Almost Middle-earth – An Essay on the Witch World

Many readers have noted the similarity in feel and scope between J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth and Andre Norton’s Witch World (and some of her other created worlds). But whereas Tolkien built his worlds around the languages he devised for them, language plays only a very small role in Andre’s stories.

When Simon Tregarth first enters the Witch World, he is challenged to learn the language spoken by the beautiful woman he rescues (Jaelithe, his future wife). The reader is spared a lengthy lesson in language and the story soon makes the transition through a narrational interlude in which Tregarth learns to speak with the people of his new world.

From that point onward, save for a few arcane incantations used to summon evil powers, everyone in Witch World seems to speak the same language. Even more odd, perhaps, is the almost total disconnect between the various place-names in the world and the language of the characters. The names have the typical “fantasy” feel to them, but they seldom strike the reader as being out-of-place or awkward. Norton’s expositional skills intricately weave a sense of familiarity around names such as Ha Harc, Estcarp, Escore, and High Hallack.

Despite the absence of a linguistic perspective on Witch World, Norton provides the curious reader with a vast collection of anecdotes, asides (usually provided by the characters in their own thoughts), and historical data which flesh out the world.

Although only a few maps of Witch World have been published, enough geographical data is available for readers to track the stories across the landscape. Indeed, at least one map attempts to identify nearly every major point of interest in most of the Estcarp/Karsten/Escore stories.

Like Tolkien, Norton identified one of her continents (Estcarp) specifically with Europe. Unlike Tolkien, she specifically identified another continent (High Hallack) with North America. These identifications are not intended to be metaphorical, but rather simply show how Ms. Norton draws upon real history for inspiration. High Hallack is a younger land than Estcarp and Escore, but like Earth, the Witch World has survived a horrendous war or series of wars in which all of civilization was almost destroyed.

Both Middle-earth and the Witch World look forward because of the irreversible progress of time. In Middle-earth, Time is delayed in some regions by Elven magic. In the Witch World, time is a path which winds between gates. Hilarion, an adept who made a gate to another world, returned to his home with the help of Simon, Jaelithe, and Kaththea only to discover that a thousand years or more had passed since his departure.

Both Norton and Tolkien portray technology as an alternative to magic which is relied upon by “evil” creatures. Norton’s technologists are the Kolder, survivors of an apocalyptic war from another world who attempt to conquer the Witch World. They ally themselves with the people of Alizon, who gladly take the Kolder technology and use it to brutally attack other nations, including Estcarp and High Hallack.

There are no Ents or Hobbits in Witch World, nor anything like Orcs, but the dark powers who trouble the good peoples — especially in the earlier stories, when Ms. Norton was still exploring the potential for the Witch World — are so mysterious and so hostile that the reader almost feels their palpitating anger and hatred.

Many fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, craving more of the look and feel of Middle-earth, will find some satisfaction in reading Andre Norton’s Witch World stories.