The Old Stories

Kevin Crossley-Holland (author of the Riddle Book, the Carnegie medal-winning Storm and of several celebrated folklore collections) is a masterly reteller of traditional stories, and in this fascinating anthology he explores the oral traditions of his homeland, the marshes and fens of East Anglia. This is a plumply stuffed treasury of a book, and an intense delight to anyone interested in folklore. Familiar tales like 'Tom Tit Tot' and 'Pitcher of Brains' stand alongside more localised offerings like 'The Callow Pit Coffer' and 'A Coggeshall Calendar' (an hilarious variant on the Chelm/Gotham village of fools theme). The style of the retellings is richly descriptive but warmly conversational, except when a more incantatory, poetic voice is adopted. Should you want to frighten the living daylights out of your children, 'Long Tom and the Dead Hand' will do the job nicely, while 'The Pedlar of Swaffham' will provide a cheerful antidote the day after (the latter story is one of the best 'blueprints' for an oral telling that I've ever found). The courses in this feast of narrative are interleaved with snippets of verse, sayings and anecdotes; scholarly notes and sources from a fascinating appendix; John Lawrence's engraved motifs at the head of each chapter radiate a rustic mystique. This is an invaluable book for teachers and parents to read aloud, storytellers to be inspired by, and older children to enjoy alone.