Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles: Commentaries on German Folklore by Jürgen Hubert

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles is a collection of tales from German folklore, many of them derived from German-language collections that have never before been translated. It’s an entertaining and potentially very useful reference for a branch of European folklore unfamiliar to an English-speaking audience.

Full disclosure: The compiler and translator of these tales, Jürgen Hubert, is an acquaintance of long standing, although he and I have no professional relationship and I have received no compensation for this review.

Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles collects a little over 150 narratives, most of them fairly short. These tales have all been drawn from various 19^th Century collections of German folklore that have come into the public domain. Dr. Hubert has translated these stories into English, in most cases for the first time, and he also offers some commentary on each.

The breadth of this project can be gathered from the book’s subject headings. There are tales here about the Devil and the Wild Hunt, maidens and crones, saints and sinners. Charlemagne makes several appearances, as does Frederick Barbarossa. There is a bewildering array of monsters, including several kinds of dragon, werewolves, dwarves, giants, “pressure spirits,” and the title-mentioned evil black poodles. Every story carries its own magic and presents its own mysteries. Sometimes the tales go far beyond any simple “fairy tale” and venture into almost Fortean weirdness. Often, the translator seems just as bemused as we are at the results!

Americans, even those of us of German descent, tend to forget how much linguistic and cultural diversity there is in the Old Country. In the early modern era from which these tales derive, there was no such thing as Germany. There was only a stretch of Central Europe, home to different German dialects, diverse religious practices, several non-German ethnic minorities, and little or no political unity. The tales in this collection demonstrate all of this rich diversity. Dr. Hubert helps put all of this in context by providing the geographic framework for each story: where it was told, what villages or towns were nearby, and what features of the landscape are prominent. One of the appendices even indexes the tales by geographic location.

The collection has considerable entertainment value, and it provides plenty of insight into European folklore. Sunken Castles, Evil Poodles might also serve as a valuable source for authors, game designers, or other creatives who wish to investigate the distinctive folklore and fantasy of German culture. Dr. Hubert has specifically supported such application by placing his translations under a Creative Commons license. The book is also extensively footnoted, with appendices on relevant customs and the German language to help the reader interpret the material.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sunken Castes, Evil Poodles, and found a great deal of inspiration in it for my own work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in folklore, faerie tales, or stories of high weirdness.