Mythic Flights: Polytheism in Children's Literature

by Judy Rosenbaum

Because we modern readers usually learn about polytheistic belief systems as mythological tales, we often forget that they are the remnants of ancient religions. Like all religions, polytheistic faiths offer explanations for natural occurrences, contemplate the possibility of a grand cosmic design, and seek to explore the sense of wonder we feel at being alive and in the world. This may account for the power that stories based on these old traditions can evoke. A reader who would not think of worshipping Zeus can read a Greek myth and be moved by a sense of the numinous‹an awareness of the presence of something sacred. The insights and feelings derived from reading myth-based stories need not conflict with the reader's own religious beliefs and can even enhance them. The insights derived from myths can give wings to our most deeply-held spiritual beliefs.

There are many ways to make use of what we call mythology. Some authors have created expanded retellings of old myths or epics. (An example of such a treatment is Evangeline Walton's The Island of the Mighty, (Ballantine, 1964) based on one of the tales of the Welsh Mabinogion story-cycle.) Other authors use elements, motifs, plotlines, or characters from the ancient stories in entirely new ways. Many of the most intriguing and gripping stories for young and young adult readers are based to some degree on polytheistic mythology.

Deborah Nourse Lattimore has used ancient Egyptian religious beliefs to religious beliefs to create a gorgeouspicture book for younger readers, The Winged Cat: A Tale of Ancient Egypt (HarperCollins, 1992).

Lattimore is true to Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife journey in this tale of a girl and a sacred cat and how their souls are weighed on the scales of Truth.

An appealing new series for middle readers is The Magic Elements Quartet by Mallory Loehr (Random House, 1999) In each of the three published so far, several present-day children encounter some magic object or occurrence related to one of the four traditional elements of water, earth, air, or fire. They also meet legendary figures from Greek mythology: for example, Poseidon in Water Wishes; Persephone in Earth Magic; and Athena, Pegasus, Bellerophon, and Daedalus in Wind Spell. (Forthcoming is Fire Dreams.) With a light touch, Loehr manages to evoke the majesty of Zeus's cosmos despite the books' simple language and age-appropriate plots and characterization.

Greek mythology is also at the base of Lloyd Alexander's The Arkadians (Dutton, 1995), a quest story set in a sort of parallel Greece. Alexander tells his tale as a combination of comedy and shivery hints at great ancient truths. He depicts a pastoral society of the sort that first told stories of Poseidon, Zeus, and the rest of the pantheon.One can see hints of ancient Crete and the Argonauts in the fabric of Alexander's story. Alexander often hides his mythological allusions in plain sight by giving his characters names translated from familiar Greek names. For example, he relates an incident involving a man named Think-Too-Late and a woman named Giving-All-Gifts.These are exact translations of the names Epimetheus and Pandora, the original protagonists of the tale of Pandora's Box.

Because many polytheistic religions were basically national or tribal religions, one of their primary functions was to recount the birth of the community and tell of the divinely sanctioned origin of its earliest heroes or rulers. A Newbery-winning classic that reflects the Hungarian version of this tradition is The White Stag by Kate Seredy (Viking, 1979). As Seredy tells it, the stag of the title appears at crucial points in Hungary's ancient history to lead the Huns and the Magyars on a new path. Ultimately, the stag points the way to these peoples' ordained homeland. Seredy's proud, poetically told story (accompanied by her starkly gorgeous illustrations) has further interest because it is one of the few English-language books to show Attila the Hun as a hero rather than an adversary.

It is no surprise that the majority of English-language fiction based on polytheistic traditions reflect Celtic or Germanic sources, since those were the ones nearest at hand. Many of the finest authors have incorporated Celtic or Nordic elements‹sometimes both in combination‹into their work. Rudyard Kipling made artful use of Puck, ìthe oldest Old Thing in England,î and Weland Smith, the Teutonic smith of the gods, in Puck of Pook's Hill(Doubleday, 1906) and Rewards and Fairies (Econo-Clad Books, 1999).J.R.R.Tolkien's memorable elves derive their name and many characteristics from the Teutonic alfar. The names of nearly all his dwarfs in The Hobbit (Abrams, 1977) come from the Elder Edda, an ancient Norse text.More recent writers have also dined at the great feast of northern and western European polytheistic traditions. Diana Wynne Jones has worked her literary alchemy on Norse mythology by giving it a contemporary slant in Eight Days of Luke (Greenwillow, 1975). The wonderful thing about Jones is the way she finds the family bonds and clashes inherent in ancient myths and carries them up into a modern context. In this story, David lives with his unpleasant great aunt, great uncle, and cousins. On a particularly despairing day, David manages to summon up a mysterious mischief-maker, an amiable boy named Luke, who lands David into all sorts of trouble. But Luke is not just a trickster; he is the trickster, the undependable fire-god Loki, whom David has inadvertently woken from a long imprisonment. Through Luke, David encounters Mr. Wedding, who was once known by another name, and is able to do this stranger a service. Besides all its other excellences, this novel wonderfully portrays Loki's ambivalent nature, charming, dangerous, but often helpful‹much like fire itself. This book is an early masterpiece from a giant of juvenile literature.

Celtic literature provides a motherlode of characters and motifs for authors. The principal story of ancient Britain, the Arthurian tales, stems largely from Celtic myth (in combination with half-forgotten elements of history). Arthurian elements have been used in enough books to amount to a library all by themselves. Less well known than Arthurian stories are the Welsh tales of the Mabinogion. Used to great effect by Evangeline Walton, the stories of the Mabinogion are best known to young readers in this country from the Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (Henry Holt, 1999).(Alexander is clever about names: Prydain‹pronounced Pridd-ine, not Pride-ane‹is the actual Welsh name for Britain.)

Alexander makes his own use of Welsh mythic elements to create his parallel world. Some he transports straight from the old stories: for instance, the cauldron that turns dead men into zombielike warriors. Others he transforms: Alexander's sinister Arawn was in the original Mabinogion an honorable otherworld monarch. Still other elements such as Ffewddur Fflam are outright invention.

Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising quintet of books (Margaret McElderry, 1973) contain a vast range of ingredients from British myth, legend, and folklore, from the Yuletide hunting of the wren to a Saxon-style ship burial, from sleeping warriors within the hollow hills to Merlin himself. Cooper blends these ingredients together to create as close to an epic as one may find in modern children's literature. Her story line is completely her own, not derived from any of the old tales, and it is in a largely contemporary setting. Yet she uses the ancient elements in a way that is true to their nature, creating a work of striking originality and complexity. Thanks to Harcourt's Magic Carpet Books, Alan Garner's

hunting for the Four Ancient Treasures of Ireland. In The Owl Service, Garner recreates in a Welsh community of today a dark story of love and betrayal from the Mabinogion. In the connected pair of books The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, Garner uses elements from both Celtic and Teutonic myth to create adventurous battles between good and evil that bring old forces to life in the twentieth century. Garner has a gift for combining realistic modern children with ancient story ideas. He also gives mythical beings multidimensional personalities without making them seem anachronistic

Perhaps the most appealing book to use Irish mythology as its inspiration is The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea (Holiday House, 1986). This juicy book, extravagant with invention and wit, contains a raft of deities, including the formidable Morrigan, not to mention all manner of mortals, beasts, vagabonds, and even verbal spiders. An effervescent mix of laughter and endless marvels, this tale is told in singing prose and is not to be missed.

A mythological tradition that is way out of the European mainstream is that of Aboriginal Australia. Patricia Wrightson has used this tradition in several books of great beauty, including The Nargun and the Stars (Hutchinson, 1973). The book tells of how Simon, a young boy newly living at a remote sheep station, becomes aware that a stonelike Nargun has been awakened and is on the move. The Nargun doesn't mean to be harmful, but like many forces of nature, it can be very dangerous. Simon and the Potkorook, another legendary spirit, work with other beings to bind the Nargun once again. The creatures Wrightson uses reflect the timeless Aboriginal reverence for the land, an outlook shared by many other traditional peoples.

The stories mentioned above can all be categorized as fantasy, but it is certainly possible to contemplate myth-based stories that are entirely realistic. Many of the old mythologies depict deities so anthropomorphic that their family quarrels resemble something out of Chekhov‹or a soap opera. But whether used in fantasy or realistic fiction, if their previous track record is anything to go by, mythological elements will continue to enthrall readers of all ages and beliefs for generations to come.