I’ve loved stories that feature bees and beekeepers and the almost mystical relationship between them ever since I read David Malouf’s Remembering Babylon a long time ago. When the bees appeared in The Dance Tree I knew this book was going to be something special, even though it wasn’t always easy reading about the trials of life in sixteenth century Strazbourg.
The extraordinary ‘dancing plague’ which happened in Strazbourg in 1518 has been sometimes interpreted as seizures brought on by eating infected grains but was most likely, apparently, a mass religious hysteria. The drought at the centre of The Dancing Tree was one of the extreme weather events which happened in the sixteenth century; people were starving and religion was used in horrifying ways, basically, as a means of controlling the masses. Superstitions which are unthinkable to us in our present time were accepted without question which made it possible for people to hold themselves responsible for the tribulations they suffered every day.
Of course, even in those extremely oppressive times, human nature was always, eventually, going to win out over artificial restraints. Lisbet, the character around whom the story of The Dance Tree revolves, is a woman whose life experiences keep teaching her that kindness, compassion and love are always going to be the driving forces in her life, over fear and superstition. Her relationship with the bees fills her with empathy for fellow creatures, her childlessness fills her with sadness but also with hope, she discovers tolerance comes much more naturally than bigotry.
How lucky for us living now that people in past times survived and rose above incredible seeming tribulations, ensuring that civilisation would endure. Thank you, Kiran Millwood Hargrave for writing this wonderful, inspirational book.
Published by Picador, an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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