Bagful of Dreams, The-Jack Vance novelette, later as a subchapter of novel

Bagful of Dreams, The-Jack Vance novelette, later as a subchapter of novel

AKA: Cugel’s Saga Chapter V, part 2

Cugel: the Skybreak Spatterlight Chapter V, subchapter 2

Tales of the Dying Earth, Book III Chapter V, subchapter 2

The Bagful of Dreams was first published as a 26/27/30 page novelette in May 1977 as part an anthology titled Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians.  (In the Spatterlight Press release Cugel: the Skybreak Spatterlight it is 30 pages long.  The Bagful of Dreams placed tenth in 1978 for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction.  It was published a number of times in anthologies and collections since then including The Jack Vance Treasury by Subterranean Press. In 1983 it was included as part of the Vance novel Cugel's Saga, Chapter V, subchapter 2.  A Bagful of Dreams is an amazing story that is most frequently encountered as part of the novel Cugel's Saga rather than as a stand-alone novelette.

In this story we find Cugel sailing down a river in a skiff until he reaches the village of Troon where he sells his skiff and accepts unpleasant employment as the town butcher. He did so well in this capacity that he was asked to prepare the feast for an important religious festival. Unfortunately he makes the mistake of using two sacred beasts for the festival meal and when the citizens find out about this Cugel has to flee the town to avoid the “hysterical mobs.” 

After hiding out all night he encounters water-wefkins call out to him by name “using sweet voices of unhappy maidens” to try to lure him into the marsh. Just before nightfall he find an inn where he spends the night.  The next morning the innkeeper offers sell him “a large dun-colored beast with powerful hind legs” which he claims is a “hybrid of dounge and felukhary.” He says it feeds on waste, is notoriously loyal and is easy to ride. Cugel offers him far less than the asking price, thinking he is getting a real bargain, but after riding a short distance from town the beast bucks Cugel off and returns home.  Cugel grumbles “A loyal creature indeed!”  “It is unswervingly faithful to the comfort of its barn.” 

Cugel walks until late afternoon when he finds a village with a dozen mud huts where a man and his family offer him hospitality and advice.  The man tells him about a town two hours ahead but warns him that the people there are peculiar because “they make obeisance to Divine Wilio with the right hand, not on the buttock, but on the abdomen, which we here consider slipshod practice.”  He then shows Cugel how to make a sacred stone blessed by the Divine Wilio that can protect him from harm from the many dangerous creatures that wait ahead in the Plain of Standing Stones. 

Cugel makes a stone for himself but takes a shortcut when preparing it so that when encounters an asp with eight fangs the stone does not work and he is nearly killed.  After escaping, Cugel prepares another stone but does so properly. Later in the day Cugel performs one of his few kind acts by rescuing a man named Iolo from a huge, predatory bird called a pelgrane.  But his good deed does not go unpunished and the man he rescues betrays him so that Cugel ends up being held by a large tentacle that reaches up out of a hole.  (He later finds out that it is attached to a huge creature in the Overworld.)  The adventure continues with the story of how Cugel deals with the tentacle and the man who betrayed him.

Cugel learns that that Iolo is on his way to the yearly competition called Duke Orbal’s Grand Exposition of Marvels where contestants present their entries for a one thousand terces prize for the most wondrous.  Iolo plans to enter his Bag of Dreams which contains “a number of pure unadulterated dreams, coalesced and crystallized.”  Cugel decides to enter the contest himself using the huge tentacle and hole to the Overworld as his entry.  But Cugel learns that he has some strong competition from the Bagful of Dreams, military marching cockroaches, singing fish and other strange entries.

The Bagful of Dreams is such a mind boggling and inventive adventure that I rarely thought about an ending.  Vance does provide us with one, but the journey, strange encounters, satire and humor are really what is so captivating.  This story can be read by itself or as part of the novel.  I think it is best enjoyed when read the first time as part of the novel.  I’ve read Cugel’s Saga (Cugel: the Skybreak Spatterlight) three times so far and The Bagful of Dreams numerous times as an excerpt and rate it a 5.

Included in the many releases of the novel Cugel’s Saga/Cugel: the Skybreak Spatterlight

Included in the anthology Flashing Swords! #4: Barbarians and Black Magicians, 1977, Nelson Doubleday, Lin Carter, ed., reprinted in 1985, hc and pb

Included in the science fiction anthology Year’s Finest Fantasy, 1978, Berkley Books,Terry Car, ed., hc and pb

Included in The Seventeen Virgins/The Bagful of Dreams, 1979, Underwood-Miller, hc

Issued alone in The Bagful of Dreams, 1979, Underwood-Miller, tp

Included in the science fiction anthology Masterpieces of Fantasy and Wonder, 1989, Nelson Doubleday, hc, which was reprinted in 1989 by Guild America Books, in  1993 by Longmeadow Press and in 1994 by St. Martin’s Press

Included in the collection The Jack Vance Treasury, 2007(Subterranean) hc