Folklore from near and far

Realizing that not all readers
{and quivering listeners) will be
familiar with some of the legions
of creatures who inhabit these
tales (boggarts and bogles and
will-o’-the-wykes), the author has
wisely included a short glossary of
beasties and folk terms for the
unitiated.

From farther north, in the land
renowned today for spirit-filled
waters of a different kind, comes
Moira Miller’s A Kist O’ Whistles.

These 11 Scottish tales tell the
ancient stories of people such as
Dark Kenneth, who reputedly liv-
ed over four centuries ago and

ing the past few months

we've looked at folk tales
and myths from Japan, india
and China as well as the
legends of North American
native peoples.

I n previous columns dur-

Mike Steele

BOOK REVIEW

As part of this informal and
quixotic journey through the
folklore of lands near and far, this
week the focus is on some of the
rich trove of stories from the
European tradition.

As with those discussed in the
foregoing columns, the majority
are betieved to be at least several
hundreds of years old and have
survived to the present day by be-
ing passed orally from one genera-
tion to the next.

This being the case, they're the
ideal fare for moms, dads and
others to read to little ones who . a
love fables where giants, ogresand AN ILLUSTRATION from
fairies still plod, skulk and flit. Crossley-Holland’s coimpita-

British publisher Andre Deutsch __ tion, “The Bead Moon’.
(represented in Canada by Mc-

Clelland & Stewart) carries an im- had the Power to see past and
pressive line of folk collections in- _ present ... of Michael Scott and
cluding the three following titles,
all reasonably priced ($10.95)
softcover books from the
Children’s Classic series.

The Dead Moon is the most re-
cent in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s
compilations of folk stories, in this
case presenting 11 from East
Anglia and the Fen Country of
England.

By way of introduction, here are
the opening lines from the title
story, The Dead Moon:

“Long ago, the moon used to
shine just as she shone last night.
And when she shone, she cast her
ight over the marshland: the great
pools of black water, and the
creeping trickles of green water, “
and the squishy mounds that , 8 « Dillon :
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daytight.

But when the moon did not
shine, out came the Things that
lived in darkness...””

it’s not at all difficuli to imagine
young eyes growing wide at this
point, is it?

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the ‘‘wee impo’ heil”’ ... and of a
young Orkney man named
Magnus who fell in love with an
unusual maiden who came from
the sea and should never have
been seen by mortal eyes.

Miller has written these weill-
honed Scottish favorites with a
moderate but not daunting

amount of dialect. Still, those lack-

ing 2 British background may find
some of the words and phrases a

bit puzzling and, unlike The Dead
Moon, A Kist O' Whistles does not

provide a glossary.
Anyone who has read J.R.R.

Tolkien's Hobbitt ard Lord of The

Rings will remember the
misshapen, evil and scheming
character who called himselt
“Golem”. But unless they've
deived deeper into the sources of
Tolkien's inspiration, it will prob-
ably come as a surprise to learn
that this character was borrowed
frorn Jewish folklore.

The golem (from the Yiddish
word for ‘‘shapeless mass’) was
created from clay by the Jewish
folk hero, Rabbi Loeb, whe
reputedly lived nearly 500 years
ago in the city of Prague.

It was a dangerous time to be a
Jew in Easiern Europe, a time
when people who were more
Christian in name than deed
persecuted Jews out of greed and
ignorance.

Rabbi Loeb, a very wise man
widely respected as a teacher and
a scholar, was much sought after
by his troubled people for advice
on all sorts of spiritual and tem-

See Jewish page 2.9

OF You LIFE

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