Customer Reviews

Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Perhaps the reviewer below should learn his German well enough to find and read the German sources, rather than criticise that stuffy Brit who wrote this book. Let him also consider that the Brits are cousins of the Germans and that these legends are as much a part of British tradition as German. As for the stuffy British style, the author was writing in the early 20th century when such language was considered proper, rather than the modern American travesty of the English language. Lewis Spence deserves great respect as a scholar. He is a most interesting writer.

Very good book of stories from the Rhine. It first came out in 1915 but the stories are time less, it not only deals with the German part of the Rhine but also the tales from France.

I grew up with these tales in Germany, and was looking for a good summary/translation in English. The selection gives a great overview over the tales, covers all the well known ones and also gives some useful historical back ground information.
It will be necessary to make some stylistic changes though, in order to bring some of them into a format to be read at a presentation. This is something I would have liked to have known beforehand.

My wife and I are planning a river cruise along the Rhine. This book is the perfect accompanyment for a romantic trip.

This would be a very good book if it were not written in boring, stuffy and stilted British English. Then again it was written in 1915, and by a Brit. This book first introduced English readers to the legends of the Lorelei, the Mouse Tower, the Wild Hunt. If only someone can come along and retell these stories as if a real Rhinelander was speaking and not some tedious British aristocrat this would be a marvelous book!!