T.H. White has an outstanding capacity for writing about medieval times as merry and lively days, with their own share of the problems of living and loving, war and peace, but with more than their fair share of fun. His "Sword in the Stone" of last year will be remembered widely and happily for its enchantingly rowdy picture of the boyhood of King Arthur, known as the Wart. ["The Witch in the Wood"] is a sort of sequel in the same rambunctious vein, at once learned and lusty and comic. The story carries on with Arthur's battles against the kings who refused to recognize his right to the title of King of England even after he had drawn Excalibur from the stone. But the greater part of the book deals with the doings in the castle and village of Lothian when King Lot and all his knights and foot soldiers had gone off to bear their part in the battle against Arthur….
In the course of his rambling story Mr. White has a fine time lampooning wars, chivalry, mother love, teachers, festivals, drinking bouts and what not. He gives the rich flavor of Arthurian times, based on much sound erudition, but does not scruple to introduce howling anachronisms such as quotations from [Rudyard] Kipling twisted to his purpose, odd bits of American slang, modern military terms, a ballad about Bonnie Prince Charlie. And some of his funning has hard common sense at the bottom of it.
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