Three Hearts and Three Lions
#6483.83 adjusted 3.85 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 1961 Reading commitment Low Poul Anderson Last reviewed 2026-08-26
Overview
Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961) is a standalone portal fantasy novel by Poul Anderson, expanded from a 1953 magazine novella into the full novel. A Danish resistance fighter during the Second World War finds himself unexpectedly transported into a parallel medieval world governed by the opposition of Law and Chaos, populated by knights, trolls, and faerie folk, where he discovers he has a role to play, and possibly a prior identity, tied to that world's own legends. Drawing heavily on Northern European and Carolingian legend, particularly the Matter of France, the novel is frequently credited by genre historians as an important influence on early tabletop role-playing game design, most notably Dungeons & Dragons, whose Law-versus-Chaos alignment axis and paladin class both draw directly on concepts introduced here. It remains one of the more influential mid-twentieth-century portal fantasies despite being less widely read today than Anderson's other major fantasy work, The Broken Sword.
Portal fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
Three Hearts and Three Lions (1961) core · 3.83 (5,680 ratings); Expanded from a 1953 magazine novella into the full novel; this catalogue follows the 1961 book publication as the first edition.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Three Hearts and Three Lions? Three Hearts and Three Lions's Core Canon is 1 book.
- Is Three Hearts and Three Lions finished? Complete (1961).
- How much reading does Three Hearts and Three Lions take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book · ~177 pages).
- How is Three Hearts and Three Lions ranked? #648 in this site's official ranking, based on 5,680 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #648?
Ranked #648 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.83 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (5,680 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- 0.01 behind #647, The Cronus Chronicles.
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
- A single standalone novel: ranked on that one book alone.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 1 book · Complete · 6k ratings · Ranks #648 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment portal fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- No awards found for this universe.
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Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.83 across 5,680 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Admit Three Hearts and Three Lions (Poul Anderson) accepted 2026-08-26
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-08-26
Rule: Core Canon is the single 1961 novel. Its protagonist makes a later cameo in one other novel by the same author, but that later book is a different, unrelated setting and is not catalogued here.