Smokehole
Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass
by Martin Shaw

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Somehow the necessary things aligned to land Martin Shaw’s Smokehole in my hands. This isn’t a book I would have normally chosen. But about a year ago, I watched a documentary Woodland Dark and Days Bewitched about folk-horror movies and was for a while ensconced in the subject of the folk. These films reminded me of studying archetypes in literature during my days as an English major, then as I dove in, they yielded a larger interest in the subjects of folktales and folklore (albeit in a half-baked/novice/hobbyist kind of way). It was subsequent searches for books on these subjects that led me to this one, which was published by Chelsea Green.

The main part of Smokehole, which is framed by an introduction and conclusion, is divided into three sections that each contain a folktale and a commentary on it. The first tale is about a girl whose hands are cut off after her father inadvertently promises her to a mysterious man he meets in the woods. The girl then goes on a journey that leads her into the woods, into womanhood, into a marriage, and into motherhood. Using the tale, Shaw teaches about the dangers of lies and greed, as well as the ways one can find support and recovery. In the story, the wilderness – in this case, the forest – is a multifaceted place whose remarkable characteristic is uncertainty. It is where the father meets the trickster with a half-obscured face, and after the trickster has altered their lives, it is where a distraught daughter goes alone to escape. Later, once the girl has grown into a woman and had a child, she must flee from danger by going back into the forest but, the second time, meets a group of older women who love and support her and her child. Shaw’s message centers on the idea that, throughout our lives, we may have to leave our comfortable lives and venture into uncertainty, where we will not always find the same things.

The second tale has elements of the parables of the prodigal son and of the good Samaritan in the Bible. Here, a young man takes his inheritance early and leaves home, but this time he loses everything not through self-indulgence but by helping someone. As a naive traveler, he finds a dead body on the road to town, hoists it onto his back, and tries to find the man’s family or friends so they can give him a funeral and burial. This story allows Shaw to comment on unexpected outcomes and burden sharing. We see a scenario similar to the one that Jesus used in his story about the Samaritan, who receives help from the person most wouldn’t expect to give it. A young man passing the dead body of an unknown person would have no reason to seek a decent burial for a stranger, much less be willing to pay for one, but in this tale he does. Once again, there are lessons about how life may not lead us where we think it will.

In the third tale, we meet a woodland hunter who lives with his mother. Normally, the hunter would use his skills to keep them fed, but one day he finds that he can’t. In his search for prey, though, he encounters four animals and accepts promises of future aid from them in exchange for mercy. Although he and his mother are starving, he looks to the possibilities in the future rather than the needs of the present— delayed gratification. Later, he uses their assistance when he is trying to win the hand of a princess by outdoing a riddle/challenge. In this last one, we encounter the spyglass, which the princess uses as an all-seeing eye, and Shaw likens this spyglass to the internet. Shaw uses the metaphor to share his thoughts on how we have let a powerful tool become a thing that we yield to, rather than a thing we control.

I’ve read Smokehole twice since getting a copy last summer. It’s not a long book at all, and its style is conversational, which makes for easy reading. Moreover, the author offers some valuable lessons here, perhaps chief among them that our lives may not turn out as we planned but may instead involve a journey with many twists and turns. In this reading, we don’t get an technical lesson in folktales as a genre, how they’re crafted, whether they’re from, etc. Instead we are given a practical lesson in their uses. We experience folktales in action, which illustrates that life in any age may involve lies, deceit, regret, pain, mistakes, misunderstandings, resolutions, support, compromise, and joy. Even in our age of constant surveillance and material convenience, Shaw reminds us, if we look to what has worked for human beings longer than recorded history has documented us, we can find more solace and comfort than if we place our faith in modern rhetoric and in technology. I couldn’t agree more. Smokehole reminds readers that, no matter how we try to tame life, it remains wild.