The Elfstones of Shannara
1982 novel by Terry Brooks
The Elfstones of Shannara is a 1982 epic fantasy novel by American writer Terry Brooks. It is the first sequel to The Sword of Shannara and the second book in The Original Shannara Trilogy. It expands upon the history of the Elves, which was only hinted at in the preceding story, and follows Wil Ohmsford, grandson of Shea (the hero of the first book) and inheritor of the Shannara Elfstones.
The novel, set in a fictional world called the Four Lands, consists of two intertwining plotlines. The first plotline follows the quest of protagonists Wil Ohmsford and Amberle Elessedil to create a new Ellcrys, a magical tree that serves to banish all Demons from the Four Lands. To do this, they must locate a specific place in the Four Lands called Safehold, where the process of creating a new Ellcrys can begin. The second plotline focuses on the efforts of the Elven army and their allies to slow a massive Demon invasion, made possible by the dying of the current Ellcrys, to give Wil and Amberle enough time to complete their quest.
Background
After Terry Brooks had completed all work on his first novel, The Sword of Shannara, in fall 1975—having begun it in 1967—he began work on another book soon after. The plot he originally chose featured the son of Menion Leah as the protagonist and a girl with a Siren-like song that could manipulate the properties of objects around her. Brooks outlined about three-quarters of the story before beginning to write; he refused an attempt by Lester del Rey to see it because Brooks wanted to impress the editor.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3234684. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1975 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Elfstones of Shannara” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.