The Silver Curlew

Unfortunately this is not the best example of Farjeon's work. Nor of Shephard's to be honest. It's fine if you're always looking for elaborations of fairy tales like I am, but not worth seeking out. I am a sucker for tales, and for Farjeon's poetical writing, and for the slapstick & wordplay of the scene of getting ready for the christening, and for the sentiment & shape of the ending, though, and so will round my rating up to four stars.

'Poll stomped her foot, crying, "Why doesn't anybody answer my questions?" Then she sulked, because stamping in the sand gives you no satisfaction at all.'

Oh, but don't put flour on burns.

There is an old Norfolk story of a little black imp with a name and a twirling tail, who spun twelve skeins of flax in half an hour to save the pretty head of the Queen of Norfolk. Eleanor Farjeon has made the old tale the heart of her new story for children, and round it has imagined a wonderful world-full of memorable people.

Probably the most important person is twelve-year-old Poll - brown as a nut, bright as a button, sharp as a needle, inquisitive as a kitten Poll. But very important too are Nollekins, King Noll of Norfolk, the king with a double nature, and his slow, sweet, Queen Doll, who loves apple dumplings (a round dozen, if possible); and Mother Codling and her four sons, good strong lads with enormous appetites, who say show more little and think less; and quiet, gentle Charlee Loon who lives on the beach and pipes tunes for the puffins to dance to; and the odd creatures of the Witching Wood, led by old Rackny and the Little Black Imp himself. And, among many others, the lovely and mysterious Silver Curlew. show less

Eleanor Farjeon, now almost forgotten, had a lyrical, dreamlike quality to her writing which modern writers could do worse than to emulate. Here she retells 'Rumpelstiltskin' in her own inimitable manner, and E H Shepard draws the pictures.