The Return of the Light: Twelve Tales from Around the World for the Winter Solstice, 5th Anniversary Edition

by Carolyn McVickar Edwards

A collection of twelve traditional tales from around the world that honor the "return of the light" that takes place on the winter solstice

The winter solstice, the day the "sun stands still," marks the longest night and the shortest day of the year, and it comes either on December 20th or 21st. Celebrations honoring the winter solstice as a moment of transition and renewal date back thousands of years and occur among many peoples on every continent. The Return of the Light makes an ideal companion for everyone who carries on this tradition, no matter what their faith.

Storyteller Carolyn McVickar Edwards retells twelve traditional tales-from North America, China, Scandinavia, India, Africa, South America, Europe, and Polynesia-that honor this magical moment. These are stories that will renew our wonder of the miracle of rebirth and the power of transition from darkness into light.

Genres: Short Stories, Mythology, Fiction, Christmas, Folklore, Holiday, Childrens

Audible Audio

First published October 12, 2000

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short myths are all in celebration of the Winter Solstice and the return of the light. In addition to the 12 stories there are games, rites and songs in the back that look interesting.

The stories include:
Why Hummingbird has a red throat = Olamentko-Miwok, NC
The Golden Earring = Thoria-Orissa, India
Raven Steals the Light = Inuit N. America
The Sun Crow and the Thief = Kuttia Kondh-Orissa, India
How Maui Snared the Sun = Polynesia
How the Cock got his Crown = Miao Tzu, China
Loki and the Death Light = Norse
The Pull-Together Morning = Sukuma, Tanzania
Grandfather Mantis and his Thinking Strings = Kung San, Khalahari Desert
The Girl who Married the Sun = Luhya, Kenya
The Light Keepers Box = Warao, Venezula
La Befano and the Royal Child of Light = Italy

The stories are grouped into 3 categories. The 1st 4 are the theft of the light, Next 4 are the surrender of the Light and the Last 4 are the grace of the light.

If you enjoy world myths and stories, then this should interest you. They are unknown stories to me. It took me a while to get to it, but I’m glad I finished this.

[Melki · Rating 3 out of 5]

They say that spring will come again
No one knows exactly when.
Still the sun's a long lost friend
On the longest night of the year.*

The problem with themed story collections is repetitiveness, and that's really the only thing wrong here. Every tale seems to involve so-and-so stealing/losing the sun/moon/light in general and someone else needing to go get it back again. Still, the author does a wonderful job of collecting folk tales from all over the place and all but one were new to me.

There is also a collection of games that can be played on Solstice night that involve sprinkling glitter on tree roots and pretending to be squirrels. Then you can sing Solstice songs that are traditional carols with lyrics altered to be more New Agey:

Oh holy night!
The stars are brightly shining!
It is the night of the Sun Child's birth.

?

Yeah. I can see my friends and family gathering to do that.

My advice? Read a few of the stories, then go outside and look at the stars.

(Well, all right...you can pretend to be a squirrel if you really want to...)

So keep me safe and hold me tight
Let the candle burn all night
Tomorrow welcome back the night
It was longest night of the year*

*from The Longest Night of the Year by Mary Chapin Carpenter

Listen here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKca...

[abthebooknerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book full of folktales from around the world!

This was super interesting. I loved hearing some of the lesser-known folktales from ancient peoples I was honestly ignorant of. My favorites were La Befana, and the legend of how Loki stole the light (of course). They were all so beautifully written. You can just imagine people hundreds of years ago telling these stories, and speaking these words over a fire.

Writing Quality: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Telling-it-Over-a-Bonfire Quality: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
( ^ yeah, that's a category. No, I did not just make it up)
Enjoyment Level: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

「 Overall: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ 」

[Renee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love the winter solstice, especially as a seasonal affective disorder person who loves the annual reminder (both physical and metaphorical) that “the darkest days are behind us and the world only gets brighter from here”

A book full of creation of the light myths from around the world would normally thrill me. Unfortunately, the author here chose to rewrite the tales in her own voice, rather than curating the stories (most of which are open source) into an anthology. The authors voice loses the feel of most of the stories, especially ones from cultures where the stories would be sung, or where the story is supposed to fall into a rhythm or cadence. The author barely even put in repetition of phrases, rhymed words, or onomatopoeia, all of which are common storytelling tools used in oral traditions. Worst, the author introduces each of the stories with a note about the people that the story came from. Her tone here often felt condescending to the original storytellers and used pejorative descriptors to describe them, like “simplistic”.

All in all, did not like this book. Think that something like this could be cool if it was an anthology using original source material, or where modern storytellers and authors from the people group that the stories came from could retell them (instead of the white lady that wrote this).

[KC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of these stories were interesting and many I have never heard since they were gathered from around the world. Inuit, Chinese, Italian, and even God mythology. What I really liked about this book is the brief intro to each tale and it's people as well as the rites and games at the end of the book. There were even a few Christmas carols in the back.

[Kelly Furniss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of twelve traditional folktales from around the World in celebration of the winter solstice, the customs and the celebrations that take place. A fabulous mix, interesting and educational.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the stories themselves. It felt like the author was trying to push her her own voice and agenda through the stories, and that was distracting when it came through. Her introduction makes her particular agenda clear, but her inclusion of some of the modified songs in the back starts to feel ridiculous, like she’s just trying too hard to force them into her vision for what the season should be. It would have been better if she’d just let the stories and songs from various cultures stand on their own, and only include the ones that fit her agenda instead of trying to push her agenda through the ones that didn’t fit.

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the selected stories that Edwards chose for the book, but I found many of the translations to be a bit forced. Quite honestly it felt like someone had combed through the book and used a thesaurus to change the words in every other sentence to make it sound more complex then it needed to be. The beauty of most of these stories is their simplicity. There is no reason why a two page story needed to be stretched out to 4-5 pages.

[Gilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twelve short, charming folk tales from various world cultures, all interpreting the winter solstice and the creation of day and night. Fun to read one story for each of the twelve days of Christmas.

[Sanalith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book with 12 myths from around the world concerning the birth and/or return of the sun. I'd never read any of them before, and even ones that appeared familiar - such as how the rooster came by his red crown and the tale of La Befana - were versions that were new to me. The author split the tales into three sections - Theft, Surrender, and Grace - which referred to how the light was gained. I did feel some of them didn't quite fit the theme, hence four stars instead of five, but overall I quite enjoyed the author's interpretations. I was also excited for the appendix, which contained several great suggestions for Solstice-themed activities and carols for adults and children. I'll definitely be putting some of them to use next year.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting reading the story told by the ancients to explain the phenomena of increasing and decreasing daylight hours as a result of the rotation and tilting of the planet earth as it rounds the Sun. It must have been frightening as these cultures experienced diminishing light and encouraging when the daylight hours began to lengthen. Year after year but until recent years, maybe the last 200 or 300 did human's begin to understand and explain the Solstices and equinoxes.

[Jenni Pertuset · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of our winter solstice celebration, each member of the family present read one of these solstice stories by candlelight. It was a lovely way to end the day, and a meaningful addition to our family's rituals.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful collection of stories from around the world celebrating the winter solstice and Christmas. I love this book and will keep it forever.

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like mythology, but these tales were just not holding my attention :(

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for children.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of marvelous and carefully located and introduced folktales around the winter solstice. Recommended for lovers of teaching stories, folktales, and those interested in deepening their relationship with the winter solstice.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the winter solstice enough that I really wanted to love this book, but really didn't. The re-telling of many of these tales was flat and the whole thing felt appropriative - the author is a white woman from the US and nearly all the stories came from global indigenous communities.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely little compilation of folktales that helps to garner appreciation for the dark winter months.

[Liv Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cute round up of solstice stories from all other the world!

[Sienna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bedtime reading with my son. This is a patchy collection — some gems, some awkward turns of phrase, some rather shallow analysis between stories — but one that we enjoyed as a part of our nighttime routine. I appreciated that the stories weren't limited to European traditions. The number of typos was kind of astonishing for a book stamped with "fifth anniversary edition." (Had anyone read it during those five years?)

[Bitsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Return of the Light Carolyn McVickar Edwards assembles twelve legends, folktales and fairy tales told about the “return of light” that occurs at the winter solstice. I wanted to know more about the roots of the older traditions surrounding the Winter Solstice before it was taken over by the Church. I didn’t really find that, but I did find several different takes from around the world on just what happens during the solstice, the shortest day of the year, and their explanations for why the sun goes away, and more importantly why it comes back after.

The book is divided into three parts, each part containing four stories of a particular way in which the sun is lost at the solstice: the first through theft, the second through surrender and the third by grace. Each part is preceded with a short discussion about the method of reacquiring the sun, and each story is additionally given an introduction explaining the society it came from and where the story originated.

I thought that the introductions to the book and the sections in particular were by turns overly analytical, and then bizarrely whimsical. They could have perhaps been written in a more user friendly way. I am used to reading sociological and historical texts with a lot of technical terms in them and even I found myself lost and re-reading passages trying to get the gist of the great deal of knowledge the author attempted to cram into very little space. This also resulted in a bit of reader's whiplash when you switched to reading the story.

The stories were simplified and written in a very easy to understand and casual manner, particularly the dialogue which was written in a very believable modern day cadence and made the stories easy to read aloud and easy for listeners of any age to relate to. With the skill exhibited here, the stories were very much the book's strong point. I wish the introductions were similarly written, it would have made for a powerful book.

The ending includes several songs and games to be done on the winter solstice. To me these seemed like very much an after thought. The publisher might have insisted they add them, or an editor tacked them on. They were not well thought out, they were sometimes cheesy, even for families with children, and didn't add anything to the book at all.

The stories though were well written, and powerful, reminders of the other cultures that make up this world and of thee people of the past and their varying reactions to the, probably at that time terrifying, sight of the sun showing up less and less each day. These stories explained for them what was happening and reassured them that the sun would come back and light would return once again.

[Liander (The Towering Pile) Lavoie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was originally posted on my book blog, The Towering Pile.

The Return of the Light is a collection of stories, most of them involving someone stealing the Sun, and then other characters getting it back. The idea behind these stories is that at the Winter Solstice, the Sun has moved away as far as it's going to, and appears to stay far away, sitting still, causing people to worry that it might not come back.

I normally don't like book introductions very much, for whatever reason. But the introduction to this book really made the book, in my opinion. It describes how ancient people saw the Winter Solstice. Reading it, I could easily imagine living in a time when such an event could be a cause for worry. The Sun has been moving away, and now is sitting still, and the people have to convince it to come back. That's where traditions like the Yule log come from: the log burns, showing the Sun how it's done and convincing it to come back and be bright and hot again. This was a really interesting topic to read about.

As for the stories themselves, I enjoyed them, but I tend to find stories like that kind of repetitive. Which sort of makes sense, since it's basically the same event being explained by different groups of people from around the world. So the interesting thing about them is how similar they are. So I guess I just shouldn't have read them all in a row (the same problem I had when I read The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales).

So overall, I still recommend this book. The introduction is great, and the stories are nice to dip into when you just want to read one short story. They'd be good for reading to kids around the Solstice time, teaching them about the origins of the holiday.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mom and I have a tradition of going to a local Yoga Solstice class. It is always the most calming and wonderful experience so I thought I would do a little legend and lore reading on the subject. This slim volume was my first pick and I really enjoyed all the tales from so many cultures, all honoring the return of the sun. The cover artwork is beautiful and reminds me of the class, where they have sprigs of greenery and oranges with cloves to take home, and remember throughout the year, honoring what the Solstice can mean to each of us personally.
This book was broken down into three parts; Theft, Surrender and Grace. The stories of each are well suited, background given for each story and lightly interspersed with lovely artwork. The Light Keeper's Box was one of my favorite stories due to the lushness of detail and the turtle. Grin. Anyone who knows me knows I have a "turtle thing". I did like each story specifically in some way and overall. There are games and songs included in the last bit, for those who want to take a little more lively approach. All in all a good jumping in point for Solstice celebration.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

For having picked this up in an Alaskan gift shop, I quite enjoyed reading it near winter solstice. I liked that the breadth of stories were from multiple cultures across the world, and that some background was presented before each story relating it to the details of the cultures, correlation to modern religion when relevant, etc. I appreciated the bibliography, but am also keeping in mind that the author and the bibliography authors don’t seem to necessarily be a member of those cultures whose stories are presented here.

[Ami · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was worth the interlibrary loan wait for the introduction alone. It begins with a great historical and anthropological explanation of solstice-time celebrations. The author has a masterful command of effective and dare I say effervescent vocabulary and manages to be insightful, informative, and succinct. What follows is 12 tales themed around Light. The introductory pieces before each section and each story were usually as good if not better than the stories themselves. The sections of the book were intriguing: Theft, Surrender, and Grace. The songs at the end had some good solstice lyric rewrites, and a couple that just didn't fit the flow of the songs. It was a very nice collection to read aloud a story at a time. Very exciting!

[Melanie Gaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked these stories a lot. I was not familiar with almost all of them. The short introductions before each story were useful because they provided background info about the country and culture the tale came from.
The longer introduction in the beginning could be skipped, I feel. It felt a little preachy and like a research paper. The author compared Mithras to Jesus and provided some points on how they are similar (such as being born from virgins and having 12 disciples), but I have never heard those arguments before and could not find anything online to support her claims. Despite having a rich and detailed bibliography, she did not have any sources for the ancient Roman history, so I am curious where she got her information from for that topic.

[Rachel Kopel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darn, looking for the book I have on the list I have found two more that look interesting. Maybe next year??
Nov 28, I am starting this as part of my Advent/Solstice reading. No idea where the time will come from, but it has been moved to the actual couch cushion.

It was nice to read these stories, one every few nights, and I did get all the way through it. I really liked it and am going to look for more books by the same author.

[Sally Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

My husband worked last night, and I, without him near me, could not sleep. So I read this entire book. this book is simple in construct. It does not dive into traditions that developed out of the myths surrounding the Winter Solstice, but it does cover the original myths very quickly.

Fun read overall and a great reference book as well as a book to read throughout the years. I read the Norse myth to my daughters today and plan on reading another this evening.

[Kerfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edwards celebrates the Winter Solstice with twelve stories about light from twelve different cultural traditions. She emphasizes the parallels in ancient myth and celebration that have been folded into current religious ceremony and belief, dividing the gift of light into acquisition by theft, by surrender, or through grace.

The introduction to each story also contains background information on the peoples that tell the tale.

[Darceylaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been having a lot of trouble finding new stories for the Winter Solstice. This book is pretty unique in that. The stories are well told, and draw from myths and folklore from all over the world. I appreciate the brief cultural context Edwards gives before each story. I think I'm set for Winter Solstice tales for quite some time.