Enchanted Forest Chronicles
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The Enchanted Forest Chronicles is a series of four books by Patricia C. Wrede entitled Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons.
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[edit] Synopses
[edit] Dealing with Dragons
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles deal with the adventures of Cimorene, the youngest daughter of the King and Queen of Linderwall. In Book One, Cimorene is introduced. She had never been agreeable to the prim-and-proper customs at the castle. After she has taken lessons in "improper" subjects from many of the courtiers in her father's court, her parents decide to marry her off. Faced with the prospect of being forced into marrying someone whom she does not like and who does not like her, she decides to run away. Acting on the advice of a talking frog, she goes to the Mountains of Morning to become the princess of the dragon Kazul. Unlike most princesses, she likes her position and becomes good friends with Kazul. After she meets with the wizard Zemenar, Kazul explains to her that the dragons and the wizards disagree about the wizards' access to the Caves of Fire and Night, where the wizards must go to practice many of their spells. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem, but the wizards have an unusual way to gather magic. Instead of making their own, like the dragons, their staffs absorb it from whatever happens to be nearby. Their magic being absorbed causes the dragons to have violent allergy attacks. In Book One, the dragons and the wizards have an agreement that allows the wizards partial access to the Caves of Fire and Night, in exchange for keeping out of the dragons' parts of the Mountains of Morning. When Kazul is accidentally but non-fatally poisoned by a sample of dragonsbane that Cimorene was asking her about, she has immediate suspicions that the wizards were gathering this most deadly poison to dragons. When Cimorene is sent to tell Roxim, another dragon, about Kazul's suspicions, he replies that the King of the Dragons, Tokoz, has been poisoned fatally--with dragonsbane. Kazul must leave immediately to compete in the trials with Colin's Stone, a rock that magically chooses the next King of the Dragons. Cimorene learns in the middle of the trials that the wizards poisoned King Tokoz and are planning to interfere with Colin's Stone's magic so as to make a dragon who favors their interests King. In the course of this, she luckily learns that soapy water mixed with lemon juice melts wizards. Cimorene, with the help of the witch Morwen, stops the wizards' plan. Then Kazul, having been chosen to be the next King of the Dragons, ends the agreement with the wizards.
[edit] Searching for Dragons
In Book Two, we first meet Mendanbar, the young King of the Enchanted Forest. He is puzzled about several burned spots where he found dragon scales, but, more significantly, he finds that the magical network that keeps the forest alive is mysteriously missing in every one of the burned spots. Acting on the advice of a talking squirrel, Mendanbar goes to visit the witch Morwen, who says that the dragon scales are from one dragon but have been enchanted to look like they came from different dragons. Mendanbar leaves to visit Kazul, still the King of the Dragons, to get an ID on the dragon from which the scales came. When Mendanbar arrives, he finds Cimorene at the cave but Kazul away. Cimorene is able to identify the scales as coming from Woraug, the dragon who had conspired with the wizards to make himself King and been turned into a toad for his un-dragonlike behavior. Mendanbar and Cimorene then find Antorell, the son of Head Wizard of the Society of Wizards Zemenar, trying to sneak into Kazul's cave. Antorell, not knowing that Mendanbar is present, says that the King of the Enchanted Forest is preparing for war with the dragons. Mendanbar then fights Antorell, Cimorene eventually melting him by pouring a bucket of soapy water with lemon juice all over him. Cimorene then tells Mendanbar that Kazul has been in the north negotiating with Frost Giants, but is overdue coming home, and that Mendanbar had interrupted Cimorene right when she had been about to leave to begin searching for Kazul. Mendanbar refuses to allow Cimorene to travel alone, on the grounds that she will be traveling through part of the Enchanted Forest, and Mendanbar knows how dangerous that is. Mendanbar and Cimorene travel to Flat Top Mountain to borrow a magic carpet from the giantess Ballimore, an acquaintance of Kazul. This succeeds, but troubles with the magic carpet force them down near the house of the dwarf Herman. Using one of the enchanted windows that Herman has in his house, Cimorene and Mendanbar discover that Kazul is being held captive by wizards in the Enchanted Forest. They immediately use Mendanbar's sword, a powerful magical implement that is intimately linked to the Enchanted Forest, to try to teleport back, but a problem with the spell dumps them in an unconnected ravine--also creating a small replica of the Enchanted Forest with the sword's magic. Mendanbar pulls the magic out of the replica and into the sword, thus unmaking the replica, and meet Telemain, a magician who tells them that the charm on their magic carpet is wearing thin and recommends Gypsy Jack's for repair. At Gypsy Jack's, they leave the carpet after meeting a wizard whose staff they capture but who gets away himself. They transport back to the Enchanted Forest--this time successfully--and go to the palace. On the way, they find that a wizard's staff will absorb all the magic from an area of the Enchanted Forest, thus leaving the area looking burned--just like Mendanbar had seen at the beginning of the book. At the palace, they find out where the wizards are and plan an expedition to the cave in which she is being held. They fight briefly with the wizards and win, but they find that Kazul is still encased in the glowing bubble that imprisons her. Mendanbar ruptures the bubble with his sword, which absorbs wizards' magic, and frees Kazul. After going back to the castle, Mendanbar proposes to Cimorene, and they marry at the end of Book Two.
[edit] Calling on Dragons
In Book Three, Morwen is introduced in greater depth. She has been a fairly minor character in previous books, but Book Three is told from her perspective.
Deep in the Enchanted Forest, in a neat grey house with a wide porch and a red roof, lived the witch Morwen and her nine cats. The cats were named Murgatroyd, Fiddlesticks, Miss Eliza Tudor, Scorn, Jasmine, Trouble, Jasper Darlington Higgins IV, Chaos, and Aunt Ophelia, and not one of them looked like a witch's cat. They were tabby, grey, white, tortoiseshell, ginger, seal brown, and every other cat color in the world than a proper and witchy black.
As this quote suggests, Morwen is having trouble with people who believe that magic should follow traditional forms, specifically one Arona Michealear Grinogion Vamist. One day, Morwen's cats find a large rabbit and signs that a wizard had worked a size-changing spell. The rabbit is named, of all things, Killer. More significantly, they find the burned-looking splotches that a wizard's staff leaves, despite the spell that Mendanbar and Telemain worked out that prevents the absorption of magic by a staff. They then find a shrunken wizard, Antorell, who tries to escape but is subdued by Morwen's cats and then melted by Telemain, who has devised a spell to allow a person to melt a wizard without throwing soapy water on them. Morwen then finds that killer has eaten one of the donkey cabbages in her garden, and is therefore a donkey. Morwen and Telemain immediately go to the castle of King Mendanbar and Queen Cimorene, who is pregnant. Killer on the way drinks the soapy-water-with-lemon that Morwen brought to take care of wizards and turns blue. At the castle, Mendanbar and Telemain discover that the magic, wizard-averting sword that is the heart of the forest's magic is missing. It was the main focus of the anti-absorption spell, so removing it deactivates the spell. Morwen, Kazul, Telemain, Cimorene, Killer and two of Morwen's cats, Trouble and Scorn, must undertake the journey to the headquarters of the Society of Wizards, who stole the sword so as to be able to absorb magic from the forest again. Telemain teleports the group twice, than they stop for the night. Then, on the next teleport, they land nowhere near their destination and Telemain is unconscious. Killer, who has also picked up a spell that makes him float six inches above the ground at all times, carries Telemain through what they find to be the Smoking Swamp. Soon, they find a tower in which lives a lonely fire-witch, Brandel. While Morwen is enchanting a laundry basket to carry them to the top of the doorless tower, Killer picks up yet another spell, this one making him grow enormous wings. They meet Brandel and find that he and his family are also having trouble with Arona Michaelear Grinogion Vamist. Then, using Brandel's magic mirror, they try to contact Mendanbar, and find that they cannot because of a problem at his end. Kazul, because of this, decides to go home and reinforce Mendanbar. The next morning, again with Brandel's mirror, they find that the sword, not at the headquarters of the Society of Wizards as they assumed, is instead at the house of Arona Michaelear Grinogion Vamist.
[edit] Talking to Dragons
The fourth and final book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, it is told in first person, from the point of view of Cimorene's now-sixteen-year-old son, Daystar. As He travels through the Enchanted Forest trying to find why his mother, Cimorene, has sent him off, alone, into the Enchantd Forest with a plain sword. After a couple hours of wandering, Daystar stumbles upon a very rude Fire-witch. Little does he know, while he is wandering around the forest with his new friend, Shiara, wizards are planning to take Daystar's sword of the Sleeping King and capture Shiara to observe her "Lack of magic". Only when he meets Morwen do things start to look up. After being brutally injured by a wizard's staff, Daystar finds himself in the household of Morwen the witch, and all nine of her cats. After being instructed, he and Shiara head off again, with a new member of the crew, Nightwitch, Shiara's kitten, given to her by Morwen. As they set off once again to find King Kazul, they find a silly princess, an awkward knight, and a young dragon, they are confronted by the failure of a wizard, Antorell. After zapping him away, settling a tourney, and gaining yet another compainon, Shiara, Daystar, And their new friendly dragon friend, (referred to as "it" because it is still too young to have decided gender) They set off and run into Telamain.
[edit] Main characters
Note: This list refers to characters that are included in at least three of the books. For lists of characters that are major in one book but fall off, see the book's individual page.
Cimorene - A very bored 16 year old princess from the Kingdom of Linderwall
Kazul - High ranking dragon acknowledged as being overly suspicious
Zemenar - Head wizard of The Society of Wizards, not someone to be crossed
Antorell - Son of Zemenar and not a very good wizard
Morwen - A practical-minded witch
Telemain - Magician whose goal in life is to discover the inner workings of every existing type of magic.
Mendanbar - King of the Enchanted Forest
