credit: Patty Jansen; reproduced with permission

The recent “blood moon” (full lunar eclipse) of October 8, together with this wonderful photo taken by Australian writer, Patty Jansen, got me thinking about the importance of the moon in Fantasy.

Joy Chant’s Red Moon and Black Mountain immediately sprang to mind, because a significant feature of the book is the red moon:

“In the cleft between the peaks there was a glow like fire. As they watched the moon rose, and with a shock of horror and disbelief the children saw that it was red.”

I tend to think of Red Moon and Black Mountain as Kids/YA fiction because I first read it at that age and two of the three protagonists are definitely “junior”, but I understand it was published as adult Fantasy back in the day (1970-1.) It also won the Mythopoeic Award in 1972, perhaps not surprisingly since the Award is for works that best exemplify “the spirit of the Inklings” and I have always felt that Red Moon and Black Mountain owes a considerable debt to both JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. Having said that, the story also has its own distinct voice, especially in Oliver’s story arc amongst the Khentorei of the plain. I really enjoyed the story when I first read it and still have my 1982 Unicorn edition. (The cover is really cool, too, but I couldn’t find it on the web.) If interested, Erin Horáková posted a great retrospective on TOR.com in 2013, which you can read here:

Forgotten Classics: Joy Chant’s Red Moon and Black Mountain

Another Fantasy for younger readers where the moon is a pervasive influence is Alan Garner’s The Moon of Gomrath(first published 1963), in which the Old Magic is also moon magic—a power that Susan, one of the two main characters, gets caught up in:

“She has ridden with the Shining Ones, the Daughters of the Moon, and they came with her from behind the north wind…”

Isn’t that wonderful and mythopoeic? Later Susan learns more of her power:

“…this is moon magic and we wear a part of it.” She held out her wrist, and Susan saw a white bracelet there. “Our power waxes, and wanes: mine is of the full moon, the Morrigan’s is of the old…You are young and your bracelet is the young moon’s. Then you can be more than the Morrigan, if you have courage.”

As you may have picked up from the Morrigan reference, The Moon of Gomrath references magic from the Celtic cycle and like its predecessor, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, and Elidor (which I discussed here before, in Encountering Fantastic Worlds), was one of my favourites as a Junior reader. I know some reviewers found aspects of the story opaque and the magic very strange—but I loved it: not least, I suspect, because of Susan’s central role.

Still sticking with Junior fiction, a more recent work where the moon is central is Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets The Moon (2009), another Mythopoeic Award winner in 2010—although it draws on classic Chinese myths rather than those from the western tradition. Beautifully told, the book weaves a number of traditional stories into the tale of Minli, who goes on a quest-journey to find the Old Man In the Moon and change her fortune. Along the way, she is joined by a dragon who can’t fly and meets a number of friends and helpers, from an ox boy to a king.

The moon also features prominently in Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean At the End Of The Lane (2013), which won a British National Book Award and Book Of The Year in 2013, and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel 2014:

“Moonlight spilled onto the stairs, brighter than our candle flames. I glanced up through the window and I saw the full moon. The cloudless sky was splashed with stars beyond all counting. “That’s the moon,” I said.

“Gran likes it that way,” said Lettie Hempstock.

“But it was a crescent moon yesterday. And now it’s full…”

“Gran likes the full moon to shine on this side of the house. She says its restful, and it reminds her of when she was a girl,” said Lettie.”

Hmm, I think there may just be something magical about that moon, and maybe about Gran, too—but no spoilers! If you haven’t already read this book, then hie thee and read it for yourself: I’ll be surprised if you’re disappointed.

“Until the sun dies and the moons falls…” Yes, indeed, not one moon but two are a—if not the—defining magical influence in Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Song For Arbonne, but it is in The Summer Tree, the first novel in his Fionavar Trilogy (another tale that draws on the Celtic mythos) that a crimson moon rises at a vital juncture in the book:

“Above the eastern trees of the glade of the Summer Tree, there came the rising of the Light. And on the night of the new moon, there shone down on Fionavar the light of a full moon. As the trees of the forest began to murmur and sway in the sudden wind, Paul saw the moon was red, like fire or blood, and power shaped that moment to its name…Red moon in the sky on new moon night, so that the glade of the Godwood could shine and the Summer Tree be wrapped below in mist, above in light.”

Moon magic is also an important part of The Gathering Of The Lost, both in the defence of the hill fort in the earlier part of the book and later when Malian walks the path of earth and moon:

“The moon was a glowing, aqueous shield reflected in the heart of the pool as Malian stepped barefoot onto the moon track that stretched across its surface. The water from the cup had been cool fire, traveling down her throat, and now moonlight shimmered along her veins…she could see threads of power spinning out ahead of her. It reminded her of Yorindesarinen’s silver path through the Gate of Dreams, which Jehane Mor had called a ropewalk across vast deeps. Now Malian felt the rough strands beneath each footstep, even though her eyes told her that she was walking down into the water, descending to the heart of the reflected moon.”

So there you are, proof—if proof were needed—that the moon in all its aspects is an essential element of Fantasy.

And this is only a quick selection: I’m equally keen to hear your favourite instance of the moon and/or moon magic featuring in your Fantasy reading.