# II: The Duke Who Laughed Himself Off a Throne and Other Traditions of Dorimare explained — Lud-in-the-Mist > Chapter companion for Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. ## What happens This chapter provides a historical and cultural overview of Dorimare, focusing on the revolution that ousted Duke Aubrey and the subsequent taboo against all things fairy. It describes how the merchant class replaced the old religion with a legalistic society, the lingering underground trade of fairy fruit, and the drought that led to a resurgence of fruit-eating. The chapter also introduces an anonymous antiquary's book arguing for a fairy strain in Dorimarite blood and culture, and reflects on the replacement of fairy delusion with the delusion of law. ## Themes in this chapter ### Reality vs. Delusion The chapter contrasts fairy delusion with the legal fictions of the new regime, suggesting both are forms of illusion that shape reality. ### Tradition vs. Progress The merchant class replaces the old fairy-based traditions with law, commerce, and infrastructure, yet the old ways persist in secret. ### Fear of the Unknown The horror and taboo surrounding Fairyland and fairy fruit reflect a deep societal fear of the mysterious and the otherworldly. ## Character check-ins ### Duke Aubrey The last Duke of Dorimare, a poet and ruler who was overthrown by merchants; he vanished, possibly to Fairyland. ### Master Josiah Chanticleer Father of Master Nathaniel, a learned jurist who drew parallels between fairy things and the law. ## Key lines > the eating of fairy fruit had been the chief cause of the degeneracy of the Dukes. It had, indeed, always been connected with poetry and visions, which, springing as they do from an ever-present sense of mortality, might easily appear morbid to the sturdy common sense of a burgher-class in the making. The merchants believed that fairy fruit caused the Dukes' decline, associating it with morbid poetry and visions, which clashed with their practical, bourgeois values. _Explains the revolutionary rationale for banning fairy fruit._ > the men of the revolution, he said, had substituted law for fairy fruit. But whereas only the reigning Duke and his priests had been allowed to partake of the fruit, the law was given freely to rich and poor alike. Again, fairy was delusion, so was the law. Master Josiah argued that the revolution replaced fairy fruit with law as a shared delusion, but law was available to everyone, unlike the exclusive fruit. _Highlights the parallel between fairy magic and legal fiction._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/lud_in_the_mist_se/chapters/ii-the-duke-who-laughed-himself-off-a-throne-and-other-traditions-of-dorimare - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/lud_in_the_mist_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/lud_in_the_mist_se/chapters