Stardust by Neil Gaiman

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
The fascinating and engaging new novel from Neil Gaiman, one of the premier writers of fantasy, is here. Stardust is a fantasy tale extravaganza, a mythical quest for love, starting with the heart's desire of a young man and his eventual travels throughout the world of Faerie. In the tradition of his Neverwhere and graphic novel The Books of Magic, Gaiman twines threads of several plotlines deftly together to form a Dunsanianlike fairy tale of fellowship, passion, and humanity's place in an always unpredictable and continuously changing, magical world.

During the Victorian era, in the small village of Wall, a stone barrier separates our world from the land of Faerie. Although there is a break in the bulwark, which is constantly guarded by two townsmen with cudgels, there are hardly ever any troubles between the two realms. Once every nine years, during "the Market," villagers and outsiders are allowed to enter Faerie and sell, buy, and trade with the magical inhabitants. During the Market, young Dunstan Thorn is given his "heart's desire" and soon finds himself making love to an alluring but cursed faerie maiden.

Dunstan returns to Wall to marry Daisy Hempstock, but nine months later an infant is found at the crack in the barrier with a card pinned to its blanket reading: Tristan Thorn. Tristan grows to manhood as a human, but certain faerie features and abilities make themselves known. He falls in love with the standoffish Victoria Forester, and in the heat of a romantic moment promises her anything she might wish. As they watch a star fall toearth,Victoria jokingly promises that she will marry Tristan if he returns with the star.

True to his own oath, Tristan sets out to find the star for his beloved. Once in Faerie, his mystical heritage comes in handy as he recalls places and history that he's never been formally taught. However, Tristan isn't the only one hunting for the star, and his competitors are decidedly unfriendly. An ancient trio of witch-queens called the Lilim need the star's heart to add years of youth to their already near-immortal lives, and will stop at nothing to gain what they want. Also in search of the star are the three remaining devious and deadly sons of the Lord of Stormhold, for therein lies the power of their family. Eventually, though, Tristan discovers the fallen star, which appears as a lovely young woman with a broken leg, and though he's forced to take her with him against her will, he eventually becomes her sworn protector.

With a cast that ranges from lovesick swains to talking trees and humanoid stars, Neil Gaiman offers a wonderful balance in Stardust between the human and inhuman, with displays of winsome, lighthearted wit welded to scenes of a more serious and darker nature. Gaiman is skilled at capturing various fantasy elements and fashioning a unique blend from timeless ingredients. Stardust, with its multifaceted narrative vision, delivers a distinctive magical tale full of bewitching charms that the reader won't be able to resist.
— Tom Piccirilli, barnesandnoble.com

From the Publisher

In the sleepy English countryside of decades past, there is a town that has stood on a jut of granite for six hundred years. And immediately to the east stands a high stone wall, for which the village is named. Here in the town of Wall, Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester. One crisp October night, as they watch, a star falls from the sky, and Victoria promises to marry Tristran if he'll retrieve that star and bring it back for her. It is this promise that sends Tristran through the only gap in the wall, across the meadow, and into the most unforgettable adventure of his life.In the sleepy English countryside of decades past, there is a town that has stood on a jut of granite for six hundred years. And immediately to the east stands a high stone wall, for which the village is named. Here in the town of Wall, Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester. One crisp October night, as they watch, a star falls from the sky, and Victoria promises to marry Tristran if he'll retrieve that star and bring it back for her. It is this promise that sends Tristran through the only gap in the wall, across the meadow, and into the most unforgettable adventure of his life.

Publishers Weekly

Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. Gaiman is known for his fanciful wit, sterling prose and wildly imaginative plots, and Stardust is no exception. Gaiman's silver-tongued narration vividly brings this production to life. Like the bards of old, Gaiman is equally proficient at telling tales as he is at writing them, and his pleasant British accent feels like a perfect match to the material. Gaiman's performance is an extraordinary achievement-if only all authors could read their own work so well. The audiobook also includes a brief, informative and enjoyable interview with Gaiman about the writing of the novel and his work in the audiobook studio. Available as Harper Perennial (Reviews, Nov. 23, 1998). (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature

When Dunstan Thorn meets a slave girl at the Faerie Market, he falls in love with her. But Dunstan lives in Wall, England, and the girl does not. Nine months later, a baby is pushed through the gap in the wall adorned only with the name "Tristran Thorn." Tristran grows up in Wall unaware of his strange parentage. One night, he makes a promise to Miss Victoria Forrester. He will recover a fallen star for her if, upon his return, she will do whatever he requests of her, be it bestowing a kiss or giving her hand in marriage. Victoria agrees, and Tristran quickly leaves. He soon discovers that the "star" he is to retrieve is actually a beautiful girl named Yvaine. Furthermore, Tristran is not the only one who wants the fallen star. A blood-thirsty trio of witches, eager to have their youth restored, has sent their eldest member in search of the fallen star. Lords Primus and Septimus of Stormhold are both eager to get their hands on the stone the star carries with her. In this movie tie-in edition, the text of the original novel remains unchanged; therefore, the story here is quite different from the film. Parents should note that this is not a fantasy novel for the younger set, as it contains one sexual encounter and graphic violence throughout the story. However, older teens will love the awkward hero who grows into his confidence and the gruesome scenes that seem to come straight out of the Grimm Brothers' own tales. With romance, action and adventure, this novel is sure to be a hit with growing fantasy fans.

Library Journal

Gaiman, author of a Neverwhere and the graphic novel series "The Sandman," has created an original and well-written fairy tale. Young Tristran Thorn has grown up in the isolated village of Wall, on the edge of the realm of Faerie. When Tristran and the lovely Victoria see a falling star during the special market fair, Victoria impulsively offers him his heart's desire if he will retrieve the star for her. Tristran crosses the border into Faerie and encounters witches, unicorns, and other strange creatures. What he does not know is that he is not the only one searching for the fallen star. This is a refreshingly creative story with appealing characters that manages to put a new twist on traditional fairy-tale themes. Appropriate for almost any age and a good bet for the medium-to-large public library. --Laurel Bliss, New Haven, CT

School Library Journal

An old-fashioned fairy tale full of mythic images, magic, and lyrical passages. The town of Wall has one opening, which is guarded day and night. On one side of the stone bulwark is England; on the other, Faerie. Once every nine years, the guard is relaxed so that the villagers can attend a fair held in a nearby meadow. There, as a young man, Dunstan Thorn is seduced by a strange woman, and not quite a year later a child is left at the wall. His name is Tristran Thorn. When he grows up, he falls in love with Victoria Forester, and to win her affection, he vows to bring to her the fallen star that they see one night. The star has fallen in Faerie, and though Tristran soon finds her (for in Faerie a star is not a ball of flaming gas, but a living, breathing woman), he has a hard time holding on to her. The sons of the Lord of Stormhold also seek the star, for it is said that he who finds her can take his father's throne. In addition, the oldest of three evil witches seeks the star, for her heart can grant youth and beauty. While the bones of the story--the hero, the quest, the maiden--are traditional, Gaiman offers a tale that is fresh and original. Though the plot begins with disparate threads, by the end they are all tied together and the picture is complete. The resolution is satisfying and complex, proving that there is more to fairy tales than "happily ever after."--Susan Salpini, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA

Paula Guran

Like all great storytellers, Gaiman reworks the jewels of the past into exciting new shapes that sparkle even more brightly to the modern eye. Stardust is a beautifully written fairy tale for adults (and precocious children) which will refresh even the most deflated sense of wonder. It's a shimmering, shining, iridescent treasure for readers to cherish.
&# 151; Event Horizon

Kirkus Reviews

The multitalented author of The Sandman graphic novels and last year's Neverwhere charms again, with a deftly written fantasy adventure tale set in early Victorian England and enriched by familiar folk materials.

In a rural town called Wall (so named for the stone bulwark that separates it from a mysterious meadow through which strange shapes are often seen moving), on "Market Day," when the citizens of "Faerie" (land) mingle with humans, young Dunstan Thorn makes love to a bewitching maiden and is presented nine months afterward with an infant son (delivered from beyond the Wall). The latter, Tristran, grows up to fall in love himself and rashly promise his beloved that he'll bring her the star they both observe falling from the sky. Tristran's ensuing quest takes him deep into Faerie, and, unbeknownst to him, competition with the star's other pursuers: three weird sisters (the Lilim), gifted with magical powers though still susceptible to "the snares of age and time"; and the surviving sons of the late Lord of Stormhold, accompanied everywhere by their several dead brothers (whom they happen to have murdered). Tristran finds his star (in human form, no less); survives outrageous tests and mishaps, including passage on a "sky-ship" and transformation into a dormouse; and, safely returned to Wall, acquires through a gracious act of renunciation his (long promised) "heart's desire."

Gaiman blends these beguiling particulars skillfully in a comic romance, reminiscent of James Thurber's fables, in which even throwaway minutiae radiate good-natured inventiveness (e.g., its hero's narrow escape from a "goblin press-gang" seeking human mercenaries to fight "the goblins' endless wars beneath the earth"). There are dozens of fantasy writers around reshaping traditional stories, but none with anything like Gaiman's distinctive wit, warmth, and narrative energy. Wonderful stuff, for kids of all ages.

Product Details

• Interviews & Essays
• Read an Excerpt
• Read a Sample Chapter

Interviews & Essays

Neil Gaiman: Fairly well -- I'm in the last two days before I set off on a five-week-long signing tour, so all is hectic. But it's good to be here.

Neil Gaiman: I chose the Victorian age as the period because I wanted it to be far enough away in time from us to be "long ago and far away" but near enough that it was within our great-grandparents' lifetime. One day I want to do a novel called WALL, set in the present, which would have the descendants of many of the STARDUST characters in it (and a couple of people who are still around). (I've seen STARDUST listed in a few places now as a historical novel, which was not the intention at all.)

Neil Gaiman: Terry wrote all the bits that got written in the morning, I wrote all the bits that were written late at night.... If memory serves, we decided that we would tell people that Terry wrote the Death of Agnes Nutter, and I wrote all the Four Horsemen (and the other Four Bikers) until they got to the airbase. But beyond that it's anyone's guess. Truth to tell, I'm not even sure that we could swear now who wrote what and be sure of getting it right.

Neil Gaiman: I have mismatched ears too, but apart from that he's on his own.

Neil Gaiman: Very much so: I'm English, and my perspective on things is English. (Admittedly, after six years in America, it's probably that of an expatriate Englishman, with an accent that is all over the place, but I'm English for all of that.) I think the main way it's influenced me is coming from somewhere that exists in time so solidly. (Someone once remarked that the main difference between England and America was that in America a hundred years is a long time, and in England a hundred miles is a long way.)

Neil Gaiman: When you write comics you are using pictures and word balloons to tell your story. When you write prose you're making the reader do a lot more work in the back of his or her head. They have different strengths and different weaknesses. (Writing comics is harder, by the way.)

Neil Gaiman: I still read as many of the indie comics (and the interesting mainstream comics) as I can. Not sure that I'll ever do a straight crime story per se -- it doesn't quite seem to be how my head works; but I wrote a story that will I think be called "Keepsakes and Treasures" for an anthology called 999, which comes out later this year (it's a horror and dark fiction anthology) which is one of the nastiest stories I've written, and might almost be a crime story. And there will be a lot of crime in the next novel (which has a working title of AMERICAN GODS but probably won't be called that when it's finished.)

Neil Gaiman: I wish they were all so easy to answer. Yes, I'll be there next week.... Sunday, January 10th: San Diego -- Mysterious Galaxy, 4-5:30pm, 3904 Convoy Street #107, San Diego, CA 92111 (tel. 619-268-4775); Monday, January 11th: Los Angeles -- Dangerous Visions, 6-8pm, 13563 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91423 (tel. 818-986-6963); Tuesday, January 12th: Los Angeles -- Brentano's, 12-1:30pm, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90067 (tel. 310-785-0204) and Vroman's, 7-9pm 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101 (tel. 626-449-5320); Wednesday, January 13th: Los Angeles -- Book Soup, 8-11:00pm, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069 (tel. 310-659-3684). The web site with most information about the tour on it is www.spikebooks.com/stardust

Neil Gaiman: The text-only version of STARDUST is slightly revised (just because I had the opportunity to revise it, so I took it, and because the occasional paragraph had had to be cut from the DC edition for space reasons). Why two versions? I suppose mostly because there are lots of people out there who would love STARDUST who would never pick up a huge, beautiful, illustrated book. I was astonished at how many NEVERWHERE readers had never heard of Sandman. They picked it up, or SMOKE AND MIRRORS, because they liked the covers or thought it looked interesting. And it seems to be working: Avon have already sold ten times as many copies of the text edition of STARDUST as DC sold of the illustrated edition, which means it's reaching a lot of readers who would never otherwise have seen it. And you're very welcome.

Neil Gaiman: The "Fall of Stardust" portfolio is utterly beautiful -- more than 30 lovely paintings to hang on your walls by various amazing artists. A short story by Susanna Clarke (about the time the Duke of Wellington went to Wall). A couple of poems by me, and the prologue to the Wall novel. Karen Vess (who was in a bad car accident in July and needed spinal surgery and several months in rehab) is home again and I believe doing very well. Charles and Karen's house has been being remodelled to allow her to move around in a wheelchair.

Neil Gaiman: I think the triple goddess tends to creep into my fiction when I'm not looking; the Lillim were certainly an aspect of that. When I was thinking about STARDUST I thought that the two sisters would play more of a part than they did, but once the witch-queen got onstage there was no shifting her.

Neil Gaiman: To some extent, yes.

Neil Gaiman: Let's see... Jonathan Carroll, Gene Wolfe, R. A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, Wendy Cope, Hugh Sykes Davies, Kathy Acker, Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison, John M. Ford, F. C. Gonzalez-Crussi, Angela Carter, Robert Irwin, Iain Sinclair, Samuel R. Delany, Geoff Ryman, Diana Wynne Jones, Jack Vance, Eduardo Galeano, Charles G. Finney, John Lahr...er, this could go on for weeks. That's probably enough to be going on with.

Neil Gaiman: Mostly just reasonableness -- and most people at signings are amazingly sweet and reasonable anyway, considering how long they've been standing in line clutching their books. Gifts are cool but not necessary: I remember one signing several years ago when a fan gave me a handful of Herkimer "Diamonds," wonderful quartz things, and I simply gave them away over the next six months to other fans who gave me cool things. Each store on the tour is going to have its own guidelines for the way the signings are run. My own perspective is that, assuming the lines aren't obscenely long, I'm happy to sign any three things people have brought with them and as many copies as I can of anything as they're buying then and there in the store. But that may have to be modified, depending on the number of people and the time available. Where possible on the tour I'll do readings too.

Neil Gaiman: I think it depends on the person and on what they like. I'm not trying to be flip here -- I've written so much, and in so many styles. SMOKE AND MIRRORS might well be the best place to start, just because if you don't like anything in there then the chances are that you won't like anything else I've written. But beyond that...if they like funny, then GOOD OMENS might be the best place to start; if they like complex, mythic, and occasionally creepy, then "Sandman" (although "Preludes and Nocturnes" isn't really representative of the story as a whole); if they like uncomplicated adventure, then NEVERWHERE.... I hear that DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING makes a lot of friends. Most people will like STARDUST -- I keep seeing reviews from people who say, "I don't like fantasy but I loved this...."

Neil Gaiman: I tend to seesaw from "How am I going to get all these stories told?" to "Why am I staring at this blank sheet of paper?" with very little in between. I worried about dying before "Sandman" was done, mainly because it was so big, but it's not something that's bothered me since. (It might do if I start another large project.) But I've written a few things now that I was happy with -- a couple of issues of "Sandman" and "Mr. Punch," and THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH, and STARDUST, and a few of the stories in SMOKE AND MIRRORS -- so I figure I'm already ahead of the game.

Neil Gaiman: I think that STARDUST is definitely a book that someone who hasn't read anything I've written before (or ever heard of me before) can enjoy. It's a romance, of sorts. I've seen it described in reviews as a fable, and as a fairy tale, and there's truth in both of those descriptions. It's about a young man who lives in a village called Wall, somewhere in the British Isles, about 140 years ago, who is in love with the village beauty, and who promises to bring her a fallen star, and of the consequences of that promise. The village is on the border of Faerie, and the young man's quest takes him farther than he had imagined it would. It's funny and it's sad, and it has some exciting bits and some magical stuff too.

Neil Gaiman: Just that I'm sorry not to have answered all of the questions (next time I do one of these I'll have to type faster); and thank you all for having me. And I hope I'll see lots of you on the signing tour.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.

And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will be could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.

The tale started, as many tales have started, in Wall.

The town of Wall stands today as it has stood for six hundred years, on a high jut of granite amidst a small forest woodland. The houses of Wall are square and old, built of grey stone, with dark slate roofs and high chimneys; taking advantage of every inch of space on the rock, the houses lean into each other, are built one upon the next, with here and there a bush or tree growing out of the side of a building.

There is one road from Wall, a winding track rising sharply up from the forest, where it is lined with rocks and small stones. Followed far enough south, out of the forest, the track becomes a real road, paved with asphalt; followed further the road gets larger, is packed at all hours with cars and trucks rushing from city to city. Eventually the road takes you to London, but London is a whole night's drive from Wall.

The inhabitants of Wall are a taciturn breed, falling into two distinct types: the native Wall-folk, as, grey and tall and stocky as the granite outcrop their town was built upon; and the others, who have made Wall their home over the years, and their descendants.

Below Wall on the westis the forest; to the south is a treacherously placid lake served by the streams that drop from the hills behind Wall to the north. There are fields upon the hills, on which sheep graze. To the east is more woodland.

Immediately to the east of Wall is a high grey rock wall, from which the town takes its name. This wall is old, built of rough, square lumps of hewn granite, and it comes from the woods and goes back to the woods once more.

There is only one break in the wall; an opening about six feet in width, a little to the north of the village.

Through the gap in the wall can be seen a large green meadow; beyond the meadow, a stream; and beyond the stream there are trees. From time to time shapes and figures can be seen, amongst the trees, in the distance. Huge shapes and odd shapes and small, glimmering things which flash and glitter and are gone. Although it is perfectly good meadowland, none of the villagers has ever grazed animals on the meadow on the other side of the wall. Nor have they used it for growing crops.

Instead, for hundreds, perhaps for thousands of years, they have posted guards on each side of the opening on the wall, and done their best to put it out of their minds.

Even today, two townsmen stand on either side of the opening, night and day, taking eight-hour shifts. They carry hefty wooden cudgels. They flank the opening on the town side.

Their main function is to prevent the town's children from going through the opening, into the meadow and beyond. Occasionally they are called upon to discourage a solitary rambler, or one of the few visitors to the town, from going through the gateway.

The children they discourage simply with displays of the cudgel. Where ramblers and visitors are concerned, they are more inventive, only using physical force as a last resort if tales of new-planted grass, or a dangerous bull on the loose, are not sufficient.

Very rarely someone comes to Wall knowing what they are looking for, and these people they will sometimes allow through. There is a look in the eyes, and once seen it cannot be mistaken.

There have been no cases of smuggling across the wall in all the Twentieth Century, that the townsfolk know of, and they pride themselves on this.

The guard is relaxed once every nine years, on May Day, when a fair comes to the meadow.

The events that follow transpired many years ago. Queen Victoria was on the throne of England, but she was not yet the black-clad widow of Windsor: she had apples in her cheeks and a spring in her step, and Lord Melbourne often had cause to upbraid, gently, the young queen for her flightiness. She was, as yet, unmarried, although she was very much in love.

Mr. Charles Dickens was serializing his novel Oliver Twist; Mr. Draper had just taken the first photograph of the moon, freezing her pale face on cold paper; Mr. Morse had recently announced a way of transmitting messages down metal wires.

Had you mentioned magic or Faerie to any of them, they would have smiled at you disdainfully, except, perhaps for Mr. Dickens, at the time a young man, and beardless. He would have looked at you wistfully.

People were coming to the British Isles that spring. They came in ones, and they came in twos, and they landed at Dover or in London or in Liverpool: men and women with skins as pale as paper, skins as dark as volcanic rock, skins the color of cinnamon, speaking in a multitude of tongues. They arrived all through April, and they traveled by steam train, by horse, by caravan or cart, and many of them walked.

At that time Dunstan Thorn was eighteen, and he was not a romantic.

He had nut-brown hair, and nut-brown eyes, and nutbrown freckles. He was middling tall, and slow of speech. He had an easy smile, which illuminated his face from within...

Read a Sample Chapter

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart's Desire.

And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man there ever was or will be and what happened to him that was unusual, although even he never knew the whole of it.

The tale started, as many tales have started, in Wall.

The town of Wall stands today as it has stood for six hundred years, on a high jut of granite amidst a small forest woodland. The houses of Wall are square and old, built of grey stone, with dark slate roofs and high chimneys; taking advantage of every inch of space on the rock, the houses lean into each other, are built one upon the next, with here and there a bush or tree growing out of the side of a building.

There is one road from Wall, a winding track rising sharply up from the forest, where it is lined with rocks and small stones. Followed far enough south, out of the forest, the track becomes a real road, paved with asphalt; followed further the road gets larger, is packed at all hours with cars and trucks rushing from city to city. Eventually the road takes you to London, but London is a whole night's drive from Wall.

The inhabitants of Wall are a taciturn breed, falling into two distinct types: the native Wall-folk, as grey and tall and stocky as the granite outcrop their town was built upon; and the others, who have made Wall their home over the years, and their descendants.

Below Wall on the west is the forest; to the south is a treacherously placid lake served by the streams that drop from the hills behind Wall to the north. There are fields upon the hills, on which sheep graze. To the east is more woodland.

Immediately to the east of Wall is a high grey rock wall, from which the town takes its name. This wall is old, built of rough, square lumps of hewn granite, and it comes from the woods and goes back to the woods once more.

There is only one break in the wall; an opening about six feet in width, a little to the north of the village.

Through the gap in the wall can be seen a large green meadow; beyond the meadow, a stream; and beyond the stream there are trees. From time to time shapes and figures can be seen, amongst the trees, in the distance. Huge shapes and odd shapes and small, glimmering things which flash and glitter and are gone. Although it is perfectly good meadowland, none of the villagers has ever grazed animals on the meadow on the other side of the wall. Nor have they used it for growing crops.

Instead, for hundreds, perhaps for thousands of years, they have posted guards on each side of the opening on the wall, and done their best to put it out of their minds.

Even today, two townsmen stand on either side of the opening, night and day, taking eight-hour shifts. They carry hefty wooden cudgels. They flank the opening on the town side.

Their main function is to prevent the town's children from going through the opening, into the meadow and beyond. Occasionally they are called upon to discourage a solitary rambler, or one of the few visitors to the town, from going through the gateway.

The children they discourage simply with displays of the cudgel. Where ramblers and visitors are concerned, they are more inventive, only using physical force as a last resort if tales of new-planted grass, or a dangerous bull on the loose, are not sufficient.

Very rarely someone comes to Wall knowing what they are looking for, and these people they will sometimes allow through. There is a look in the eyes, and once seen it cannot be mistaken.

There have been no cases of smuggling across the wall in all the Twentieth Century, that the townsfolk know of, and they pride themselves on this.

The guard is relaxed once every nine years, on May Day, when a fair comes to the meadow.

The events that follow transpired many years ago. Queen Victoria was on the throne of England, but she was not yet the black-clad widow of Windsor: she had apples in her cheeks and a spring in her step, and Lord Melbourne often had cause to upbraid, gently, the young queen for her flightiness. She was, as yet, unmarried, although she was very much in love.

Mr. Charles Dickens was serializing his novel Oliver Twist; Mr. Draper had just taken the first photograph of the moon, freezing her pale face on cold paper; Mr. Morse had just announced a way of transmitting messages down metal wires.

Had you mentioned magic or Faerie to any of them, they would have smiled at you disdainfully, except, perhaps for Mr. Dickens, at the time a young man, and beardless. He would have looked at you wistfully.

People were coming to the British Isles that spring. They came in ones, and they came in twos, and they landed at Dover or in London or in Liverpool: men and women with skins as pale as paper, skins as dark as volcanic rock, skins the color of cinnamon, speaking in a multitude of tongues. They arrived all through April, and they traveled by steam train, by horse, by caravan or cart, and many of them walked.

At that time Dunstan Thorn was eighteen, and he was not a romantic.

He had nut-brown hair, and nut-brown eyes, and nut-brown freckles. He was middling tall, and slow of speech. He had an easy smile, which illuminated his face from within, and he dreamed, when he daydreamed in his father's meadow, of leaving the village of Wall and all its unpredictable charm, and going to London, or Edinburgh, or Dublin, or some great town where nothing was dependent on which way the wind was blowing. He worked on his father's farm and owned nothing save a small cottage in a far field given to him by his parents.

Visitors were coming to Wall that April for the fair, and Dunstan resented them. Mr. Bromios's inn, the Seventh Magpie, normally a warren of empty rooms, had filled a week earlier, and now the strangers had begun to take rooms in the farms and private houses, paying for their lodgings with strange coins, with herbs and spices, and even with gemstones.

As the day of the fair approached the atmosphere of anticipation mounted. People were waking earlier, counting days, counting minutes. The guards on the gate, at the sides of the wall, were restive and nervous. Figures and shadows moved in the trees at the edge of the meadow.

In the Seventh Magpie, Bridget Cornfrey, who was widely regarded as the most beautiful pot-girl in living memory, was provoking friction between Tommy Forester, with whom she had been seen to step out over the previous year, and a huge man with dark eyes and a small, chittering monkey. The man spoke little English, but he smiled expressively whenever Bridget came by.

In the pub's taproom the regulars sat in awkward proximity to the visitors, speaking so:

"It's only every nine years."

"They say in the old days it was every year, at midsummer."

"Ask Mister Bromios. He'll know."

Mr. Bromios was tall, and his skin was olive; his black hair was curled tightly on his head; his eyes were green. As the girls of the village became women they took notice of Mr. Bromios but he did not return their notice. It was said he had come to the village quite some time ago, a visitor. But he had stayed in the village; and his wine was good, so the locals agreed.

A loud argument broke out in the public lounge between Tommy Forester and the dark-eyed man, whose name appeared to be Alum Bey.

"Stop them! In the name of Heaven! Stop them!" shouted Bridget. "They're going out the back to fight over me!" And she tossed her head, prettily, so that the light of the oil lamps caught her perfect golden curls.

Nobody moved to stop the men, although a number of people, villagers and newcomers alike, went outside to spectate.

Tommy Forester removed his shirt and raised his fists in front of him. The stranger laughed, and spat onto the ground, and then he seized Tommy's right hand and sent him flying onto the ground, chin-first. Tommy clambered to his feet and ran at the stranger. He landed a glancing blow on the man's cheek, before finding himself facedown in the dirt, his face being slammed into the mud, with the wind knocked out of him. Alum Bey sat on top of him and chuckled, and said something in Arabic.

That quickly, and that easily, the fight was over.

Alum Bey climbed off Tommy Forester and he strutted over to Bridget Comfrey, bowed low to her, and grinned with gleaming teeth.

Bridget ignored him, and ran to Tommy. "Why, whatever has he done to you, my sweet?" she asked, and mopped the mud from his face with her apron and called him all manner of endearments.

Alum Bey went, with the spectators, back into the public rooms of the inn, and he graciously bought Tommy Forester a bottle of Mr. Bromios's Chablis when Tommy returned. Neither of them was quite certain who had won, who had lost.

Dunstan Thorn was not in the Seventh Magpie that evening: he was a practical lad, who had, for the last six months, been courting Daisy Hempstock, a young woman of similar practicality. They would walk, on fair evenings, around the village, and discuss the theory of crop rotation, and the weather, and other such sensible matters; and on these walks, upon which they were invariably accompanied by Daisy's mother and younger sister walking a healthy six paces behind, they would, from time to time, stare at each other lovingly.

At the door to the Hempstocks' Dunstan would pause, and bow, and take his farewell.

And Daisy Hempstock would walk into her house, and remove her bonnet, and say, "I do so wish Mister Thorn would make up his mind to propose. I am sure Papa would not be averse to it."

"Indeed, I am sure that he would not," said Daisy's mama on this evening, as she said on every such evening, and she removed her own bonnet and her gloves and led her daughters to the drawing room, in which a very tall gentleman with a very long black beard was sitting, sorting through his pack. Daisy, and her mama, and her sister, bobbed curtseys to the gentleman (who spoke little English, and had arrived a few days before). The temporary lodger, in his turn, stood and bowed to them, then returned to his pack of wooden oddments, sorting, arranging and polishing. Copyright © 1999 by Neil Gaiman. Published by Avon Books, Inc. All rights reserved.