"Dragon Slayer" by Rosemary Sutcliff

This is a retelling of the story of Beowulf, "for children of ten years and over." It is a short book, as befits the original, and the story is beautifully told. I was intrigued that the author makes no concessions in terms of language. She makes assumptions that the reader will be able to understand, for example, that a 'targe' is a shield. Furthermore, she deigns to dispense with adjectives and adverbs, so that her prose is as rich as poetry. Perhaps this is only possibly in a short form such as this - perhaps that is how poets get away with it - but the result is a simple tale, told with beauty.

Here is an example:

"In single file, for the track was too narrow to walk abreast, Beowulf and his comrades followed the old Warden on his horse up from the head of the fjord,a grey mailed serpent of men, the forged rings of their battle-sarks ringing as they moved. On the crest of the ridge where the wind-shaped trees fell back, the track changed abruptly into a paved road, and there they checked, with the sea wind humming against their mailed shoulders. Behind them was the way home, the fjord running out between its nesses to the open sea, and the war-boat lying like a basking seal among the brown sea-wrack and the drift-wood on the high tide line." (C 2)

In this paragraph we have a multiplicity of words that a ten year old might encounter for the first time: fjord and battle-sark and nesses and sea-wrack. We have long sentences with multiple parts. We have the wonderful word-play of rings and ringing anmd the super description of the trees as wind-shaped and the wind as humming. It offers no concessions and it achieves beauty.

Also interesting is the pacing of the story. There is a brief introduction, explaining the peril, and then the hero sets off on his journey. But the meat of the story, the battles against the troll-ogre Grendel and his Dam, is quite early on. In the final story, the battle between the old Beowulf and the fire-dragon, the pace is more leisurely. Once the author knows she has hooked her audience, she can take her time to weave her charms to hold them spell-bound.

Other memorable moments:

• "Before even a King makes merry, it is as well that he should know who may hear the laughter in the dark outside." (C 1)
• "The years went by and the years went by, bringing as they passed great changes ... Fifty times the wild geese flew south in the autumn, fifty times the birch buds quickened in the spring." (C 8) Showing the intelligent use of repetition; also, I think, synecdoche.
• "Heat played over its scales so that they changed colour, green and blue and gold, as the colours play on a sword-blade heated for tempering." (C 9): A metaphor belonging perfectly to the context of this story.
• "For ten days they laboured, building it high and strong for the love that they had borne him, and on the tenth day the great howe of piled stones stood finished, notching the sky." (C 9) I love 'notching'

A superb introduction; now I want to re-read the original.

June 2020; 108 pages