Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea is a deeply ecological fantasy series. The third book in the six part work were written in 1972. These stories in genearl, and this one explicitly, are concerned with how the archipelagic societies of Earthsea can temper their natural desire for immortality, and instead cultivate an understanding of the delicate equilibirium of which both life and death are part, in order that the magic and the joy of being alive can continue to emerge in other generations. The only alternative to death as a natural follow-on to life, the hero learns, is non-life: a kind of barren and miserable stasis in which no action has meaning or purpose and all joy and magic is drained out of the world.
Benjamin’s mimesis of dance. The Earthsea pursuit of the constellation which is a dancing man and also a rune of ending. The festival where they dance to ensure the return of the sun.