The Golden Fleece (and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles,
by Padraic Colum. Illustrated by Willy Pogany.
I can visually locate in my memory exactly where I first
found this book: behind the check-out desk in the main library at Briesemeister
Middle School. (I was a library assistant there one year. They were only
supposed to have two, but I refused to take any other elective, and they had to
squeeze me in finally. I think they resented it. It’s hard to imagine anyone
more needlessly haughty than a school librarian.) It was as much a visual
experience as a literary experience, with its pictures of centaurs, harpies,
and minotaur. Their “The Children of Odin” was right next to it. Together a
very powerful influence indeed. I have to say – and I might as well say it here
– that while I was growing up in the early 70’s there was not as much
encouragement for myth and fantasy as there is today. Coming out of the
disillusionment of Kennedy’s death and the scandal of Watergate a sort of
‘rancid realism’ set in, where we wouldn’t be fooled anymore by pretty stories
or lying tales. ‘De-mythologizing’ and cynicism were the order of the day, and
the teachers wouldn’t accept from us the patriotism our earlier teachers had
taught us before. I felt that in following my own ways of fantasy and legend I
was taking an older secret path away from that mess. And that’s what I have to
say about this secondhand ex-library book.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Mythology. Children’s Book. Hardback.
The Children of Odin, by Padraic Colum. Illustrations by
Willy Pogany.
“Padraic Colum was an Irish author. I first read
his books back in middle school, and his The Children of
Odin was the first version of the Norse Myths I ever read.” – Power of
Babel. For a long time, copies of this book were scarce on the ground, and I
was more than happy to find this one. Of all the pictures in the book, Odin the
Wanderer is the one that still leaps to mind when I think of this book, and the
second is the look on Loki’s face as he eats the witch’s heart. Dwarfs,
dragons, and eagles helped feed the Northern Thing inside me in this Time of
Tolkien. Hard to exaggerate the influence of this book. [Not my cover, which lacks the jacket, but is this is like the one in middle school.]
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Myths. Norse. Hardback.
Stories of King Arthur, by Blanche Winder.
Although it is missing its title page, this is a Hardback
edition of the paperback mentioned elsewhere. Does not have the illustrations
that I know exist in more deluxe versions: 16 Color plates and 8 other
illustrations by Harry G. Theaker, that were adapted for the paperback. First
published in 1935, under the title “King Arthur and His Knights”.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Legend. Arthurian. Hardback.
Irish Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs, Illustrated by John D.
Batten.
This Wordsworth Classics Edition comprises stories selected
by Jennifer Chandler of the Folklore Society from Jacob’s two-volume
collection, Celtic Fairy Tales and More Celtic Fairy Tales, originally
published in the last decade of the 19th Century.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Fairy Tales. Anthology. Softcover.
English Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
Can’t find who collected or selected (possibly Flora Annie
Steel) this Wordsworth Classics book, but it definitely has the great artist’s
line drawing and silhouette work.
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Anthology. Fairy Tales. Softcover.
The Sea Serpents Around Us, Written and Illustrated by Lois
and Louis Darling.
“I mentioned a book on sea serpents that I read back in grade
school, and that I had been trying to hunt down for years. I remembered that it
had been written and illustrated by a husband and wife team, was in black and
white, and had been published before 1970. After an extensive search, I found a
book I thought fit the bill, and at a venture sent off for it. It turned out to
be the right one. The Sea Serpents Around Us, by Louis and Lois Darling,
published 1965. Louis Darling is (or was) famous for illustrating all the
Beverly Cleary books (Ramona, Ribsy, etc.) and The Mouse on
The Motorcycle books. His wife Lois was a keen boatswoman and artist
herself. Together they illustrated Silent Spring by Rachel
Carson, the early environmentalist. It was undoubtedly their naturalist
expertise on the ocean that made them such convincing illustrators for this
book, and surely Lois is responsible for the little gems of accuracy of several
period ships. The book itself starts with a wise old sea serpent putting its
head on their boat while they're sailing one day. It tells them the history of
sea serpents, including several famous examples like the Loch Ness Monster and
the Manchester Sea Serpent. A whimsical ancestral chart is shown, which
includes dinosaurs, dragons, and crocodiles. The authors explain that after
bounties and rewards were placed on sea serpents’ heads, they all decided to go
into hiding and pretend to be extinct. Much of the book is rather
tongue-in-cheek, but to us it was a beginning introduction to cryptozoology,
and one of the elements that put it over to us was the very solidity of the
pictures.” – Power of Babel, 2008. I’m sure their fanciful “family tree” of
dinosaurs, dragons, and sea serpents had an effect on similar drawings I did
later.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Cryptozoology. Fantasy. Hardback.
Great Ghost Stories, Edited by Herbert Van Thal. Illustrated
by Edward Pagram.
“It is a shabby cloth-bound red book. Pop brought it back
from the dump in the late sixties. Why had it been thrown away? I begin to
wonder, now ... Over the forty years it's been in the family it's been in the
same shape; ragged, moldy, stained, it always seems on the verge of
disintegrating but has never lost even a single page. And it is the scariest
book in the whole world. Its title: Great Ghost Stories. Edited by
Herbert Van Thal, illustrated by Edward Pagram, published by Hill and Wang,
Inc., of New York in 1960. Haunting tales, especially the Lytton and Le Fanu.
But what puts the extra horror on these stories are the illustrations. I don't
know who this Pagram fellow was, but he manages to fill his pictures with more
scabby, nebulous horror than all the air-brushed color pictures I ever saw
since.” -Power of Babel. And I wouldn’t mind finding a new copy. [Not this cover.]
Ranking: Essentially Horrifying.
File Code: Ghost Stories. Anthology. Hardback.
The White Stag, Written and Illustrated by Kate Seredy.
“The White Stag is a children's book,
written and illustrated by Kate Seredy. It won the Newbery Medal for excellence in American
children's literature and received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. The White Stag is a mythical retelling
that follows the warrior bands of Huns and Magyars across Asia and into Europe,
including the life of Attila the Hun. Kate Seredy was born in Hungary and
came to the United States at the age of twenty-three. Hungary again became the
inspiration for The White Stag. Originally conceived after Seredy
read a book on Hungarian history for children and found it dry, she says in the
"Forward" that she wrote the book for "Those who want to hear
the voice of pagan gods in wind and thunder, who want to see fairies dance in
the moonlight, who can believe that faith can move mountains, can follow the
thread on the pages of this book. It is a fragile thread; it cannot bear the
weight of facts and dates." Based on her father's favorite folktale
about the founding of that country, The White Stag was written
in just three weeks.” – Wikipedia. Very hard for me to see the Huns (especially
Attila) as heroes, but I suppose everyone has their point of view. Bought this
at Yesterday’s Warehouse. A lot of the pictures look like they should be
illustrating an old Michael Moorcock story. The White Stag, however, is a
haunting figure. [Lacks this jacket.]
Ranking: Keeper.
File Code: Legend. Novel. Hardback.
Witches, Witches, Witches, by Helen Hoke. Pictures by W. R.
Lohse.
The Witch Itch at its itchiest. I read it back in grade
school, and it horrified and allured me. So many classic witch stories and
poems by such good writers. Some good witches, but mostly the cannibalistic
monsters and evil plotters of darkest legend. Andrew Lang, Oscar Wilde,
Shakespeare, Joseph Jacobs, the Brothers Grimm – their witches met again later
in other places and other collections but introduced here. The Hungry Old
Witch, Gally Mander, The Horned Women, and Baba Yaga are all present. I found
this copy totally by accident when Mike and I went into a San Antonio bookstore
where I had located a copy of “The Visitors from Oz”, and I had to have it. The
greens, purple, and blacks of the cover is Halloween incarnate. Hoke has
several other anthologies I wouldn’t mind checking out, all with titles like
“Monsters, Monsters, Monsters”, “Dragons, Dragons, Dragons”, “Devils, Devils,
Devils”, and so on.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Witches. Anthology. Hardback.
