a review of:
Sword of the Rightful King, by Jane Yolen
The Wild Hunt, by Jane Yolen
Sherwood: Original Stories from the World of Robin Hood, edited by and including a story by Jane Yolen
Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls, collected and told by Jane Yolen
Mightier than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys, collected and told by Jane Yolen
Favorite Folktales of the World, edited by Jane Yolen
Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World, edited by Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen, probably the most important storyteller in America and perhaps the world, will be speaking at this year’s Whidbey Island Writers Conference at 6:30pm on Saturday night March 5 in the South Whidbey High School auditorium, and the event is open to the public. Yolen’s importance shows up not just in her own fiction — novels and stories for adults and children in addition to her retelling of folktales — but in the many collections of folktales she’s edited, along with the collections of new versions of old stories which have appeared under her editorship and championing. It’s hard to think of a writer more involved with the tradition of storytelling, or more generous in her support of other writers through the anthologies she’s edited. Those listed above are only a small part of the 250 books she’s written or edited. Nor are they the most recent, but it’s hard to keep up with her output.

Yolen’s work is a constant delight and surprise. The 2000 anthology, Sherwood: Original Stories from the World of Robin Hood illustrates both. Her introduction, with its homage to Howard Pyle’s The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, gives the reader enough background about the legend and its many versions without for a moment slipping into boredom. Her opening story about the birth of jolly Robin is a wonderful addition to the legend. Later in the book, Maxine Trotter’s “Marian” is a pure delight, as a ten-year-old Maid Marian meets a ten-year-old Robin of Locksley who’s gotten lost in her woods. The poor boy has no woodcraft and can hardly shoot a bow, much less hit anything. “Marian” is a delightful story, the kind of wonderfully whimsical piece Yolen attracts when she puts out the word that she’s doing another collection of contemporary variations on traditional themes. She’s as fine an editor in her selections as she is writer and storyteller, and that’s saying something.

Yolen’s own adult novel, 2003’s Sword of the Rightful King, gives an alternate version of the famous story of King Arthur and the sword in the stone. In Yolen’s version, the story’s not nearly so straightforward as are earlier versions. Along the way, we see what kind of man Arthur might have been. Since Yolen has written a trio of novels about Merlin as a young man (not the usual portrait of Merlin, an old man at the time Arthur is born), we would expect her version to bring a fully developed Mage to the book — and she does.

Yolen has recently given us two wonderful companion collections of retold folktales: 2000’s Not One Damsel in Distress: World Folktales for Strong Girls, and 2003’s Mightier Than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys. Note how fast and furious her books appear? And this little review only scratches the surface of what she’s published. Her bio says she stopped counting at 250 titles, and I believe it.

Her damsels who aren’t in distress would never wait for some hero to rescue them; they’re more apt to rescue the poor hero. Yolen includes an Ozarks girl who comes out of her encounter with a large, brutal highwayman riding his horse and very interested in what he might have accumulated in his bulging saddlebags. On a more vigorous note, an African tale ends with the heroine picking up a hippo — no baby, hippo, either — by one leg and throwing it.

Her tales for boys are less violent, focusing mostly on young men who can think their way out of predicaments: riddling with the Devil as they walk to school (England), recovering magic brocades for their mothers (China), winning the protection of the river spirit (Africa). Both books include useful bibliographies and discussions of where the author found the originals and the extent to which she has reshaped them.

I’m going to go back a little further in time, to 1995’s The Wild Hunt, simply because the northern European stories of the Wild Hunt and its Wild Huntsman have always fascinated me. This book, I would say, is most definitely for accomplished adult readers because of its parallel plot lines and characters, the games it plays with narrative, even the fanciful chapter headings: “Chapter One” is followed by “Chapter One-Sort Of” and that by “Chapter One-Almost,” from which we jump into Chapter Two. An alert younger reader should also find its challenges fascinating.

And finally, going even further back in time, I want to at least mention Yolen’s fine collections of folktales. In these, she doesn’t retell the stories, but rather gathers a range of wonderful folktales as told by others from around the world. One such is 1986’s Favorite Folktales from Around the World, over four hundred pages of delightful stories from—well—everywhere. Just as wonderful and extensive is 1999’s Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World, featuring the strengths and adventures of old folks. Both books have good bibliographies and are introduced by Yolen’s intelligent essays about folklore.

Jane Yolen’s books are available at Bay Books in Freeland, The Moonraker in Langley, and Kingfisher Bookstore in Coupeville.

Wayne Ude grew up in Montana, earned an MFA from UMass-Amherst, taught in and directed creative writing programs on the MA level for 17 years, and has published four books of fiction. Since 1993 he has lived, written, and taught on Whidbey Island.