volcano, Etna, so as to search through nine long, grief-filled days and nights. She
ate no food, she didn’t wash, and she took no rest. On the tenth night, when no
moon shone, Hecate came out of the cave and appeared before the bereft mother.
Saxby 1990:26Medea’s slaying of her children because Jason has cast her aside for another woman who
would advance his fortunes in the ancient city of Corinth is an archetypal story of what
is happening all too frequently in our own culture. Perseus leaves home and goes forth
to slay the Medusa because an evil Polydectes lusts after his mother and sends Perseus
on a dangerous errand. Perseus, like any jealous but protective son, uses his grizzly
trophy to render Polydectes impotent by turning him into stone.
The ancient Greeks knew all about catharsis—the purging of the emotions by being
party to true tragedy, which evokes both pity and terror. Such potent stories reflect an
ongoing temper of mind and are products not just of a particular period or a specific
culture. No other stories offer children the same imaginative or emotional depth, the
same insight into the human condition and the essential truth of universal experience.
They provide children with something of the same kind of experience that adults find in
King Lear or Crime and Punishment. Whereas the protagonists of the fairy tale live
‘happily ever after’ the heroes (male or female) of myth and legend don’t necessarily
triumph in the end. They have harder choices to make than Jack climbing his beanstalk.
For they are often dogged by misfortune or traits of character. Pride—or hubris—always
leads to nemesis; the downfall of the hero, as it does with Roland of France. But as with
Roland his ultimate triumph is not as important as his persistence, courage and
integrity. Without being overtly didactic the stories of myth and legend have an inherent
moral. Icarus flies too close to the sun and plummets to the sea. Orpheus looks back
(remember Lot’s wife!) and must return from the Underworld bereft and alone.
A taboo has not been heeded. So Orpheus is doomed to wander an earth which has
lost its sweetness. Yet he endures; singing to the end: and his lyre is set among the
stars.
We might well ask as did Paul Hazard:
How would heroism be kept alive in our ageing earth if not by each fresh, young
generation that begins anew the epic of the human race? The finest and noblest of
books intended for children tell of heroism. They are the inspiration of those who,
in later life, sacrifice themselves that they may secure safety for others.
Hazard 1947:170So it is with Beowulf—or King Arthur, who some say:
sleeps still in Avalon, while his wounds heal, awaiting the call to the upper world as
king in the hour of his country’s need. Others say that he sleeps in the fiery cradle
of Etna or at Snowdon in Wales, or at Glastonbury. Perhaps he rests in the hearts
of all noble men. Hic Iacet Arthurus, Rex Quondam que Futurus—Here lies Arthur,
the Once and Future King.
Saxby 1989:141166 MYTH AND LEGEND