THE DEEP ONES: "The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller" by Lord Dunsany

"The Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller" by Lord Dunsany

Discussion begins January 3, 2024.

First published in the January 11 1911 issue of The Sketch.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?63205

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Time and the Gods
At the Edge of the World
Gods, Men and Ghosts

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://victorianweb.org/authors/dunsany/wonder/2.html

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://www.hppodcraft.com/episodes/2014/12/04/episode-245-the-distressing-tale-...

MISCELLANY

https://humag.co/features/lord-dunsany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Dunsany
https://www.deviantart.com/trevorsproston/art/Lord-Dunsany-s-Thangobrind-the-Jew...
http://tinyurl.com/2t6apekb

The Sime illustration that served as Dunsany's point of departure for this story.

Another perplexing Wonder Tale (recall The House of the Sphinx)! I liked the completely unexplained detail of the grim old woman.

I read this one aloud to my Other Reader, and when we got to the final paragraph about the Merchant Prince's daughter and her droopily-ever-after, we laughed and laughed.

"What did the jeweller want with her soul anyway?"

"I supposed it was a euphemism."

These are great tales to read aloud, for certain. "A thief to be trusted."

I've thought with other Dunsany that readers who don't find his prose appealing, perhaps also don't like oral storytelling. There's a strong element of detail for the sake of the story, and words chosen for their sound as much as the information they carry, all to set a mood.

I couldn't find another reproduction of the Sime picture, and though I love the shadowy inscrutability of it all, still I wonder if I'm missing details. Like where is Hlo-hlo: offstage toward which the Jeweller faces?

I didn't like the ending the first time I read this, what , about a decade ago? On re-reads I've appreciated the humour better. Beware those too respectable to simply die!

The avowed purpose of these tales was to heighten the mystery of Syme's illustrations, which may account for the unexplained elements.

I wondered whether Thangobrind actually wanted her soul for some diabolical purpose, or if it was a metaphor for marriage. One could easily imagine the merchant prince's daughter to be the sort of person to regard having her soul fed to demons and marrying a mere thief as disasters of similar magnitude.

Rereading the story (a couple of years after reading it in the Gollancz collection named Time and the Gods, but which in fact gathers together six of Dunsany's short story collections), reading your comments, I'm not sure where Dunsany's sympathies lie. He must have a degree of fellow-feeling with Thangobrind - the stealthy, hunting element of the "jeweller"'s trade, if nothing else - but he is condemned early in the story: "the trend of ambition and lust"..."vanity". The descriptor "merchant prince" conjures an image of a Renaissance figure, but given the story's ending shouldn't it be revised to a far less Romantic 19th century (okay, strictly, Edwardian) industrialist or financier? The daughter's (perhaps understandable) retreat to deadly dullness is a failing in Dunsany's telling - a lack of gratitude. To Hlo-hlo, I presume.

Obviously, Dunsany's sympathies lie with "wonder" generally, but specifically in this story, I'm drawn to the idea that Hlo-hlo is the hero.

>3 paradoxosalpha: I liked the completely unexplained detail of the grim old woman.
>6 housefulofpaper: The daughter's (perhaps understandable) retreat to deadly dullness is a failing in Dunsany's telling

Reflecting on the place of women in Thangobrind's world, as glimpsed through these two characters, I see some sympathy for women on Dunsany's part. Mostly I see amusement at the folly of men (sic).

Admittedly, I found this bit somewhat confusing: "And there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away those whose duty it was, to the house where the two men hang, and taking down from his hook the left-hand one of the two, they put that venturous jeweller in his place; so that there fell on him the doom that he feared, as all men know though it is so long since, and there abated somewhat the ire of the envious gods."

Assuming my edition wasn't corrupted, I took this to mean Thangobrind was detained and hanged on a hook as a form of execution.

I did like the daughter completely oblivious to the fate she avoided thanks to Hlo-hlo.

I think I can see the two men hanging in the Simes picture, on either side of the dark aperture just to the left of the center of the image.

As printed in The Book of Wonder and the The Last Book of Wonder, there is unambiguously a figure hanging by each side of the aperture.

Said aperture appears to be a wooden door, and a flight of stairs leads up to it.

And to address >4 elenchus:, to the left of Thangobrind is the claw of some creature that's mostly out of the picture. It looks like some hideous hybrid of a human hand and an arthropod's appendage.

>10 AndreasJ:

This page has a lighter reproduction of the image in which I was able to see myself what was described in >9 paradoxosalpha: and >10 AndreasJ:.

Incidentally, I also spied what appears to be the backside of a bear, trundling off the page, in the woods off to the right from the doorway with the two hanged men, along with a few other curious details unmentioned by Dunsany. He does well not to explicitly include all aspects of the illustration, all the better for story and illustration to work their magic.

Again I'm left pining for a fair copy of the book with illustrations.

>11 elenchus:

Oh, that's much better than the one I found!

Edited to add: Now updated in >2 paradoxosalpha: