The first step towards the characteristic large-scale fantasies which have had such influence on the genre -- and, indirectly, on [science fiction] -- is 'The House of the Wolfings' (1889). Here the setting is quasi-historical: a European Saxon community is resisting the decadent advances of late-Imperial Rome. The romantic-supernatural story contains a large admixture of verse. What later critics were to call 'The Teutonic thing' or 'the Northern thing' continued in 'The Roots of the Mountain' (1890), another tale of a tribal communicty whose historical context is less definite.' -- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy