A Labyrinthine Tale Set in Crete - The Moon-Spinners

A Nymph In The Forest - Charles-Amable Lenoir, via Wikimedia Commons

Greek myths are enchanting. Outside the European world, those with an interest in natural phenomena stumble upon this wealth as it was used to name flora, fauna, stars and more. The legends bring the night sky to life more powerfully than any other myths from elsewhere. 

In Greece, the beautiful island of Crete is rich with its own legends. 

Theseus Slaying Minotaur (1843), bronze sculpture by Antoine-Louis Barye, via Wikimedia Commons

Once upon a time, a queen of Crete fell in love with a bull and the result was a Minotaur with a bull's tail. Ashamed, the king had a craftsman and his son, Daedalus and Icarus, build a labyrinth, a maze, to keep the beast. There the Minotaur remained, merrily eating young men and women who were sent in to him every year. In time, a hero, Theseus, kills the Minotaur.

Since Daedalus helped Theseus handle the maze, he and his son were so persecuted by the angry king that they tried to escape by making wings with which to fly away. Of course, the wings melted and the story is tragic.

It is against a background of such legends that Mary Stewart creates her Moon-Spinners:

They’re naiads — you know, water-nymphs. Sometimes, when you’re deep in the countryside, you meet three girls, walking along the hill tracks in the dusk, spinning. They each have a spindle, and onto these they are spinning their wool, milk-white, like the moonlight. In fact, it is the moonlight, the moon itself, which is why they don’t carry a distaff... all they have to do is to see that the world gets its hours of darkness, and they do this by spinning the moon down out of the sky. Night after night, you can see the moon getting less and less, the ball of light waning, while it grows on the spindles of the maidens. Then, at length, the moon is gone, and the world has darkness, and rest, and the creatures of the hillsides are safe from the hunter and the tides are still . . .’ ...

‘Then, on the darkest night, the maidens take their spindles down to the sea, to wash their wool. And the wool slips from the spindles, into the water, and unravels in long ripples of light from the shore to the horizon, and there is the moon again, rising from the sea, just a thin curved thread, reappearing in the sky. Only when all the wool is washed, and wound again into a white ball in the sky, can the moonspinners start their work once more, to make the night safe for hunted things . . .’

Click on Preview, above, to peek into the book 

Nicola Ferris works for the British embassy at Athens. She wants to have a peaceful holiday away from it all and heads for Crete. However, from day one, she's thrown into the arms of adventure. In the form of Mark, a wounded Englishman. He got mixed up with some local trouble. Now, Nicola has to shelter him from dangerous men who are after his life. But that's not all. The villains have Mark's brother, a teenager.

Nicola takes up the challenge like any other Mary Stewart heroine would and we can look forwards to some very exciting pages. There are knife attacks and tense chases through the Cretan landscapes as limping Mark and team scramble to hide from rowdy locals. 

Landscape near the village of Kera (Crete, Greece.)Marc Ryckaert, Wikimedia Commons

There bathed his honourable wounds, and dressedHis manly members in the immortal vest

From The 

Iliad, by Alexander Pope

After attending to Mark's injuries, our heroine goes back to the village where she has booked a room. Nicola finds out that the little village is not as innocent as it looks. She discovers the kidnappers and Mark's brother. The brave young lady defeats the plots of the gang and is rewarded with true love.

The Moon Spinners manages to delight genre lovers with great action scenes and it will also be enjoyed by botanists or horticulturalists.

As the Cretan windmills spin their arms, so Mary Stewart spins for us a tale as mythical as anything Homer wrote. Some of her 'legends', however, can be upsetting for those who are not British. In her times, Greeks were considered rather rowdy and barbaric in person. Such old fashioned ideas need not affect the reader as they are a charming way to see what was, to appreciate what is and to shape what shall be.

We must, for example, look at our own society, in India, and wonder if we are indeed rowdy and vengeful as colonial 'legends' paint us. It is entirely in our hands to decide to fit in with or reject stereotypes. 

Windmills on Crete. Michael, Wikimedia Commons

The Moon-Spinners is a wonderful way to enjoy Crete and Greece on a budget. Not many have money to dash around, visiting distant marvelous places! A book costs less than a tourist jaunt and works almost as well.

As added bonus, the novel helps us have a quick glimpse of English literature with quotes from Pope, Wilde, Keats and more!

There is a film of the book. Some don't seem to like it but I remember enjoying it. Perhaps you should watch the film first and then read the book. Sadly, I can't see it sold on Amazon India. Perhaps Netflix will oblige?

Besides the film, there are audio book versions. Here's an excerpt. Note that the narrator does tend to go blah blah for ages before reading from the story.