Acheron in Dante’s Journey
The river where the arriving dead assemble for Charon’s crossing.
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Codex
Realms & Places
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SourceAmenta
The Hidden Land divided into domains of posthumous life.
Egyptian funerary religion
SourceAnnwn
A shadow realm reached through fairy lakes and ruled in different tales by named kings.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
SourceAnnwvyn in Pwyll’s Tale
The otherworld kingdom entered through an exchange of royal appearance and duty.
The Mabinogion, Guest’s 1877 edition
Antenora, the Second Frozen Round
The part of the ice where the encounter with Bocca leads to accusations of betrayal.
Dante, Inferno
SourceAstral Plane
Theosophy’s intermediate world, divided by states of consciousness and matter.
Theosophical astral cosmology
Ayodhya
The royal city whose ideal order is broken by Rama’s exile and restored by his return.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and Coomaraswamy
SourceBridge from Hell to the World
The road made by Sin and Death across the abyss after the human fall.
John Milton, Paradise LostSourceBush of Heaven
A tree-side resting place where a devout monk sleeps beyond his lifetime.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Caina, the First Frozen Round
The first division of the frozen circle, introduced through entangled family figures.
Dante, Inferno
SourceCarnac in the Fairy-Faith
Breton megalithic landscape surrounded by living tales of korrigans.
Celtic fairy traditionsSourceCave of Cruachan
A named entrance associated with Sidhe visitors and Nera’s adventure.
Celtic fairy traditions
Chidambaram
The sacred city associated in the collection with Shiva’s dance and the Golden Court.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamyCocytus, the Frozen Lake
The lake of immobilising cold at the bottom of Dante’s Inferno.
Dante, InfernoSourceCraig-y-Ddinas
A fairy stronghold and, in another legend, the hidden resting place of Arthur’s warriors.
Welsh folklore, Wirt SikesSourceCrumlyn Lake
A lake whose submerged town becomes the foundation of fairy palaces.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Dante’s Dark Wood
The forest where the traveller discovers that he has left the direct path.
Dante, Inferno
Dante’s Earthly Paradise
The fragrant forest at the mountain’s summit where memory is renewed.
Dante, Purgatory and Paradise
SourceDante’s Mountain of Purgatory
The mountain where purified desire makes ascent possible.
Dante, Purgatory and ParadiseSourceDinas Emreis in Lludd’s Tale
The strong place in Snowdon where the captured dragons are hidden.
The Mabinogion, Guest’s 1877 edition
Eden in Paradise Lost
The planted garden whose abundance becomes the setting for human intimacy and concealed danger.
John Milton, Paradise LostSourceEnchanted Dyved
The familiar kingdom emptied by thunder and mist in Manawyddan’s tale.
The Mabinogion, Guest’s 1877 editionEunoe
The companion stream that restores the memory of good.
Dante, Purgatory and ParadiseSourceFairy Rings
Circles in the grass remembered as dance grounds with a perilous boundary.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
SourceFaust’s study
The crowded Gothic room from which the scholar seeks escape.
Goethe’s Faust, Part OneSourceFields of Aalu
Abundant afterlife fields where agriculture continues without its earthly hazards.
Egyptian funerary religionSourceForest of the Magic Yew
A wood whose central tree shelters the Dancing Place of the Goblin.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Golgonooza in Blake's Jerusalem
A fourfold city built by Los in London from pity, affection and forgiveness.
William Blake, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion; retained monochrome facsimileSourceGorsedd of Arberth
The mound where the promise of injury or wonder introduces Rhiannon’s arrival.
The Mabinogion, Guest’s 1877 editionSourceGreen Meadows of the Sea
Vanishing fairy islands off the Welsh coast, associated with enchanted inhabitants.
Welsh folklore, Wirt SikesSourceGwales
The island hall where the survivors of Branwen’s catastrophe spend eighty years outside remembered grief.
The Mabinogion, Guest’s 1877 editionSourceHell in Paradise Lost
The burning realm whose confinement continues inside the rebel who leaves it.
John Milton, Paradise LostSourceHill of Tara in Fairy Tradition
Irish royal landscape surrounded by stories of Sidhe processions.
Celtic fairy traditions
Inner World (The Smoky God)
The inhabited world inside the earth described in Olaf Jansen's voyage narrative as presented by Willis George Emerson.
Hollow-earth narrative, Willis George Emerson
Judecca, the Innermost Ice
The final frozen division, where the souls are entirely enclosed and Lucifer occupies the centre.
Dante, Inferno
SourceKailasa
Shiva’s Himalayan abode, where divine household and ascetic withdrawal coexist.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and CoomaraswamySourceKurukshetra
The great plain on which the rival houses of the Mahabharata gather for war.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and Coomaraswamy
SourceLand of Perpetual Youth
The deathless country visited by Sentaro on a magical crane in Davis's Fuji legends.
Japanese immortality tale, Davis retelling
Lanka
Ravana’s island stronghold, reached through a sea-crossing and a hidden search.
Indian traditions, Nivedita and Coomaraswamy
Lethe in Dante’s Garden
The stream that removes remembrance of offence.
Dante, Purgatory and Paradise
Lilliput in Gulliver's Travels
A miniature kingdom whose carefully measured bodies, provisions and machinery make Gulliver an immense but manageable prisoner.
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels into Lilliput and Brobdingnag; illustrated by Jean de Bosschère, Dodd, Mead / William Heinemann, undated title page
Limbo in the First Circle
The first circle, where worthy souls endure desire without hope of blessedness.
Dante, InfernoSourceLlyn Barfog
The lake of green-clad fairy women and extraordinary white cattle.
Welsh folklore, Wirt SikesSourceLlyn y Fan Fach
The mountain lake from which the fairy wife of the Myddfai legend appears.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
SourceLondon in “A Tale of London”
The imagined, jewel-filled London described to a Sultan in the opening tale of Lord Dunsany’s The Last Book of Wonder.
Lord Dunsany, The Last Book of Wonder; Boston: John W. Luce & Company, undated illustrated edition with 1916 copyright statementSourceLough Derg and Patrick’s Purgatory
Pilgrimage lake interpreted through monster legends and earlier sacred associations.
Celtic fairy traditionsSourceMag Mell
The happy plain among the names for the Irish western Otherworld.
Celtic fairy traditions
Malebolge, the Ten Ditches
The eighth circle’s tenfold landscape of fraud, crossed by rocky bridges.
Dante, Inferno
Merimna in “The Sword of Welleran”
The dreamed city whose monuments and memories conceal its vulnerability in Lord Dunsany’s title story.
Lord Dunsany, The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories; London: George Allen & Sons, 1908 title pageSourceMoel Arthur’s Hidden Treasure
A mountain treasure site where supernatural light and storms guard an iron chest.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Mount Fuji
The earthly mountain around which Davis gathers images of the lotus, divine presence and the Elixir of Life.
Japanese mountain legends, Davis retellingSourceMount Oye
The forbidding mountain and iron palace that form the setting of Davis's Goblin of Oyeyama episode.
Japanese heroic legend, Davis retellingSourceNewgrange and the Palace of the Boyne
A real monument discussed through funerary evidence and fairy-palace traditions.
Celtic fairy traditionsSourceOgof Cigfrain
The Cavern of the Ravens, where two fiery-eyed birds guard a chest of gold.
Welsh folklore, Wirt Sikes
Palace of the Sea God
The underwater palace where Hoori recovers a lost fish-hook and marries Toyo-tama in Davis's retelling.
Japanese mythology, Davis retelling
Pandemonium
The capital and council hall where the fallen host converts defeat into policy.
John Milton, Paradise Lost
SourcePtolomea and Premature Descent
The frozen round where Alberigo claims a soul can arrive before its body dies.
Dante, Inferno
Sai-no-Kawara
The shadowy river-bed where children build stone towers and seek Jizo's protection in Davis's account of the afterlife.
Japanese Buddhist traditionSourceSummerland
A constructed afterlife environment identified with higher astral subdivisions.
Theosophical astral cosmology
The Boiling Pitch of the Fifth Ditch
An opaque pool that conceals the inhabitants accused of corrupt public dealing.
Dante, Inferno
The Burdens of Hoarding and Waste
Opposing companies collide with heavy burdens in the fourth circle.
Dante, Inferno
The Burning Sepulchres
The open, heated tombs encountered inside Dis.
Dante, Inferno
The Castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon
The remote castle reached with the North Wind’s help, where the girl must recover the enchanted prince.
Norwegian fairy tales: Old Tales from the North
The City of Dis
The fortified entrance to the deeper infernal regions, initially closed against the travellers.
Dante, Inferno
The dragon colonnade at Chufu
Carved dragons coil around the marble columns of the Confucian temple photographed by Hayes.
L. Newton Hayes, The Chinese Dragon
The Flames That Enclose Speakers
Separate fires conceal the inhabitants of the eighth ditch, including a divided flame.
Dante, Inferno
The Gate of Dante’s Hell
The inscribed entrance that declares the purpose and permanence of the infernal realm.
Dante, InfernoSourceThe Gate of Purgatory
The guarded threshold opened by two different keys.
Dante, Purgatory and Paradise
The Giants around the Central Well
The apparent towers resolve into immense bodies around the pit leading to the frozen circle.
Dante, Inferno
The Inverted Pits of Simony
Headfirst openings in the third ditch, with burning feet and successive occupants.
Dante, Inferno
The Land in The City Curious
An edible country whose inviting materials and unsettling threshold transform Smaly and Redy’s search in Bosschère’s illustrated fantasy.
Jean de Bosschère, The City Curious, retold in English by F. Tennyson Jesse; New York and London, 1920 title page
The Land Unknown in Thel
The sorrowful realm of graves that Thel briefly enters through the eternal gates.
William Blake’s illuminated poetryShowing 72 of 84 entries
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