The society [in Silas and the Black Mare] is that of peasants and the only representative of a wider world is the pedlar. Against these earth-bound, prejudiced, brutalized creatures born of poverty and ignorance shines Silas,… who owns nothing but his wits, an abundance of self-confidence, and a way with horses. Silas is much too big a creation to be squandered on one book. As he rides off, not into the sunset, at the close of this high-spirited frolic of a book, it is clear that more adventures lie ahead to be chronicled in the same blend of realism and lyricism. [Cecil Bødker] likes the byways of history and topography, but can sustain a major mainstream character, one who owes something to Tyl Eulenspiegel but who bids fair to win a small place among the immortals in his own right.