Books at Bedtime: In the Moonlight Mist
With Korea being a focus for PaperTigers, I’ve chosen a book called In the Moonlight Mist retold by Daniel San Souci (illus. Eujin Kim Neilan) published in 1999. This delightfully illustrated picture book is a retelling of a folktale about a virtuous woodcutter who saves the life of a deer from hunters. The deer rewards him with the knowledge of how to attain a wife. There is a pond in which heavenly maidens bathe; if the woodcutter hides the clothes of one of the maiden’s, he will have her as his wife. Troubled by having to commit such trickery, the woodcutter consults his ageing mother about what to do. She advises her son to do as the deer instructs. Luckily for the woodcutter, the heavenly maiden whom he selects falls in love with him. But such a union, of course, cannot last and soon, the maiden begins to pine for home. What will the woodcutter do?
Folktales like this one often illustrate culturally-related family dilemmas – in this case, the woodcutter is faced with what he feels he must do for his wife and what he must also do for his aged mother. What is the right decision? What is the virtuous action? Who does Heaven reward? These are the many questions this simple folktale poses. Folktales are rich cultural repositories of narrative wisdom from which the modern day reader can glean much knowledge. Their retelling, therefore, is an important contribution to cultural understanding world-wide, especially for children.
Are there folktales you were fond of reading when you were a child? Where did you find them? What folktales have you read to your children?
May 30th, 2009 at 3:27 am
We’ve recently read a wonderful folktale from our library, which touches exactly on the notion of a family dilemma – The Faery’s Gift by Tanya Robyn Batt, illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli (Barefoot Books) – a woodcutter is granted one wish when he helps a Faery – but the rest of his family have very determined and different ideas as to what he should wish for. The ending is a very clever and Younger Brother especially still delights in talking about it now, a couple of weeks later…
May 30th, 2009 at 4:41 am
Oh, I used to love an old book called Swedish Folktales for children, edited by Fridtjuv Berg and with illustrations by Elsa Beskow. Those folktales actually weren’t specifically Swedish, I guess most European countries have them in some version, but I really loved them. And the beutiful illustrations. I especially liked one about the youngest boy in a rich family who has to find a bride. His older brothers marry rich ladies, but he marries a small rat from the forest who has been helpful to him. But of course, in the end, she turns out to be a beautiful princess…
May 30th, 2009 at 6:13 am
Marjorie: I’ll have to look up The Faery’s Gift. My daughter was reluctant to hear me read In the Moonlight Mist to her but once I got going, she was very much into the story and listened quietly throughout.
Anna: I must find your Swedish folktales book! A favorite Scandinavian author who wrote her own folktales is Selma Lagerlof whom I did a post on awhile back: http://www.papertigers.org/wordpress/books-at-bedtime-springtime-and-migrating-birds/
May 31st, 2009 at 9:38 am
Sally: It’s difficult, you won’t find it in the bookstores unfortunately. But if you’d like to see some of Elsa Beskows (1874 – 1953) work (she illustrated and wrote a number of books), you can look at this page. Some of the books have been translated into English.
http://kampanj.bonniercarlsen.se/beskow/titlar1.htm
May 31st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Thanks, Anna. My library does indeed carry some illustrated books by Elsa Beskows which I’ve put on hold to read to my daughter. Thanks for the tip!
June 1st, 2009 at 6:05 am
I am totally captivated by Elsa Beskows illustrations – thank you for that link, Anna. I’d love to hear how you enjoy them, Sally.