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Outsiders
Six strange and haunting stories, set in isolated communities inland and by the sea, where insiders stick together, and outsiders - a girl outlawed for her illegitimate child, a wild man who walks out of the sea - are regarded with suspicion. Kevin Crossley-Holland has a genius for reinventing folk tales in a way that makes the characters real people, whose thoughts and feelings are our own. This little collection brings together some of his finest and most admired retellings, including the three best-known of all, 'The Green Children', 'Sea-Tongue' and 'The Wild Man'. Linked by ideas about exile and displacement, they make a thought-provoking book for our times, beautifully presented with line drawings by a notable artist.
101 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
5 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Crossley-Holland
207 books243 followersKevin Crossley-Holland is an English poet and prize-winning author for children. His books include Waterslain Angels, a detective story set in north Norfolk in 1955, and Moored Man: A Cycle of North Norfolk Poems; Gatty's Tale, a medieval pilgrimage novel; and the Arthur trilogy (The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing-Places and King of the Middle March), which combines historical fiction with the retelling of Arthurian legend.
The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal. The Arthur trilogy has won worldwide critical acclaim and has been translated into 21 languages.
Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon, and his retellings of traditional tales include The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales (reissued as The Magic Lands). His collaborations with composers include two operas with Nicola Lefanu ("The Green Children" and "The Wildman") and one with Rupert Bawden, "The Sailor’s Tale"; song cycles with Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias; and a carol with Stephen Paulus for King’s College, Cambridge. His play, The Wuffings, (co-authored with Ivan Cutting) was produced by Eastern Angles in 1997.
He often lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council, regularly leads sessions for teachers and librarians, and visits primary and secondary schools. He offers poetry and prose workshops and talks on the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, King Arthur, heroines and heroes, and myth, legend and folk-tale.
After seven years teaching in Minnesota, where he held an Endowed Chair in the Humanities, Kevin Crossley-Holland returned to the north Norfolk coast in East Anglia, where he now lives.
He has a Minnesotan wife, Linda, two sons (Kieran and Dominic) and two daughters (Oenone and Eleanor). He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, a patron of the Society of Storytelling and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal. The Arthur trilogy has won worldwide critical acclaim and has been translated into 21 languages.
Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon, and his retellings of traditional tales include The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales (reissued as The Magic Lands). His collaborations with composers include two operas with Nicola Lefanu ("The Green Children" and "The Wildman") and one with Rupert Bawden, "The Sailor’s Tale"; song cycles with Sir Arthur Bliss and William Mathias; and a carol with Stephen Paulus for King’s College, Cambridge. His play, The Wuffings, (co-authored with Ivan Cutting) was produced by Eastern Angles in 1997.
He often lectures abroad on behalf of the British Council, regularly leads sessions for teachers and librarians, and visits primary and secondary schools. He offers poetry and prose workshops and talks on the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, King Arthur, heroines and heroes, and myth, legend and folk-tale.
After seven years teaching in Minnesota, where he held an Endowed Chair in the Humanities, Kevin Crossley-Holland returned to the north Norfolk coast in East Anglia, where he now lives.
He has a Minnesotan wife, Linda, two sons (Kieran and Dominic) and two daughters (Oenone and Eleanor). He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, a patron of the Society of Storytelling and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 14, 2018
This book includes six strange stories about different characters. My favourite ones were Sea-Woman, The Wildman, Three Blows.
Briefly about the story Sea-Woman: Fisherman saw a group of sea-people dancing without sealskins. Sealskins are their clothes. Without their clothes they can't go to the sea. When the fisherman saw their sealskins, he ran toward the a pile of sealskins to get one of them. He got a sealskin. Its owner stayed with the fisherman and beg her sealskin. Fisherman went to his home holding tightly her sealskin and sea woman followed him. As soon as he got home, he hid her sealskin. Without her skin, she was unable to go back to the sea. They married and had one daughter and then two sons.
One day, while he was absent, the children found the sealskin and brought it to their mother to ask what it was. The mother saw that in a shocked way and she prepared to go to the sea and put on the skin. She kissed and hugged each of her children and ran to the sea.
In the end, she feels freedom in the sea. The husband left with three children.
Kevin Crossley-Holland is a new author for me.
Briefly about the story Sea-Woman: Fisherman saw a group of sea-people dancing without sealskins. Sealskins are their clothes. Without their clothes they can't go to the sea. When the fisherman saw their sealskins, he ran toward the a pile of sealskins to get one of them. He got a sealskin. Its owner stayed with the fisherman and beg her sealskin. Fisherman went to his home holding tightly her sealskin and sea woman followed him. As soon as he got home, he hid her sealskin. Without her skin, she was unable to go back to the sea. They married and had one daughter and then two sons.
One day, while he was absent, the children found the sealskin and brought it to their mother to ask what it was. The mother saw that in a shocked way and she prepared to go to the sea and put on the skin. She kissed and hugged each of her children and ran to the sea.
In the end, she feels freedom in the sea. The husband left with three children.
Kevin Crossley-Holland is a new author for me.
November 10, 2024
It's always fun reading fables and folk tales especially ones that don't conform to the Disney good vs evil. The stories might not scratch that primal urge for justice or righteousness but that's what makes them feel so much more real
May 9, 2016
I've always taken great pleasure in reading Kevin's work. You can tell that's he's a poet caught within the world of writing. Each phrase is played and toyed with until it sings and each story that he retells is rich in its lore. Here are six stories set within isolated communities based around the UK. His spin on these well-known tales bring a fresh reinvention to themes of exile and deplacement: both of which are still pertinent and important to our time now.
October 29, 2022
Beautiful language, short rewriting of legends from Britain.
November 30, 2022
sad, dark and depressing. just your typical collection of british folklore. but it was creative - I'd give you that but still dreary
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July 16, 2013Kevin Crossley-Holland writes. No really writes. I'm not a one for whether something is "literature" or not. For me does it "read" do I enjoy it, perhaps it fires or engages something in me, imagination, intellect, heart or soul and I find a place for it in my memory and enters a special category. I have yet to read something of his that hasn't hammered on the door to my memory palace.
His prose he gears for the form of his stories. Here telling tales from antiquity, British folk tales, in origin which would have been oral and handed down in oral forms, he tries to invoke the spirit of that oral telling. Does it work. Depends on the ear of the reader and a reverence for the attempt. Like the writings of Alan Garner one "takes" to them or not I suspect.
"One story has haunted me all my life: that of the two green children discovered at Woolpit in Suffolk at the end of the 12th century. I’ve revisited it several times and, in the version published by OUP, told the story from the viewpoint of the green girl. The way in which one retells a tale is of course crucial, and I have subsequently retold several tales as monologues. These are gathered in Outsiders (Orion), and in this book ‘Sea Tongue’ is a kind of sound-story, a fractured narrative spoken by all the different elements in the tale."
These tales have the theme of the Outsider and are taken I think from an earlier collection of his simply entitled British Folktales.
His prose he gears for the form of his stories. Here telling tales from antiquity, British folk tales, in origin which would have been oral and handed down in oral forms, he tries to invoke the spirit of that oral telling. Does it work. Depends on the ear of the reader and a reverence for the attempt. Like the writings of Alan Garner one "takes" to them or not I suspect.
"One story has haunted me all my life: that of the two green children discovered at Woolpit in Suffolk at the end of the 12th century. I’ve revisited it several times and, in the version published by OUP, told the story from the viewpoint of the green girl. The way in which one retells a tale is of course crucial, and I have subsequently retold several tales as monologues. These are gathered in Outsiders (Orion), and in this book ‘Sea Tongue’ is a kind of sound-story, a fractured narrative spoken by all the different elements in the tale."
These tales have the theme of the Outsider and are taken I think from an earlier collection of his simply entitled British Folktales.
October 12, 2012
I liked the idea of this book rather more than the execution of it. There are some lovely images and descriptions within the stories. Each story is based in an old folklore story, and told to suit the author. There is a useful section at the back which tells the reader where the stories came from/were inspired by, and how old they are. Often the stories represent something within human society, and could be used as moral tale.
February 9, 2016
Step into a strange world of fantasy stories about sea-women and green-faced children where nothing is quite as it seems. This book is made up of six short stories about different characters. My favourite was one about a sea-man who lived in the sea but the humans didn't like him because he was different and they were horrible to him.
January 1, 2009
While these are well told stories, the were a disappointment after the poetic language and compelling story-telling of the Arthur trilogy.
December 1, 2014
Mysterious and beautiful tales retold.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews