Book Review: English Fairy Tales and Legends by Rosalind Kerven

English Fairy Tales and Legends by Rosalind Kerven

This book has new tellings of several famous and less-than-famous stories from Great Britain's folklore history. Rosalind Kerven uses many primary sources to concoct her own versions of the tales. Each tale has three or four pages of notes that discuss the source materials and alternate versions of the stories both in England and in other countries and cultures. The stories are fun and the scholarship is interesting, making a winning combination. Here's a story by story review:

1. King Arthur and the Hideous Hag--King Arthur goes to fight an ogre who is kidnapping local women. The ogre curses Arthur with debilitating weakness and gives him a way to lift the curse: solve this riddle by next year: What does every women long for? The court has lots of answers but nothing definitive. The Round Table knights head out in search of an answer. They each run into the hideous hag, who promises the answer only if the knight will marry her. The fairy-tale resolution is very satisfying. The notes talk a bit about Arthur and the mythology around him.

2. Tom Tit Tot--A poor girl finds favor with the king. Her mom brags that the daughter can spin five skeins of the finest linen yarn in a day, which seals the deal for the king. He promises to let her have eleven months of luxury as long as the twelfth month sees her spinning five skeins a day. The girl is a bit lazy and unintelligent and goes for the deal. Once the time rolls around, the king takes her to an isolated tower where she's locked in. If she doesn't produce, she'll be executed. A little imp comes and promises to do the work for her. She'll have to be his at the end of the month if she can't guess his name by then. So this is basically the Rumpelstiltskin story with some variations. It still works well and the comments at the end are very interesting.

3. The Dead Moon--A local bog full of nasty creatures is swallowing up anyone who wanders in. The moon comes in female form to explore the cursed area. A local man explores the bog at the same time and the moon sacrifices herself to save him. She is trapped in a pit in the bog. With no moon in the sky, the bog ghouls get more ambitious and start wandering into town. Nine local men band together to free the moon in a high-risk exploration of the bog. The story is written in a Lovecraftian style, though the author doesn't quite get it right. I still enjoyed the story.

4. Jack the Giant-Killer--One of the many Jack stories (the most famous being Jack and the Bean Stalk), this tale has Jack craftily killing several giants who are plaguing the land. The story is a lot of fun. The rich history of Jack stories documented in the notes makes me want to find a book that has more about Jack.

5. Dragon Castle--A lonely widower king marries a beautiful woman who turns out to be, if not a witch, at least very witchy. She abuses her step-daughter who is at least as beautiful as she is. At a party where all the guests are swearing fealty to the royal couple, one visiting knight swears fealty only to the king and then proclaims the princess as the most beautiful woman. The queen loses it and curses both the step-daughter, who turns into a dragon, and the knight, who is driven off to Norway. The king won't let the other knights kill the dragon so the queen says she'll let the dragon (who is causing lots of trouble for everyone) live at the castle for a year and a day, planning to kill her at the end. The castaway knight hears about it and consults an old wise woman on how to get back and save the princess. With the proper knowledge, he returns and saves the day. The story is very charming, with a lot of familiar fairy tale elements blended with enough new twists and ideas to make a great story.

6. Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow--A local lord has a lot of financial bad luck and a son who is a ne'r-do-well. The impoverished lord goes through Sherwood Forest where he is captured by Robin Hood. Robin sees the plight of the man and loans him some money to save his son. The lord promises to pay back in a year. The year passes and the lord's fortunes recover, so he goes to pay Robin. Robin politely refuses. Not long after, Robin comes to the lord's castle, fleeing from the Sheriff of Nottingham. They just had the archery tournament where Robin won the golden arrow. The lord offers sanctuary, repaying his debt to Robin. The story is interesting since Robin is a secondary character to the lord.

7. The Weardale Fairies--A daughter wandering in the woods comes upon the fairies frolicking in their hiding spot. She watches for a bit and then races home, hoping they haven't spotted her spying on them. They did and come to kidnap her. Her father goes to a wise old woman to get advice on how to get her daughter back. She tells him what to give the fairies to free his daughter. The only problem is she gives them as three riddles to solve, like "a chicken with no bones." The story follows the typical path and is fun. Tricksey fairies are popular in English folklore, as the notes detail.

8. The Devil's Bargain--Three boys summon the Devil to their village and the village schoolmaster has to come up with an impossible task for the Devil to do. Again, this story seems very familiar but it does have some nice twists and changes. The notes talk about how the Devil often shows up in stories but almost always is defeated by human ingenuity.

9. The Princess and the Fool--A beautiful and intelligent princess is holding out for a suitor who can keep her entertained. Three brothers come to try their luck. The youngest is a fool who collects all sort of things in his oversized coat's pockets. He's able to entertain her and overcome her father's objections. The notes call this a "nonsense tale" where impossible or ridiculous situations arise and are resolved in silly ways. Such stories are fun, but in my opinion best taken in moderation.

10. The Seventh Swan--A young, disreputable man ignores the local taboo against killing swans when the area undergoes a poor harvest, and thus wide-spread hunger. He wings one bird, which survives, and takes it back to his one-room shack. Once there, he no longer has the heart to kill and eat it. The swan transforms into a beautiful young maiden with a wounded arm. He tries to force her to serve him. She refuses. Eventually, her arm is healed and she flees. He chases her but the other six swans come to her rescue and kill the man. Transformation tales are fairly common in folklore and this is a typical example.

11. The Knight of York--A poor family has yet another child. The daughter is fretted over; a passing knight reads from his Book of Fate about her future. He tells the parents that she is fated to have a spectacular life in the nobility, so he convinces them to let him adopt her. Really, what he read was that his son would marry this peasant girl, which he is dead set again. He tries to drown her in a river but through a fantastic circumstance, she is saved. She grows up and through more unusual coincidences becomes the daughter-in-law of the knight, who eventually accepts her. The story follows a common rags-to-riches story like the famous Cinderella. The notes describe many variations on the tale and point out that such tales exist in more or less every culture.

12. The Wicked Witch--An older girl goes out to find a job but no one except a wicked witch is hiring. Luckily, the girl did acts of kindness for three bewitched objects (a cow, a tree, and a loaf of bread; how's that for random?). When the girl discovers and sneaks off with the witch's gold, the objects repay her kindness by helping her escape. The tale is fairly typical folk tale plotting. The notes talk a bit about witches, especially those found in England.

13. The Asrai--A young man walks to work and sees a woman in a lake just before dawn. She beckons to him and he realizes she is both beautiful and half-fish. She almost leads him to his doom but he snaps out of it before he's lured to the deepest part of the lake. At work, no one believes his story except an old gaffer. The man goes back with a row boat and fishing net. He captures her but on the way back to shore she escapes. The story is a bit flat; the most interesting thing is the water fairy who looks like a mermaid. England has some mermaid stories, even inland mermaid stories. Most stories are about how they are dangerous or harbingers of bad events. The notes were more interesting than the story!

14. The Forbidden Forest--A peasant girl refuses the advances of the king, so he closes the kingdom's borders and dictates that he can have any woman he wants and will behead her when he grows tired of that lady. The girl is sent to her grandmother's house to hide because the home is remote with the titular forest nearby. The girl goes on an errand to the local village. She spots the king and his retinue approaching. She flees into the forest, an act of desperation since granny warned her about the magical trees, which are governed by a mighty oak in the middle. As she flees through the forest, she comes upon the oak. She curtseys and the path continues through to the other side of the forest. The king and his retainers pursue her. When they come to the oak, the king spits contemptuously. As he rides past, a large branch falls and breaks his neck. His followers move to help him but are nabbed by the other trees. This is more of a spooky campfire tale that I may use on our next Cub Scout campout.

15. The King of England's Three Sons--The king is sick and sends his sons to find some magical golden apples. Each son is, in turn, guided by progressively weirder (and uglier) old men until the son is directed to an enchanted castle with many guardians and one sleeping princess to pass before coming to the garden with the golden apples. The two elder sons fail to pass all the tests on the way; the youngest returns with the apples. They are supposed to meet at a crossroads before returning to the castle. The youngest arrives first and falls asleep. The other brothers come upon him and divide his apples and substitute rotten crab apples. The king demands he be executed. Meanwhile, back at the castle, the princess wakes up and discovers that the youngest son swapped garters with her. She recognizes the royal crest and goes to England to find her love. The execution is interrupted and the young couple marry happily. The story is fun if a bit full of nonsense. The notes talk about various quest stories, including some detail about Arthur's Holy Grail quest.

Overall, this is a great collection of fairy tales.

Highly recommended.