Shardik by Richard Adams

First published: 1974

Subjects: Animals, religion, and social issues

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Fantasy

Time of work: The second rise of the Beklan Empire

Recommended Ages: 15-18

Locale: Ortelga, a northern island, and Bekla, a preindustrial fantasy world

Principal Characters:

• Kelderek, a hunter
• Bel-ka-Trazet, the High Baron of Ortelga
• The Tuginda, the high priestess of Quiso
• Melathys, a priestess of Quiso
• Ta-Kominion, a baron of Ortelga
• Elleroth, a nobleman of Sarkid
• Santil-kè-Erketlis, the defeated leader of Bekla and the military enemy of the Ortelgans
• Genshed, a slave trader

Form and Content

Shardik dramatizes complex problems concerning religion and family values. On a hunting trip, Kelderek of Ortelga encounters an immense bear. He realizes that it is the god Shardik, who has not been seen for many generations. Returning to Ortelga, Kelderek refuses to tell even High Baron Bel-ka-Trazet what he saw, claiming that he can inform only the Tuginda, the high priestess of Shardik’s cult. The furious baron nearly kills him but is interrupted by the startling request for a meeting with the Tuginda. They journey to the mysterious island of Quiso, where the Tuginda forms a party that includes the priestess Melathys in order to find the bear.

The Tuginda tells Kelderek the history of the Ortelgans, who once ruled the Beklan Empire and served Shardik. A corrupt priestess and her slave trader lover finally slew Shardik, and the empire fell. Centuries later, the priestesses wait for Shardik’s return. Another prophecy tells that God will reveal a great truth through Shardik and through two chosen “vessels,” who will be “shattered” and refashioned to fit his purpose. The Tuginda believes that she and Kelderek are these vessels.

Kelderek finds Shardik, but Melathys is so frightened by the bear that she flees down the river. Under a young baron, Ta-Kominion, however, the Ortelgans rise and overthrow Bel-ka-Trazet, then follow the bear as it wanders to Bekla. Ta-Kominion tells Kelderek that they can reconquer Bekla if their attack is swift and if Shardik is with them—so Shardik must be drugged and brought there in a cage. The Tuginda protests that the Power of God must not be manipulated for greed and secular force, but Ta-Kominion shames Kelderek into helping him. When the Ortelgans encounter Beklan soldiers, Shardik awakens from his stupor, smashes out of the cage, and destroys the army. Within days, Kelderek becomes the priest-king of Bekla.

Five years later, the Ortelgans are at war with rebellious provinces led by General Erketlis; the Tuginda is imprisoned on Quiso; Shardik is behind bars in Bekla; and Kelderek unhappily prays to learn the mystery that Shardik is meant to reveal. Elleroth, a southern nobleman, visits Bekla. Disliking the Ortelgans for their barbarous ways and their revival of the slave trade—and disbelieving in the godhood of Shardik—he sets fire to the royal house. Shardik gets free and escapes Bekla, and Kelderek follows to recapture him. After a horrific journey, he physically and mentally deteriorates, then falls into the hands of Elleroth’s army, where he learns how much he is hated for condoning the slave trade. Elleroth, however, allows Kelderek to go free—to Zeray, the lawless outland. There, he finds both the Tuginda and Melathys, and he learns that Bel-ka-Trazet, recently dead, had also come there and tried to create order. Kelderek realizes that he loves Melathys and decides to abandon his search for Shardik. They then learn that the bear-god is nearby.

Kelderek sets out again to find Shardik, this time to kill him, but he is captured by the evil slave trader Genshed. With the slave children, who include Elleroth’s son, he suffers horrendous tortures. Just as Genshed begins to murder the slaves in order to escape Elleroth’s approaching army, Shardik appears. Genshed shoots Shardik fatally with his bow, but the bear’s final blow likewise kills Genshed. Peace is restored, and Kelderek and Melathys, revealed as God’s vessels, civilize Zeray and adopt the slave children.

Critical Context

Fantasy tales traditionally dramatize a conflict between good and evil, whose partisans are easy to distinguish. Shardik falls into the subcategory of Christian fantasy, whose most famous predecessors for young readers are the Chronicles of Narnia. Where Lewis portrayed simplistic moral lessons, however, Richard Adams depicts the difficulties of faith and steadfastness; many characters argue that Shardik is not divine and that they have seen nothing miraculous in the story’s events. Also contributing to the characters’ believability is the fact that none, except Genshed, is entirely good or evil. Genshed represents Satan and is so evil that he enjoys converting others to evil for the demonic joy of it, but the rest display a mixture of good qualities and bad, giving the novel a deeper psychological realism than much Christian fantasy offers.

Shardik never received the popular adulation of Watership Down, being grimmer and far longer, at more than five hundred pages. Where the earlier work was more fantastic and accessible to a younger audience, however, Shardik takes a serious look at humanity’s greatest cruelties. Much post-World War II fantasy borrows directly from Tolkien’s Middle-Earth and is therefore predictable and unable to frighten or involve the reader in any serious way; the happy ending is assured. Shardik leaves the reader in serious doubt that Kelderek will understand his mistakes or will deserve to escape his final crisis, the torments meted by Genshed. In this way, the book is truly suspenseful and will grip young adults, so that they care about its ultimate meaning.