Rooted in Life
Norwegian Folk Tales. From the collection of Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe. Translated by 'Pat Shaw Iversen and Carl Norman; (Allen and Unwin, 35s.) Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. Adapted from Caroline Peachey's Translation by Charlotte Dixon. (Cape, 25s.) F.veryman's Book of Legends. By Christine The Island on the Border. By Trella Lamson Edition, Its. 6d.) Devil in Priut. By Mary Drewery. (Oliver and Boyd, 12s. 6d.)
FAIRY tales are for children, but folklore is for grown-up people, or so two of these authors have decided. Unable to resolve this knotty problem, they have added to otherwise pleasing books sections in' microscopic print which the children are warned not to read. It is a pity to make a child feel de trop in any part of its own book. The labouring of origins is a good Way to fall between two stools, and reminds 111e of people who take musical scores to con- Certs and rustle them. Personhlly, I think it is tvhat you hear that matters, and here it is what -You read or have read to you. These stories are strong in impact, and, as the authors apologet- ically admit, can stand on their own feet. So why not let them?
Perhaps the entertaining vitality of folk tales springs from the fact that they are nature myths, or rooted in some other simple way in what is basic in all life, but that is not the main point. The point is whether this is still there, surviving the thousandth retelling, and still powerful enough to extend the child's experience.
Certainly it is there in Amabel Williams- Ellis's Round the World Fairy Tales. She has at least deposited her anthropological burden in a lump at the end. Otherwise she brings great zest to the tales themselves, recounting them in a spirited style, beautifully Infused with the flavours of many different settings. Her journey round the world begins and ends in Korea, taking in the Far and Middle East, Europe, Africa, the New World, the Antipodes, and back to Korea. There are thirty-six stories, rep- resenting twenty-one countries. Patterns and themes recur, but there is no repetition, and the moods are very varied. The Eastern stories are splendid and exotic, and Africa and the West Indies provide spontaneity and a sense of near- ness to nature.
Speculating about his existence is no way to approach a hero, and the italicised passages with which Hero Tales from the British Isles are each preceded start us off on the wrong foot. 'For many years now scholars have been un- able to agree over Robin Hood . . .', writes the author. Without wishing to add to the bicker- ing, I wonder why she ignores the tradition, found in some versions, that he was the Earl of Huntingdon, and claims that he was always a yeomen hero? 'We are apt to think of King Arthur and his knights in fifteenth-century armour . . .', she remarks in the preamble to her next tale. We are, indeed, and this situation is now too far gone for her to be able to stop us. Whatever scholars say, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Finn Mac Cool, Tarn Lin and Deirdre of the Sorrows, who all appear in her book, exist now, even if they never existed really, caught, like flies in amber in the ballads and other works of literature which contain them. Miss Picard, a good but not superlative story- teller, cannot vie with the ballad-writers, and the story of Tam Lin, for instance, gains nothing in her prose version. But these are very readable, especially the weird tale of Taliesin, and the story of the engaging Ian Direach, who was far more of an opportunist than Puss-in-Boots.
Norwegian Folk Tales can be recommended unreservedly for its visual beauty and the pun- gent racy style of the American translation by Pat Shaw Iversen and Carl Norman. This collection is by the Norwegian equivalents of the Brothers Grimm : Peter Christen Asbjornsen and Jorgen Moe, who published it first in 1845. The original illustrations by Erik Werenskiold and Theodor Kittelsen have a range and humanity which make the work of some contemporary illustrators look very wooden and studied by comparison. The stories are earthy, weird, and full of trolls, the stupid but frighten- ing bugbears of the North, against whom the astute Norwegians give a remarkable display of one-upmanship. There are male Cinderellas- 'Ash Lads'; there is a beautiful story called 'White-Bear-King-Valemon' with an episode in it which recalls the story of Cupid and Psyche; there is the familiar 'Twelve Wild Ducks' and there are several adult anecdotes and tales of Death and the Devil. This is not a book for every child, but those undaunted by Grimm and Hans Andersen could take it.
Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales appear, incidentally, in an exquisite new edition which causes me to take back everything I said about modem illustrators, for Jan Grabianski's illustra- tions in colour and wash, with their brilliant
colours and . uninhibited movement, are the loveliest I have yet seen in a fairy-tale book.
Everyman's Book of Legends by Christine Chaundler does debate origins but in simple, direct English and in a way true to the purpose of the book, which is not a story book but a survey of familiar legends briefly told. She in- cludes the Creation Myths, the Arthurian legends and sonic interesting traditions about animals and flowers.
Getting away from it all is one thing, but when people are after you it is quite another. Few episodes have more drama and poignancy than the tales of the Underground Railway, the famous slave escape route in the Civil War, which is a background motif in The Island on the Border, an exciting American novel of this period by Trella Lamson Dick. The annals of the RAF Escaping Society provide the material for Paul Brickhill's war stories, in Escape or Die, now appearing in a Cadet Edition. Mary Drewery's Devil in Print is the story of a thirteen- year-old boy in flight from trouble with Henry VII1's Star Chamber. He finds himself helping to print Tyndale's Bible. This is excellent for
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