Category: | Our Mythical Childhood Survey

Caroline Bruce Cooney

On the Seas to Troy / Goddess of Yesterday: A Tale of Troy

Six-year-old Anaxandra is abducted from her family’s humble island by a pirate king named Nicander. After inadvertently revealing the location of her father’s hidden treasure hoard, she loses all value as a hostage, but remains in the household of Nicander, who turns out to be a kind man. Anaxandra grows up as a playmate for his sickly daughter Callisto. But when she is twelve, another band of pirates attacks Siphnos, slaughter Nicander and lay waste to his kingdom. Miraculously, Ana(...)

literary

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Euneus Hector Helen Hermione Medusa Menelaus Paris (Trojan Prince) Trojan War Troy

Margery Jean Gill, Roger Lancelyn Green

The Luck of Troy

The Luck of Troy transforms the Trojan War saga into an original story focalised through the character of the twelve year old boy Nicostratus, the son of Menelaus and Helen. Having been brought to Troy by his mother when he was a baby, Nico grows up in the besieged city, with only hazy memories of Greece and his father, and a deeply conflicted sense of identity and loyalty. As the war’s impact intensifies, most of the Trojans reject and persecute him as a traitor, but he finds some comfort(...)

literary

YEAR: 1961

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Achilles Agamemnon Antenor Cassandra Deiphobus Electra Hector Hecuba Helen Hermione Iphigenia / Iphigeneia Menelaus Mycenae Nicostratus Odysseus / Ulysses Palamedes Palladium Paris (Trojan Prince) Polyxena Priam Sparta Theano Trojan Horse Trojan War Troy

Roger Lancelyn Green, Betty Middleton-Sandford

The Tale of Troy

Roger Lancelyn Green’s The Tale of Troy stresses that the origins of the Trojan War go right back to the beginning of Zeus’ reign, when Prometheus prophesised that the sea nymph Thetis would give birth to a son who would grow up to be greater than his father. In order to preserve his power, Zeus changed his mind about being Thetis’ consort, and instead arranged for her to be married to the minor hero Peleus. All the Olympians attended the celebration, except for Eris, the godde(...)

literary

YEAR: 1958

COUNTRY: United Kingdom

TAGS: Achilles Aeneas Aeneid Agamemnon Ajax / Aias Andromache Antenor Aphrodite Apollo Athena Calchas Circe Clytemnestra Cyclops / Cyclopes Diomedes (Son of Tydeus) Epic Cycle Eris Hector Hecuba Helen Hera Heracles Hercules Hermes Hermione Homer Iliad Iphigenia / Iphigeneia Laocoon Menelaus Neoptolemus Nestor Odysseus / Ulysses Palamedes Paris (Trojan Prince) Patroclus Peleus Philoctetes Priam Prometheus Sinon Sirens Thetis Tiresias Trojan Horse Trojan War Troy Zeus