Atalanta and the Arcadian Beast

by Jane Yolen

  But, yes—there was once a rich and powerful civilization in ancient Greece, which we call Mycenaean, where each city was a separate state with its own king, but the people were united by a single language.

  Arcadia was a district of ancient Greece, chiefly inhabited by shepherds and hunters. According to the poet Virgil, it was the home of pastoral simplicity and happiness, but actually it was a poor relative of the rest of the mainland, a mostly mountainous and infertile land, though grain was grown in some of the valleys. Surrounded on all sides by mountains, it has been called the Switzerland of Greece. Because of those mountains, when the rest of Greece was invaded in the Iron Age by the Dorians, Arcadia was left alone and the ancient speech of the Greeks survived there.

  What also survived were anecdotes such as the one about Charmus, the runner, coming in seventh out of six runners, and a great deal of poetry. And—of course—stories. One of the most famous Arcadian stories is of the female hero Atalanta. She was known as a fantastic runner, and the story of her part in the Calydonian boar hunt was a standard in the Greek bardic recitations.

  Did she ever meet Orion, the great hunter of myth, who was loved by Artemis and by the nymphs? Not that we know. But surely if these two hunters ever met, it could have been as prickly comrades. As for Orion’s death, there are many stories—some that he died when Artemis shot him by mistake, some that a scorpion proved his death.

  We have made up the mantiger, a combination of the dreaded manticore (a mythic beast that hankers after human flesh, born in the Indies with the body of a lion, the face of a man, a tail like a scorpion’s) and the revolting Chimera (part goat, part serpent, part lion, with wings).

  But we have not made up Astarte, who was one of the great Semitic goddesses and whose name appears in the Bible as Ashtoreth. She was the nature goddess of fertility and childbirth, as well as patroness of the hunt—so surely she and Artemis would have been rivals.

  And what of Pan, the goat-footed god of flocks and shepherds and wild creatures? Arcadia was always the principal seat of his worship. He is described as wandering among the mountains and valleys there, either amusing himself with the chase or leading the dance of the nymphs. He loved music, invented the syrinx, or shepherd’s pipes, and was dreaded by travelers whom he startled with sudden awe or terror, hence the word panic.

  A woman like Atalanta—even a mythic hero—must have had a childhood and adolescence that foretold her future deeds. This is what we know from the old stories about her: She was the daughter of King Iasus (or Iasius) and Queen Clymene of Arcadia. Expecting a boy, her father was distraught when a girl was born, and so he had her exposed on Mount Parthenon where she was found and suckled by a she-bear. Some passing hunters discovered her and brought her home, training her up as one of their own. Her birth and youth have always been as a footnote to the later stories.

  Those later stories are all about her heroic adulthood. Hearing about a monstrous boar sent by Artemis to devour humans in Calydon when the king there neglected to perform his yearly sacrifices to the goddess, Atalanta took part in the hunt for the boar, despite some grumblings from the other hunters, all of whom were men. Only Meleager, the king’s son, welcomed her. When Atalanta dealt the boar its mortal wound, Meleager gave her the spoils of the hunt. His uncles taunted her, and in a passion Meleager killed them and was, in turn, killed by his own mother. Atalanta then went back to her father’s kingdom where she was finally accepted by him, for he had no other heir, and there she was expected to marry. She refused to do this unless she married a man who could beat her in a footrace. No one could until her handsome cousin Melanion (or Milanion or Hippomenes), having gotten Aphrodite’s protection, won the race with a trick, using golden apples given to him by the goddess to tempt Atalanta off the track. They married and had a son who was a hero and was eventually killed in battle by one of Orion’s grandchildren…but that’s another story altogether.

  We have taken the Atalanta of the legends and tales and projected her backward, using what archaeologists and historians have told us about the civilization she would have inhabited if she had been a real young woman.

  Or a young hero.

  A Conversation Between the Authors

  Jane: When we began the first of the four Young Heroes books, Odysseus in the Serpent Maze, we were quickly heads down in the thirteenth century BCE. I remember feeling amazed each time we swam up to the surface, where we were using computers to write the books, not scrolls, and sending emails back and forth, even when we were living in the same country.

  And look where we are now: We have cell phones that can take us from point A to point B and take and send photographs from any location; we have twitters and tweets and more. Does all this technology make it even harder to get into the Heroic Age mindset?

  Bob: When I try to think about being in a “mindset,” my mind goes completely blank. To give an answer worth reading, I would just have to make something up. In other words, lie.

  Jane: Well, after all, lying is what we do professionally—in other words, telling stories.

  Bob: I’ll give you the truth. Having written stories that span more than two thousand years, I’ll say that there is no mindset for each period. There is only a storytelling mindset, which is about plot and character.

  Jane: Absolutely. The story tells us where we are. Though I have to say, Plot Man, that I would have been well lost in the past without your compass, and your background in the classics. While we can both do the necessary research for details, you are the one who Finds Us a Plot. Me, I am the Follow-Your-Characters-and-Shout-at-Them-to-Slow-Down-and-Wait-for-Me kind of writer.

  How do you invent plot?

  Bob: You’ll remember that we reached a point early in the Odysseus novel where Odysseus and his friends are lost at sea in a small boat. It took us quite a while to decide what would happen next: that they would come upon a ship, but one that appeared to be deserted.

  It was asking questions about that ship that unfolded the plot for the rest of the book: Why is the ship deserted? Who built it? Where did it come from? Once we had answered those questions, the rest of the book almost wrote itself.

  OK, it’s not that easy—but it was something like that.

  Jane: So, if you are stuck without a plot, ask questions! It’s a bit like being lost without a compass or a GPS. But you can find your way if you turn to the nearest friendly resident and are not afraid to ask questions.

  Now that I have that handle on plotting . . . you may have talked your way out of being my cowriter, Bob!

  The thing is, though, when we have two of us working on the same short stories (and we’ve done a bunch of those) as well as novels (four Young Heroes, four Scottish novels), we always come to a place where two heads really are better than one. And sometimes, when we can get your wife, Debby, in on our plotting sessions, the three of us come up with enough plot twists and turns to write a dozen more books. So look out, world!

  A Personal History by Jane Yolen

  I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!

  We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.

  When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a hous
e in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.

  I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.

  And I am still writing.

  I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.

  The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.

  These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.

  And I am still writing.

  Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!

  Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.

  And yes—I am still writing.

  At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.

  Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)

  Enjoying Dirleton Castle in Scotland in 2010.

  Signing my Caldecott Medal–winning book Owl Moon in 2011.

  Reading for an audience at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2012.

  Visiting Andrew Lang’s gravesite at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Scotland in 2011.

  A Personal History by Robert J. Harris

  I was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1955. From a young age, I was writing stories, drawing comics, and making my own board games. It was while at university in St. Andrews that I met my wife, Debby, who had grown up in Florida and had come to Scotland to further her studies in English.

  Shortly after we married and settled in St. Andrews, Debby had her first fantasy novel published, and I created my board game Talisman, which was based upon a game I had originally created in high school. Thirty years later, Talisman is still produced and is being played all over the world. In one television episode of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, the characters are playing Talisman.

  It was a few years after I created Talisman that our friend Jane Yolen prodded me into doing some serious writing. I have written eight novels with Jane: the four Young Heroes books and the Scottish Quartet. I have written novels of my own concerning the boyhood adventures of Leonardo da Vinci and Will Shakespeare, which have been published widely across Europe. I have also written comedy scripts for BBC radio. I have a new novel, a comic fantasy, being published in Scotland later this year.

  In the course of an interesting life I have worked as a nurse, a bartender, a salesman, and an actor. I have traveled to the United States several times, and have made epic journeys across Europe, ending up in Greece, where I have visited many of the sites featured in the Young Heroes adventures.

  My wife and I have three sons: One is training to be a health worker, one now lives in Michigan with his American wife, and the third is an aspiring writer and a musician. We also have a dog named Kyra who loves to eat cheese and chase sticks.

  To learn even more about my life and my books, visit my website: www.harris-authors.com.

  With the boys from my class at Clepington Primary School in Dundee, Scotland, in 1966. I’m in the front row, seated second from the right.

  Playing my homemade version of Talisman in London, England, in 1982, with the guys from Games Workshop, who turned the game into a global phenomenon. I’m in the upper left.

  Playing on a beach in Florida in 1988 with my son Matthew, who was one year old.

  With my wife, Debby, and our sons Matthew, Robert, and Jamie in Prestonpans, Scotland, in 2000.

  At the Morgan Academy High School Reunion in Dundee, Scotland, in 2002.

  At the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Glasgow, Scotland, with my wife, Debby, and my friend and co-author Jane Yolen. They don’t seem to care that I'm being attacked by a fake parrot. (Photo courtesy of Stella Paskins.)

  Surrounded by the games, books, and CDs of radio shows that I have created, in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2006.

  Holding a copy of my game Mythgardia in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2008. Some friends and I produced a limited run of these games, illustrated by my wife, which we sold as special collector’s items.

  Our dog Kyra, who is around six years old, in St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2013.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 by Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris

  Cover design by Julianna Lee

  978-1-4804-2335-0

  This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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  New York, NY 10014

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