Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are two sword-and-sorcery heroes appearing in stories written by American author Fritz Leiber. They are the protagonists of what are probably Leiber's best-known stories. One of his motives in writing them was to have fantasy heroes he believed were closer to true human nature than the likes of Howard's Conan the Barbarian or Burroughs's Tarzan."Author's Foreword", Ill-Met in Lankhmar, 1995, White Wolf Publishing
Fafhrd is a very tall (nearly ) and strong northern barbarian, skilled at both swordsmanship and singing. The Mouser is a small (not much more than ) mercurial thief, gifted and deadly at swordsmanship (often using a sword in one hand and a long dagger or in the other), as well as a former wizard's apprentice who retains some skill at magic. Fafhrd talks like a romantic, but his strength and practicality usually wins through, while the cynical-sounding Mouser is prone to showing strains of sentiment at unexpected times. Both are rogues, living in a decadent world where only the ruthless and cynical survive. They spend a lot of time drinking, feasting, wenching, brawling, stealing, and gambling, and are seldom fussy about who hires their swords. Still, they are humane and—most of all—relish true adventure.
The characters were loosely modeled upon Leiber himself and his friend Harry Otto Fischer. Fischer initially created them in a letter to Leiber in September 1934, naming at the same time their home city of Lankhmar. In 1936, Leiber finished the first Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novella, "Adept's Gambit", and began work on a second, "The Tale of the Grain Ships". At the same time, Fischer was writing the beginning of "The Lords of Quarmall". "Adept's Gambit" would not see publication until 1947, while "The Lords of Quarmall" would be finished by Leiber and published in 1964. His second story, "The Tale of the Grain Ships", would become the prototype for "Scylla's Daughter" (1961) and, later, the novel The Swords of Lankhmar (1968).
The stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser respectively were only loosely connected until the 1960s, when Leiber organized them chronologically and added additional material in preparation for paperback publication. Starting as young men, the two separately meet their female lovers, meet each other, and lose both their lovers in the same night, which explains both their friendship and the arrested adolescence of their lifestyles. However, in later stories, the two mature, learn leadership, and eventually settle down with new female partners on the Iceland-like Rime Isle. The novels have many picaresque elements, and are sometimes described as picaresque on the whole.
Setting
The majority of the stories are set in the fictional world of Nehwon ("nehw on", or "Nowhen" backwards: contrasted to Samuel Butler's 1872 Erewhon). Many of them take place in and around its greatest city, Lankhmar. It is described as "a world like and unlike our own". Theorists in Nehwon believe that their world may be shaped like a bubble, floating in the waters of eternity.
Sundered from us by gulfs of time and stranger dimensions dreams the ancient world of Nehwon with its towers and skulls and jewels, its swords and sorceries. Nehwon's known realms crowd about the Inner Sea: northward the green-forested fierce Land of the Eight Cities, eastward the steppe-dwelling Mingol horsemen and the desert where caravans creep from the rich Eastern Lands and the River Tilth. But southward, linked to the desert only by the Sinking Land and further warded by the Great Dike and the Mountains of Hunger, are the rich grain fields and walled cities of Lankhmar, eldest and chiefest of Nehwon's lands. Dominating the Land of Lankhmar and crouching at the silty mouth of the River Hlal in a secure corner between the grain fields, the Great Salt Marsh, and the Inner Sea is the massive-walled and mazy-alleyed metropolis of Lankhmar, thick with thieves and shaven priests, lean-framed magicians and fat-bellied merchants—Lankhmar the Imperishable, the City of the Black Toga.
—From "Induction" by Fritz Leiber
In The Swords of Lankhmar, it is revealed that Nehwon is just one of many worlds in a multiverse when Fafhrd and the Mouser join forces with a German explorer named Karl Treuherz who is looking for his spacecraft, which he uses to cross the boundaries between parallel dimensions in his hunt for new animals to feature at a zoo.
Technology in Nehwon varies between the Iron Age and medieval. Leiber wrote of Lankhmarts: "They may be likened to the Romans or be thought of as, if I may use such a term, southern medievals." On the topic of his Eastern Lands, he wrote: "think of Saracens, Arabs, Parthians, Assyrians even. They ride the camel and elephant, and use the bow extensively."Leiber, Fritz, "Fafhrd and the Mouser Say Their Say", The Dragon #1, 1976.
The series includes many bizarre and outlandish characters. The two who most influence—and, some would say, cause the most trouble—for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are their sorcerous advisers, Ningauble of the Seven Eyes and Sheelba of the Eyeless Face (see Ningauble and Sheelba, below). These two lead the heroes into some of their adventures.
Publication history
The first story, "Two Sought Adventure", appeared in Unknown in August 1939; the last in The Knight and Knave of Swords in 1988. Although Leiber credited his friend Harry Otto Fischer with the original concepts for his characters, it was Leiber who wrote nearly all the stories. Ten thousand words of "The Lords of Quarmall" were penned by Fischer early in the development of the series; the story was completed by Leiber in 1964. Fischer also wrote "The Childhood and Youth of the Gray Mouser", published in 1978. The stories' style and tone vary considerably, but nearly all contain an often dark sense of humor, which ranges from the subtle and character-based to the Pythonesque.
The stories have been collected in the "Swords" series:
Swords and Deviltry (collection 1970) "Induction" (vignette 1957, Two Sought Adventure) "The Snow Women" (novella 1970 Fantastic) "The Unholy Grail" (novelette 1962 Fantastic) "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (novella 1970 F&SF)—telling how Fafhrd and the Mouser met, this story won both a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award Swords Against Death (collection 1970, expanded and revised from Two Sought Adventure 1957) "The Circle Curse" (1970, first publication) "The Jewels in the Forest" (novelette 1939 Unknown, as "Two Sought Adventure") "Thieves' House" (novelette 1943 Unknown) "The Bleak Shore" (1940 Unknown) "The Howling Tower" (1941 Unknown) "The Sunken Land" (1942 Unknown) "The Seven Black Priests" (novelette 1953 Other Worlds) "Claws from the Night" (novelette 1951 Suspense as "Dark Vengeance") "The Price of Pain-Ease" (1970, first publication) "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (novelette 1963 Fantastic) Swords in the Mist (collection 1968) "The Cloud of Hate" (1963 Fantastic) "Lean Times in Lankhmar" (novelette 1959 Fantastic) "Their Mistress, the Sea" (1968, first publication) "When the Sea-King's Away" (novelette 1960 Fantastic) "The Wrong Branch" (1968, first publication) "Adept's Gambit" (novella 1947, in Leiber's Night's Black Agents collection) Swords Against Wizardry (collection 1968) "In the Witch's Tent" (1968, first publication) "Stardock" (novella 1965 Fantastic) "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" (1968 Fantastic) The Lords of Quarmall (novella 1964 Fantastic), with Harry Otto Fischer The Swords of Lankhmar (novel 1968—first part published in 1961, as the novella Scylla’s Daughter, on Fantastic) Swords and Ice Magic (collection 1977) "The Sadness of the Executioner" (1973, in Flashing Swords! #1, ed. Lin Carter) "Beauty and the Beasts" (vignette 1974, in The Book of Fritz Leiber) "Trapped in the Shadowland" (1973 Fantastic) "The Bait" (vignette 1973 Whispers) "Under the Thumbs of the Gods" (1975 Fantastic) "Trapped in the Sea of Stars" (1975, in The Second Book of Fritz Leiber) "The Frost Monstreme" (novelette 1976, in Flashing Swords! #3, ed. Lin Carter) Rime Isle (novella 1977 Cosmos SF&F Magazine; these last two published together as Rime Isle by Whispers Press in 1977) The Knight and Knave of Swords (collection 1988) "Sea Magic" (1977 The Dragon) "The Mer She" (novelette 1983, in Heroes and Horrors) "The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars" (novella 1983, in Heroic Visions) "The Mouser Goes Below" (novella 1988, first publication—portions first printed as "The Mouser Goes Below" (1987 Whispers) and "Slack Lankhmar Afternoon Featuring Hisvet" (1988 Terry’s Universe, ed. Beth Meacham))
In 2009, Benjamin Szumskyj's Strange Wonders included the first few chapters of "The Tale of the Grain Ships", written in the 1930s. This unfinished fragment depicts the Gray Mouser in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.
The first six books in the series were reprinted in a uniform, archival series from Gregg Press, and were the first hardback editions of all these books save The Swords of Lankhmar. Harry Otto Fischer's short story, "The Childhood and Youth of the Gray Mouser", was published in 1978 in The Dragon #18. The series was continued by Robin Wayne Bailey in Swords Against the Shadowland (novel, 1998). A collection, Bazaar of the Bizarre, illustrated by Stephan Peregrine, comprised Leiber's three favorite Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories: "Bazaar of the Bizarre", "The Cloud of Hate", and "Lean Times in Lankhmar". A sex scene from The Swords of Lankhmar, cut by editor Don Wollheim, was published in Fantasy Newsletter #49 (July 1982).Fantasy Newsletter, July 1982, pp. 5-7.
Omnibus editions Several omnibus editions have also been published:
Science Fiction Book Club: The Three of Swords (1989; books 1–3) and Swords' Masters (1989; books 4–6). White Wolf: Ill Met In Lankhmar (1995; books 1 and 2, with a new introduction by Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber's "Fafhrd and Me"), Lean Times in Lankhmar (1996; books 3 and 4, with a new introduction by Karl Edward Wagner), Return to Lankhmar (1997; books 5 and 6, with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman), and Farewell to Lankhmar (1998; book 7; the hardcover edition omits the final seven chapters of "The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars"). Orion/Millennium's Fantasy Masterworks: The First Book of Lankhmar (2001; books 1–4) and The Second Book of Lankhmar (2001; books 5–7). Dark Horse Comics: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Omnibus (2024) collects Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: The Cloud of Hate and Other Stories
Comics adaptations
In 1972, Fafhrd and the Mouser began their comics career, appearing in Wonder Woman #202 alongside the title character and Catwoman in a story scripted by award-winning SF writer Samuel R. Delany. In 1973, DC Comics began an ongoing series, Sword of Sorcery, featuring the duo. The title was written by Denny O'Neil and featured art by Howard Chaykin, Walt Simonson and Jim Starlin; the well-received title ran only five issues. Stories included adaptations of "The Price of Pain-Ease", "Thieves' House", "The Cloud of Hate", and "The Sunken Land", as well as original stories. This series was collected by Dark Horse Comics in a trade paperback collection published in June 2008.
In 1991, Marvel Comics published a four-issue comic book adaptation of seven of the stories: "Ill Met in Lankhmar" (issue 1), "The Circle Curse" and "The Howling Tower" (issue 2), "The Price of Pain Ease" and "Bazaar of the Bizarre" (issue 3), and "Lean Times in Lankhmar" and "When the Sea King's Away" (issue 4). The comics were scripted by Howard Chaykin, who had drawn several issues of the earlier DC title, and pencilled by Mike Mignola, whose Hellboy comic book often has a similar feel to Leiber's work. Mignola also did the jacket covers and interior art for the White Wolf collection. This series was collected by Dark Horse Comics in a trade paperback collection published in March 2007.