The Rule of Names

Earthsea Cycle #0.4

by Ursula K. Le Guin

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her spare, elegant prose, rich characterization, and diverse worlds. "The Rule of Names" is a short story originally published in the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Dragons, High Fantasy, Magic

12 pages, ebook

First published April 1, 1964

About the author

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.

She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.

Reviews

[Ashley Marilynne Wong]

When I started reading the story the first sentence gave me the impression that this was just a cute, humorous and creative short story. It was when I reached the last sentence that I realised that I was deceived. Everything fell into place and I ascertained how dark and haunting the story was.
This was the second Le Guin short story I read. I have not read any of her novels yet and I plan to do so after I have completed my final semester in uni.

[Nikola Pavlovic]

Omaz Tolkinu ili nesto slicno.
Uglavnom lepa mala prica za pola sata popodnevnog uzivanja.

[Lila]

Good story, great novella.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

another early Earthsea story, this one with a clever sense of humor and a strong Tolkien flavor

[Redman]

So this is Yevaud's origin story from A tale of Earthsea. And shows the importance of the power of names but also the user must know their true form nonetheless. Hence why the villagers tend to have sorta funny names. The lore is fun,the intentions of the characters are clear and feels like a dark bed time story.
Love the day to day life of 'Mr. Underhill' and the era of mystery, the rules of names and how magical the world is
Also remember name + mistaken true form=not binding
Name + knowing true form= True Binding.
Luckily for Ged he was a bookworm ajd happened to remember the tale.

[Chinara Ahmadova]

Əjdahaların insanlarla bir kökdən olduğu vaxtlar və tanış simalar. Yerdəniz dünyası üçün darıxanda dadımlıq, sürpriz dolu novella.

[Storm]

Collected in The Wind's Twelve Quarters: A Story, this The Earthsea Cycle story is set between The Bones of the Earth and A Wizard of Earthsea. Le Guin has real talent for describing things. One could almost believe we're in a small, bucolic island village, tended to by a bumbling but kindly wizard. Until a rival wizard arrives hunting for treasure only to figure out he may have inadvertently miscalculated.


The last 3 paragraphs are pure gold, and the reason this is a 5⭐ story.

[Santiago]

Una historia corta en el mundo de Terramar.
Me gusta pensar que Mr. Underhill es la versión de Le Guin de Bilbo Bolsón. Un hombre pacifico que vive bajo una colina, que le gusta comer, dormir y que lo acusan de ladrón. No sólo es una excelente historia sino que también tiene un bono por ver a una gran autora rindiendole homenaje a un gran autor.

[Strzyga]

Już się nie mogę doczekać czerwcowego rereadu Ziemiomorza, ten świat jest TAK ŚWIETNY! Bardzo przyjemne opowiadanie, super było wrócić na chwilę do wątku Yevauda i poznać jego historię, no i kocham nawiązania do Władcy Pierścieni! Wszystko fajnie, tylko szkoda, że takie krótkie, zwłaszcza, że zostały mi chyba już tylko dwa utwory w uniwersum... ale potem pozostają reready, więc będzie dobrze.

[Omar Amat]

Nice short story, I was expecting a lot more, considering the title.

[Kerri]

This was nice and short. A perfect little jaunt back into this relm. I can say I did not see that end coming, but it was a great delight to see it.

I would have finished this yesterday, but my writing muse took over, and it felt good to stretch those creative muscles.

[Sheila]

Beautiful Tolkeinesque fantasy about a small island community and their bumbling wizard whose lives are changed forever the day a stranger sails in

[Vivone Os]

Ova me je pričica baš ugodno iznenadila i nasmijala. Nisam očekivala tako dobru i zabavnu temu. Pratimo čarobnjaka Mr. Underhilla „who lived under the hill“. Mr. Underhill je stidljiv, zbunjen, nije baš vičan društvenim normama. Smotan je i ne zna baš dobro baratati čarolijama, ali su ga stanovnici otoka prihvatili takvog kakav je. I onda na otok dolazi neobičan posjetitelj...
Priča je kratka, ali slatka. Ursula i u takvoj maloj formi uspjeva puno toga ispričati na taj njen tako lijepi lirski način.
A kraj? Odličan. Ali uopće ga nisam očekivala ni predvidjela. I baš sam se dobro nasmijala.

Globalni ciljevi: nastavak serijala

[Tessa]

The best short story I've read from Le Guin yet, I think. Probably best enjoyed by those who are already familiar with Earthsea world-building, but not a bad introduction either. Excellent and enjoyable. Everything a short story should be.

[☆ Lara the Ninth ☆]

Genuinely my favourite Earthsea story. So witty and fun! And so Tolkien-esque: "Mr Underhill", "It was of course bad luck to wish anyone a good morning; a simple statement of the time of day was quite enough", and "His fireworks were fairly elaborate" all sound veeeery familiar... I love it

[Rachel]

pov me trying to reach my 2022 reading goal so i’m counting the short stories i read in english🫣
this one was mid. there was a twist at the end i wasn’t expecting because i’m stupid but my face still was like 🫥 the entire time i read this

[Reading Quinnn]

3.5

Good little subversion of fantasy tropes.

[Vicotnic]

"Mr. Underhill came out from under his hill, smiling and breathing hard. Each breath shot out of his nostrils as a double puff of steam, snow-white in the morning sunshine. Mr. Underhill looked up at the bright December sky and smiled wider than ever, showing snow-white teeth. Then he went down to the village."

hör tydligt hur Tolkien berättar sagor för sina barn men något nytt ligger och pyr och skälver, allt eftersom berättelsen växer blir vågbruset från övärlden allt tydligare.
En liten broberättelse från en fantastisk värld till en annan... eller kanske snarare ett märkligt skepp.

[Lars Dradrach]

A small quirky and unexpectedly humorous and sinister story set in the Earthsea universe, this is probably as close LeGuin will come to Tolkien style of Fantasy.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly]

Terrific. It's only 4-stars because I'm hard-pressed to love the characters in a short story as much as I can in a novel. It's like trying a spoonful of something: it might be really good, but can you give a spoonful 5-stars, the way you can an entire restaurant experience?

I knew from the first sentences I was in good hands, gosh she can write. And it didn't let up, just wonderful prose laying out an interesting setting with unique memorable characters and some fun twists along the way. If every short story I read was as good as this, I'd seek them out.

Read more of my ramblings at my blog The Wunsapon.

[Note: 5 star = loved it | 4 star = liked it lots | 3 star = it was fine | 2 star = disappointing | 1 star = hated it]

[Tamara]

this was a short story Ursula K Le. Guin wrote before she wrote the earthsea series , its a shows the start of the magic system and the dragons :)

Its such a short little story bit so well written
gave me some hobbit cozy vibes at the beginning and then black beard pirate at the end
such a nice little story.

[Ana Enriques]

La lectura es amena. Sin embargo, esperaba otra cosa por el título. Me interesa mucho el tema de los nombres y el poder que conlleva conocer los nombres verdaderos y esperaba quizá que ese tema fuera un poco más central en la historia.

[Anders]

Oh Yevaud, you clever dragon you!

[ariel]

he fucking ate them🫡

[Rikki]

Cute story! Professor asked, "How does this story speak to questions of gender, state, and nation?" and I need to think on this, as it's not immediately obvious to me and, I think, largely dependent on one's understandings of "gender," "state" and "nation." The concept of having "truenames" and possessing them giving the possessor full control over the individual is interesting, but seems to fall flat when Blackbeard addresses Mr. Underhill with what he believed to be the latter's truename, "Yevaud."
Mr. Underhill, now in his dragon form, replies, "Yes, [... m]y truename is Yevaud, and my true shape is this shape."

"But the dragon was killed--they found dragon bones on Udrath Island--"
"That was another dragon," said the dragon, and then stooped like a hawk, talons outstretched.

Does this mean that in order to wield this power one also must be aware of the individual's "true form"? Or is this simply a widely spanning urban legend? Does the power of the truename have no real power at all?

[Glen Engel-Cox]

A wonderful fantasy from Le Guin, set within the setting of her Earthsea books and capturing the same magic as those novels. Reading this made me realize why I loved the Earthsea trilogy as a child; the character and colors of her setting play upon fantasy tropes, but she makes them her own. In others’ hands, the same story could have been derivative. As an adult, reading this story, I’m in admiration for the little things that make it work. For one, the description of Mr. Underhill in the beginning seems just like color, but in actuality it’s a clue as to who and what Mr. Underhill is—even to including the name that the villagers have given him. Highly recommended.

[debchan]

the second short story in the earthsea world. here they explicitly explain the rule of names which again i think is one of the coolest and interesting magic systems out there. but the story revolves around mr underhill who's a pretty useless wizard and is a big Introvert and then one day this other wizard pulls up and squares up. and then boom we find out mr underhill's real name is actually yevaud. which let me tell you having read earthsea book 1 before this i was like "that's jean and em!" what a nice way to find out where ged read that story from, my goat. but this is a cute story that subverts expectations at the end (rip blackbeard where did bro go).

[Paul]

5 Stars! Awesome. Very funny too. Loving going through the rereads, especially in chronological order.
Read: 1/27/25

Quotes:
“‘Morning, morning!’ he replied to each. (It was of course bad luck to wish anyone a good morning; a simple statement of the time of day was quite enough, in a place so permeated with Influences as Sattins Island, where a careless adjective might change the weather for a week.)”
“The name is the thing, and the truename is the true thing. To speak the name is to control the thing.”

[William Cherico]

This was a great story with a wonderful twist ending. I find the way Le Guin uses true name magic really interesting because, in this society, children abandon their names at puberty and start using their true name, but can’t reveal it to anyone. This is a very clever bit of worldbuilding that I think helps to make Sattins Island feel very isolated from the rest of the world, and I think she ends up using that to a great effect. I love the Tolkien spirit of this one, complete with a character using Underhill as a moniker.

[Océane Reads]

This reminds me of Tolkiens hobbits except frodo aka Mr underhill is actually radagast is actually smaug.


My flash-new rating system. It rates the things I find important, and if it scores high, it satisfies me!

Overall rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Characters ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Birt was cute. Blackbird very flat. Yevaud is super cool (the little hints of his true identity in his description?? Ah!)
Dialogue ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Very straightforward. Fine
Setting ⭐️⭐️⭐️
In my head I see a little island that's very bright green and very sunny. It's really nice and if it was a happy story it would've been more stars but for this story, and I think the ordinariness is intentional, it's also plain and not special.
Pacing ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Immersion ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Writing style ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Written almost like a cutesy fairytale which I think is entirely on purpose and honestly the twist at the end is very fairytaleessque, plus the fact that death is heavily implied at the end is very much like the stories of Grimm.
Depth/complexity ⭐️
It's just a story and it's not trying to be anything more and that's fine.
Re-readability ⭐️⭐️⭐️
It's short so easily rereadable. Again like a fairytale.
Creativity ⭐️⭐️⭐️
2.5
Ending ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Perfect to be honest.

+a shitty little wizard on his little island is visited and truth comes to light!
+wizards, fantasy, dragons, treasure, magic, community, secrets