'Ordinary Wonder Tales' is captivating
Emily Urquhart is the author of "Ordinary Wonder Tales: Essays". CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY Andrew Trant - ContributedST. JOHN'S, N.L. — In the 10 essays of “Ordinary Wonder Tales: Essays“, Emily Urquhart, a self-described “journalist on the folklore beat,” weaves a fascinating tableau of folklore and memoir, current affairs and age-old conundrums. After all, “For every malady of the human psyche there is a folk tale.
Again and again she discerns the core of a tale and embeds it in current, often personal, events and experiences. “Lessons for Female Success” lists such examples as “Lesson One: By horrible example, a woman learns how not to get killed,” where Urquhart, employed at a summer camp, is “tasked with searching every cabin on camp for the name of the vilest sexual predator that my country has ever seen” and effacing it.
Possibly the chapter that will draw most attention, for obvious reasons, is “The Plague Legends.” These tales are packed with compelling, germane imagery, including a woman who can take many forms: “If you see her approaching your village and she’s carrying a rake, it’s not good, but it’s better than if she’s carrying a broom. If she’s carrying a broom, no one will survive.”
And plague legends recur with reason. “’We couldn’t go to the public pool that summer. The playgrounds were closed.’ Our neighbour, who is nearly ninety, is leaning over her walker, telling me about a polio outbreak during her childhood in Toronto. ‘We couldn’t play with other children. We stayed away from crowds.’”
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