exist between the ideas of a 10-year-old boy and the work of a 40-year-old man. Perhaps the most interesting change is in Lord Gro's character. In the drawings Lord Gro is a hero of skill and courage, while in the book he is a conflicted character, never able to pick a side and stick to it. Another curious change is that Goldry Bluszco is the main hero of the drawings, but off-stage in an enchanted prison for most of the novel. Many people (including J. R. R. Tolkien) have wondered at and criticized Eddison's curious names for his characters (e.g. La Fireez, Fax Fay Faz), places and nations. According to Thomas, the answer appears to be that these names originated in the mind of a young boy, and Eddison could not, or would not, change them thirty years later when he wrote the stories down. Meaning of the title The title refers to Ouroboros (Jörmungandr in Norse mythology), the snake or dragon that swallows its own tail and therefore has no terminus (in Old English, the word "worm" could mean a serpent or dragon). Like the Ouroboros, the story ends at the same place as it begins, when the heroes realize that their lives have little meaning without the great conflict and wish that it could continue, and their wish is granted. The theme of repetition pervades the work. Near the beginning and again near the end, a king of Witchland dies, Carcë is attacked, and Gorice XII carries out a conjuring in the fortress's Iron Tower. There are two quests to find and recover Goldry Bluszco. Three armies, under the influence of an enchantment, chase each other in an endless campaign until the heroes shatter the cycle on their quest. Comparison with other works The Worm Ouroboros is often compared with J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (which it predates by 32 years). Tolkien had known Eddison personally and had read The Worm Ouroboros, and praised it in print, although in a 1957 letter he said of Eddison "I thought that, corrupted by an evil and indeed silly 'philosophy', he was coming to admire, more and more, arrogance and cruelty. Incidentally, I thought his nomenclature slipshod and often inept." C. S. Lewis wrote a short preface to an anthology of Eddison's works, including The Worm Ouroboros, concluding that "No writer can be said to remind us