Why it’s important to read retold myths

Poet and author Clare Pollard discusses why children need to read myths, both modern and traditional. 

BookTrust research shows the benefits of a love of books. But children need to read gripping stories to kindle that love. We asked Clare Pollard why she feels myths are so enticing to readers young and old.  

A trickster takes the form of a fox or a fly. A daughter is abducted by the King of the underworld. A hand emerges from a lake, holding a sword. I don’t know about you, but I’m already hooked. Myths are some of the greatest stories ever told. In some ways they’re the only stories ever told, and all that have come afterwards haveused the same plots and structures: tragedy, comedy, quest. Humans are storytelling creatures, so inlistening to these ancient stories on the carpet or in bed, children take their place in a tradition that stretches back thousands of years.  

Whether African or Ancient Greek, legends bring geography and history to life, reminding us of our shared humanity. Children also need to be taught myths because they are so deeply embedded in our culture – knowing about Maui, Icarus and kitsune is general knowledge that enables children to understand references and allusions that constantly appear in everything from cartoons to Fortnite. And they are also just gloriously entertaining – they have lasted because they are thrilling or funny orcontainunforgettable images: snake-hair; melted wings; a devastating flood; a genie in a lamp. 

Having said this though, I believe very strongly that the stories we tell our children are important, and that storytelling is always political. Plato said that ‘those who tell the stories rule society’. Is your hero a king? That’s political. Is your villain a witch? That’s political. Whilst I am constantly drawn back in my own work to folklore and myth, when I decided to draw on Arthurian literature for my new children’s book The Untameables, I also wanted to think about who told those legends, known as ‘The Matter of Britain’, and how they have been used through history.  

I am always recommending the Usborne Illustrated series of tales – their Greek myths and Arabian Nights are particularly well-thumbed in our house–but reading the Usborne Illustrated Tales of King Arthur to my son I couldn’t help but notice how many celebrated war, violence and hunting, and that women largely figured as evil (Morgan le Fay) or at best stirring trouble between the knights (Guinevere). I was also aware that the Arthurian idea of the ‘true’ or ‘rightful’ king of Britain has been used by many kings to justify their own brutal rules.  

Could I write a book that would both celebrate the great literature that is our children’s heritage – from Medieval bestiaries to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott – that was also anti-war? That questioned, rather than swallowed, the idea of a ruling class which the knights of the round table represent? Could I allow a girl to go on a quest, instead of being a ‘rescued’ maiden?   

In many ways this is simply what has always happened. Storytellers have always changed their stories to suit their audiences, adapting them and making them new. Cinderella used to end with birds pecking out the ugly sisters’ eyes, until it was decided this was too violent for children.The reason many myths have endured is that they’ve been told again and again, which each new generation finding new things in them –around 20 BC, Ovid was already retelling the tale of Theseus and the minotaur, for example, from Ariadne’s perspective in his Heroides, and making Theseus look less than heroic. Retellings that make myths more modern or inclusiveare traditional.  

This is whybooks like Sophie Anderson’s The House With Chicken Legs, Jessie Burton’s Medusa, Rachel Plummer’s Wain or Louie Stowell’s Loki series, are so brilliant. They not only teach young people wonderful myths and legends, they can also remind them to think critically about stories, and who is framed as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.Though that is also something, of course, that the adult reading the myth aloud can do– share the classic iteration of the story, but not unquestioningly. Ask afterwards–who first told this tale and why?  

My novel The Untameables ended up approaching Camelot from the perspective of two children who live below-stairs – a dog-boy and a kitchenhand – who have to get to the grail before the knights. I will not be the last to retell these tales. I hope the children who read my book will grow up, too, hungry to renew them for the next generation– to become part of this beautiful and humane continuum that stretches back through all of history. 

The Untameables by Clare Pollard is out now.