220. Changes in Life Hymn

Here is another item on my list of objectives for my projected sequel to Useful Hymns (working title: Edifying Hymns). I'm not kidding. I'm actually crossing items off a list. I would like to set this hymn to the 1964 tune MORESTEAD by Sydney Watson (1903-91), which I found in the Lutheran Book of Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 1978) set to the hymn "Lord of all good, our gifts we bring you now." That is, if it isn't too difficult to obtain copyright permission.

Father of Lights, in whom no shifting shade
Or imperfection dwells: Your gifts bestow,
Your word’s unchanging truth and pow’r displayed
To us, who travel changeful ways below.

Eternal Christ, who are the same of old,
Today, and for all time, our Cornerstone:
You kept faith on the cross; now make us bold
To meet our crosses, trusting You alone.

O Spirit, blowing where You will, unseen:
Abide with us, though trackless be our course.
By word rebuke; by sacrament make clean,
And to safe harbor gather us in force.

Three-personed God, whose ways we hardly ken,
If we grasp not your plan, can that be strange?
Enough to know Your peace, goodwill to men:
Our constant beacon in this world of change!

219. Creative Endeavors Hymn

The tune I had in mind while writing this was KEDRON, from William Walker's Southern Harmony, 1835 (below), which I spotted in The Lutheran Book of Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 1978), paired with the hymn "Lord, save your world; in bitter need." The first word of my hymn was originally "Creating," but after completing the hymn, I did a search for the phrase and found out that this hymn by Jeffery Rowthorn already had the title "Creating God." It is also, most perversely, set to the same tune. What were the chances? So, to avoid spurious charges of plagiarism, I changed the first word to "Creative." I'm still worried no one is going to believe I didn't plagiarize Rowthorn's hymn; though, except for a similarity in the first two words and coincidentally(!!) having the same tune, they aren't particularly similar.

Creative God, whose wise design
Pervades the heavens, sea, and land:
Help those who trace Your labor's line
A Father's love to understand.

Eternal Word, without whose voice
Would naught that is have come to be:
Help those who plan and dream rejoice,
Their labor's longed-for end to see.

Dear Holy Ghost, whose daily gift
We seldom value as we should:
Our toilsome burdens kindly lift;
Our earnest efforts crown with good.

To God who has been, ever is,
And yet shall be world without end,
May our works, patterned after His,
Like holy offerings ascend.

Tunes for Hymns of 13+ Lines

It's been a while since I continued the thread about hymn tunes used in 20th-century anglophone Lutheran hymnals (whew). I began it with this post, which contains a helpful list of abbreviations. I plucked a few of the low-hanging fruit first: tunes for hymns with two- or three-line stanzas. And now I'm going to skip to the other end of the metrical index and knock off those tunes with stanzas 13 or more lines in length - of which there not very many.

A couple outliers...

But first... A little housekeeping. In my posts on two- and three-line hymn tunes, I neglected to mention two irregular specimens which may or may not fall into those categories, partly because my metrical index of the relevant hymn-books lumped them under such headings as "PM" (peculiar meter) or "Irr." (irregular meter), without bothering to count their number of lines per stanza. I've since updated my index to show that. But there was another reason these two tunes slipped by me when I was writing those posts: It's unclear what "number of lines per stanza" category they belong in. To explain this problem, let's look at the tunes.

Granton

This tune by Richard Hillert (1923-2010) was set to the Jaroslav Vajda hymn "Amid the world’s bleak wilderness" in LBW, LW, and CW. No tune has ever better deserved the "Irr." meter designation, since for four stanzas it is a three-line-per-stanza hymn, and only the last stanza changes to a two-line variant. It's a weirdly structured piece of music, with a tepid mood that seems out of step with Vajda's text. I'm not sure, but I doubt this hymn is often sung outside academic and/or town-gown settings.

Christe, du Lamm Gottes

This arguably three-line-per-stanza hymn tune comes from Johann Bugenhagen’s 1528 Braunschweig Kirchenordnung. It is a numbered hymn in ALH, TLH, and LBW, and it also appears in the liturgical sections of many American Lutheran hymnals (I didn't note which ones, but I think they include at least LHy, TLH, LW, CW, ELHy, and LSB), set with some rhythmic variations to a three-stanza translation of the Agnus Dei: "O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us," stanza 1 and 2; "O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us Thy peace," stanza 3. ALH's translation begins "Lamb of God, O Jesus," and the melodic setting is adapted accordingly. LW's liturgical arrangement does unnecessary violence to this tune, raising the middle stanza by a whole step. Some books include an optional, fancy setting of the Amen after the last stanza. It is such a familiar chorale setting of the ancient liturgical canticle that many present-day Lutherans probably don't realize it's a hymn paraphrase, and mistake it for the Agnus itself - though, to be fair, it's a pretty transparent paraphrase of it. But believe it or not, it's a hymn, and a precious, indispensible part of the Lutheran church's hymnody, simple as it is. Helmut Walcha, for one composer, has given this hymn-tune the honor it deserves by making it the theme of a beautiful chorale prelude.

Some super-sized hymn tunes

And now, to the nitty-gritty: hymn-tunes that, judged according to the number of lines per stanza they were written to accommodate, are objectively huge. To put these tunes in perspective, I have curated 26 tunes for 12-line-stanza hymns, but only half that number (13), total, for all stanza structures of 13 lines or more. When you think of a Lutheran chorale that has a lengthy-stanza structure, the two examples that come to mind are probably the Queen and King of Chorales, Philip Nicolai's Wie schön leuchtet and Wachet auf; but they have only 11 and 12 lines respectively. Beyond that, we ascend into a rarefied atmosphere: a tiny bracket of relatively massive pieces, in the context of hymn-tunes, which are after all a miniature form of music. We're in a realm of such unusually, idiosyncratically lengthy poetic and melodic stanza-structures that there ceases to be any point in keeping count of the number of syllables per line, as we can safely stick an "Irr." or a "PM" in the meter slot, and we recognize that these tunes exist to serve exactly one hymn-text each. For some reason, this lofty peak of hymnody seems to be inhabited, at least in Lutheran books, mostly by historically and spiritually significant Lutheran chorales.

13 lines

Herzlich lieb hab ich dich

The only hymn-tune I have indexed with 13 phrases, this melody attributed to Matthias Gastritz (1571) was published in Bernhard Schmid’s Orgeltablatur-Buch, Strasbourg, 1577. It has been wedded from the first to Martin Schalling's beautiful hymn "Lord, Thee I love with all my heart," written in 1569. The pairing appears, with some rhythmic alterations of the tune and different translations of Schalling's text, in at least ELHb, LHy, TLH, LBW, CW, ELHy, LHA, and LW. It is one of those hymns that I have sometimes heard sung, loudly and with deep emotion, by a group of people gathered around a piano at a social gathering of Lutheran churchmen (and women). Its final stanza alone makes it an excellent alternative to the hackneyed choice of "How Great Thou Art" or "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" as a funeral hymn.

14 lines

Gott der Vater, wohn uns bei

This hymn-tune, which can be described in metrical-index shorthand as "7s. 14l." (7 syllables x 14 lines), to save the trouble of typing a row of 14 sevens, was based on a 14th century melody. It appeared in roughly its current form in Johann Walther’s Geystliche gesangk Buchlein, Wittenberg, 1524 - one of the first Lutheran hymnals ever. It is set to the hymn "God the Father, be our Stay," by an unknown German author, in at least ELHb, TLH, LHA, LBW, LW, CW, and ELHy. Historically, this hymn takes the form of three one-line stanzas, each addressing the same 13-line refrain to a successive Person of the Trinity. Lately, the fashion has been introduced of replacing this threefold structure with a one-off, "Triune God, oh, be our Stay" version, to save the time spent repeating all those phrases of refrain. I think this does the hymn a disservice, since it then becomes a one-stanza affair, thus giving the congregation less time to grow familiar with it. Also, I think it's a funny way to transmit a worship tradition, altering a hymn that confesses the Triune God by praying to each divine Person by name into one that only says "Triune God." The sacrifice of just a bit of time to drive the lesson home is not incompatible with the idea of worship. (By the way, I used this tune with an original hymn in my book Useful Hymns.)

Mitten wir im Leben sind

This "Irr." bruiser, adapted from 13th-century material, also made its debut in its present form in Johann Walther's 1524 Wittenberg hymnal, and it has been set to some translation of Luther's burial hymn "In the midst of earthly life" in at least LHy, TLH, LBW, LW, CW, ELHy. (My notes, which were compiled in the last century, don't reflect more recent developments, but I know it's also in at least LSB¹.) It could be repeated as a theme with many of these early Lutheran hymns, that their representation in some American Lutheran hymnals, but not others, can be interpreted almost as a litmus test of how authentically Lutheran (in the orthodox, confessional sense, as opposed to pietistic) the church bodies were that published them. Interestingly, Luther reached across the Bosporus in this hymn, borrowing a bit of Eastern liturgy ("Holy and righteous God! Holy and mighty God! Holy and all-merciful Savior!" etc.; based on the Trisagion) and using it as a refrain. It's a good, serious, appropriately fearful (in the faithful sense) hymn for the occasion of a Christian's death and burial; and it has also been used as the basis of some good Organ preludes, such as (again) one by Walcha.

15 lines

Kingly Love

Except when I played it myself in private (and I rather liked it), I have only ever heard this hymn performed once - at a church where I was doing field work as a seminarian - and it was a mortifying train-wreck that I will never forget. The tune is by Richard Hillert, composer of Granton; the words that go with it, but only in LW and CW as far as I know, are a hymn about Jesus' parable of the feast, "O kingly love" by Martin H. Franzmann (1907-76). I was so discouraged by the prospects of Franzmann's hymn ever catching on that, at some point during my seminary career, I wrote my own alternate tune in what I thought was a more accessible style; its title is COME TO THE FEAST, and it's in Useful Hymns (for which I had to pay good money to get permission to reprint the text). Here's hoping fair use lets me quote the hymn tune, just to illustrate another direction a composer might go in setting Franzmann's frankly difficult-to-set-to-music poem. I can see, perhaps, why it wouldn't catch on very well; though I still think it's kind of neat.

Kyrie, Gott Vater

This German adaptation of the 9th century plainchant Kyrie, fons bonitatis, was set to a German hymn of c. 1541, itself adapted from a 12th-century Latin hymn, in which the ancient Greek liturgical canticle "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison" (Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy) is "troped" with additional lyrics, addressing each Person of the Trinity, inserted between the Kyrie/Christe and the Eleison. Where is it found in American Lutheranism? In this instance, TLH, LBW, LW, CW, and ELHy passed the 20th-century litmus test. In our century, I find, both ELW² and LSB also have this hymn. It could be used as a hymn for Trinity Sunday, a hymn for a day of penitence and prayer (e.g. in a time of disaster or conflict), or even, if you're not one of those snobs who abhors the idea of a "chorale mass," an occasional replacement for the liturgical Kyrie. There are Reformation-era chorale paraphrases that could similarly replace each part of the Ordinary of the Mass, apparently for that purpose, and some Lutheran pastors and cantors think of them as part of the "kernel" of historic Lutheran hymnody every Lutheran congregation should learn to know and love - and I count myself one of them (with the understanding that I'm neither a pastor nor a cantor at the moment; but I've been both in the past and am no less qualified to be one now³). OK. There are some sentences you just have to back out of. But I won't back out of this: If you can't imagine singing this hymn in church, you do not know Lutheranism the way I do.

16 lines

Christ ist erstanden

This Dorian-mode melody dates back to a medieval Latin plainchant. It appears with some translation of the 12th-century German Easter hymn "Christ is arisen" in ALH, TLH, LHA, LBW, LW, and CW (again, naming only 20th century books). A rhythmically altered and abbreviated version of this tune, titled Christus ist erstanden is used in ELHb, CSB, TLH, SBH, CW, and ELHy with Michael Weisse's 1531 Easter hymn "Christ the Lord is risen again." With more extensive adaptation, it becomes the hymn-tune Christ lag in Todesbanden, which is wedded to an Easter hymn by Martin Luther. Again, if you find the Dorian mode sounds too sad to be used on Easter Sunday, you need to spend more time with hymns like these, becoming better acquainted with the confidence and strength of Reformation hymnody.

Salve festa dies

This tune by British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) may be construed as having either 12 or 16 distinct lines of melody, depending on how many repeats of the refrain you count; in the "Hail thee, festival day" version of Fortunatus' oft-translated sixth-century hymn, the refrain begins and ends the piece, and is also repeated between the two strains of stanza melody. The text is really organized into four-line stanzas (or eight, if you count the refrain as part of each stanza), but because RVW saw fit to alternate between two different melodies for the stanzas (always going back to the same refrain), the whole complicated mess arguably lands here, in the cloud-cuckoo land of almost impracticably long hymn tunes. The impracticality, or impracticability, of this particular specimen is a legitimate concern, given the way the music weaves back and forth between these strains. It may possibly put this hymn in the realm of "tunes never to be heard outside a campus or town-gown church." Other versions of Fortunatus' hymn, set to simpler music, include "Welcome, happy morning." Nevertheless, this tune is deployed in LBW, LW (three times), CW, and ELHy. Once the congregation masters it, it could get a lot of use, since there are versions of it for Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost.

Jesaia dem Propheten

This hymn by Luther expands on the liturgical Sanctus by paraphrasing practically the whole of Isaiah 6, in one long stanza whose structure could be described, in that metrical-index shorthand I mentioned earlier, as "10s. 16l." The melody never repeats a phrase, except during that three-phrase region where the seraphim are singing "Holy is God, the Lord of Sabaoth" over and over. So, it could be a tricky piece to learn, for the same reason I said singing "Triune God, oh, be our Stay" might be detrimental to the congregation becoming familiar with Gott der Vater, wohn uns bei. But good things are often worth a bit of work. Passing the historic-Lutheran litmus test with this hymn are TLH, LBW, LW, CW, and ELHy.

18 lines

In dir ist Freude

This 1591 tune by Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi is set to Johann Lindemann's 1598 hymn "In Thee is gladness" in at least LHA, LBW, LW, CW, and ELHy. It is also of interest to organists as the theme of a spectacular prelude in J.S. Bach's Orgelbüchlein. Unlike many of these other large-scale, 16th-century chorales, it zips along lightly, with short phrases, a tight and repetitive structure, and the popular appeal of a bouncy, major-key tune. Being a comparative lightweight, among historic German hymns, may be what kept it out of earlier hymnals that were focused on preserving more serious material, but I think it's the kind of piece that could help overcome some people's aversion to 16th century hymnody.

19 lines

Victimæ paschali

This haunting 11th century Easter hymn, words ("Christians to the paschal Victim") and music attributed to Wipo of Burgundy, appears in LBW. As if this isn't massive enough, LW combines it with alternating sections of "Christ is arisen" (Christ ist erstanden), our 16-line friend above. They're both single-stanza hymns, though, and the resulting "celebration" (to use LW terminology) is a very effective musical and textual mash-up that could involve antiphonal responses between some combination of congregation, choir, liturgist, cantor, soloist(s), or groups within the congregation. The Victimæ is super-chantlike, though, so if your choristers are the type who will go off in a huff, complaining that you're trying to convert them to Greek Orthodoxy, you might have some educating to do before you use this. (EDIT: It bears noting, this is more of a solo or choir number than a really congregation-oriented hymn.)

20 lines

Peace of God

LBW pairs this tune by Herbert G. Draesel, Jr. (b. 1940) with the hymn "They cast their nets in Galilee" by William Alexander Percy (1885-1942). My notes on this hymn, written back in the 1990s, describe it as "rugged, folkish, ballad-like ... a strange but interesting poem on discipleship, set to a quirky, folk-like American minstrel tune. It isn’t congregational and it may not be churchly." I don't have LBW handy at the moment, so I can't offer much improvement on this impression, other than to note the same hymn occurs in other denominations' hymnals (such as the Episcopal Church's Hymn-Book 1982) set to a tune in CM (common meter, 8.6.8.6.). This suggests the Draesel tune's fourfold repetition of an 8.6.8.6.6. syllable pattern involves (1) cramming four of Percy's stanzas into each go-round, and (2) repeating every fourth line. I can't think of one thing about this tune that would make me choose it over any randomly selected CM tune.

Drumroll, please...

21 lines

Herr Gott, dich loben wir

Martin Luther's tune, adapted from plainchant material for his own metrical paraphrase of the Te Deum ("Lord God, Thy praise we sing"), tops everything with 21 distinct phrases of melody, not even counting the repeats, of which there are many. Several pairs or groups of phrases are meant to be sung as many as six or seven times before going on to the next strain. Also, the whole thing is supposed to be sung responsively between two vocal forces (liturgist vs. congregation, choir vs. cantor, left side vs. right side, etc., the possibilities are practically endless); they join up for some "tutti" passages now and then, particularly at the end. This magnificent giant has only made the cut in one American Lutheran hymnal, ELHy. The version I know best was published in the LCMS

Worship Supplement of 1969, still being used (at least for this one hymn) during the late 1990s in the chapel of the seminary I attended at that time. The church where I did my vicarage (like a one-year, supervised internship before a final year of seminary study and ordination) also made use of that version, so I'm very fond of it and know it well. Later, during a short period when I was part of a church body that used ELHy, I attended a pastor's conference at which that book's version was used, and the differences threw me off-balance. But I would still urge whoever puts out the next big Lutheran pew book to be sure to include this piece, and the congregations that use that book to make the effort to learn Luther's Te Deum. It hangs over the edge of what can usefully be described as a hymn, but being part of a group singing it is a really unusual and (given time to learn it) powerful experience. For an absorbing musical mediation on this hymn, I would recommend J.S. Bach's chorale harmonization. Meantime, I maintain a pile of 1969 supplements, as well as an accompanist's edition of the book, just to be prepared if the chance ever arises of using it in worship or group devotions. Besides that, I can only think of about two things in WS that give the book particular value for me. So, that's how cool this hymn is.

---

¹The Lutheran Service Book (Concordia Publishing House, 2006), the current LCMS hymnal.
²Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 2006), the current ELCA hymnal.
³...except for not being on a church body's clergy roster at present.

218. Hymn Against the Christian's Threefold Foe

Guido Reni, c. 1636

Here is another attempt to write a hymn to accompany an Advent sermon series by the pastor of the church I attend. His theme is, roughly put, "Christ vs. the Three Deadly Enemies of Every Christian," identified by Martin Luther as the devil, the world, and our sinful nature. He further selected texts for each week's Advent midweek sermon: Psalm 74:10-19, Job 1, and Revelation 12:7-12 for Dec. 6; Psalm 2:1-12, Isaiah 13:9-13, and Romans 11:33-12:3 for Dec. 13; Psalm 6:1-10, Genesis 6:1-12, and Romans 6:15-25 for Dec. 20; and for all three weeks, John 1:1-5, 9-14. Though it is not my usual habit (lately) to choose a tune before writing a hymn, I did so in this case in order to fulfill my pastor's request that it be something familiar, easy-to-sing, and "Adventy." I gave the matter about 30 seconds of thought before deciding on the 17th-century French tune PICARDY. My concept of the hymn is for the first and last stanza to be sung each week, and for the stanza relevant to each week's message to be sung in between.

Christians, arm yourselves for battle
With your spirit's deadly foes!
Satan would herd you like cattle
Into hell's eternal throes;
While the world pours out its prattle,
And your flesh no virtue knows.

Watch, beloved, lest th' accuser
Tear from you the victor's crown;
For your foe, that base seducer,
Grudges faith's blood-spattered gown.
Fear not! Christ, your sin's excuser,
Overcame and cast him down.

Turn aside, O holy nation,
From the spirit of this age;
God will shake its generation,
Paying back the nations' rage.
By the Spirit's transformation,
Christ will prove you just and sage.

Lift your heads, you slaves downtrodden,
Fleshly, weak, and bowed by guilt:
Slain with Christ, again begotten,
Serve no more sin's rust and wilt.
Living stones, with baptism sodden,
As God's dwelling you are built.

Christians, rise, no hindrance brooking;
Holy armor on you gird.
Christ's strong name and love invoking,
Daily to devotion stirred,
Be alert, repentant, looking
For the advent of the Word.

The Story Thieves

The Story Thieves
by James Riley
Recommended Ages: 10+

Owen Conners is a big fan of the Kiel Gnomenfoot series, a Harry Potter knockoff featuring an apprentice magician who is searching for seven keys to help his teacher, the Magister, defeat the evil Dr. Verity and his horde of science robots. He can't wait for the seventh book to come out, especially since that book's ending leaves it unclear whether or not Verity has killed the Magister. When Owen realizes his classmate Bethany has the power to jump in and out of books, he lays a devious plan to get into the Magister's study just before the cliff-hanger ending and save the beloved character's life.

Bethany, meanwhile, has been hiding her secret power all her life, ever since her fifth birthday party, when she led all her little friends on a terrifying tour of a fairy-tale world. But that hasn't stopped her sneaking off into Narnia, or Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, or other fictional worlds whenever she can. Why? Because the one person who never came back after that fateful fete was her father, a fictional character who (don't ask how) fell in love with her real-world mother and made little baby, half-fictional Bethany. She won't rest until she finds her dad again.

The poor girl doesn't realize how Owen has used her until it's too late. Things get out of control, and both the Magister and Kiel follow Bethany back to the real world, leaving Owen stranded in Kiel Gnomenfoot's world. Transformed to look like his boy hero thanks to another "don't ask how" situation, Owen has to pretend to be his favorite book character in order to keep the story going - in spite of the terrifying danger involved. So, Owen faces the suspicion of a cute half-robot girl, the resentment of a vicious spellbook, the dangers of a space battle, heart and brain surgery, computer viruses, zombies, robots, virus robots, and robot zombies (but, thank goodness, no zombie viruses).

Meantime, Bethany joins forces with Kiel and an author who is terrified to meet his characters in real life to try to stop the Magister, who - surprise! - isn't such a warm cuddly type, at least when the meaningfulness of his existence is threatened. The Magister wants to unleash a horde of fictional characters on the world, and banish all the real people into works of fiction. Even to begin to combat his fiendish power, Bethany must listen to a fictional boy wizard offering such advice as "Be more fictional!"

This is a funny, exciting, scary, mind-teasing yarn, exploring in a kid-friendly way what might happen when fictional characters become aware of their fictionalness. It also abounds in rib-tickling irony, such as when the fictional Magister asks Bethany (who, you have to admit, is also a character in a book) how she would like to find out her entire world was made up from an author's imagination (which, in fact, it was). Still, this is the kind of thing that can only happen in books or movies, so you just have to buy into it - sort of like when movie characters jump off the screen into the "reel" world in The Last Action Hero. Kids who are interested in exploring concepts like this may also like Ian Beck's "Tom Trueheart" series, Chris Colfer's "Land of Stories," Kristin Kladstrup's The Book of Story Beginnings, Pamela Dean's "Secret Country" trilogy, Michael Ende's The Neverending Story, Marisa Burt's "Storybound" series, or, when they're a little older, Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" and "Nursery Crime" series.

Or, you could continue reading the series that begins with this book. Its sequels include The Stolen Chapters, Secret Origins, and the just-released Pick the Plot, and further adventures are expected. James Riley is the Los Angeles-based author of the real-world/fairy-tale-world crossover trilogy Half Upon a Time, Twice Upon a Time, and Once Upon the End.

217. Theology of the Cross Hymn

As I wrote this, I had no particular hymn-tune in mind. After the fact, I found the most apt tune to go with it is one of two hymn-tunes I know of titled RUNG, by Henrik Rung (1807-71), which has been paired with N.F.S. Grundtvig's fine baptismal hymn "O let Thy Spirit with us tarry."

Grant us, dear Lord, to know You truly
And praise You as becomes Your love!
To that end, help us reckon duly
What You hide and reveal thereof.

Away, then, with the lie of glory,
Which names a thing but what it seems!
Tell us, instead, the cross's story
That calls it what Your wisdom deems.

Away, Lord, with the sin of judging
According to man's mind and heart!
Help us accept, without begrudging,
Your word, and never thence depart.

Away with righteousness by doing,
Lest what we merit we receive!
Keep us in Christ for mercy suing;
He justifies those who believe.

No more let us see curse and blessing
In present fortunes' ebb and flow!
But lead us onward, ever pressing
T'ward glories man has yet to know.

And though we now feel disappointment,
Hard discipline, disgust and pain,
Soothe us with promises like ointment;
Let hope refresh our souls again.

The Great Hunt

The Great Hunt
by Robert Jordan
Recommended Ages: 14+

One long, eventful book into his adventures, tall red-haired hero Rand al'Thor remains almost the last person to accept who he is. He insists he is only a young shepherd from the village of Emond's Field in the backwater district of the Two Rivers, the son of a local farmer named Tam and his late wife. But he finds himself increasingly helpless to stop people calling him "Lord Rand." He proudly refuses to be maneuvered by the Aes Sedai, an order of women with the ability to channel the feminine side of the One Power woven into creation. He tries to resist the temptation to channel the male side of that power, which (since the Breaking of the World, ages ago) tends to drive its adepts insane and subjects them to a lingering, wasting death. (He also has to be careful to hide his ability to channel, because many Aes Sedai would summarily "gentle" him if they found out about it.) He violently denies it whenever anyone observes, from his resemblance to their race, that he must be one of the fanatical desert-dwellers known as the Aiel, possibly even the prophesied hero they have been expecting. And when either the Aes Sedai or the Father of Lies himself - who alternately taunts and tempts him in a series of disturbing visions - accuses him of being the Dragon Reborn, the latest incarnation of his world's cyclic hero Lews Therin, destined either to battle the Dark One to the end or perish trying - well, he can't accept that, can he? But it's no use. Everyone who looks at him seems to know more about him than Rand will admit to himself. And thanks to some deft switching of luggage, when he sets out on a quest to recover the Horn of Valere, which has the power to summon the heroes of the Age of Legends from beyond the grave, he rides forth with the clothing of a lord, the sword of a blademaster, and the banner of the Dragon.

Rand, who hates above all things to be used like a pawn, rides forth in spite of all his denials, because his boyhood friend Mat will die unless they recover a certain cursed dagger that was stolen with the horn. The two talismans were stolen by a villain named Fain, a servant of the Shadow who has been driven insane, or worse, by contact with an almost equally evil force opposed to the Shadow. This is a guy so evil, he makes Darkfriends (human servants of the Dark One) tremble with fear. He travels with a retinue including one type of monster that like to cook and eat people, and another kind whose kiss destroys a person's soul. And among his other advantages are traitors in the White Tower of the Aes Sedai and even in the party of soldiers traveling with Rand. Rand has some advantages on his side, though. He has a friend named Perrin who can communicate telepathically with wolves. He has an increasingly devoted follower who can sniff evil and violence from a long way off. And he has also attracted the interest of an Ogier, a member of a race one might describe as "big-boned elves" or, perhaps, "Vegan, pacifist trolls," who was among the first to recognize that Mat, Perrin, and especially Rand are ta'veren - people with a strong enough destiny to alter the weave of history around them.

Because of these connections, the support of some powerful women, and some other weird fantasy-world stuff, Rand is able to travel vast distances really quickly. He experiences a strange, alternate universe. He finds the horn and the dagger, then loses them again. He gets caught up in a dangerous political game. As he and his party continue their quest, and as his lady-friends Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, and Nin are drawn into the game by an equally dangerous route, Rand grows to take a leading role and to accept, against his will, his place in the fate of his world. But first, he and his friends must be caught between the armies of a band of religious fanatics - the Whitecloaks, who make the Spanish Inquisition look tame - and a race of invaders from across the ocean - the Seanchan, who put Aes Sedai on leashes and use them as weapons in a devastating war of conquest. Only by getting themselves into this tight spot can Rand & Co. rescue those dear to them, recover ancient relics that must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Shadow, and remove all doubt about Rand's place in the weave.

It takes a while to sketch out even a spare summary of this book, because it is so big and, well, tightly woven with story threads and fantasy concepts. Its action spreads across a huge stage, geographically and culturally. It twangs with lines of tension between numerous groups and individuals with conflicting agendas. But it also brims with the personal passions, hopes, fears, and cares of a handful - a large handful, to be sure - of attractive yet believably flawed characters. It has epic scope and world-shaking seriousness, but the humanity (not to mention, sex appeal) of its characters is what engages the reader through the long haul of nearly 700 pages. It is a story that blends cosmic terror with endearing mischief, light romance, alien weirdness, and sword-and-sorcery action in one big, richly colored tapestry.

This is the sequel to The Eye of the World, and the second book in the 15-novel "Wheel of Time" sequence. Because these first two books are quite lengthy, both have also been published in two-volume format, with Eye split into From the Two Rivers and To the Blight, and Hunt split into The Hunt Begins and New Threads in the Pattern.

Robert Jordan actually lived to write only the first 11 books of the series, plus a prequel titled New Spring. Brandon Sanderson, an important fantasy author in his own right, wrapped it up after Jordan's 2007 death with four additional novels based on Jordan's notes. Jordan was also the author of the "Fallon" trilogy, using the pen-name Reagan O'Neal; about a dozen novels featuring Conan the Barbarian; and a western novel titled Cheyenne Raiders, using the pen-name Jackson O'Reilly. The next book in this sequence is titled The Dragon Reborn.