DAYS OF COURAGE: A Medieval Adventure

The meeting between two homeless young people, each the sole survivor of a plague infested village, and their journey through a depopulated, anarchic countryside ought to be a more powerful theme than it is here. Jensen begins after the actual horrors of the plague are past, minimizes the despair and psychological scarring that the epidemic must have infliected on the lucky survivors, and makes the renewal of human bonds -- between the two children and the many kind people who shelter them along the road -- his principal concern. Even as traditional adventure, Days of Courage has minimal holding power; the one major drama, Hanna's kidnapping by one of a band of roaming flagellants, takes place off stage. And neither the revelation of the prophecy that has guided Hanna towards friendship with Jan, nor the discovery of Jan's lost uncle -- a Franciscan monk who is belatedly inspired to leave the monastery and minister to the suffering peasantry -- adds any memorable dimension to this routinely circumscribed quest.