P. Miller's graphic, colorful farm animals seem to jump right off the page--but they aren't jumping to help the Little Red Hen plant her wheat! Young children will learn a valuable lesson about teamwork from this funny, favorite folktale.

    In the early 1950's he took a journey to seek the legend out, in the Hebrides, on the east coast of Scotland, on the west coast of Ireland - places where magic co-exists with reality and pre-Christian traditions and beliefs somehow endure. He gives us here the fruits of his search as he found it, and tells us something of the men, women, and children from whom he heard the stories. He also tells of his own encounters with seals, and the dreamlike hold that these have had on him. The result is, in the words of his friend Seamus Heaney, a poetic achievement - a work of "intuitive understanding, perfect grace, and perfect pitch."

    Marcia Brown also lived in Jamaica, so her gay black & white line drawings capture the spirit of these tales.

    A miller's three beautiful daughters (the eldest, vain; the middle, flighty; the youngest, industrious and good-hearted) are enticed by a wicked magician to his underground kingdom with the help of a golden apple. The youngest daughter saves her sisters, who have been turned into birds, and other ensorcelled maidens because she alone can read the spell in the enchanted book that will release them. Full-color illustrations.