I first read Puck of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling 40 years ago - we somehow had a great edition with the original drawings and I loved it.
I decided to re-read it recently because I was reminded of it, and I wanted to know how Kipling held up for me now, with what I know about how he felt about the British Empire and the White Man’s Burden.
Honestly, it’s much better and more nuanced than I expected. It’s first and foremost a book for English children in 1907 and also a genuinely heartfelt attempt to write an English creation myth. In that sense it’s not that different from Tolkien.
The basic setup is that two children (Dan and Una) in Sussex meet Puck, the last and oldest fairy in England. Rather than turn them into cockroaches or something you’d actually expect Puck to do, the old fae instead does… first series of Doctor Who style magical education? He summons various people from English history - nobody famous, witnesses and bystanders - to show them what he thinks England is and where it comes from.
And where it comes from is basically a heck of a lot of imperialism and colonialism. Chronologically we start with a centurion on Hadrian’s Wall in the 4th century as the Romans leave Britain, and there’s a lot of discussion about what the Empire means and what it’s worth (not a lot). Then we come to a Norman knight at Hastings and his settling in Sussex. In both stories is the idea that if you conquer a place, you must assimilate and adopt it as your new home, or leave - you cannot be both British and Roman, or both English and French, and those who try will suffer.
Finally, we come to the last story, which is told by the Jewish moneylender Kadmiel, who prevents King John from borrowing money and thus forces him to sign Magna Carta. Kadmiel is also a surprisingly nuanced portrait of English Jewishness - bitter but heroic, well used to persecution but proud of his ability to use money to do the right thing. He’s clearly a close cousin to Shylock and we really don’t need a reinforcing of the racist cliche that Jews secretly control international finance, but he could be much worse, I think.
(There are many other stories other than the main three and they’re all pretty interesting. There’s one about fairy refugees crossing the Channel in a small boat that seems oddly prophetic.)
I decided to re-read it recently because I was reminded of it, and I wanted to know how Kipling held up for me now, with what I know about how he felt about the British Empire and the White Man’s Burden.
Honestly, it’s much better and more nuanced than I expected. It’s first and foremost a book for English children in 1907 and also a genuinely heartfelt attempt to write an English creation myth. In that sense it’s not that different from Tolkien.
The basic setup is that two children (Dan and Una) in Sussex meet Puck, the last and oldest fairy in England. Rather than turn them into cockroaches or something you’d actually expect Puck to do, the old fae instead does… first series of Doctor Who style magical education? He summons various people from English history - nobody famous, witnesses and bystanders - to show them what he thinks England is and where it comes from.
And where it comes from is basically a heck of a lot of imperialism and colonialism. Chronologically we start with a centurion on Hadrian’s Wall in the 4th century as the Romans leave Britain, and there’s a lot of discussion about what the Empire means and what it’s worth (not a lot). Then we come to a Norman knight at Hastings and his settling in Sussex. In both stories is the idea that if you conquer a place, you must assimilate and adopt it as your new home, or leave - you cannot be both British and Roman, or both English and French, and those who try will suffer.
Finally, we come to the last story, which is told by the Jewish moneylender Kadmiel, who prevents King John from borrowing money and thus forces him to sign Magna Carta. Kadmiel is also a surprisingly nuanced portrait of English Jewishness - bitter but heroic, well used to persecution but proud of his ability to use money to do the right thing. He’s clearly a close cousin to Shylock and we really don’t need a reinforcing of the racist cliche that Jews secretly control international finance, but he could be much worse, I think.
(There are many other stories other than the main three and they’re all pretty interesting. There’s one about fairy refugees crossing the Channel in a small boat that seems oddly prophetic.)
