I have always loved fairy tales, the darker the better. bur reading Hag made me realise that I know very few British folklore and fairy tales.

This collection of fairy tales are wonderful re-imaginings of British tales almost lost to memory, with a female character at the centre of each. Written by such extraordinary writers as Daisy Johnson, Imogen Hermes Gower and Eimear McBride, each tale has a powerful voice and eerie undertones.

Atmospheric, haunting, steeped in our landscape, these are glorious stories that deserve to be judged in their own right, not just as interpretations.

As a lifelong fan of myth, this new short story collection of retold local stories is really engaging.
As with all collections of stories by different authors, some are better than others. There are a few that don’t flow very well, or reflect the original myth. But on the whole, a really interesting modern take on old stories

Dark, poetic and full of thousands of years worth of hidden fury, Hag unearths a myriad of necessary voices from the wealth of female short story writers at work in Britain and Ireland.

The mother of a half boy, half seal, a woman cursed to be both animal and human, the new owners of a farm who hear mysterious noises from the depths of their shed, this collection has it all. Taking inspiration from a ton of different British and Irish folktales, this collection transforms them into new, fresh stories, adding a welcome level of horror.

Forgotten Folktales Reimagined

Curated by Professor Carolyne Larrington, St John’s College, Oxford, these stories are inspired by the forgotten folklore of the British Isles. The project originated as a podcast, emphasising the oral tradition. Here, for the first time and with two new contributions, the stories are brought to the page.

And what stories they are. Dark, powerful, feminist and current, as to be expected from authors Kirsty Logan, Irenosen Okojie, Daisy Johnson, Eimear McBride, Emma Glass, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Natasha Carthew, Mahsuda Snaith, Naomi Booth and Liv Little.

Standouts were the chilling 'The Dampness is Spreading' by Emma Glass, 'A Retelling’ by Daisy Johnson and Kirsty Logan's 'Between Sea and Sky'.

Uncanny.

My thanks to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for the ARC.

I love a short story and this collection of retold folktales features contributions from several writers whose work I admire but somehow I still didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I thought I would. I suppose my slight disappointment came from not always knowing the story being retold, and I found the source materials at the end rather dry and would have preferred summaries with brief excerpts, rather than the long passages included. My favourites of the bunch were the stories set in modern times, giving them a speculative near-reality, like Daisy Johnson’s and Naomi Booth’s entries, amongst others. That said, my very favourite story was Mahsuda Snaith’s ‘The Panther’s Tale’ which invoked more of a magical realism vibe than other stories in the collection and was just super vivid.

'Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold' has been such a pleasure to read. Growing up in Poland, I’m used to both well-known Western fairytales and legends as well as those firmly ingrained in Polish tradition. However, I haven’t read or heard of many typically English, Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish folklore tales previously, so I was very curious about 'Hag'. And I wasn’t disappointed.

This collection has been full of interesting and challenging stories that both were firmly recalling traditional elements of many folklore stories from the area as well as they were unenviably timely. 'Hag' is a collection curated by Professor Carolyne Larrington, and while it was interesting to read the stories, I really enjoyed reading the introduction as well. Finding out this collection of stories has previously been (at least parts) available as a podcast with stories specially written for a speaking performance, definitely made me interested in the audiobook format of 'Hag'. There’s something about telling the story in the immediate form – by speaking, especially with folklore tales travelling through the word of mouth for years before things have started to be written down. All of the retellings in 'Hag' have been written by women, and featured strong female characters, but they all have been so diverse and timely.

Most of the stories in 'Hag' are darker than I expected, not only because the heavy themes they often explore, but also because of certain meta-fiction element you can see especially see in the few stories. Some tales start in seemingly our world, with the narrator being the writers themselves, and yet they have this supernatural element. I really have enjoyed Daisy Johnson’s retelling of the Green Children of Woolpit.

I would definitely recommend 'Hag'. Each story retold a different tale, and they have left me wanting to know more. Some end almost rapidly, with a reader wishing there was more to it, making the story stay with a reader for far longer. I also liked the inclusion of the original inspiration for the retellings – it was interesting to see how the author’s used their creativity and explored the themes of those tales.

This is delicious: a collection of traditional folk tales from across the British Isles, retold by modern authors (all women) and often updated for the present day. They're as dark, eerie, murderous and creepy as you'd want folk tales to be. I had some very strange dreams while reading this book, which is also high praise for this kind of short fiction!

I haven't read that many collections of stories by different writers, so I found the changes in tone/style from story to story very refreshing. The stories were all written to be read out loud, on the 'Hag' podcast, and that felt important too: I could imagine being part of a circle, gathered round a fire and a storyteller, listening to each one.

One lovely surprise was having versions of the original folk tales as an additional section at the end of the book: a chance to see the raw source material, and get a better understanding of how it had been updated.

In the last couple of years, I've found myself down the path of short stories from Angela Carter (The Bloody Chamber), Sarah Hall (The Beautiful Indifference) and Zoe Gilbert (Folk). This sits perfectly alongside them.

trigger warning
<spoiler> domestic abuse, miscarriage, trauma, grief, alcoholism, homophobia, lethal illness, death of a parent, skin picking, drug abuse, child neglect, mutilation, gas lighting</spoiler>

Everybody knows Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel - but do you know Selkies, the Boggart, the fair Folk? In this collection, female authors retell classic folktales from the British Islands, and yes, some of them are queer.

Some of these stories I knew, some I didn't. It comes in handy that at the end of this collection, there is a section with the original tales the authors were given to play.
Each tale is accompanied with a fitting illustration in the style of the cover page, and we're told where they are set. The Orkneys, London, all around.

True to folktale tradition, the characters lead a simple life so you could be one of them, or know them, and heavy but every day topics are taken up and woven into the words. Grief, trauma, violence.

I believe that before reading this, the only author I knew was Kirsty Logan, but I might dip into the works of the other writers if my tbr should become smaller. It's not a priority, but I know that I'll find good reading there.

If you like weird stuff, look no further.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

Review will be posted on publication day.

A collection of short stories that retell some forgotten or uncommon dairy tales. There's tales of whimsy, weird and wonderful reimaginings and all of them feel distinct and unique. I think my favourite is actually the opener, from Daisy Johnson - with a retelling based on the Green Children of Woolpit. As strange a story as it sounds, I liked the 'telling' aspect of this, almost as a second narrative. There's lots of descriptions of countrysides and brambles that add to the sense of disquieting otherworldly atmosphere mixed with mundane familial living.

Some of the others stories drag at times, and because I was unfamiliar with the original folktale the overall meaning behind some stories is lost. I would have liked some small recap or introduction to each story, and maybe got more out of each subsequent retelling.

This is a collection of folk tales that are retold. I didn’t know many of the original folktales. I liked some of the them but others weren’t for me. The preface was interesting and I will be looking into the folktales. There is a varied collection of stories and styles. I will admit that some of the writing styles weren’t for me and I struggled to get through them. Some of the themes are dark and would be triggering for some people.

My favourites were,
Sour Hall by Daisy Johnson which I would give 5 stars
The Panthers Tale by Kirsty Logan which I would give 4 stars

I also really enjoyed the section of original tales and seeing how the originals were reformed. I liked the section about the authors too.

Overall this was an interesting story collection that I liked but I don’t think I will read it again. It has made me want to look into more folktales though.

Hag is a collection of retold folk stories written by female authors, using tales from across the UK. From self-conscious retellings to modern versions, the stories all have different takes on their source material, engaging with them in different ways to bring new life to the folktales. Each story lists its inspiration, and then the book concludes with quoted passages giving a sense of the original tale.

As someone who doesn't really know any folk stories beyond those already known and adapted in the modern day, I didn't know what to expect. Without knowing any of the original tales, the stories had varying effects, and some of the best made elements of the original story clear whilst also bringing something new. Daisy Johnson's exploration of trying to retell a myth whilst strange things keep happening is a gripping opening to the collection, and provides a good reflection on how to do a knowing retelling. Some of the others, like Naomi Booth's 'Soul Hall' and Imogen Hermes Gowar's 'The Holloway' use the adaptation as a way to blend the weird and supernatural with difficult problems and mental states.

Other standout stories took different approaches. Mahsuda Snaith's 'The Panther's Tale' expands the original myth (a fact I only found out from reading the details afterwards at the end of the book) in really satisfying ways to create a rounded folktale with more perspectives, but still a lot of magic. And on the other end of the spectrum, 'The Sisters' by Liv Little doesn't feel like a folk story at all, but a look at family, grief, and two sisters falling for the same woman.

Overall, this felt like a good collection, with a varied selection of stories and an important mission to find new life and meaning in tales many might not know. However, some of the stories did drag at times, and it might've been easier to know the original tale before reading the retelling by structuring the book differently, so readers without knowing of the originals could still engage with what was being done in the retellings.

One of my favourite books has long been a big compedium of British Folk Tales that I received for my seventh birthday. It is a collection of short, unembroidered of stories from around the British Isles, collated by Kevin Crossley-Holland. What a joy then to have the opportunity to read HAG, a book of short stories inspired by those tales I have long held dear, by many of my favourite female authors and with a deliciously modern, diverse and feminist flavour to their retellings.
Each story has its own distinct style, as dictated by the author, the source material and the area from which the story heralds. I love how pronounced the voices of the authors are, it is like being told (what I called as a child) a 'mouth story' and really evokes a feeling of place.
I particularly enjoyed Daisy Johnson's retelling of the Green Children of Woolpit, possibly because I have recently moved back from London to Bury St Edmunds (which you can 'smell before *you* see it'). Not only is it a story that has fascinated me since I was small, I also found much to connect to in the way the natural world is invading the city life of the story, the earth almost reclaiming the central character. Having recently returned to East Anglia from the city, it really resonated. I loved Eimear McBride (and it has encouraged me to read more of her work, so different was the style from A Girl Is A Half Formed Thing- which was quite a hard read for me), Kirsty Logan and Imogen Hermes Gowar's modern-feeling takes on their stories particularly, but there really isn't a weak one amongst them, I also loved Mahsuda Snaith's The Panther's Tale, which felt set in the past and Natasha Carthew's which felt post-apocalyptic.
That, I think, is the overall beauty of this collection. It shows that there are tales amongst us that are timeless, but that there are a million more folk stories living amongst us now and so many more to be told in the future.
Thank you to Little Brown and Netgalley for the advance copy for this review. I'm looking forward to buying copies to gift to friends and family.

This collection was born out of a literary experiment curated by Professor Carolyne Larrington. Eight female authors were provided with a British folktale and asked to write a contemporary retelling with a feminist twist. In line with the oral tradition they were inspired by, the stories were first produced as podcasts. Now augmented by two further stories commissioned from Irenosen Okojie and Imogen Hermes Gowar, they are being issued in book form by Virago, the indefatigable publisher of books by women.

The list of authors involved in this Angela-Carteresque project is a roll-call of some of the finest contemporary writers in the English language. It is interesting to note how the subject-matter provides a unifying thread among the featured works, despite the variety of styles and approaches. An appendix at the end presents the folktales upon which the commissioned authors worked their contemporary magic.

Among the best stories are those which let the original material speak for itself, albeit in a changed context. Natasha Carthew’s The Droll of the Mermaid, based on The Mermaid and the Man of Cury, retains many of the elements of the legend which inspires it and, with its song-like run-on phrases, evokes the cadences of the spoken word. Kirsty Logan returns to her beloved Scottish myths in Between Sea and Sky, an adaptation of the folk song The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry. I would have expected Imogen Hermes Gowar to write a story about mermaids. What she comes up with in The Holloway is, instead, a clever contemporary take on a Somerset folktale about a drunken, abusive farmer who gets what he deserves at the hand of the pixies. In The Sisters, Liv Little gives a queer twist to a London legend (originally) about two brothers who fought a duel in Tavistock Square for the hand and heart of a woman they both loved.

This project has a meta-fictional element to it, and two of the stories take this to a heightened level. Eimar McBride’s The Tale of Kathleen is a relatively unembellished version of a folktale from Ireland which pits against each other Christian belief and fairie traditions. What McBride brings to an otherwise “straight” account is a strongly opinionated present-day narrator, who keeps intervening with ironic commentary about the story. I felt that the strident anti-Catholic rhetoric actually lessened the impact of the original by highlighting and underlining what is more subtly conveyed in the folktale. More successful, in my opinion, is Daisy Johnson’s A Retelling. Johnson blurs the distinction between the author and narrator, starting off with an auto-fictional description of the writer’s research about the tale of the Green Children of Woolpit, before things get decidedly uncannier. I remember reading the story of the Green Children as a little boy, and Johnson’s retelling evoked the same nightmarish, claustrophobic yet strangely thrilling feelings that the tale had first instilled in me many years back.

In her preface, Larrington states that many of the stories “are in dialogue with ‘folk-horror’ or the ‘new weird’”. Although these terms are notoriously hard to define and classification is difficult, I would struggle to describe this as a “folk horror” collection. This does not mean that there isn’t terror aplenty in these stories, especially body horror mediating female experiences of trauma associated with pregnancy, childbearing and miscarriage. In this context, Emma Glass reinvents the Welsh legend of the Fairy Midwife in the disturbing The Dampness is Spreading whereas Naomi Booth’s Sour Hall unexpectedly turns a legend about a pesky boggart into a searing condemnation of male violence and abuse.

Some stories infuse these British tales with a welcome dose of cultural diversity. Irenosen Okojie’s Rosheen is based on the Norfolk tale of The Dauntless Girl, but the eponymous protagonist is Okojie’s creation. The daughter of a Trinidadian father and an Irish mother, Rosheen leaves Killarney in the 60s to seek her luck on a farm in Norfolk. The horrors she faces there are much darker than the almost comical accounts found in the original and are conveyed in Okojie’s characteristically ultra-weird style (I can’t shake off the image of dangling severed heads). Mahsuda Smith is represented by The Panther’s Tale, which combines an anecdote linked to a Midlands’ aristocratic family’s coat of arms with shapeshifting legends drawn from the author’s Bengali folk heritage.

Folktales provide commentary on some of our timeless needs, desires and fears. Hag is ample proof of the fact that, in the right hands, the themes of time-honoured stories can still resonate with readers (and listeners) today.

I love this book, I am big fan of folk lore and tales from ages past and this book took that to a whole new level, highly recommended

I really enjoyed this book a lot. The characters were clever and engaging, and getting to spend time with them was a treat. I liked the writing too - it was descriptive without ever veering into flowery territory, and I would certainly be interested in reading more work by this author. The cover is great too!