“That’s how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you’d have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”
“In the old tales, kindness is the purest form of heroism. Find the character who meets the world with a big heart and an open hand and you have found your hero or heroine.”
I’ve learned that this tale is conceived with help from the kids of the Gaiman and McKean. Maddy Gaiman has a nightmare of wolves scratching the walls of their house. Gaiman helped Maddy cope with this fear by storytelling, making strategies to escape from the wolves or something like that—and these plotting became a part of the story.
“Uncle Remus,′ said the little boy one evening, when he had found the old man with little or nothing to do, ‘did the fox kill and eat the rabbit when he caught him with the Tar-baby?’ ‘Dear me, honey, didn’t I tell you about that?’ replied the old man, chucking slyly.”
But when Per receives a deadly injury, Andrea’s decision to take him into the 21st century to save him has explosive results. Per, seeing how powerful and destructive the Elves truly are, swears to keep them from his land forever. And in the bloody battle that ensues, Andrea must finally choose whose side she is on.
“You’re expecting us to go back there, to put ourselves at risk, and saying you’ll talk to them again just isn’t good enough! We though you had talked to them!′ The other chorused and nodded agreement, hair flying, beards bobbing.”
Two allegorical stories, one of a boy named Africa and one of a captive Alaskan wolf who has only one eye, Blue Wolf, merge through a unique device in this unusual tale.
“When I was young I told a tale of buried gold, and men from leagues around dug in the woods. I dug myself. But why? I thought the tale of treasure might be true.”
“The pink hue of dawn had turned to turquoise when Mahoney turned for home at the end of the dawn patrol. One machine of his Flight was lagging back, and for the hundredth time he turned and waved for it to close up, smiling as he did so.”
“A poet, a weaver of dreams, a man who makes glory from nothing and dazzles you with its making. And my job now is to tell this day’s tale in such a way that men will never forget our great deeds.”