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Did you ever wonder why God created animals? I have heard a lot of reasons given but I don’t think that those cover all of this mystery. In any event, animals have been used throughout known history as characters in stories and as ways to illustrate human traits. Think of sayings such as “crafty as a fox,” “dumb as an ox,” “fleet as a deer,” and “wise as an owl.” It would be fun at home or school to think of as many as possible. Of course, there are even more from outside the Western tradition. For example, there are many African animal sayings – Paul White in his brilliant Jungle Doctor series has illustrated some of these.
God’s famous reply in the book of Job in the Bible used His created animals to make devastating points to Job. Animal illustrations are in fact all throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament but not exclusively. Aesop’s Fables, which are at least 2000 years old, go one step further in teaching through animals by giving them personalities and speech. We have built on this tradition in our literature – just think of all your favorite classic books with talking animals: Wind in the Willows, Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington Bear, Watership Down, The Rats of NIMH, and, somewhat grimmer, Animal Farm.
The Book of the Dun Cow is firmly in this tradition, using talking, thinking animal characters to tell an epic story of good and evil, solidly grounded in Biblical truth. But there is another tradition that is used in this book, the tradition of using allegory to teach deep spiritual truths. A great book that really started this tradition is Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan (wonderful book, lots of children’s editions, recent animated movie). Chauntecleer the rooster, Pertelote the hen, Mundo Cani Dog, the Wee Widow Mouse, and John Wesley Weasel are the soldiers in the battle of light vs. dark, truth vs. lies, and kindness vs. cruelty. The good animals, led by Chauntecleer in their simple lives that are ordered by his canonical crows and protected by his Crows Potens, serve as unwitting jailers of the gross evil of Wyrm, kept confined beneath the earth by their obedient lives. The Dun Cow is the messenger of God to the animals. But now, Wyrm is starting to break out via his servant, Cockatrice. The Book of the Dun Cow is a lovely book, a wonderful story, and has literary depth because of its spiritual depth. It is written at a high school level or higher.
Walter Wangerin (1944 to 2021) was a Lutheran pastor for part of his life and a college professor of English for the rest of his life. He was always a writer and wrote many novels and Bible story books for children. He is best remembered for The Book of the Dun Cow, which won several literary awards. There is a sequel, The Second Book of the Dun Cow: Lamentations, which I did not like nearly as much. However, during the writing of this review, I realized that Wangerin wrote a third book, called The Third Book of the Dun Cow: Peace at the Last. I never realized that the author had a complete trilogy in mind, which was perhaps why I did not like the sequel as much as the first book - middle books in trilogies can be not as interesting as the first book, which introduces everything, and the last book, which brings the story to a satisfying conclusion.