WHY CHILDREN STILL LOVE MYTHS AND LEGENDS. by Sharon Tregenza

I've been researching and writing a local myths and legends recently and was thinking about how they've endured. Despite the advances in technology, these stories have stood the test of time, and myths and folklore continue to influence children's literature.

I think one reason is their dramatic settings and colourful characters.  Who could resist a flying horse or a hero who travels through the underworld.

Here are three of the most popular children's books or series influenced by myths:

The 'Who let the Gods out' series by Maz Evans takes the prize for funniest. A laugh out loud romp with Olympian Gods from ancient Greek mythology.  

The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan has now sold an astonishing 55 million copies. With monsters roaming the woods and demigods shooting flaming arrows Jason, Piper and Leo have their work cut out.

Norse Myths: Tales of Odin, Thor and Loki by Kevin Crossley-Holland introduces children to Norse Mythology through enchanting stories.

Myths and legends are rooted in culture and through them children are introduced to diverse world views and ancient civilisations. They help build curiosity and empathy in an an adventurous way. Long may they remain part of children's literature.

sharontregenza@gmail.com

www.sharontregenza.com

The Secret Message in All Stories – Heather Dyer

According to Joseph Campbell, all stories contain certain elements – or archetypal motifs – in common. He designed a universal story structure or ‘mythic archetype’ that he called The Hero’s Journey.

Typically, the hero (whom Campbell is careful to say can be masculine or feminine) faces various challenges and meets archetypal characters who perform specific roles. The hero confronts a dragon or the equivalent, and either dies or appears to die in order to be resurrected. Only then does he receive a boon, or gift, which he takes back to the known world to benefit humanity.

The mythic archetype fits nicely into the other recognized ‘story structures’ such as the 3-act structure, the 5-act structure, and the 8-point plot arc. Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer’s Journey, recognized the pattern of The Hero's Journey in contemporary literature and film, and interpreted Campbell’s structure for use by Hollywood screenwriters. The Hero’s Journey, says Vogler, represents ‘the pattern that lies behind every story ever told’.

But if all stories adhere to this archetype – more or less – might there be an underlying message contained within this pattern, which remains consistent despite the content or theme of a story?

I am studying the mythic archetype for my doctoral thesis at the moment, and it occurs to me that The Hero’s Journey is in fact a metaphor for the creative process itself.

The Creative Journey

Look at the five-step process of creativity as described by people like Milhay Csikszentmihalyi:

1. a period of preparation, of ‘becoming immersed, consciously or not, in a set of problematic issues’
2. … followed by a period of incubation, during which ‘ideas churn around below the threshold of consciousness
3. … which leads to one or more insights
4. … followed by a period of evaluation during which the person ‘must decide whether the insight is valuable and worth pursuing’
5. … and finally, elaboration, which consists of applying the insight or doing the work.

     

When Vogler studied The Hero's Journey, he said, ‘I came looking for the design principles of storytelling, but on the road I found something more; a set of principles for living’. I conclude that the principle for living is: ‘live creatively’.

In both the creative and mythic journeys, the hero or creative individual must first experience a sort of dissatisfaction with the way things are (often translated into a desire for something specific, which is often not what’s needed!). This desire motivates the hero or creative individual to leave the familiar behind, step off the familiar tracks, and venture into the unknown.

After a series of challenges and trials during which the tensions between opposites increase and the hero or creative individual gathers information and experience, there follows a period of incubation, in which the hero or creative person must defeat his or her own ego, since self-annihilation – or a deconstruction of the old self (or a letting-go of old ideas) is necessary in order to assimilate new knowledge. Once the gift of insight has been received, the creative hero must then bring the story full circle by returning to the known world and applying the new insight to benefit themselves and the world at large.

So, to live creatively like the hero we need to leave our assumptions and certainties behind, go bravely into that state of ‘not-knowing’, tolerate uncertainty and rise above our egoic fears and conditioned thinking in order to acquire new insights and expand our consciousness.

If we don’t do this, we end up enslaved by our conditioned thinking, defensive and insecure, stuck in our ruts, and intolerant of change. We can see this happening in the world around us now, and we have a choice: to grow, or die.

Only by adopting this creative mindset can we become the creative heroes of our own lives and of the world in general – which has been the message implicit in the archetypal structure of our stories all along...

Heather Dyer, Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow

http://rlfconsultants.com/consultants/heather-dyer/

www.heatherdyer.co.uk

Rewriting Myths - Clémentine Beauvais

I will be starting work soon on a commissioned book for a French publisher as part of a series of novels that rewrite Greek myths, Histoires Noires de la Mythologie (Dark stories from mythology).

Some examples below (there are dozens)

 They look great, don't they? Gotta love Icarus's fit bum.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. It's a pretty great series, one of those collections of books that are widely read in schools and primarily have an educational purpose, but nonetheless manage to be very literary and interesting.

The challenge with that book, as I'm discovering, is that it has to be quite long (90 000 characters) (I mean characters as in letters and punctuation, not 90 000 dramatis personae, though that's doubtlessly achievable with Greek mythology). And Greek myths aren't that long to tell - so you really need to spin them quite a bit.

The myth I chose is that of Io, which has always been a favourite of mine, and miraculously wasn't already taken.

The need to stretch it means that, essentially, you have to get into the heads of the characters very much, and be quite psychological about it all; give them distinctive voices, personalities, desires, and therefore probably break down their archetypal 'nature'. 

Of course, great writers who retell Greek mythology or other legends and myths do that all the time. But they don't have the constraint of keeping it school-focused. It still needs to be educational, a good 'parascolaire' product, as we say in French. We can't stray far from the 'accepted' versions of the myths, so that they stay in tune with the curriculum ('founding texts of world civilisations' is on the Year 7 programme).

And also, we can't only delve into pure psychology and internal monologue, because the readers probably don't really care very much about Zeus's midlife crisis. So things need to happen.

But it does give us space for interesting questions. What does it feel like to be a cow? What is it like to gallop freely through Mediterranean landscapes? Why would a young woman fall in love with a god?

More evidence, if it was ever needed, that commissioned work can be extremely satisfying and give birth to (hopefully) high-quality stuff. I'll keep you updated.

---------------------

Clémentine Beauvais is a writer in French and English and a lecturer in Education at the University of York. Her published work in English includes the Sesame Seade mysteries (Hachette, 2013-2015), the Royal Babysitters series (Bloomsbury, 2015-2016), and Piglettes, a translation of her French YA novel Les petites reines (Pushkin Press, July 2017).

Fabled Beasts And Mythical Creatures: Jigsaws and Shape-shifters, by Lari Don

Centaurs and kelpies, mermaids and selkies... Why are we so fascinated by animal / human mashups? And not just us, now, but most cultures, in most places, since the start of (once up on a) time. The Egyptians had animal-headed gods. The Greeks were happy to slice almost any animal in half and stick it onto a matching bit of human. And most cultures have shape-changer stories.

Why are we fascinated by these impossible creatures and their stories? And what are the differences between our need to have people shift into animals, and our need to have people who are also part-animal?

I was privileged early this month to do a launch event for someone else’s book (I know that’s a bit unusual, but I stepped in at the last minute when unforeseen circumstances meant the real author couldn’t be there.)

Kate Leiper's beautiful selkie

So I was on stage, waving A Treasury of Scottish Mythical Creatures, showing Kate Leiper’s gorgeous pictures and reading Theresa Breslin’s enchanting words, and chatting to school kids about selkies. I asked if anyone knew what a selkie was. One pupil said, “It’s a half-seal half-girl.” And I said, “Very close!” then explained that a selkie is sometimes a seal and sometimes a girl, rather half a seal stuck to half a girl. Which we then realised would look a bit like a mermaid...

Which made me think about the similarities and differences between two very distinctive forms of animal / human mix and matches.

There are the shape-shifters, the sometimes-human sometimes-animals: the werewolves, the kelpies, the selkies, the kitsune, the frog princes, the lion women and hyena men...

And there are the jigsaw-ed beasts, made up of bits of people and bits of animals, but always the same shape: the mermaids, the minotaurs, the centaurs, the satyrs...  (The Greeks were masters of these mix and match monsters, but you find a few in other cultures too.)

So what’s the difference between them, and why do we love (or need) to tell stories about them both?

I believe that shape-shifters are fascinating because they could be right beside us, right now. You can’t tell whether the person sitting beside you on the bus in the morning will be a wolf creeping up behind you tonight...

But shape-shifters are often vulnerable too, depending on the rules of their magic. I love Kate’s picture of the selkie, because she has buttons down her tummy, to show that the sealskin comes off when she becomes human. And if she loses that sealskin, she can’t become a seal again. So in Scottish folklore there are a lot of very disturbing and frankly abusive selkie wife stories about a fisherman getting himself a reluctant wife by stealing her sealskin.

It’s not just female selkies who are vulnerable. I tell a story about a werewolf who needs to wear his own clothes to become human again, and is trapped as a wolf when his trousers are stolen.

So, shape-shifters can be vulnerable, and also very easy to hide inside a crowd. This makes them very useful in stories!

And shape-shifters allow us to imagine having different powers and skills. Flying, running, jumping, swimming. It’s probably the opportunity to imagine a human sensibility inside a body with an animal’s capabilities and limitations that attracts me to writing about shape-shifters.

Also, perhaps, shape-shifter stories allow us to explore ideas about what is ‘animal’ inside people, and what is ‘human’ within animals. (What is worthy of compassion, respect, understanding, perhaps? Though, of course, we shouldn’t just extend those to humans... )

But what about the jigsaw-ed beasts, the composite creatures? What about the half-horse half-man, or half-woman half-fish? What do we get from them?

I love writing about these creatures. I love their imagery and their power. The main baddie in several of my Fabled Beast novels is a minotaur, and the sidekick hero in all of them is a centaur. Mainly because I love the idea of a creature that thinks like a human being, but has the power of a large animal.

Perhaps our desire for that mix of agency and strength is why we don’t have a lot of compelling stories about half-worm half-girls or half-mouse half-boys. Thinking practically, if nothing else, the animal has to be big enough for the join at the neck or waist to seem plausible...

But while I love to write about the mix and match monsters, they are perhaps less generally useful and universal in stories than shape-shifters. Mainly because they’re a bit obvious. I’m fairly sure that wherever you’re reading this blog, you’re not sitting next to a minotaur. (Though it’s nearly Halloween, so I might be wrong...) The jigsaw creatures can’t hide among us as easily as the shape-shifters. They are less likely to be our friends and neighbours.

However they are very useful for creating monsters made of things we understand and recognise. (Minotaur = bull’s head + man’s body. There, you’ve got the picture in your head already. That kind of shorthand is very useful for an oral storyteller.) Also, I find centaurs are great for kicking doors down.

What else do you think these animal / human fabled beasts and mythical monsters give us, when we’re  inventing, telling and remembering stories? I’m sure I’ve only mentioned a few of the ways they're useful and important to us as we imagine and create...

But whatever niches they occupy in the ecosystems of our story world, I love writing about the shape-shifters, and the half and halfs...

I’ve written about them from my very first book, and I’m not going to stop now. There are centaurs, fauns and minotaurs, working with or against werewolves, mermaids and selkies in my Fabled Beast Chronicles. There are kelpies and various winged shape-shifters in the series of novels I’m working on now. I’ve also written a whole collection of shape-shifter stories, Serpents & Werewolves, including many of the myths, legends and folktales which inspire my novels.

So now, having mused about why we love and need these fabled beasts, I’m off to write a scene discovering how much faster my heroine can run with paws rather than trainers...

(And if you think Kate’s selkie picture is fab, you might be interested to know there’s an exhibition of her artwork at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh from 4th December until 9th January.)


Lari Don is the award-winning author of more than 20 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers.
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If You Go to the Bluebell Woods Today, by Saviour Pirotta

last year's bluebells

I'd planned to give you all an update on how my first ebook is progressing but I had a little mishap at the gym yesterday, which took up all of my time to sort out.  So instead, here's a post from my own blog  which, I hope, will do just as well. 

I live close to  Hirst Wood where you can normally do a bluebell walk at this time of year. The bluebells are late this Spring, in Yorkshire at least so there's nothing for it but to seek the flowers in books and  stories. 

Bluebells have always figured large in European folklore and fairy tales.  Known by various names, including the fanciful witch’s thimble, one of their scientific moniker is Endymion non-scriptus.  In Greek Mythology, Endymion was a handsome shepherd or, in some versions of the myth, a hunter. Selene, the moon goddess fell hopelessly in love with him and begged Zeus to keep him young and asleep forever, so that she could admire him from the sky.  Zeus granted her wish, and Endymion fell into a deep sleep from which he never awoke.  In the past, bluebells were believed to be so intoxicating, their perfume made anyone who walked into a field of them fall asleep. Hence the connotation in the Latin name.

Endymion and Selene, by Victorian artist J. A. Grimshaw

The idea of bluebells sending people to sleep also pervades Native American folklore. In a popular fable, a hummingbird and a crane race each other, much like the hare and the tortoise in the renowned fable by Aesop. Hummingbird, being small and light on her wings, assumes she will win – so she stops for a rest in a patch of bluebells.  With unfortunate results!

Woods have always been considered enchanted places in the collective imagination. They are dark, mysterious realms which teem with unseen forces and magic beings. As bluebells grow mostly in the woods, they have been associated with fairies, and woodland creatures. In The Fairy Caravan, Beatrix Potter’s only chapter book, which is inspired by Celtic folktales, the author describes wild dwarfs called oakmen living in a forest full of bluebells.  In other European tales,  unwary travellers wander into clearings full of bluebells, often encountering fairies, or incurring their wrath.  Popular legend had it that blundering into a patch of bluebells broke the fairy spells hung on them to dry.  

The Bluebell Fairy – C. M. Barker

Fairies were believed to be summoned for midnight revelries by the pealing of bluebells.  But beware the hapless mortal who hears the sound. He will die by morning.  Unless, of course, the fairies had rung the bluebells to summon him. Which does happen a few times in fairytales.

In a German folktale, a goldsmith and a tailor travelling along a country road are lured into the woods by the enchanted sound of bluebells ringing in the breeze.  The music leads them to a group of dancing fairies, who ply them with treasure teach as well as teaching them the importance of not being greedy.

Some country folk considered growing bluebells in your own garden, or bringing a bunch of them indoors, incurred the ire of the fae folk. They would be dogged by bad luck.  Others thought clumps of bluebells outside the front door brought good luck, and tinkled to warn when unwanted visitors approached the front door.  Wearing a bracelet of fresh bluebells around your ankle, especially on the eve of Beltane, summoned the good fairies to protect you.

Such beliefs, of course, died a long time ago.  But the association between bluebells and fairies remains in folktales and literature.  Here is a sweet poem that I learnt as a child, and has endured the test of times:

THE BLUEBELL

BY Emily Bronte

The blue bell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air;

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit’s care.

ceramic tile by Victorian artist Walter Crane