The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings is a chilling medieval ghost story, retold by bestselling historian Dan Jones. Published in a beautiful small-format hardback, perfect as a Halloween read or a Christmas gift.
Blurb:
One winter, in the dark days of King Richard II, a tailor was riding home on the road from Gilling to Ampleforth. It was dank, wet and gloomy; he couldn't wait to get home and sit in front of a blazing fire.
Then, out of nowhere, the tailor is knocked off his horse by a raven, who then transforms into a hideous dog, his mouth writhing with its own innards. The dog issues the tailor with a warning: he must go to a priest and ask for absolution and return to the road, or else there will be consequences...
First recorded in the early fifteenth century by an unknown monk, The Tale of the Tailor and the Three Dead Kings was transcribed from the Latin by the great medievalist M.R. James in 1922. Building on that tradition, now bestselling historian Dan Jones retells this medieval ghost story in crisp and creepy prose.
Review:
Do you need a short and not-so-sweet story for Halloween? This is the perfect book for that. The tale of the Tailor and the Three dead Kings is a medieval story about 3 dead kings and a tailor who encounters one of the dead kings on a dark winter night.
I loved how the introduction part describes how the research behind this tale occurred.
The book is divided into 3 sections:
First is the introduction to the story and the Monk who wrote it. This section has an intro to the research done by M.R. James during the 1920s and how he discovered this story in the archives of the British Museum. The archives contained a number of medieval ghost stories that were written by a monk in the 1400s from Byland Abbey in Yorkshire in Latin. This book contains the retelling of one of the many discovered tales by Dan Jones.
The second section is the actual story about Snowball, the tailor, and his horse, who encountered a ghost on a dark winter night. Snowball was on his way when he comes across a raven, a goat, a dog, a bull, and a dead king. These are the dead souls of those who still linger on the earth seeking absolution. Snowball is forced to help one of these dead kinds to find the deliverance he was denied after his death. The story itself isn't that horrific but is a perfect fit for a medieval ghostly vibe. Dan has perfectly visualized the story with his words. The story is mostly based on karma and damnation in after-life. This story was probably written based on the Christian religious beliefs about the afterlife and doom of the rotten soul. Since it is a retelling of a medieval ghost story, the idea behind the whole story is perfect for a time when people feared damnation. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the research and the anachronistic vibe.
The third section contains the original Latin text written in the 1400s. Although I don't know Latin, it felt pretty cool to see the actual text which was written by the monk in AD1400.
As I said, this is a short spooky story and perfect for a quick read this Halloween.