Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea Folk

by Jane Yolen, David Wiesner (Illustrator)

Selchies and undine, merrows and mermaids, sea gods and sirens have peopled the imaginations of land folk from time immemorial. Now in these superb stories of the magical denizens of the sea, distinguished poet and storyteller Jane Yolen has taken themes from ancient myth, medieval romance, nineteenth-century fairytale and modern science fiction and woven them into original contemporary fantasies of compelling beauty and fascination.

In one, a loving wife rescues her husband from the deadly enchantment of a sea goddess; in another, a woman encounters Proteus on a New England seacoast; in a third, deep-sea magic lures a tourist from an antique shop in a back alley of London to the bottom of the Indian Ocean and a terrifying confrontation with an evil mer creature.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Contemporary, Fiction, Poetry

151 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1982

About the author

Jane Yolen is a novelist, poet, fantasist, journalist, songwriter, storyteller, folklorist, and children’s book author who has written more than three hundred books. Her accolades include the Caldecott Medal, two Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, the Kerlan Award, two Christopher Awards, and six honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Born and raised in New York City, the mother of three and the grandmother of six, Yolen lives in Massachusetts and St. Andrews, Scotland.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 2 out of 5]

There may be a specific age for which this book would hold great appeal -- say 12: old enough to understand and perhaps be intrigued by the omnipresent sexual themes (seriously, JY, do sea spirits not have any other interests?) but not old enough to be bored by the writing style and repetitiveness.

Obviously Yolen has skill. She's written many better things, although she's never been a a favorite of mine. And there is some skill displayed here, primarily in capturing a folktale-ish feel in a modern way. But emotionally the stories seem by and large flat, especially given that they are dealing with love and passion. I didn't get the feeling that Yolen really had a grip on how to talk about sex, which made it odd that she choose to write a how collection around that topic.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of stories involving mermaids and sea folk. I read this book when I was a child and needed to re-read it because some of the stories had stayed in my head. One story in particular, has haunted me for years, and upon re-reading, it had the same effect.

Jane Yolen is an excellent and imaginative writer and this was a fun re-read.

[Beauty is a Necessity · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am unimpressed with Jane Yolen. This book was such a letdown. She has written hundreds of books however they are pretty shallow in nature. People claim her works are lyrical, well not really in my opinion. Every now and again you find a beautiful line. It feels as though in most of her books she has cranked out the shortest of stories to sell more books. They have the same disturbing theme being such cruel treatment/abandonment of one’s child or a specific person by the towns people etc. I bought The Moon Ribbon, The Girl Who Cried Flowers, The Hundredth Dove and this. I will not try any more of her books. I honestly wouldn’t wish my children to read them. There are far better books out there than hers. The stories end abruptly often times leaving you hanging. This book hardly had any mermaid stories in it and the introduction indicates merfolk don’t have tongues. I’ve never even heard this before and I am a collector of merfolk lore. I felt the stories to be loathsome and boring. Moving on now.

[Mona Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

great stories and legends of mermaids and mermen.

[Caylin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a pretty good book! i liked how it was a short read, it took me 30 minutes to read it. I really enjoyed reading it in class! It was recommended to me from a friend, and i'm glad i read it.

[Nerija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yolen gathers together her previously published stories and poems about merfolk, including four about selkies. There’s “Greyling,” which I first read years ago as a picture book, in which a fisherman finds a seal pup and takes him home to his wife, only to find a human baby in its place. For fifteen years, the couple tries to keep the child from returning to the sea, but of course we know that won’t work forever. There’s “The Fisherman’s Wife,” who swims to the sea floor to save her husband from a mermaid who keeps the skeletons of all the other men she’s seduced. There’s “The Corridors of the Sea,” about a man with an implanted gill system whose body starts adapting better to the sea than to air.

I definitely recommend this collection to fans of mer-lore. Did you know that in many old stories, merpeople, like fish, have no tongues? Yolen tells of Neptune and Old King Lir, Proteus and Davy Jones. A woman threatened by the famous Malaysian Mer calls upon Poseidon, Neptune, Njord, Ran, and Dagon to save her. An undine, like in the fairy tale by Friedrich de La Motte Fouque, is seduced by a human who then drops her for another woman. No wonder Jane Yolen is one of my favorite tellers of fairy tales!

. . . . .
originally posted at Postcards from La-La Land

[Nathan Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been a slow reader...mostly due to distrac...SQUIRREL! Ehem...so I was rather surprised I finished in one day. The book was a pretty fast read anyway, but held my attention nicely. It's a series of short stories and since they're by the same author, I didn't find myself having to shift mental gears between widely divergent writing styles. I won't say the stories are delightful, though. Far from it. In fact, most of them either had bittersweet or even mildly sad endings, or incomplete resolutions. Usually the latter is a bit of a problem. But in this case, many of the old tales of seafolk are like that and I suspect the author was aiming to emulate that. I also have to remind myself that any story is but one part of a wider history anyway. They're all very well-written and each has the feel of a tale that could have been much older. Moreover, the artwork accompanying each story is excellent and reflects each one quite nicely. Also interspersed between the stories are poems by the author.

[Stuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

The hardcover print of this book is beautiful, with lovely artwork and text layout that definitely adds to the stories, some of which are better than others- as with almost any collection of short stories. Yolen definitely explores various water legends and myths in interesting ways, though I found myself yearning, oddly, for a more traditional mermaid depiction to show up somewhere. The tale of a lady antiques collector who faces off with an aquatic spirit in a junk shop has stuck with me the most out of all these tales but I'm happy to have such a lovely volume in my library and look forward to one day reading it to children who will no doubt love Yolen as much as I did.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was 10 I borrowed this this book from the library at least five times. i still think of it from time to time. Jane Yolen is a fabulous story teller.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good! I LOVE mermaids!

[Kaseka · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic book I read often when very young, and that was just as wonderful when I read it again a few years ago.

[Edith Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my favorite books in middle school.

[Cassondra · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice collection of stories although some of them gave me shivers

[sarah rouan · Rating 3 out of 5]

i love selchies.