Tales of the Early World

Author: Hughes, Ted

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1988
US ed.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991

Illustrations: Andrew Davidson

Tales of the Early World is Hughes's second book of Creation Tales. While How the Whale Became (the first collection with Creation Tales) contained several stories that were strongly reminiscent of Kipling and Aesop, Tales of the Early World takes the reader into an original Hughesian world. The stories feature God, God's Mother, Woman and Man as major protagonists and are reminiscent of the world portrayed in the link narrative of Crow. A very entertaining read. The third collection of Creation Tales is The Dreamfighter.

Tales of the Early World is also available as an AudioBook, read by Ted Hughes.

See also How the Whale Became, Muck and Magic and The Dreamfighter.. All three books of Creation Tales were collected in a book which is irritatingly also titled The Dreamfighter and Other Creation Tales.

Contents:

• How Sparrow Saved the Birds
• The Guardian
• The Trunk
• The Making of Parrot
• The Invaders
• The Snag
• The Playmate
• The Shawl of the Beauty of the World
• Leftovers
• The Dancers