“The stories of Finn Mac Cool belong…not to Epic, but to Folklore and Fairytale” |Rosemary Sutcliff on retelling the story of Finn MacCool

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Illustration from From The Author's Note to The High Deeds of Finn MacCool by Rosemary Sutcliff

The stories of Finn Mac Cool belong…not to Epic, but to Folklore and Fairytale; and only here and there … something of the Hero Tale remains.

… The stories of the Fianna are full of loose ends and contradictions, and unexplained wisps of strangeness that seem to have drifted in for no especial reason except that they are curious or beautiful and happened to be floating by.

They are stories made simply for the delight of story-making, and I have retold them in the same spirit – even adding a flicker or a flourish of my own from time to time – as everyone who has retold them in the past thousand years or so has done before me.

Source: Author’s Note to The High Deeds of Finn MacCool

Rosemary Sutcliff could not read until she was ten or eleven years old

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Rosemary Sutcliff could not read until she was ten or eleven years old. Certainly aged nine she saw no point!

My mother in her own splendidly unorthodox fashion, taught me at home, chiefly by reading to me. King Arthur and Robin Hood, myths and legends of the classical world, The Wind in the Willows, The Tailor of Gloucester, Treasure Island, Nicholas Nickleby, Kim, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Little Women, all at more or less the same time. The result was that at the age of nine I was happily at home with a rich and somewhat indigestible stir about of literature, but was not yet able to read to myself. Why, after all, read to yourself when you can get somebody else to read to you?

Historical novelist Rosemary Sutcliff's mother Nessie Lawton 

Source: Donald R. Gallo (1990) Speaking for Ourselves: Autobiographical Sketches by Notable Authors of Books for Young Adults. National Council of Teachers of English.

Dawn Wind (by historical novelist and children’s writer Rosemary Sutcliff) |Reprint reviewed in Historical Novels Review

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Over at Twitter I am tracking down people who can say #Ireadsutcliff , and their favourite(s). Merrian Weymouth in Australia favours —possibly— Dawn Wind, which was recently reprinted. The Historical Novel Society had this to say of it:

First published in 1961, this reprint keeps its original charm by reproducing the black and white illustrations by Charles Keeping. Dawn Wind represents historical fiction at its best. It was written by an author who delighted readers with her detailed and atmospheric stories. It is equally suitable for both young adult and adult readers. A thoroughly enjoyable book.

The novel starts:

The first paragraph of Rosemary Sutcliff’s Dawn Wind

Might we have had a Rosemary Sutcliff-reading England football captain ten years ago?

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Sol Campbell, in the media today for his autobiography-claim that he might have been England football captain for ten years if he were white, ten years ago recommended Rosemary Sutcliff’s Beowulf. He and other stars of the English Premier League promoted a reading list for children, to try to harness the  power of football to encourage families to […]