THE HUNDREDTH DOVE AND OTHER TALES

Seven of Yolen's polished bijoux, most of them romantic fabrications about all-ruling love. A charcoal burner steps into the coals to be consumed with his "firemaid"; a plain maiden, rejected by her father, follows a merman into the sea; a young man, bewitched into a fish's form, is restored by a kiss from his true love. In the title story, however, a fowler obeys a conflicting imperative, loyalty to his king, and strangles the dove he knows to be the lady they both love. The romantic mood is broken only by Yolen's version of "Wind Cap," about the fairy gift a farm lad takes to sea, and by "Once a Good Man," a pious parable of heaven and hell. Graceful and undisturbing overall.