side of the Border or beyond. And the future? Who can say? In a world where the horns of Elfland blow clearly, anything is possible....
Farrel Din
Bordertown
And the introduction from "Bordertown":
Introduction
Copyright ©1986, 1996 Terri Windling. Used by permission.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild... William Butler Yeats; "The Stolen Child"
I hear that out in your World, mothers warn their little ones that if they misbehave, the fairies will come and steal them away....
What a load of crap. Let me tell you what really happens.
Most humans go about their daily lives completely unconcerned about what goes on in the distant realm known as the Elflands. Since Elfland first reappeared in the World, you've made it clear that we're not exactly welcome here -- and truth tell it we don't want you in Faerie either. You stick to your side of the Border and we'll stick to ours, and that suits about everybody just fine.
But every once in a while a child is born who can't seem to fit in anywhere in the World. A misfit, a malcontent, with an itch in his soul, a wild look in her eyes. We don't have to steal these kids away -- they come of their own accord. Hell, we couldn't keep them away if we tried.
Being human, they cannot cross the Border into Faerie. So they come to the Borderlands -- that no-man's land between
Elfland and the World. Where magic bleeding from our side of the Border has warped and twisted into unpredictable shapes. Where our spells and your technology work sporadically -- or not at all.
In the infamous city of Bordertown, elves and humans mingle in an uneasy truce, vying for dominance in the High Council
chambers, the marketplace -- and, most of all, the rock'n'roll clubs in the slums south of Ho Street. Clubs like mine, the Dancing Ferret: cheap beer, good wine, and the best bands in town.
Down in Soho, the runaways have claimed the abandoned buildings as their own. The gangs cruise at night on
spell-powered bikes: the elvin Bloods in red leather, the human Pack -- dark and dangerous, the Rats from under the
docks, the rich kids from Dragon's Tooth Hill.
You have to be crazy, or desperate to come here. But if you make it across the waters and wilds to Bordertown, come on
over to the Ferret. The first beer's on me; after that, kid, you're on your own.
Farrel Din
The Dancing Ferret
18 Carnival Street
Bordertown
amberfox, and anyone else who's yet to discover Bordertown:Terri Windling's official site for the series: http://www.endicott-studio.com/brdrlnd1.html
Nathan's page - the Bordertown BBS! Where
wintersweet, crimmycat, vurtsnake, photognome and I first met: http://www.player.org/pub/u/nathan/border/And, below the cut, the introduction to the world...
Introduction (from "Borderland")
Copyright ©1986, 1992 Terri Windling. Used by permission.
Blow bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
Blow bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson;"The Horns of Elfland"
Once upon a time (isn't that the way humans always start a story?) there was magic in the world, or so your bards and storytellers of old have always claimed: elvin lords in dark forests and sumptuous halls beneath the hills, dragons curled in
mountain caverns sleeping upon hoarded gold, Nereids in woodland streams, mermen in the cold, gray sea.
Then there was none.
The tales differ as to why this happened (and I am not at liberty to confirm or deny them). Some say it was industrialization and the use of iron that drove the elvin folk away, some say the spread of Christianity; some say they "flitted" to a more hospitable world; some say magic did not die but merely lay sleeping with King Arthur in Avalon,
waiting for a new age to begin. Whatever the cause, magic vanished -- and mysteriously and completely.
Then one day it came back again. We came back again.
And that's when the shit really hit the fan.
Now, as every schoolchild knows, Elfland has reappeared and lies just beyond the Border that separates it from the World. Between the two lands is the Borderlands, and at the edge of the Borderlands sits that infamous city Bordertown, where elves trade with humans and control passage through the single gate that leads from world to world.
Humans, of course, are not allowed into Elfland, just as we've not exactly been welcome with open arms into your world.Yet here on the Border, where our magic and your technology work equally sporadically and unpredictably, elves and humans mingle in an uneasy truce. You have to be crazy to live here, crazier still to travel in the open Borderlands, where magic runs amok. But if you're willing to chance it (and many do, seeking easy money or the artistic muse or magic or thrills or out of sheer perversity), then come along. Here is one story of the past -- when everything Changed -- and three stories of the present, now that Bordertown has grown out of and beyond the ruins of the old city, with a culture quite unlike anything else this side of the Border or beyond. And the future? Who can say? In a world where the horns of Elfland blow clearly, anything is possible....
Farrel Din
Bordertown
And the introduction from "Bordertown":
Introduction
Copyright ©1986, 1996 Terri Windling. Used by permission.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild... William Butler Yeats; "The Stolen Child"
I hear that out in your World, mothers warn their little ones that if they misbehave, the fairies will come and steal them away....
What a load of crap. Let me tell you what really happens.
Most humans go about their daily lives completely unconcerned about what goes on in the distant realm known as the Elflands. Since Elfland first reappeared in the World, you've made it clear that we're not exactly welcome here -- and truth tell it we don't want you in Faerie either. You stick to your side of the Border and we'll stick to ours, and that suits about everybody just fine.
But every once in a while a child is born who can't seem to fit in anywhere in the World. A misfit, a malcontent, with an itch in his soul, a wild look in her eyes. We don't have to steal these kids away -- they come of their own accord. Hell, we couldn't keep them away if we tried.
Being human, they cannot cross the Border into Faerie. So they come to the Borderlands -- that no-man's land between
Elfland and the World. Where magic bleeding from our side of the Border has warped and twisted into unpredictable shapes. Where our spells and your technology work sporadically -- or not at all.
In the infamous city of Bordertown, elves and humans mingle in an uneasy truce, vying for dominance in the High Council
chambers, the marketplace -- and, most of all, the rock'n'roll clubs in the slums south of Ho Street. Clubs like mine, the Dancing Ferret: cheap beer, good wine, and the best bands in town.
Down in Soho, the runaways have claimed the abandoned buildings as their own. The gangs cruise at night on
spell-powered bikes: the elvin Bloods in red leather, the human Pack -- dark and dangerous, the Rats from under the
docks, the rich kids from Dragon's Tooth Hill.
You have to be crazy, or desperate to come here. But if you make it across the waters and wilds to Bordertown, come on
over to the Ferret. The first beer's on me; after that, kid, you're on your own.
Farrel Din
The Dancing Ferret
18 Carnival Street
Bordertown
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You've never read Emma? Go get "War for the Oaks". Right now. Seriously. One of my favorite books ever.
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And if you don't have any of the Flash Girls CD's - go get them - you'll like the Relationship Song *chuckle*.
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If you ever make it to Ottawa, you need to see Charles and his lovely wife MaryAnn play -- they're also wonderful musicians.
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Now I shall put on Tempest. Loud. :)
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Re: Life on the Border
I hadn't realized that it was a published world. Hmmm...