Originally published in 1970, Swords and Deviltry is a collection of tales by Fritz Lieber featuring his most famous characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Lieber is the author who actually coined the term “sword and sorcery” for the fantasy genre in which his two heroes excel. Fafhrd is a giant barbarian from the north towering about two feet over the Mouser. They are representatives of the lovable scoundrel mold of anti-heroic-but-really-just-heroic figures that inspired such later examples as Han Solo and Autolycus from Xena: Warrior Princess. The stories included in the collection are “The Snow Women,” “The Unholy Grail,” and “Ill Met in Lankhamar.”
The Gray Mouser does not appear in “The Snow Women,” which tells of the early adventures of a teenage Fafhrd. The story was initially published in Fantastic magazine in 1970 and would go on to be nominated for both Hugo and Nebula Awards, the top honors in science fiction and fantasy writing. By the time of its appearance, Lieber had already been writing about his pair of rogues for three decades ,so it definitely qualifies as a late-series prequel.
Likewise, “The Unholy Grail” is basically the origin story of the Gray Mouser. Initially published almost a decade before “The Snow Women,” it tells the story of a young wizard’s apprentice in a realm where the practice of magic has been outlawed. When his master is killed and he is imprisoned, the story becomes a revenge tale as well as a moral question over whether to practice the dark arts or use magic in the service of good. Of course, there are some occasions where this is the same thing. The story was one of four finalists which ultimately lost the 1963 Hugo Award for Short Fiction to Jack Vance’s “The Dragon Masters.”
The 1971 winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Award for Best Novella was the final story in Swords and Deviltry, "Ill Met in Lankhmar.” The theme of origin stories is completed in this tale which describes how Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser meet and decided to team up together. The novella originally appeared in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction the same year it was later republished in this collection. In an inspired plot, the origin of this duo reveals that simply because two different people commit the same crime at the same time and place, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a conspiracy. Both characters independently plot the same ambush to steal precious jewels that have been themselves been stolen by thieves. Mere coincidence rather than conspiratorial planning has them both committing the same action simultaneously. Recognizing themselves in the other, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser almost seem destined by fate to become a duo.
Swords and Deviltry is thus the volume that provides all the backstory fans of the duo may be looking for in order to comprehensively understand the divergent circumstances which brought them together. It is, in essence, three separate origin stories in one volume.
