Slaying Dragons: The Hero and the Crown

A. Rodier
Robin McKinleys, The Hero and the Crown, beautifully interweaves legend, myth and
farie-tale into a fantasy that quickly draws the reader into the kingdom of Damar to share the
pain and frustration of Aerin, the witch womans daughter, as she quests to dispel threats of evil
and recover the lost Heros Crown. As the reader travels over the English-like setting, she finds
herself identifying with Aerins need to become someone in her own right, while accepting
Aerins fate as the readers own. As the story closes with Aerins wearying success, the reader is
aware that a deep emotional involvement has taken place, as if the outcome of Aerins quest for
self and the people of her kingdom has caused equal growth in a reader. Robin McKinley has
called on the many motifs well known to fantasy to create an experience of vicarious selfawakening.
Aerins pain comes not from being an outcast within her fathers castle, as much as from
the unrelenting unacceptance of her as a unique individual. She is watched closely by all the
kingdom to see if the influence of her mothers Northern blood will manifest itself in the only
heir to the throne. Aerin does not show signs of the traditional royal gift, kelar, a mild magic
ability to repair plates or open locks. Her fire red hair amongst a dark haired people is a visible
mark of her differences which maddens Aerin because she cannot quietly go unnoticed. Aerins
beautiful cousin, Galanna, is consumed with envy because of Aerins right to the throne and acts
as a proclaimer of all Aerins shortcomings as a royal Damarian. In one delightful memory, Aerin
recalls the time that she cut off all the egotistical Galannas eyelashes just before Perlith was to
propose marriage, forcing Galanna to veil her face until the lashes grew back.
Throughout the story, Aerin feels uncomfortable with formal affairs of state and any of
the conventional forms of royal etiquette. She is not comfortable within her womanhood in a
society where women must conform to traditional roles. Aerins father, Arlbeth, is quietly
accepting of his daughter as he watches to see if she will show signs of the heritage of his
beloved dead wife. Tor, the first sola, loves Aerin, at first out of pity, but realizes that he admires
her inner strength and individuality. Aerin finds it difficult to accept love from either of them
until she has come to understanding and peace within herself.

Upon Aerins sixteenth birthday, she is goaded by Galanna into eating the evil surka leaf,
causing prolonged and severe illness. Aerin experiences the first of her visions foreshadowing
her fate in her quest to defeat the evil forces in the kingdom. While recovering, she discovers in
an old book, the herbal recipe for kenet, a fireproof ointment used in the slaying of dragons. She
also befriends Talat, Arlbeths lame war horse. Aerin persists for three years, gathering herbs and
mixing them until she perfects the recipe. At the same time, she wins the trust and affection of
Talat.
Dragons become active in the north, the land of her roots, and Aerin begins her battle
against evil. Her success as Dragon-killer further raises the mistrust of the kingdom. Maur, the
great black dragon, awakens and lures Aerin into battle. Uncertain of success, yet unable to deter
fate, Aerin and Maur engage in a fiery battle of which McKinley creates a vivid image:
There had been trees in the valley, and on the steep slope around
them, but there were no trees now. It was hard to see anything. The
smoke was rising around them, and the valley was blackened;
when a low rocky hillock moved toward them, Aerin realized
suddenly that it was some of the dragons tail. Dragons sometimes
stunned their prey with their tails when they did not care to expend
the energy that breathing required.0
As McKinley continues, the reader is moved into action as if a participant:
She loosed a dragon spear in its place, and drove Talat forward
with her legs. He was only a little slow to respond. She lifted the
spear and hurled it with all her strength at the dragons eye. Maur
raised his head with a snap, and the spear bounced harmlessly off
the horny ridge beneath its eye; and Talat lurched out of the way of
the striking tail. The dragons head snaked around as Talat evaded
the tail, and Talat dodged again and fire sang past Aerins ear, fire
like nothing Aerin or Talat had ever seen before, any more than
this dragon was like and dragon they had ever seen. The fire was
nearly white, like lightening, and it smelled hard and metallic; it
smelled like the desert at noon, it smelled like a forest fire; and the
blast of air that sheathed it was hotter than any Damarian forge.1

Although Aerin defeats Maur and gains the bloodstone, the final drop of dragon blood,
she is severely disfigured and physically near death. Her encounter with evil has darkened her
soul with its knowledge, and she again experiences fateful visions. The head of the Maur is
brought to the castle and displayed in the trophy hall. With its entry into the kingdom, enters the
evil that is awakening beyond the boundaries of Damar. Aerins life is being sucked away daily;
she is being called to her destruction by the evil. Yet another force is at work. The mage, Luthe,
calls to her in a series of visions, and Aerin responds, not knowing where it is she is going; but
she and Talat are always drawn to the light.
Luthe provides healing and knowledge of the fate that awaits Aerin. It is her mothers
brother, Agsdad, once a good mage turned evil through pride, who is the embodiment of all that
is dark in the land. Armed with Gonturan, a magic blue sword given by her Luthe, the bloodstone
of Maur, and a wavering courage, Aerin is drawn to Agsdads surka covered black tower. She
must climb endlessly the stairs to the top as her heart grows heavy and her body tires. She is
pulled to her evil foe. McKinleys personification of evil is vivid:
Still she climbed, but she no longer felt alone. Evil was with her;
red evil shone in her eyes, rode on her shoulders, harried her
heels; waited in the dark doorways where she would not look, fell
like ash and rose like smoke from the torches. Evil was all around
her, and it watched her, eye-lessly watched for her first stumble.2
When Aerin reaches the top, all the winds of the universe are unleashed, with fierce
thunder and lightening. Her kelar is awakened, and knowledge of the harmonies of the universe
is hers. She instantly recognizes the face of her white robbed foe, Agsdad, for she had seen his
face often enough in her mirror.3 It is her own, and it is in her own voice that he mocks her.
Knowledge of good and knowledge of evil battle with Aerin; yet she chooses good, realizing she
must be willing to give her life to conquer Agsdad. The brief uniting of good and evil through
their common lineage gives Aerin the strength to defeat Agsdad by the momentary knowledge of
her total self. It is Agsdad who has held the Heros Crown, fiving him power over Damar. In a
final action, Aerin filings at Agsdad, a surka wreath in which the bloodstone rest.
He screamed. It was a scream that cut across all the senses, sight
and touch and taste and smell as well as hearing; it was a scream
sharper than any sword and as bitter as hatred, as fierce as a
hunting folstza and as implacable as winter.4

And Aerin is falling; falling for a long time as the tower crumbles; falling through time and space
in so weakend a condition as a result of her firey knowledge of evil, that Luthe must rescue her
by calling her back out of time.
Possessing the strength of Damar in the crown, Aerin returns to Damar, with Gonturan, to
defeat the Northerners, who have all but destroyed the kingdom. She places the Crown on Tor,
foreshadowing his ascent to the throne, through Arlbeths death in battle. Aerin has one last evil
to face: that which has brought much grief and darkness to Damar during her absence. Maurs
head. As she and Tor open the door to the treasure hall, they experience:
A blast of grief, of the deaths of children, of crippling
diseases that took beauty at once but lost or twisted and grown to
hate; if noble deeds that proved useless, that broke the hearts of
their doers; of betrayal without reason, of guilt without penance,
of all the human miseries that have ever occurred; all this struck
them, like the breath of a slaughterhouse, or the blow of a
murderer. 5
Aerin and Tor, exhausted beyond their physical limits, summon the strength to vanquish evil
completely, and send Maurs skull rolling beyond the gates of Damar and out beyond the hills. A
desert plain is left where once stood green, lush hills, as a memory of the effects of evil
influences. Aerin and Tor are married, and reign justly and kindly as King and Queen for many
years; yet, even upon the barren desert that reminds the kingdom of its encounter with the dark
rises up the proud nature of man, in the war games. The not quite mortal part of Aerin sleeps,
knowing that it will someday again be awakend, as fate demands, in the eternal quest against
evil.
Robin Mckinleys style is refreshing, yet challenging to the reader. Her language contains
a hint of the formality of the old speech: as displayed in the minor character, Tekas, dialect:
The honor of your company for an early dinner has been requested by Tor- sola.6 Yet, each
time Aerin speaks, the reader is pleasantly surprised at its modern tone where a more formal is
expected: Tor- calm down. Yes, I know I helped get the Northerners off our doorstep. It really
doesnt matter.7 The sentence structure within the novel is complicated, rather than short and
choppy, giving a feel of realism. One marvels at the lack of conventional story language. This
common speech, juxtaposed with the formal tongue, becomes a vehicle through which the reader
may identify with the main character.

The reader is further thrust into the action of Aerins growth through very detailed descriptions of
the setting, events, and feelings of the characters:
. She found herself brooding about them; and brooding
sometimes brought on a tight headachy feeling around her
temples, a feeling like suppressed tears. 8
Aerins thoughts and feelings are those which the reader can identify through personal
experience. Aerins life is only different in its details; it is otherwise universal in her search for
understanding of self.
This Rites of Passage theme within the novel embodies those elements which all
humanity strives for. It is more than a simple coming of age; it is a coming of understanding of
self in relation to all that is good and evil: Man and God and Satan. Psychologically, this theme
cuts to the very roots of a mans spirituality, while questioning the dogma of manmade religions.
The Christians motifs are carefully woven into the tale, in a manner which forces the reader to
make choices alongside Aerin. Her lineage is dual. She is Northern blood, originally the wise
mages blood; yet, the entry of pride has caused a split between good and evil. Like the events in
the story of Adam and Eve and the split influence on their sons, Cain and Able, knowledge of
evil influences Agsdad to seek power through the misuse of that knowledge. It is Aerins strong
willed nature that leads into fiery battle with Maur: like the Christian who chooses to assert his
self will must battle Satans fiery darts. 9
Aerins time spent with Luthe is a time of preparation for what is to come. It is there that
she is immersed in living water:
.it was faintly sweet, and cold, and wild, somehow, wild with a
wildness she could not put a name to beyond just that: wild. It
seemed to course down her throat of its own volition, and foam up
in her stomach. 10
During her baptism, she has a vision of a red man holding out a cup to her, saying You shall
take this, and drink it,11 similar to Christs offering of the cup at the last supper. 12
Like Christ in his crucifixion, Aerin must become one with evil before she can conquer
it.13 Upon her triumph, the tower splits, reminiscent of the temple veil at Christs death:
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in
two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were
split.14
Her quest to gain the Crown, leaves her scarred through the shedding of her own blood. It is only
because of her willingness to die, that Aerin has had the strength to overcome her evil foe.15 The

Christians notion that evil will continue to dwell within man is the basis for the return of Aerin's
not quite mortal part, as the risen Christ will come again to pass judgment over the living and
the dead.16
Equally evident throughout McKinleys work are the legendary motifs of the Celtic and
Arthurian traditions. The Damarian kingdom is set amongst the rolling green hillside common to
England and Wales. Chivalric knights ride superior stallions, carrying spears and swords. Arlbeth
presides over a round table-like meeting table of knights in the great hall as they discuss the
trouble brewing on Damars Northern borders. A long and dignified Arthurian ceremony marks
Tors coming of age, and thus his taking of his place at Arlbeths side as first sola: king to be.
The name, Arlbeth, bears immediate similarity to Arthur. Aerin receives, from the king, a
sword at her knighting, later to be replaced by Gonturan. The magic sword is given to her by
Luthe, the Merlin-like mage, and carries the allusion of having always been, or at least for a very
long time, since master craftsman forged it from the hottest fires.
Aerins name, taken from the goddess Aerinha, is a variation of the Welsh deity Arianrod,
and her red hair is the color of the Celtic race. Aerins sensitivity to the signs of nature, and her
relationship with Talat, the Yerigs and Folstzas, has roots in Celtic myth. Aerins duality of
lineage is paralleled in the Mabinogions second branch, Branwen, daughter of Llyr, with the
good and evil brothers, Nissyen and Evnissyen. Arlbeths death as a result of a wounded thigh,
can also be traced to these beginnings. The long training of fairhaired, blue-eyed Luthe is Druidic
in nature. The herbal lore, and the transformations that Aerin participates in, reminds one of the
cauldron motifs in Welsh legend; as does Aerins travel into another world, where she first meets
Agsdad when he demands that she drink of the cup of knowledge of evil.
Aerins quest for the Crown, a grail motif, is successful because only she is worthy in her
dual lineage, and her inherent goodness. Like all folkloric heroes, she is the least likely hero, and
thus, she is able to overcome her pride which is the downfall of many figures in Christian, Celtic,
and Arthurian legends. It is into Aerins flight between good and evil, that McKinley gently
interweaves the traditions so strongly associated with fantasy. In a previous novel, Beauty,
McKinley has reworked the faerie tale, Beauty and the Beast; now, again she calls on the faeries
in The Hero And The Crown, in her descriptions of the special communication between Aerin
and her animal friends.

Probably the most elusive motif in McKinleys novel is that of the bloodstone, based on
an old treatise of Damigeron, (Damar!), which she has mixed with dragon lore. The bloodstone is
said to:
Impart a reddish hue to the water in which it was placed, so that
when rays of the sun fell upon the water, they gave forth red
reflections.This stone had the power to turn the sun itself a
blood-red, and to cause thunder and lightning, rain and tempest.17
In the Leyden papyrus, the bloodstone is praised:
The world has no greater thing; if anyone have this with him he
will be given whatever he asks for; it is also assuages the wrath of
kings and despots, and whatever the wearer says will be believed.
Whoever bears this stone, which is a gem, and pronounces the
name engraved upon it, will find all doors open, while bonds and
stone walls will be rent asunder.18
As Aerin climbs Agsdads tower, she carries Maurs bloodstone. It pulses red, increasing
to a fierce red glow when Aerin throws the surka wreath, in which it rests, at Agsdad. It is the
bloodstone which assuages his wrath and rents the stone walls of the tower asunder. Luthe
explains its value to Aerin:
If you bound it into your Damarian Crown, it would make whoever
wore it invincible.A dragons bloodstone is not for good or
wickedness; it just is. And it is a thing of great power, for it is its
dragons death.The bloodstone is the real trophy, the prize worth
the winning; worth almost any winning.19
It is the intertwining of all these elements: style, folklore, faerie tale, legend, myth,
Christianity, human nature, and Mans eternal quest against evil, which makes Robin McKinleys
fantasy come to life. The Hero And The Crown is a tale that a reader will carry for a long time,
evoking its power whenever reality must be fled. Surely, the slaying of dragons is what we, as
children, set out to do. McKinley allows us, as adults, to succeed.

Notes
1 McKinley, Robin. The hero and the crown. NY: Greenwillow Books, 1984. P. 115
2 Ibid. p. 181
3 Ibid. p. 184
4 Ibid. p. 190
5 Ibid. p. 225
6 Ibid. p. 233
7 Ibid. p. 234
8 Ibid. p.362
9 Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version. Ephesians 6.
10 McKinley. p.151.
11 Ibid. p.152
12 Bible. Matthew 26:27.
13 Ibid. 1Peter 3:18-19.
14 Ibid. Matthew 27:51.
15 Ibid. Romans 5:9.
16 2Timothy 4:1.
17 Kunz, George. p.60.
18 Kropatschek. p.16.
19 McKinley. p.203.

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