Tanglewood Tales

Summary

Tanglewood Tales is Nathaniel Hawthorne's second book of Greek myths retold for children, a sequel to A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. In a short introduction called The Wayside, Hawthorne pretends that the stories were written by his young friend Eustace Bright, a Williams College student who had told the first set to a group of children at Tanglewood in the Berkshires; Eustace visits Hawthorne's snowy Concord hillside with six new stories, and Hawthorne agrees to act as editor. The introduction explains the plan of the book: the old myths are to be told so that their cruel and gloomy parts fall away and the stories feel as if they came from the childhood of the world. Six tales follow. In The Minotaur, young Theseus lifts the great stone that hides his father's sword and sandals, travels to Athens clearing the road of robbers such as Procrustes, escapes a poisoned cup prepared by the enchantress Medea, and sails to Crete with the youths sent as tribute; the princess Ariadne gives him a silken thread to guide him through the labyrinth, he kills the Minotaur, but forgets to change his black sails, and his father Aegeus throws himself into the sea. Hawthorne has Ariadne refuse to leave her old father. The Pygmies tells of the friendly earth-born giant Antaeus and the tiny people who live around him, until Hercules arrives and defeats Antaeus by lifting him away from his Mother Earth; the Pygmies then attack the sleeping hero, who is so charmed by their courage that he leaves them in peace. The Dragon's Teeth follows Cadmus, his brothers Phoenix and Cilix, their friend Thasus and their mother Telephassa as they search the world for Europa, carried off by a white bull; one by one the searchers settle and found cities, Telephassa dies, and Cadmus follows a brindled cow, kills a dragon, sows its teeth, and with the five warriors who survive the battle of the armed men founds a city and marries Harmonia. In Circe's Palace, King Ulysses rescues his greedy shipmates, turned into swine by the enchantress Circe, with the help of Quicksilver and a snow-white flower, and restores King Picus from the shape of a woodpecker. The Pomegranate Seeds tells how Pluto carries off Proserpina, how Mother Ceres searches the world with a torch and makes the earth barren, and how Proserpina, who has eaten nothing for six months, is tempted at the last moment by a dry pomegranate and must spend six months of each year underground. The Golden Fleece follows Jason from the cave of Chiron the Centaur to the court of King Pelias, the building of the Argo, and the voyage of the heroes to Colchis, where the princess Medea helps him tame the brazen bulls, sow the dragon's teeth and put the dragon to sleep. The book was published in Boston by Ticknor, Reed and Fields in 1853 with illustrations by Hammatt Billings.

Top Lessons

• The monster within

  When Theseus finds the Minotaur, Hawthorne stops the story to tell his young listeners that anyone who lets evil into his nature becomes a kind of Minotaur, lonely and an enemy to others. Circe's palace makes the same point comically: the greedy sailors become the pigs they already resembled.

• Faithful to family

  Cadmus stays with his weary mother when others stop searching, Thasus keeps a fire and a bed ready for Europa all his life, and Ariadne will not leave her old father even for Theseus. Hawthorne fills these tales with children who love and honor their parents.

• Small in body, great in soul

  The Pygmies are no bigger than a finger, yet they challenge Hercules himself. Hercules laughs, but he also honors their courage and goes away rather than hurt them. Courage is measured by the heart, not by size.

• Promises and small mistakes

  Theseus forgets to change the black sails, and Proserpina tastes a few pomegranate seeds; both small lapses bring great sorrow. The tales show children that a promise or a rule can matter more than it seems at the time.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Medicine is incidental but present in small, period-revealing touches. The introduction's chatty report on the Tanglewood children, who have come easily through scarlet fever, whooping cough and possibly measles, records the ordinary childhood epidemics of a New England family in the 1850s. Chiron is remembered as the teacher of Aesculapius and of the art of curing diseases. Poisons and drugs drive several plots: Medea's fatal drop in Theseus's goblet, Circe's enchanted wine, the snow-white flower that protects Ulysses, and Medea's sleeping potion for the dragon. Telephassa's slow decline on the road and Ceres' grief, which makes the whole earth barren and the cattle starve, give mythic shape to mourning; Aegeus's leap from the cliff is told gently but plainly.

• The Wayside (introduction)

  Hawthorne reports which Tanglewood children have had scarlet fever, whooping cough, a measles-like eruption, and troublesome second teeth.

• The Minotaur

  Medea prepares a poison so strong that a fly sipping from the goblet drops dead; later Aegeus, seeing the black sails, falls from the cliff.

• The Dragon's Teeth

  Strangers think Telephassa is out of her mind with grief; she grows feeble and dies asking for a good long rest.

• The Pomegranate Seeds

  Ceres in her grief withholds the harvest so that fields and cattle starve, while Proserpina refuses all food for six months in Pluto's palace.

• The Golden Fleece

  Chiron teaches harp, war and the curing of diseases; at the end Medea drugs the dragon with a sleeping potion.