A collection of re-interpreted ancient folk tales, from the British isles— Cornwall, Wales, Fens, Yorkshire etc—written by contemporary authors. These stories were began as podcasts—keeping in mind the iral tradition of storytelling. All stories were atmospheric, with varying strengths of dark themes. Acc to Carolyne Larrington in the introduction, The British and Irish folktale traditions slipped away between the 18th and 19th centuries while other fairytales like the Grimms and Andersens’ with strict morals became popular.

The original source version of the tales are provided at the end. I wish it had been printed just after each story. Reading it on an e-book was really difficult esp if one isn’t familiar with the folkatales. (I wasn't). As is usual in a collection, some stories felt unmemorable. I would’ve loved them to be shorter too.
Some I enjoyed:

A Retelling by Daisy Johnson
Johnson explores how a story came into existence. With dashes of surrealism. This was clever. And of course I enjoy everything Daisy Johnson writes (at least so far)

The Holloway by Imogen Hermes Gowar
follows a young girl and her brother who watch their father abuse their mother. The story is told from the perspective of the girl. The brother has got a good opportunity for college. He is hesitant of leaving but the mother insists. The story felt v real and almost not like it was reimagined from a folktale.

The Panther's Tale by Mahsuda Snaith
About a princess who is bound to a loveless marriage to a prince (by magic) and is cursed to be a panther. It had magic, dreams, Goddess Kali and a good story.

Trigger Warning: infertility, miscarriage, domestic abuse, drug abuse, homophobia (and many more)

We're living through an incredible time for female writers as this anthology demonstrates. Each author has a distinct voice - fresh, confident, and full of often obscured truth.

Hag is a collection of feminist modern day retelling of forgotten folk tales by a range of diverse woman authors.

I liked that it wasn’t the usual folk tales that are usually retold and also that you got the original source of the folk tales at the end. It touches on topics such as love, abuse, religion, pregnancy and grief. As always with collections like this there are some tales I prefer to others but I found a connection to all the stories told. There is a underlining creepiness to all the stories.

My favourites were The Holloway, The Panther’s Tale and The Dampness is Spreading.

By now, you have probably picked up on the fact that I love retellings – I find it so interesting to see how creative writers can be with what already exists, especially if they use a story I’ve not heard before. I also love all things witchy, and so, for these reasons, I was so excited to get stuck into ‘Hag’, an anthology of retellings based on British and Irish folktales written entirely by women authors.


Synopsis

As an anthology, ‘Hag’ contains a diverse collection of stories based on tales which originate from the British and Irish oral storytelling tradition. Featuring everything from a woman getting revenge for the death of her father to sisters who both love the same woman, each retelling revolves around the women that drove these original tales forward, updating them for a 21st-century audience.

Review

As with many anthologies, this book contains both hits and misses, as well as some absolute gems. I particularly enjoyed Irenosen Okijie’s ‘Rosheen’, Emma Glass’ ‘The Dampness is Spreading’ and Kirsty Logan’s ‘Between Sea and Sky’, which all provided unique and interesting twists on the original folktales. However, the real stand-out for me was Mahsuda Snaith’s ‘The Panther’s Tale’, based on the story ‘Chillington House’. It was so delightfully vivid, with rich storytelling that really enhanced the narrative. It also explored often overlooked issues such as colonialism and autonomy in a way that was both sensitive and thought-provoking, and I can’t wait to read more of Snaith’s work.

However, I found some of the tales to be really challenging to get through, with ‘The Droll of the Mermaid’ in particular being a struggle. I love it when authors push the boundaries when it comes to style and tone; however, in this case, I found the style got in the way of the storytelling. This is because the lack of punctuation made it hard to read, making it difficult to enjoy the story as I couldn’t fully immerse myself in it.

Additionally, whilst I was really glad that the original tales were included at the end of the book, I wish that these were instead included at the end of each of the retellings. One of the things I love most about retellings is seeing an author’s creativity reflected in how they have interpreted the source material, however, by separating the stories into two distinct sections, it was hard at times to appreciate this as it was difficult to navigate between the original tale and its retelling. The joy of short story collections is also that you can dip in and out of them as it suits you; however, this structure works against this, making the book less reader-friendly than it easily could have been, especially if you’re reading the e-book.

Overall, I did enjoy this anthology and would recommend it to folklore lovers looking for something a bit different. However, I had such high expectations that I was a little disappointed, and, if only the structure had been changed, this book could have been a really special read to return to again and again.

Rating: 3/5

It's an excellent collection of folktales retold by different authors.
All of them are excellent and it was a spooky, interesting and thought provoking read.
You wonder what's real and what's fantasy but you cannot help loving them.
It's strongly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Originally concieved as a podcast project (to better mimic the oral storytelling traditions from which these tales originate), curated by Professor Carolyne Larrington (who has also written the introduction) this collection gathers together all the stories from that project as well as two new ones written especially for this collection. The stories are retellings of lesser known folktales from all across the British Isles - from strange green children to boggarts, pixies & mermaids - retold by contemporary authors: Daisy Johnson, Kirsty Logan, Emma Glass, Eimear McBride, Natasha Carthew, Mahsuda Snaith, Naomi Booth, Liv Little, Imogen Hermes Gowar, and Irenosen Okojie. Sometimes, short story collections can be a bit hit and miss but, for me, this wsn't the case - each tale had something that both appealed to me & made me think about them after I'd finished. Perfect for curling up with on an autumn night! (Also, I MUST give mention to Sophy Hollington's GORGEOUS cover, evoking, as it does, a kind of 70s folk horror vibe, which is absolutely perfect!)
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review.

Fantastic writing, excellent diverse stories by diverse authors all with a folkloric fairytale edge. Absolutely loved it! Perfect reading for spooky season.

Thank you to NetGalley and Virago for my e-ARC in return for an honest review.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this as it's a collection of stories written by 10 different authors in very different styles.

The book has a very informative foreword, which is almost a story in itself, and explains how the book came to be and some info on what the retellings are based on.

It also has the sources of the 'original' written folktales in the back of the book. This is so you can see what the authors had to work from for their inspiration, some are surprisingly short and vague which definitely shows the talents and imagination of the authors.

The cover art is wonderful and I loved the fact that they went with the name HAG to try and reclaim the insult to women. Both of these factors were what drew me to the book in the first place.

We have ten very different but all equally unsettling stories set all over the British Isles. While the stories are all told in vastly different ways, they all leave you with the feeling that maybe there is something more out there.

I definitely liked some stories more than others, The Panthers Tale being my favourite. However I managed to take something from each story, whether it was a welcome something, however, is another matter.
And on that note, there are a Lot of content warnings in this book;
Being buried alive, domestic abuse, miscarriage, infertility, infidelity, racism, abuse, shame of single parents, cancer, eye gouging, death and more.

This is a Feminist reclaiming of British Folktales and is definitely worth a read but just be warned, it'll stay with you.

I was thrilled to learn that I’d been accepted for this stunning collection of spooky folktale retellings. During the autumn, I love nothing more than cosying up with some darkly wonderful tales, so I couldn’t wait to dive in.

Commissioned as an audio project in order to hark back to the original delivery format of these stories, the wonderful team at Virago Press decided to put these strange, unsettling retellings against some truly beautiful illustrations and release them in this gorgeous volume of whimsical horror.

Each of the stories take inspiration from a hidden or lost British folk story and each of the authors who have contributed knows the area from which their folktale hails from. All of the authors are women of a wide age range and from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, which are often reflected in their work.

The original folktales in this collection (which you can read at the end of the book) were sourced by Professor Carolyne Larrington of St John’s College, Oxford and she treats us to an enlightening introduction, talking about the significance of absorbing local culture and nature. She talks about how the events of this year has perhaps encouraged us to indulge in that, as we’ve been confined to our home towns more. She also talks about the history of the word ‘hag’ and why the collection uses it as its name. She refers to a medieval story, where a cursed princess gives her prince the ultimatum to love her as either the hag that she has been transformed into or allow her true beauty to return. He says that he loves her all the time and gives her the choice to live as she chooses. This is what these stories are all really about -the things that women want and the freedom to make their own choices.

We begin with the immersive fusion between reality and the supernatural in the ghost story, simply titled A Retelling by Daisy Johnson. It explores how a writer can become literally consumed by their work and ends on a horrifying, grisly note.

Naomi Booth then takes us on a suspenseful tragic ride to Sour Hall, a cold, isolated, boggart-filled setting with an immovable Tell-Tale Heart air.

Irenosen Okojie’s Rosheen tells the macabre story of a young Irish girl, making her way to an English farm in search of her father’s story and the Caribbean culture that she never knew. The desire to tell the world about those who have been marginalised is obviously highly central to the book’s focus and this is something that many of the stories have in common.

We see it again in Kirsty Logan’s Between Sea and Sky, where a single mother faces distrust and suspicion in her small community. This strange, beautiful tale is a poetic celebration of the mother and child bond as well as a commentary on the mistreatment of women who choose to live outside of conventional boundaries.

Merging Indian mythology with a little-known folktale from the Midlands, Mahsuda Snaith treats us to a glistening, ethereal story in The Panther’s Tale. It’s a parable about women helping each other and a stark warning not to underestimate a woman’s power, when she reaches her full potential.

Eimear McBride’s amusing narration comes to us in the form of a sad, whimsical love story called The Tale of Kathleen. Featuring fae encounters, a strong religious streak and assumptions of madness, it makes for an absorbing, gripping read.

We meet queer twin sisters in Liv Little’s The Sisters, who seem to be two parts of a love triangle. They come together over their mother’s illness but their rivalry has all the components to prevail after the very abrupt ending. There is an entire novel’s worth of material in this story, so a part of me is hoping it may be developed one day.

Perhaps one of the most unsettling tales in the book is Emma Glass’ The Dampness Is Spreading, featuring a midwife who delivers the babies of addicted mothers. It is incredibly bloody and leans towards the grotesque of Grimm in some respects but off-set against a modern background.

Natasha Carthew takes us on a very evocative trip to Cornwall in The Droll of the Mermaid, where a family curse story bleeds inevitability. There is also celebration of kindness to all living things and the importance of living a good life before death takes you, which although seeping with tragedy, causes it to glow with hope.

The collection ends on Imogen Hermes Gowar’s The Holloway and I think this may be my favourite. Exploring the horrors of domestic violence within a small family, this compelling story has a very satisfying ending. Although it’s laced with tragedy, hope and courage are both there and this expert storytelling sent me back into the real world with a sense of faith that justice will always be served.

Hag is an anthology that disturbs, informs and thoroughly entertains but above all, celebrates women and minorities. We’re prompted to think about race, sexuality, gender, religion and trauma, as well as inherently female issues such as motherhood and desire repression. These stories depict women going after their dreams and getting them, while inflicting fair punishment where it’s needed. Of course, the feminist slant put Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber collection in mind but Hag brings a different, revitalised energy to these stories that I think we all need this October.

I loved this short story collection.
Dark, chilling and thought provoking. These folktales retold by some of the most fantastic female authors are a real Autumnal treat.
Highly recommend.

Hag is a collection of retellings of lesser-known folktales originating from around the United Kingdom. From a selection of female authors, come stories of pixies who prey on violent men, a boggart haunting a dairy farm, a woman who transforms into a panther, a silkie who spends half his life on land and half in the sea, and much more. The retellings are all female-centric and re-imagined for the modern era.

Every one of the stories in this collection was fantastic and special in its own way. Of course, there were some I liked more than others, but they were all incredibly atmospheric and well-written. The stories touch on the subjects of exploitation, grief, pregnancy and motherhood, love and domestic abuse. The different authors all bring their own unique flavour to their story, but they all have a creepy, haunting undercurrent which makes this a perfect book for Autumn and Winter reading.

My favourite stories were probably Mashuda Snaith’s The Panther’s Tale, Imogen Hermes Gowar’s The Holloway, and A Retelling by Daisy Johnson (but it’s very hard to choose).

The original source tales are also provided at the end, which was a great touch for readers interested in folklore.

A brilliant line-up of female writers reimagine folk lore -
Hag is a slighter version of Kate Bernheimer's modern myth project 'My mother I killed her, My father he ate me' with a British focus.
Originally conceived as a podcast, the published version includes two additional stories from Irenson Okojie and Imogen Hermes Gowar.

There is a powerful darkness at the core of this project. The authorial voices each dazzle
in their uniqueness and the reader is pulled through by the diverse approaches to the challenge.
Some of the source material worked with here is known regionally, others are slighter, less familiar. In each case the authors have found a specific connection to their launchpad, geographical, thematic or ancestral.

Highlights for me were 'Between Sea and Sky' by
Kirsty Logan, an accomplished short story writer whose work is entrenched in myth and magic and openerThe Panther's Tale Mahsuda Snaith were highlights,

The inclusion of the originals as an appendix allows the reader to contrast with tales that may themselves be new to them.
Reading alongside you can appreciate the imaginative texture of the new versions included here.
Every story we tell is a retelling; details shift that emphasize what's real, but not true.

"Hag" is a gripping short stories collection that I cannot recommend highly enough to those who enjoy old myths and legends.

I did like some of the stories but this was more of a miss for me. I like the authors involved in this but this wasn't for me really.

An excellent collection of stories from some of the best contemporary female writers, Hag really is a gem. Retelling english folklore, some I knew, others I didnt, but bringing them kicking and screaming into the modern world. The stories all had links to the mythology present in their original tales, but with over arching themes of nature and feminism. I was expecting to really like this book but it more than lived up to expectations.

The stories were picked from different parts of the UK and Ireland and gave all managed to capture what the local areas have to offer. It has both given me a much longer TBR pile, and also made me want to complete a 'Hag tour' so I can explore the areas it describes.

My thanks to Virago for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold’ in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher “From the islands of Scotland to the coast of Cornwall, the mountains of Galway to the depths of the Fens, these forgotten folktales howl, cackle and sing their way into the 21st century, wildly reimagined by some of the most exciting women writing in Britain and Ireland today.”

The Preface by Professor Carolyne Larrington was excellent and provided an overview including the information that eight of the stories had been originally released in 2019 as a podcast series titled ‘Hag’ on Audible. Two new stories by Irenosen Okijie and Imogen Hermes Gowar were commissioned especially for the print edition, though Professor Larrington advises that these will soon be added to the podcast series.

I am fascinated by folklore and was familiar with only a few of the original folktales. Likewise, I have read the work of four of the ten contributors and was happy to be introduced to the others.

I was also pleased that the original stories and their sources were included after the retellings. However, I did feel that placing these either before or after the individual tales with a little context would have made for a smoother read.

I found this a rich reading experience with plenty of chills. I have now downloaded the podcasts and plan to revisit these stories one-by-one as they seem suitable as eerie bedtime reading/listening in the run up to Halloween.

Overall, I felt that this was a strong collection that provided a fascinating journey and demonstrated what a rich source of inspiration these forgotten folk tales can be.

3.5/5

CW: infertility, miscarriage, child loss, child abuse, domestic abuse (and tbh several more)

Anyone else find short story collections really hard to review? This is an Angela Carter-esque collection of folktale retellings, with a big fat feminist twist. There's ten short stories in total and the source material for the tales is included at the end, which was definitely appreciated. As with most short story collections, some were absolutely standout (for me, "A Retelling" and "The Panther's Tale"), most were enjoyable, and I didn't gel well with a couple of them.

I had varying degrees of familiarity with the original folktales the stories were based on, but I don't feel this affected my enjoyment of any of the pieces. There is a consistent unsettling thread woven through all of the tales, as well as strong feminist tones, and this lent to the collection's cohesive feel. Overall I feel this is a solid collection and would be perfect for a cosy, mildly spooky, unsettling read.

Big thanks to NetGalley, the authors, Virago, and Little Brown UK for the review copy. This is available to buy now!

Thank you to NetGalley for letting me read this. It's a lovely chunk of folk tales retold. There are a lot of different female voices here, exploring folk tales from Britain, but also from other cultures. These stories are often dark and disturbing. They are definitely not sugar-plummy or covered in sequins.

The richness is partly in the variety of voices. It's a great book to take slowly, story by story. I needed time to let things settle in between each re-telling. There were stories here I recognised, and ones that were new to me, but the re-tellings give them freshness and relevance. Recommended.

Exploring otherness, identity, faith, religion, gender and sexual trauma, Hag brings together a gripping collection of tales that are unsettlingly timely and wickedly sinister. Each story is inspired by a forgotten folk tale sourced from across the UK by Professor Carolyne Larrington, a specialist in Old Norse and British fairy tales at St John's College, Oxford. Drawn from illuminated manuscripts and other folkloric traditions, these stories have been revised and reimagined by authors local to each region. Just as the Brothers Grimm codified Germany's rural folk lore, Hag catalogues the early myths and legends that have shaped the UK's storytelling heritage.

This wonderful anthology of culture-rich myths and folktales are given a unique feminist makeover and are steeped in the traditions of the United Kingdom. Each is subtly nuanced and enveloped in an enigmatic, and often magical or foreboding, atmosphere. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most appealing and riveting short story collections I've read in recent years, and I can't recommend it highly enough for those who enjoy old myths and legends, and even the supernatural or fairytales, and one of the best aspects is that this book doesn't just retell the prominent stories we all know, hence the use of ’forgotten’ in the title.

With a preface by Larrington about the different types of tales, we are treated to 10 vivid, diverse and beautifully written retellings each from a separate writer and each with an introduction denoting the name of the original tale and the location in which it was most renowned. The original source version of the stories are also, helpfully, provided at the end. Original, haunting and bizarre, there is something here for everyone to enjoy. I couldn't think of any better book to be curled up with under a blanket with a cup of something warm as the Autumn wind howls and the nights draw in even more. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Virago for an ARC.

I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for a fair review.

What drew me to this was the fact this was a collection of fairytale/folkmyth retellings of stories I'd never heard of before - I'm not British (I have only lived in the UK for a year) and my frame of reference is very different and very Scandinavian (particularly Icelandic). I don't know if this is a big part of the reason why I enjoyed the stories so much - not knowing the originals made everything fresh for me.

A Retelling - Daisy Johnson
To borrow from the preface, this is a meta tale of sorts, where the author writes herself into the story and discusses the retelling, even as she gets affected by the myth and drawn into it. I thought it had a horror-ish vibe (well, to be frank, don't most folk myths and stories have a degree of horror at their core?) and I liked the way the telling was framed, with the ending told first and then repeated again at the ending, making the whole thing rather reminiscent of greek tragedies. Based on the Green Children of Woolpit, Suffolk.

Sour Hall - Naomi Booth
This one might actually be my favourite of all of the stories. It's based on a Yorkshire myth about a boggart, but in this form the boggart has taken on a metaphorical embodiment of trauma. Like the previous story, it has a strong horror-vibe in my opinion, but this one isn't a tragedy - it's about healing and learning to exist with trauma. Also I appreciate the lesbian God's Own Country vibe on top of everything else. I really enjoyed this one. Based on Ay, We're Flittin', Yorkshire.

Rosheen - Irenosen Okijie
Another very horror-y story, but not because of supernatural reasons - because sometimes humans are all the horror you need. Rosheen goes in search of her father in Norfolk, gets work on a farm, and there it transpires that the farmer not only exploits workers, but murders them and keeps their heads in a barn. When the farmer tries to murder her by shoving her into an old well (full of other bodies) she realises that her father must've met the same fate and she crawls out of the well, murders the farmer, and adds his head to the collection in the barn. It's not my favourite story, but I liked the idea of it, and after reading the original tale thought this was a lovely take on it.
Based on the Dauntless Girl, Norfolk.

Between Sea and Sky - Kirsty Logan
I've read this author before so I had an idea of what to expect, and I got pretty much exactly what I expected. Like A Retelling, this one also starts with the ending and has the ending repeated at the end, again giving us a tragedy. It's a modern selkie story, about a mother who gives birth to a selkie boy - she's returned to her home island for a solo archeological dig, where she spends years slowly uncovering layers of skeleton, all mothers with little unborn selkie children in their bellies. In the end she meets the same fate (death) at the hands of her own selkie child, when he takes her to live with him under the sea. I liked that the mother and selkie boy had names of Scottish islands (Skye and Muir), and I liked the way this story was written, but ultimately it didn't blow me away. Fans of Kirsty Logan will likely enjoy it as it was very par for the course for her.
Based on The Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie, Orkney

The Panther's Tale - Mahsuda Snaith
This one read very like a fairytale - a woman with a sick child gets help to heal her child from a princess in the form of a panther, and eventually decides to leave her husband for her - but also like a parable of colonialism and imperialism embodied, as the panther is an Indian princess, and she, along with 'exotic' animals has been forcibly removed from her country, and in the end, is unnecessarily killed because her captors do not understand her context...for there then to be raised an unremarkable monument for her that doesn't tell her full story and actively buries parts of it while elevating the deeds of her captors. I liked this story, and I wanted it to end differently - I wanted the growing love between the princess and the mother to come to fruit and I wanted a happy ending for both of them. In the end, we don't know what came of the mother and child, and the princess didn't get the respect she deserved. It's undeniably a powerful story.
Based on Chillington House, Stafford

The Tale of Kathleen - Eimear McBride
This was possibly my least favourite of the stories, if only because of how little it deviated from the original story (which I read afterwards). Even before I read the original story I was left somewhat unsatisfied - searching for a point, for the aha! the reason why this story was retold in this way, and I came up empty. The story itself is unchanged, it's only the way of the telling that is different. I've heard many good things about Eimear McBride and I have a copy of a A Girl is a Half-formed Thing I keep meaning to read, and yeah - she's knows how to string words and sentences together well and I really did enjoy the way this story was told. But ultimately the story was just kind of boring: another, somewhat typical, tragedy of the fae folk-contact type.
Based on the story of the same name, County Galway

The Sisters - Liv Little
This one is possibly my third favourite story. It's about two sisters (twins) who are both lesbians, only one came out as a teenager and was kicked out and the other repressed herself and took time to find her own identity. They're now in their mid twenties and their mother is dying, so the story revolves around the one sister reconnecting with her mother in the hospice, while the other sister is spending time with her sister's girlfriend, the two eventually starting something of a relationship. it's a story of dysfunctional relationships, of desiring and wanting to be desired. I thought the ending was a little abrupt and vaguely unfulfilled, but on the other hand I can't really imagine how else it would've ended - and it's a tragedy too, of sorts, as the mother died while the girlfriend and the sister were having sex in a car and so they missed the calls. I read the original story afterwards and found it was about two brothers who killed each other in a duel over a 'useless woman', the ground where the brothers touched being now cursed with nothing willing to grow on it. with that in mind, I went over this retelling again, and while I know that the retelling doesn't have to follow the original plot, I can't help but think the story could've been more compelling if a bit longer, if it had dwelled a bit more on the sisters' relationship. I did like that the girlfriend wasn't reduced to a 'useless woman' but was a person with needs and desires and flaws and everything, but I'd just have liked...to see it all a bit more fleshed out. I think it would've made for a punchier ending, too.
Based on Tavistock Square, London

The Dampness Is Spreading - Emma Glass
Ohh ok this one I actually knew the original folk myth beforehand, BUT not the Welsh version - the Icelandic one (there are several versions of this in Iceland as well, and I've read dozens of them). The two versions are almost identical save for a few minor details. I mention this because when I read this retelling I was unsettled by how it wasn't playing out the way I expected to - I was recognising the trope, for the lack of a better word, and it was being flipped in a way that didn't make sense to me. ANYWAY, this story - a bitter old midwife who has suffered several miscarriages and her husband leaving her because of it, is approached by a man she recognises from a previous midwifery job (when he was a child), whose sister is in labour. she helps the sister, and as the sister gives birth she is transformed into a monster, screaming about how the midwife must place the placenta over her baby's eyes so that the baby might recognise her mother. the midwife does so, the baby stops breathing, she revives the child, accidentally rubs one of her own eyes and gets placenta on it, and with that eye she can see the woman as beautiful as she was before she started transforming. the woman realises this and stabs the eye and the midwife wakes up in hospital later, blind in the eye, nobody in the hospital knows what happened and didn't see the transformation take place.
That's where the story stopped making sense to me, because in the original myths, both the Welsh and the Icelandic ones, it is a salve/ointment, and not a monstrous placenta, and the woman doesn't transform. What the ointment does for the midwife is it grants her sight of the elves (in Icelandic: sight of the hidden things/people) so with that eye she can see the elves as they walk among humans and she can see their houses and palaces and all the hidden things. In several Icelandic versions she loses the sight in that eye when an elf realises the midwife can see her, and either spits in that eye or touches it, or in some other way removes the effects of the salve - and in the Icelandic versions the midwife usually *intentionally* rubs that salve on one of her eyes, so being later punished by losing sight in that eye entirely is very par for the course, as the elves had not originally granted her that favour (though they had of course paid her handsomely for her assistance for the original job). In the Welsh myth this anointment is accidental, and the midwife is rather cruelly punished for it, and in this retelling the elves are made monstrous and even more cruel, and I'm still puzzled about the reversal of sight - her normal eye seeing the monster and the anointed eye seeing the beauty - it makes very little sense to me and it's driving me mad because that's not how the story goes, why, what is the point, what is going on - so I'm just going to shut up.
SO ANYWAY the story was compelling until this weird thing at the end, though also depressing as hell and more like a horror-tragedy than any of the other stories.
Based on The Fairy Midwife, Wales

The Droll of the Mermaid - Natasha Carthew
This is my second favourite story in this anthology - I love a good mermaid story, and this one feels familiar in a way that is hard to describe. I especially like this retelling, which elevated the original myth and centered kindness even more. This one isn't a tragedy or a horror story, this story has a happy ending, this story rewards kindness - unlike the midwife story that preceded this one, where the midwife's kindness in helping the birth is cruelly punished because of one small accident. I'm sorry for going on about it but it just makes me so mad. This story however is just lovely. It would've been a perfect ending to the anthology too imo, so I'm not sure why it wasn't placed at the end, but oh well.
Based on The Mermaid and the Man of Cury, Cornwall

The Holloway - Imogen Hermes Gowar
This is perhaps the most modern of all the stories in the anthology, depicting a family with an abusive father, an older brother who tries to protect his mother and little sister from him - he just got into university and doesn't want to go - and the little sister who asks the fairies to help her. her brother is who told her about the fairies, and so she leaves them little offerings and slips of paper asking for help, and eventually, one morning, the father is found dead on the moor. It being a very modern tale there's some uncertainty about whether the older brother had anything to do with it or whether the fairies did it, but the three remaining family members are, like victims of abuse, genuinely grieving but also relieved - all the complex emotions you'd expect. I like the story, and I think it would've been better placed somewhere else in the anthology rather than at the end.
Based on Old Farmer Mole, Somerset

All the original myths these retelling are based on are printed at the end of the book, which I found very helpful and also interesting.

Overall I really liked this anthology. There were some stories I didn't like as much, some that were good, and some that I really liked. I also really liked the illustrations for each story. They look like they're inspired by Pictish carvings, and I like how they illustrate a key element in the story in a way that doesn't always become apparent until the end.