THE CURVED SABER: The Adventures of Khlit the Cossack

by Harold Lamb ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 3, 1964

It is nobly written in the book of Lamb that toward the very end of the Sixteenth Century a grizzled old Cossack named Khlit of the Curved Saber, or Wolf, Father of Battles, was cashiered out of the Cossacks because of old age and so took to wandering. It is further written in this series of tales, for adult youngsters, that Khlit's adventures took him often into Asian lands, among the slender maidens with whom distress was congenital. Khlit, the crafty and wise, helped them mightily, against the Tatars and such fees as the insidious Halen ibn Shaddah, but of himself kept magnificently indifferent to the charms of the little sparrows. Indeed, there were also hashish-dispensing astrologers, and wicked conjurers who crawled about the Kobi desert in antelope hides disguised as strange monsters and scaring little slave girls. But our invincible, latter day Beowulf of the steppes has royal blood and is descended from the grand khans. During one tale he discovers the tomb of Genghis Khan, which is defended by mysteries. Khlit's fabulous curved saber once belonged to a Khan and, in one of the best tales when he is very old, he gives it to his grandson while educating him in wile. The education also features a Falstaffian 300-pound knight, and a genuine sentiment settles upon the reader for this Cossack triumvirate. Everybody swears --- in blanks, which is just the right distance from reality in high romance.

Pub Date: July 3, 1964

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1964

Categories: FICTION