Mark P. Henderson

A new book by my friend Pete Castle

Here’s a little book (190 pages) to recommend to anyone interested in storytelling! Where Dragons Soar, by Pete Castle, has been published by The History Press, Stroud, this year.

Like Pete’s other books with The History Press (Derbyshire Folk Tales, 2010 and Nottinghamshire Folk Tales, 2012), Where Dragons Soar is a delight. All sixty-seven stories in the volume are simply and engagingly told so they can be enjoyed by readers of any age and background. I suspect they’ll prove especially useful for storytellers who want to recruit material for gigs involving animal stories, because there’s a rich variety of tales here and each of them begs to be told. This is hardly surprising, since most of them have been in the oral tradition for longer that we can know. Pete has added a few modern tales to the brew as well, but these are no less tellable than their more venerable companions.

In compiling the book, Pete tells us he chose stories that can be called “British” because they’ve circulated in Britain for long enough to become “naturalised”, even if we know they’ve been imported from elsewhere. Another criterion for selection was that each story had to involve one or more animals as its principal focus. Some have human participants, too, but in those cases the humans play a secondary role, even when they spend parts of their lives in animal form (e.g. as werewolves or selkies). Most of the animals are mammals, but there are birds, reptiles, frogs and fish as well – and, as the title indicates, dragons. (Are dragons mammals or reptiles? The synonym worm or wyrm suggests the latter, but modern zoology textbooks are silent on the subject.) Apart from dragons, all our favourite folktale creatures are there: dogs and cats, foxes and wolves, bulls, horses, donkeys, bears, monkeys, hares, seals, lions, unicorns…

The book is divided into eleven chapters, each comprising stories about particular sorts of animals, and the text is interspersed with charming black-and-white illustrations. The author’s introduction is illuminating, explaining his selection from the hundreds (thousands?) of animal-related stories available, and there is a short bibliography at the end of the volume. On the final page there is also a short ‘plug’ for the Society for Storytelling, which is worth joining for any storyteller, professional or amateur.

Our local reading group next meets on Tuesday 5^th April and I shall be recommending Where Dragons Soar ­– an ideal birthday or Christmas present, and perfect holiday or bedtime reading. I shall also mention it, proudly displaying my own copy, at the next storytelling evenings I attend (Matlock, Buxton, Glossop and Hebden Bridge). I’m very glad to have the book on my shelves. I don’t expect it to gather much dust there!