River Yann

A description of the Dream Geography surrounding the The River Yann, a region of the Dreamlands created by Lord Dunsany in Beyond the Fields We Know, which collects the three short Dreamlands stories, "Idle Days on the Yann", "A Shop in Go-by Street", and "The Avenger of Perdonaris", together with a short framing device.

In the Mythos

The exotic River Yann runs through a tropical and mountainous region of the Dreamlands frequented by the Dreamer and poet, Lord Dunsany, serving as a waterway for trade between far-flung countries across the Dreamlands to the South, and the lands of Myth and Fantasy to the North, by way of market villages and cities along the river.

The Borderlands of Dream

The door in the back of the shop opens upon upon a path on the edge of the dark forest that borders the Daylands of waking man, and the backs of the other shops can also be seen here among the trees, ancient, crumbling, and covered in moss and fungi, and sometimes set with doors of their own; the dreamer should remember the correct door back to the Shop, and should not try to return through the wrong door, as not all of the doors upon onto the right place or time in the Daylands, and Dreamers who have tried to return through the wrong door are sometimes never seen again.

The path in the forest leads to the right, between the trees and the crumbling shop-backs, out of the forest. From there, the path opens onto the fields of Dream upon which stand a cluster of small cottages, most standing empty and mysterious, full of antique dust and cobwebs, but one of the cottages is inhabited by a woman and her cat, both terribly old and wise in the ways of both Dream and Day. They are willing to talk to Dreamers, give directions if asked politely, and perhaps even to actively help newcomers by offering advice, instruction, and wisdom in the ways of Dream and the language of cats. However the woman has a reputation among Dreamers as a witch, and her gardens, large and beautiful, are tended to in strange and tedious fashion by the labors of dazed poets and dreamers who, perhaps bewitched, have chosen to linger too long in Dream and have become lost and forgetful of the cares and responsibilities of the waking world, and now know only the simple joys of silently and tirelessly working in the old woman's gardens under the lazy, watchful eye of her cat as he suns himself in the cottage window overlooking the garden; it is, perhaps, wise not to linger long near the cottages, and wiser still not to provoke the old woman or her cat to anger.

The the windows behind the cottages face eastward down the River Yann, towards a breathtaking view of the glittering elfin snow-tipped mountains of the north across the river, towering range on range toward the East into the region of Myth, and beyond into the kingdom of Fantasy, which together pertain to the Lands of Dream to the South.

Hian Min (Belzoond, Durl, Duz)

A road leads from the River Yann up through the hills to a marketplace outside of fair Belzoond, where the roads to Belzoond's peaceful neighbors Durl and Duz meet. Cheerful shepherds live in huts in the little Acroctian Hills beneath the Mountains of Hian Min.

Belzoond, Durl and Duz are pleasant cities and peoples, with cheerful market songs, dragon-legends, and humble gods. Shepherds and wine-makers work in the hills, merchants work in the market outside Belzoond, and traders travel the river Yann in small sailing ships, looking for exotic goods in the strange markets along the river.

It is from this region that the merchant ship Bird of the River, her captain, and her crew originated; it was on this boat that Lord Dunsany made his early voyage through the lands of Dream.

Hap (Kyph, Pir, Goolunza)

Kyph, Pir, and Goolunza are cities among the hills of Hap. Through the hills, beneath the cities, flow the Poltiades, the Marn, and Migris: small river tributaries to the Yann; these rivers flood seasonally with the melting snow.

Mandaroon

A large, beautiful city with ruddy-walls and white pinnacles, perched above a harbor on the Yann, surrounded by fruit trees, and mossy, long-untrodden stone streets into the city, and the scents of strange incenses and burnt poppies, and a strange and inaudible ringing like that in the wake of distant bells.

The walls of the city are guarded by ancient, be-spectacled, white-bearded men who live in huts outside the walls, armed with rusty pikes, preventing entrance to the city, barring entrance through the gates, and within the city is a marketplace full of sleepers and deathly silence. None may ask questions at the gate, nor disturb the sleepers, because when the sleepers awaken, the gods will die, and men will dream no more.

Noor and Thace

Dark marshes and jungles full of vast choirs of singing insects and clouds of butterflies whose silk is gathered by the Noorish people. The jungles climb into the Hills of Noor, up into the snowy plains and mountains beyond. Caravans from Nurl take the gleaming coloured silks to far Thace, where the crafty merchants flash them against the snow to astonish the local mountaineers.

Astahahn

Astrahahn, where the Yann widens and white mists play across the waters like the ghosts of wrecked ships, is an incredibly ancient, ceremonious, proud, and solemn marble city. The marble city surrounds a wide court, columned on three sides where the markets are held in the shade. The fourth side descends with wide marble steps to the river where strange boats of antique design are chained.

All about the city are carvings of beasts from strange and antique ages - dragons, hippogrypgs, griffins, and gargoyles - no new custom or building is to be found in the city. The marle houses are carved with ancient designs depicting creatures long-extinct in the Dreamlands, which, wherever cracked and broken over the remote ages by age and time, have gone unrepaired, and the edges of the city are slowly being overtaken by the jungles beyond.

Sailors and traders who stop here to try to trade with the locals have grown accustomed to their ways, and ignore the somber people of Astahahn and their long and sober ceremonies, and deal only in those few goods which the locals would buy, and have always bought according to custom.

If asked, the locals proudly claim to have fettered and manacled Time before it could slay the gods, and to worship with their endless strange and ancient ceremonies and processions all those gods which have not yet been slain by Time.

Lispasia

The jungles of Lispasia are filled with birds of every description, the cacophony of their voices audible from a long distance. Flocks of geese migrate over the Lispasian range, close by the Peak of Mluna, flying out at the same time every year, and flying in from the Northern plains with the first northern snowfall of each year.

Perdóndaris

Perdóndaris was once a great, famous, powerful, and pleasant city, with great, fierce, and fearful local gods and shrewd traders. About the city stood mighty walls and battlements mounted by fifteen towers for every mile, and copper plaques in marked with all the languages of the River Yann and many languages from beyond the river on either side describing the fates that befell invading armies who failed to penetrate the walls. The city's vast gate is carved from a single piece of ivory cast off from a monstrous beast from the hills beyond, and many of the palaces were built from blocks of ivory carved from smaller specimens. The city had at some point met a mighty doom beneath the trampling feet and before the monstrous shoulders of the nameless beast from which that mighty tusk fell, suddenly wrecking the city in one terrible night.

Perdóndaris has since been rebuilt, but the new city is only a shadow beneath the ruin of the old, and no longer commands the awe and power of the old city nor deals in all the wondrous goods which once it traded in; the survivors huddling within the rebuilt city now pray to the God Which They Know Not to spare them from further doom. The ruins of the old city stand on the craggy hills above new Perdóndaris, the cliffs between the ruins spanned by shattered bridges over deep ravines, beneath which can sometimes be seen glimpses of the golden dragons that were the triumph of the goldsmiths of Sirdoo and were given life by the ritual incantations of the conjurer Amargrarn.

The markets deal in a great variety of goods, including rare and beautiful toomarund carpets, the herb tollub for pipe-smoking, sapphire gem-stones, and goods of ivory carved from the city's ruined gate.

Glorm

The River Yann runs through a dark and misty ravine between the snowy peaks, ancient crags, and chilly cliffs of the Hills of Glorm, beneath the eerie song of the wailing winds of Mount Irillion. Beyond Glorm, the river widens again into the marshlands of Pondoovery.

Irusian Mountains (Pen-Kai, Blut, Mlo)

The Irusian Mountains nurse the farms and vinyards of the villages of Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo.

Plains of Tlun (Cappadarnia)

The plains of Tlun are home to the city of Cappadarnia.

Pathn (Imaut, Golzunda)

The Pathnite villages and twin cities of Imaut and Golzunda are known for the constant beating of the locals' drums which sound deep in the surrounding forests.

Golnuz (Góndara, Narl, Haz)

Where the river turns north again are Góndara, Narl, Haz, and the holy city of Golnuz, where the praying of pilgrims can be heard.

Nen

In the foothills beneath the Mloon ranges the jungles encroach again upon the river, and Nen, the last city on the River Yann.

Beyond Nen, just a little further down the river, the cliffs by the sea are named Bar-Wul-Yann, the Gate of Yann, marking the boundary between the river and the Sea of Dream. Above the cliffs of Bar-Wul-Yan loom the mountains of Mloon.

Once in every seven years, through the Peaks of Mloon come the Wanderers, a weird, dakrk tribe from the strange and unseen far desert lands beyond the mountains, who come down together through a pass through the mountains known only to the Wanderers. They fill the streets of Nen with merchants of strange goods and outre carvings, with conjurers of small but astonishing tricks, and with dancers and strange, horror-filled music and mysterious and sinister songs. The folk of Mloon regard snakes as their brothers and fear them not, not even the largest and deadliest of tropical serpents, the giant lythra, which rise up out of the jungles to creep boldly through the streets and sway to the Wanderers' music and bow their serpent heads to the honor of the Wanderers' respectful greetings. At night, the Wanderers greet the darkness with a hymn that is answered by the wolves on the heights of Mloon, and resume their strange festivities, telling frightful tales until dawn of dark places, dark peoples, dark deeds, and dark spirits and beasts that are known and seen only in the nightmare lands beyond Mloon.

The Lands Beyond (Golthoth, Pungar Vees, Thul)

In the Desert of Cuppar-Nombo can be found the beautiful blue city called Golthoth the Damned, which is sentinelled all round by wolves and their shadows, and had been utterly desolate for years and years because of a curse which the gods once spoke in anger and could never since recall.

Pungar Vees, the red-walled city where the fountains are, which trades with the Isles and Thul.

Sirdoo is a far land renowned for its clever craftsman and wizards who together construct exquisite, life-like clockwork automatons, and curious devices and delicate instruments, built from shining brass or glittering gold, polished rare woods, and clear coloured crystal glass and rare gems.

Heresies and Controversies

The Door in the Shop

In a place near the river in a city of the Daylands, in a place where the city borders closely on Dream, runs a tiny street that can be found on no ordinary map, in which stands a shop in which strange and antique things can be purchased. The shopkeeper is an elderly and eccentric dreamer from the lands of Dream, once a great priest in the shrines and temples of the gods of dream, who has himself chosen to dream his way to the waking world to live out his final days here, because time runs differently in the waking world than in dream, and the shopkeeper has a painful memory from the land of Dream which he sometimes wishes to forget.

In the back of the shop can be found a dingy lumber-room full of strange goods gathered from across the lands of Dream, and shelves full of strange idols of sleeping gods from all around the waking and dreaming worlds, some known and familiar, some unknown, a couple something more than commonly grotesque, and, should a sensitive dreamer look in just the right place beyond that shelf in the back of the lumber-room, the dreamer will find a plain and unassuming green-painted door which opens upon the Dreamlands themselves; the shopkeeper holds the silver key to the door, and knows the secret to opening the door; wise dreamers will carefully negotiate with the shopkeeper to open the door for them, and arrange for the way back to the Daylands after their time in Dream is done; the shopkeeper is interested in rare and weird curiosities from across the waking world, which he takes through the door into Dream to trade.

Note that the green-painted door is not the only door into the Dreamlands - there are many other doors and gates around the world, though few are as safe to travel through as this one. Nor doors through the thin spots between Dream and Day the only way into Dream - there are many other ways, though few other ways permit a dreamer to walk physically into the land of Dream.

(Y.Whateley, based loosely on details from Lord Dunany's stories)

The Dreamers of Mandaroon

• Perhaps the mighty Mandaroon is the city whose dreamers populate the Daylands.... (Y.Whateley)

Associated Mythos Elements

• location: The Dreamlands

References

• Fiction: "Idle Days on the Yann", "A Shop in Go-by Street", and "The Avenger of Perdonaris", appearing in Tales of Three Hemispheres, a collection of short stories by Lord Dunsany (archived in ebook format by Project Gutenberg)
• Additional details about the Shop, Shopkeeper, and borderlands of Dream invented by Y.Whateley, inspired by Dunsany's slightly different descriptions of the Shop on Go-By Street in London.