“Weland’s Sword,” an excerpt from Puck of Pook’s Hill by Rudyard Kipling, features Puck as he retells the stories of himself and other ancient gods that used to reside in the hills of England. Puck shares these stories with two young children, Una and Dan, who hang on his every word and believe in his tales wholeheartedly. According to Puck, the gods have disappeared from the area because they no longer have worshippers and needed to move on to the next phase of life. Adults lost the need and desire to sacrifice their livestock and brethren for the protections and love of gods, having reduced the necessity for the higher beings. Una and Dan, however, are merely children; unlike the adults who have completely cast out the gods, the pair are welcoming to the ideas and rituals. They are consistently shocked and awed by the tales Puck has to tell, not yet jaded enough to totally disregard and disrespect Puck’s very appearance altogether. Una is made by the author to seem blissfully innocent (as opposed to Dan, who is resentful of this innocence) and, in turn, receptive to Puck’s tales, even offering to leave out porridge for him (a form of inadvertent sacrifice). In providing Una’s impressionable point of view, the author demonstrates that innocence is one of the remaining traits that keeps religion alive, and therefore is dependent on children for survival. 

Kipling makes an obvious effort to exhibit the youth and innocence of Una, carefully choosing her words and actions. This is made clear when examining the reader’s first direct glimpse at Una’s point of view. When Puck materializes from beyond the bushes, he explains that he was summoned by the children’s acting of Midsummer’s Night’s Dream three times over, on Midsummer Eve, in the middle of a Ring, under one of the oldest hills.¹ Una responds in a scared tone, establishing her diminished position and highlighting her youth. She stutters saying, “We—we didn’t mean to.”² Making this first glimpse into Una’s point of view at a time where she is so scared that it is difficult for her to speak, is an attempt by the author to demonstrate her innocence. She is obviously intimidated by the otherworldly guise of Puck’s presence and fears him in a way a child would a monster under their bed. The gods, referred to by the children as fairies, were previously something they only read about, something their parents told them were solely stories. Seeing Puck in real life was such a shock for the kids that Una is scared and astonished in the way an adult may not be. She has not yet developed the same ingrained disregard for godly figures, and has the mind to fear, and even unintentionally worship them.

 Una, like most children, wants to believe in magic, otherworldly beings, and fairytales. She is therefore blissfully receptive to the presence of Puck and the ideas he presents. As Puck begins to talk and exhibit himself as an unthreatening being, Una’s perspective changes from fear, to childlike wonder. She wants to be a part of the “magic” of it all, so clearly entranced by the possibilities of the mystical actually being real, and in some way belonging to her and Dan exclusively. She seems to see the historical topics that are of such seriousness to Puck as merely living fairy tales that she wants to make her own. After hearing about the sacrifices that were left for Puck during times when the Stonehenge was new, Una “clasped her hands, cried ‘Oh!’”—something that Dan claims she only does when she gets an idea.³ Una gets so excited at the prospect of being involved in Puck’s story that she can hardly control herself, expressing her emotions in an unrestrained manner like only a young and impressionable child could. She offers, “suppose we saved some of our porridge and put it in the attic for you. They’d notice if we left it in the nursery.” Una is willing to leave some of her food out for Puck, yearning to hold onto and help support the marvel. The use of the word nursery by Una was another conscious decision by the author to highlight her youth and impressionability. Dan corrects her use of the word “nursery,” claiming that it is called a “schoolroom” and embarrassing her. In adding this interaction, the author creates a clear distinction between the childlike points of view of Una and Dan. Dan, while he still carries an interest and acceptance for Puck’s tales, yearns to be an adult in a way that Una is resistant toward. There is an obvious conflict for Una, she wants nothing more than to seem older (in having a schoolroom rather than a nursery), yet yearns for the innocence of a childhood where there’s room to believe magical creatures can be real. In this moment where she allows herself to indulge in the idea that she could be a part of all the magic by leaving sacrifices for the gods, she reverts back even further into her childhood self, mistakenly referring to their place of learning as a nursery. In a schoolroom she might learn to denounce mythological ideas as false, but in a nursery she is free to explore them with the naivety of a baby. For this reason, the otherworldly stories that encapsulate the gods are something that children are more likely to believe as true. Kids are in a state of widely accepted innocence, which allows them to wholeheartedly believe in gods without much backlash from skeptical adults, making children the perfect mortals to hold onto the godly stories.  

The author’s decision to mention the nursery, presented as this place where child-like innocence is allowed to flourish, possibly serves to draw the reader’s attention to nursery rhymes and other children’s stories. Children’s literature tends to be more whimsical and includes great fantastical narratives. The difference between this fictional literature for kids and the fiction meant for adults is that the youth are more likely to genuinely believe in the fictions. Una’s point of view serves to draw out this idea. After Puck mentions Thor of the Scandanavians, Una asks if it was “Heroes of Asgard Thor,” because she had been reading the book.⁴ Puck muses that perhaps it is the same god. Here, the author draws a direct link between children’s literature and the survival of the pagan gods. Thor had been turned into a superhero story meant for children’s merriment, teaching the lesson that good prevails over evil. His image is demeaned and trivialized in this way, but provides him the ability to live on and even be beloved by a new generation of people. His godly stories have been transformed into moral lessons that are palatable for youth readers, relying on their imagination and memory for preservation. Superhero Thor teaches them the value of fighting for justice and gives the impression that those who do so can achieve superhuman feats, much like himself. The stories of the gods which were once seen as truth are now used as ways of teaching morals rather than for religious adoration. This is another reason that children are the main audience for these tales, they are the ones who need to learn ethics and how to be a good samaritan.

Pagan gods and their traditions are also kept alive through nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes usually present themselves as short and easy to remember, ingraining themselves into the minds of those that listen to or read them after merely a few times. This is perfect to protect the memory of a pagan god because it remains ingrained many years after a person learned them. For example, The Jack be Nimble nursery rhyme has its roots in pagan tradition. Jack, who is jumping over the flame of a candlestick, mimics a common ritual of the midsummer season. The people of pagan times saw jumping over a bonfire flame as a way to guarantee prosperity and luck for the coming year.⁵ The fire was made to ward off bad spirits (the larger the fire the farther the spirits stayed away) and therefore paid tribute to the gods. Jack is not depicted to be jumping over anything as menacing as an entire bonfire, but this is one of many ways that the story was made less realistic and more appealing to a young audience. It was more whimsical for a boy to be jumping over a larger than life candlestick than a dangerous bonfire, and safer for children looking to imitate as well. There is an obvious softening and loss of violence in religious traditions as they are adapted to the ethical cultures of different time periods. Even though the gods are not directly mentioned, this nursery rhyme serves to inadvertently honor them. During the eighteenth century when this nursery rhyme first surfaced, jumping over a candlestick became such a popular pastime it was seen as a sport.⁶ Those who burned the flame out in their leap over were destined for luck directly paralleling the pagan tradition. In this way, the pagan customs, and inadvertently, the worshiping of the gods is able to continue in a diminished sense. The continuation of these traditions and meanings were reliant on the childlike whimsy and imagination that would support passing time jumping over candlesticks as a form of sport. Even today, children who sing the song and imagine the cartoon Jack jumping over a burning flame are inadvertently keeping the pagan traditions alive. The worship of these pagan gods and their ideals are carried on through the imagination of children and rely on their willingness to accept something as whimsical as jumping over fire for luck.    

Una’s point of view offers a necessary look into the mind of a child who is encountering a god for the first time. Her eagerness to accept and even be a part of Puck’s worship is an attempt by the author to demonstrate the importance of youthful imagination to the survival of the gods. In spite of the children’s version of these godly stories being dumbed down and changed to fit the needs and understanding of the audience, the gods have found a way to remain prevalent. Through children’s literature like nursery rhymes, fables, and superhero stories the gods are created anew and remembered fondly by the children who adore the whimsical tales surrounding them. Kipling’s excerpt of “Weland’s Sword” delivers in drawing out the idea of a new way of worship. In Una’s offering of porridge as opposed to a human or animal sacrifice, Kipling demonstrates that these traditions naturally adapt in order to fit into the current society’s ideals. Without even realizing what she’s doing, Una provides an offering, in a similar way people of the real world offer inadvertent sacrifice through paying homage in literature. The gods will remain because society will always find a way to pay tribute to them, even if unintentional. There is a loss of these dangerous and extreme sacrifices, but a gain in the way of domesticity and acceptance for the gods. As long as children are told these stories and retain an imaginative spirit, the pagan gods and traditions will find a way to persist.

1. Rudyard Kipling, “Weland’s Sword,” Puck of Pook’s Hill (Doubleday, 1906), 7.
2. Ibid., 8.
3. Ibid., 11.
4. Ibid., 16.
5. Courtney Collins, “Beware of Mother Goose: 6 Horrifying Nursery Rhymes Decoded,” KERA News, KERA, Nov. 1, 2014, www.keranews.org/texas-news/2014-10-31/beware-of-mother-goose-6-horrifying-nursery-rhymes-decoded.
6. Tipper, “Jack Be Nimble,” Blind Pig and The Acorn, Feb. 20, 2018, https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/jack-be-nimble/.