Sherlock Holmes and the Folk Tale Mysteries - Volume 1

Holmes.

Into the Woods with Sherlock Holmes

Teenagers are liable to run off in pursuit of all sorts of interests, many of them of transitory appeal. Every now and then, the right combination of teenager and topic will produce lasting results. One example is Gayle Lange Puhl and Sherlock Holmes.

Gayle was hooked by the appeal of the character of Sherlock Holmes more decades ago than she and the writer of this introduction might care to remember. In those days, before the existence of the Internet and when the telegram was still a legitimate means for communication, individuals at a distance who shared an interest had to resort to an institution called the United State Postal Service. Communications did not tend to fly back and forth with the speed of today’s electrons, but perhaps they could be composed with a trifle more deliberateness.

The decade of the 1960’s was a fine time for Sherlockians. The wealth of publications devoted to the doings of Holmes and Watson continued to pour out from scion societies from coast to coast. There were even national (and international) junior groups, like the Baker Street Pageboys and the Three Students Plus. As a reflection of the times, the latter had exclusively male membership but had a female auxiliary called the Watsonians. One member of the Watsonians was Gayle Lange Puhl, and her contributions to the Sherlockian literature were available in the publication Shades of Sherlock.Copies of those issues can still be found in collections in libraries, and they have also been made available electronically.

Fortunately, Sherlock Holmes remained an important part of Gayle’s reading and writing through the decades. She has produced articles and activities, art work and archival material. She is a speaker sought after by audiences both Sherlockian and general. She is also the writer of the stories that you have before you.

There is a wealth of wisdom and hidden history in the folk tales that have come down to us. Little children appreciate them as stories, as J.R.R. Tolkien reminds us in his essay on the subject, even while scholars try to unpack the origins of the characters and the plots. Gayle has done a different sort of unpacking here. She has introduced the character of Sherlock Holmes and some aspects of his methods of deduction into thirteen frameworks recognizable as arising from different folk tales. When we read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, as they appeared in the Strand and elsewhere, we enjoy the excitement of the hunt as we accompany Holmes to the site of the crime and then try to anticipate the path that will take him to a solution. In these stories, we combine that same excitement with the effort to recognize the folk tale on which the Holmesian adventure is based. While there is no matching the style of the original narratives, these tales pay homage to them without being suffocating imitative.

In today’s era of the wide appeal of everything connected with Sherlock Holmes, it is easy to get caught up with spectacular special effects. That is scarcely the spirit in which the original stories were written, which may explain how remote the plots of current films are from those that appeared under the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Since we are not likely to be receiving any further stories from that source, even if one is willing to follow him into the realm of the Spiritualism that occupied so much of his later life, we can be grateful for those who keep the memory of Sherlock Holmes alive in a fashion that respects the language and the personalities of the originals. Gayle Lange Puhl thrives in Wisconsin. She offers her Sherlockian scholarship and views to friends as far removed from home as New York City and as close as nearby Janesville, WI, where she is one of the mainstays of the Original Tree-Worshippers of Rock County. If your experience with pastiches of Sherlockian stories has not included anything from Gayle, prepare to be carried away, not just to the world of Baker Street, but into the realm of folk tales, where a distinctive figure in a deerstalker works to defend Truth, Justice and the Sherlockian Way.

Thomas Drucker

Whitewater, WI.

Once Upon a Time in Baker Street, in a Kingdom Far, Far Away…

None of the stories in this collection of folk tales start with those words, but any of them could have. Bedtime stories like The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood often start with variations of those immortal words. They are the first examples of timeless literature Western children hear. The tales are so pervasive in our culture that they become part of our lives, so familiar that the words become a sort of shorthand for the everyday experiences we all go through as we grow and mature.

The purpose of telling the story of The Three Little Pigs is to entertain, but it also impresses upon our offspring the lesson that security is found in the strong and well-thought-out plan, not the make-shift and hasty idea of the moment. Life is not all fun and games. Rather, it demands sober planning and labor in order to survive the big, bad wolves who roam our environments, seeking to take advantage of the thoughtless and the unprepared.

Little Red Riding Hood tells the story of a young girl who talks to a stranger, a lass who listens to his suggestion to pick flowers for her grandmother instead of heeding her mother’s wise instructions not to dally. By influencing her, the wolf bends her actions to his plan in order that he may devour Granny and lie in wait for his true victim, the helpless child. Only a passing hunter saves her, a chance encounter she could not have foreseen.

Folk tales usually contain a lot of violence. Hundreds of years ago, when real danger did lurk in the dark thickets of the forests, and strangers could snatch up an unwary child and spirit him or her away from home and familiar things forever, children needed to be warned in order to get a chance to just grow up. The most effective way to do that was to emphasize that a terrible thing could happen when you did not listen to your parents’ warnings.

Yet there is something in the inner spirit of humans that thrills, even at an early age, to the bizarre and the horrible in cautionary tales. Safe within the family circle, perhaps tucked warmly in their own little beds, children can allow themselves to enjoy the macabre and terrible stories of ogres and giants, of twisted old witches and gangs of robbers found in tumbledown huts in the forest, uttering terrible oaths and pawing over piles of ill-gained treasure. The presence of their parents and the sense of their love protect them.

Violence is present in many tales. Granny is eaten by the wolf and Humpty Dumpty is smashed beyond repair. The ugly stepsisters, desperate to marry Prince Charming, try in turn to force their feet into the glass slipper. One even cuts off her big toe in order to gain her goal, but in vain. When Cinderella produces the matching slipper, the resulting humiliation brings all their evil designs against her to a point that overwhelms their vain and haughty hearts. By the end of the story, they are grateful to marry palace servants, the baker and the cook, and bow to their stepsister the Queen.

In Rumplestiltskin a father’s incautious bragging about his daughter’s accomplishments sends her into danger when the king commands that she spins straw into gold or give up her life. When her only salvation lies in the promises of an odd little man, she agrees to an unholy bargain in order to survive. Only when disaster becomes immediate does she use her brains and her resources to gain knowledge that will banish the threat forever.

Economics drives the story of Hansel and Gretel. The father loves his children, but he is persuaded that by sending his offspring out into the dark forest that act may leave enough food to save his life and the life of his new and seductive wife. During the Dark Ages when these stories developed, many poor families had many children that they couldn’t support, and sending them out early in life to fend for their selves in order to ease the family’s burden was not uncommon. In those uncertain times of famine and pestilence not every child survived to adulthood.

The element of magic is a basic property in fairy tales. The fairy godmother in Cinderella, the evil witch in Hansel and Gretel, the magic beans that grow the giant beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk are integral parts of the stories that add to their allure, but at the same time their excesses reassure children that these tales are not reality. They eagerly listen to the tales, but they know in their hearts that there is no giant up in the clouds planning to grind their bones to make his bread. No fairy godmother will magically appear by means of a wish to take them out of poverty or boredom to a better, richer life. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was such a being? Wouldn’t it be great to ride through life on a cloud of magic, to have all your dreams come true? Alas, the story warns that midnight always comes and all the dreams will dissolve, leaving behind nothing but broken bits of pumpkin and scampering mice. It does not pay to depend upon wishes and dreaming to fulfill your life’s goals. In hardscrabble reality, there is no profit on counting upon fairy godmothers or hidden pirate treasure to solve one’s problems.

Sherlock Holmes is not a child. His world is logical and solid. Faced with the possibility of a Sussex vampire, he rejects the idea. This agency stands flatfooted upon the ground. No ghosts need apply! The mysterious Hound of the Baskervilles may frighten Dr. Watson as he wanders over the moors at midnight, but Holmes chooses to live there alone in an ancient stone hut. Watson has spent days absorbing the spooky atmosphere of Baskerville Hall, but Holmes has spent the same time checking with London pet shops for sales of large dogs.

What place can Sherlock Holmes have in the world of folk tales? He would run a criminal background check on Cinderella’s fairy godmother and classify in Latin the genus of Little Red Riding Hood’s wolf. Yet he admits that without imagination there is no horror. Holmes’ success depends upon the observation of trifles but he admits that sometimes an exercise in imagination helps him to the correct answer. Even the super-scientific sleuth admits he has heard the same stories most children grow up with, when he tells Dr. Mortimer that the legend of Hugo Baskerville may be interesting to a collector of fairy tales.

There is a possibility that folk tales developed out of real-life situations. To protect their children, hundreds of years ago parents may have spun a cautionary story out of an actual tragedy. A child disappears and the adults murmur of a stranger seen near the last known location of the victim. Imagination constructs a story that evolves into Hansel and Gretel. Wolves are heard howling in the forest and Little Red Riding Hood is born.

In such a world Sherlock Holmes can function as the Great Detective. The Big Bad Wolf kills and eats one of the Three Little Pigs. What is that but murder? Rumplestiltskin terrorizes the Queen by demanding her first-born child. What is that but blackmail? Prince Charming searches the kingdom for his Cinderella. What is that but a missing person case? The stories on these pages do not claim to be faithful reconstructions of the classic tales, but endeavor to demonstrate how in a Sherlockian setting the original situations may have set up the circumstances that evolved into the familiar stories we know today.

Of course in these stories there is no evidence of magic. Magic isn’t logical. Yet hints of the original guiding force seem to lurk just under the surface of most of these tales. Inspector Sarpent leads Holmes and Watson into a room hung with the broken and scorched remains of dragon-hunting medieval weapons. The Giltglider brothers contend with destruction of their supplies of straw and wood along with threats to their lives. Children go missing in these stories, lost in real woods or in the metaphysical wilderness of London. Sherlock Holmes, the archetypical mythic hero, does his best, not always successfully, to solve his clients’ problems and restore balance to the folk tale universe.

Personally, I have a theory that Sherlock Holmes can be linked to anything. I stated that aloud one day and my younger granddaughter tried to flummox me by tossing out the word trampoline. A moment’s thought brought out Watson’s quote, Brag and bounce! from the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. If the legendary Great Detective can be fitted into the modern world, why could he not fit into the world of folk tales? He can, and the adventures within this book demonstrate that.

Gayle Lange Puhl

Evansville, WI

The Case of the Curious Culprit

A white envelope gleamed in the pool of light cast by the shaded lamp sitting on the table before me. The remains of a sketchy late supper lay beside it. The sitting room of 221B Baker Street was silent save for the subdued crackle of a sea coal fire on the hearth behind me.

It was late and I was alone. Many hours before I had answered an emergency call: a traveling woman collapsed in a local shop. I had her conveyed, at her insistence, back to her hotel, and notified her own physician. I tended both the patient and her frightened companion until he could arrive from a distant town. The case handed over to her doctor, I returned home after midnight, hungry and fatigued, through the streets of a dark and deserted London in mid-May.

I had misplaced my key. Mrs. Hudson, our landlady, responded to my repeated rings wrapped in a flannel robe. She also provided me with something to eat hours after the rest of the household, including Sherlock Holmes, had retired to bed.

The envelope was addressed to me. I finished my meal and tore it open. It contained a note in Holmes’s handwriting, dated the afternoon before.

My dear Watson, it read, If at all possible join me at Charing Cross Station tomorrow morning for the early train to Croydon. Sherlock Holmes.

The message seemed clear enough, yet it still left questions. I had not seen the newspapers for two days and could recall nothing pertaining to Croydon before that. I must admit that the invitation bore away much of my exhaustion. My sleep that night was fitful, full of imaginative conjectures, despite Holmes’s oft-repeated admonition never to theorize without all the facts.

I arose the next morning to find the house quiet. After dressing, and eating one of Mrs. Hudson’s excellent breakfasts, I took a cab to Charing Cross Station. I found Sherlock Holmes ensconced in a first class carriage surrounded by all the early editions of the London papers. He indicated the seat opposite himself with a smile and a nod of his head. He wore a grey suit and the ear-flapped cloth cap he favored for out-of-town excursions.

Welcome, Watson. I knew you would make it.

We haven’t seen each other in two days. How did you know I got your note?

I was up quite early this morning. The envelope was missing from the table and Mrs. Hudson removed used plates before she brought me my own breakfast.

How simple.

Yes. Mrs. Hudson also gave me her opinion on inconsiderate patients that keep honest, hard-working medical men away from hot meals and clean linen to all hours of the night.

I laughed. Mrs. Hudson is a treasure.

Quite so. Has your patient improved enough that you may leave town?

I left her in the care of her own physician. My time is yours.

Excellent. Sherlock Holmes handed me an opened letter from his breast pocket. Please do me the favor of reading this, Watson. He picked up a newspaper and spread it across his knee. The train started out of Charing Cross Station as I unfolded the piece of paper.

Within the letter was a clipping from The Evening Suburban News dated two days before. I read that first.

Mysterious Incident at Bern Lodge.

A break-in at Bern Lodge near Croydon has local police baffled. It was reported very early this morning that Mr. and Mrs. Raubtier Bhaer and their daughter were victims of an intruder at their isolated home. They returned from a morning walk to discover their front door ajar. Persons unknown had gained access to Bern Lodge in their absence. Muddy footprints were found in the hall. Nothing appeared to be taken but a child’s chair had been smashed to pieces. Police admit that they have no suspects, but issued a warning that local residents should keep alert to the presence of any strangers in the neighborhood.

Now the letter, murmured Holmes from behind the London Times. I smoothed out the missive, written in black ink with a broad nib on thick handmade paper. It was dated the evening of the break-in.

Mr. Holmes, it ran, "Enclosed you will find a newspaper account of the invasion of my home this morning. As reported, the police have no idea of the identity of the vandal. I am unwilling to wait for them to get a clue. I have heard of your exploits and I strongly urge you to come to Croydon and look into this problem. This wanton act has greatly upset not only me, but my dear wife and our daughter.

"Allow me to tell you about my circumstances. I was born in the Black Forest and earned my degree at Berlin University. Shortly after that, I immigrated to England and took up the position of junior librarian for the Hibernian Institute of London. After years of service, I reached the highest position in my department. Late in life, I married Miss Ursula Stief of Norfolk Square, Paddington. We established a home outside Croydon. Four years ago saw the birth of our little daughter, Bebe. Last year I retired from the Institute.

"Our property is situated at the end of a long lane that runs from Croydon over a mile into Graffing Woods. We are able to indulge in a large garden and keep a horse and carriage. We are also fond of long walks along the many paths through the woods. My wife is an enthusiastic berry picker.

"As for servants, there is a local boy who cares for the horse and helps in the garden. My wife has a cleaning woman who comes in twice a week.

"Our lives were quiet and uneventful until this morning. I must add that the chair that was destroyed was an antique that had come down from my wife’s family. It was Bebe’s own particular chair.

"I am depending on you, Mr. Holmes, to discover who is responsible for this outrage. Upon receipt of your telegram I will meet the London train at Croydon Station.

Your servant, Raubtier Bhaer.

Holmes folded up the Times. I received that letter yesterday by the afternoon post. Any thoughts, Watson?

The man doesn’t take no for an answer, I replied. There is no doubt expressed in his letter that you will not take his case at once.

Good man.

He is impatient. The break-in occurred barely two days ago and he is not willing to give the police time to investigate the case.

Quite sound. Anything else?

I see nothing else. Is there more?

Ah, perhaps not. We may check your theories now, Watson, said Holmes as the train pulled into Croydon Station. This is the Bhaer family waiting for us, I believe.

Standing on the platform were the three Bhaers. After introductions all around, we stepped into a waiting carriage and started to Bern Lodge.

I studied with interest the three people seated across from us. Raubtier Bhaer was a large, hulking man, over six feet tall and broad in the chest and shoulders. He had a great grizzled beard and the backs of his hands bristled with reddish hairs. He wore a somber black suit and, surprisingly, a loden green Bavarian hat.

Ursula Bhaer was young and plump, fully a foot shorter than her husband. She was neatly groomed, wore a striped pink morning dress and a straw skimmer trimmed with artificial berries and leaves. Sitting next to her was a roly-poly mite in a pink and lavender plaid dress and matching beret with a white fur bobble.

"It’s too bad there is not an earlier train