The Witch and the Enchantress

I've been reading more Clark Ashton Smith and I found the juxtaposition of two of his stories, "Mother of Toads" (1938) and "The Enchantress of Sylvaire" (1941) to be fascinating. They're both stories about a young man who falls in love with a woman possessing great magical power. In one story, he's shocked and repulsed to find he'd been seduced by her glamour while, in the other story, he willingly avoids the chance to learn whether or not the beautiful body he perceives is the woman's true form.

I don't say that he allows himself to be deceived, nor does the story express it that way, though the reader is free to interpret it that way. If he truly loves the woman, why should he want to see her in any other way than how she presents herself?

The latter story naturally comes off as more interesting and mature than the former. It occurs to me that the progress of the human soul is to cease stripping others to the basely physical and choosing instead to share in the beauty of refined conceptions. It's not hard to relate the story to a variety of human rights issues as well as the dynamics of human relationships in general. Like a lot of great fantasy, it's not an allegory of any one thing but applies itself to something more fundamental and general.