The Legend of the White Doe by William H. Hooks

Raised devotedly by Indians, Virginia was killed, the legend relates, when she and her lover fled his rivalmuch as the colony itself was destroyed by rivals.

It treats Virginia as a symbol of her Roanoke Island colony, whose inhabitants disappeared sometime between 15. This little-known legend about the first English child born in America, Virginia Dare, is smoothly told and elegantly produced. Historical narratives such as The Lost Colony (Watts, 1972 o.p.) by Dan Lacy have more poignancy in describing the unknown fate of these early settlers than Hooks' elaborately constructed ``legend.'' Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, N.J.Ĭopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. It lacks the simplicity and logic of genuine folklore. But the tale itself is over-romantic and too fantastic to be credible. Readers will linger long over the eight full-page paintings which dramatically illustrate the story. The Legend of the White Doe is handsomely designed with generous margins and graceful print. She is shot and becomes a ghost deer, visible even to this day, as she wanders the Great Dismal Swamp. When the young lovers run away they are caught in a magic ring of fire, and the evil medicine man transforms Ulalee into a white doe.

Renamed Ulalee, the child grows up to be courted by two rivals, a handsome young brave and an ugly old medicine man. On Croatoan Island, where the colonists sought shelter from the enmity of Chief Wanchese, the young widow Eleanor Dare falls into madness and throws herself into the sea, leaving the baby Virginia to be adopted by Chief Manteo's mother, Lady Winona. But from the point where history tells no more, Hooks constructs a fantastic story in which elements of magic and folklore are wildly blended. Grade 4-6 Hooks' story of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America, begins with the basic historical facts.

The Legend of the White Doe by William H. Hooks