Tanglewood Tales

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls (1853) is a book by the American author of the celebrated The Scarlet Letter. The book introduces young readers to six classic stories taken from Greek mythology and first narrated in the celebrated epics of such ancient poets as Homer and Ovid. Hawthorne’s main objective was to make these ancient myths accessible to contemporary children, but also to make them compatible with Christian moral codes. There is an implicit insistence, for instance, on the fact that the Greek gods are not actual gods. The book includes an introduction entitled “The Wayside,” which is believed to refer to The Wayside in Concord where Hawthorne himself lived, along with six chapters related to the following Greek myths: “The Minotaur,” “The Pygmies,” “The Dragon’s Teeth” “Circe’s Palace,” “The Pomegranate Seed” and “The Golden Fleece.” Hawthorne’s work is not a mere reiteration of the classic stories, but a renovation and recreation of the original events with a new spirit. It has, therefore, influenced the way these myths are generally perceived by modern readers as well as modern writers.