Book picks similar to
Western Isles Folk Tales by Ian Stephen


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Warrior Daughter


Janet Paisley - 2009
    But she is also a child, and when a chariot race leaves the queen dead and her menacing rival Mara in her place, Skaaha's charmed life lies in ruins.Vulnerable, her future imperilled, Skaaha seeks to forge a life beyond the new queen's reach. But with rumour, fear and danger sweeping the island, she cannot remain unmoved. Broken by brutal misfortune, alone in a world of mistrust, Skaaha must unearth the courage to confront her enemies in defence of her people.Illuminated by the great Celtic fire festivals, Warrior Daughter is inspired by the historical Scathach, a fierce warrior woman of the first century AD and forerunner to the equally ferocious Boudicca.Praise for Janet Paisley's White Rose Rebel:'Heather igniting historical adventure' Sunday Times'A powerful historical page-turner with a beautiful, feisty heroine' ScotsmanJanet Paisley is the author of five poetry collections, two of short fiction, a novella and numerous plays, radio, TV and film scripts. Accolades include a prestigious Creative Scotland Award (Not for Glory, stories), the Peggy Ramsay Memorial Award (Refuge, a play) and a BAFTA nomination (Long Haul, a short film). Her first novel, White Rose Rebel, is available from Penguin.

The Cat on the Dovrefell: A Christmas Tale


Tomie dePaola - 1979
    The trolls pay Halvor an annual Christmas visit until they encounter a great white cat.

The Hidden Folk: Stories of Fairies, Dwarves, Selkies, and Other Secret Beings


Lise Lunge-Larsen - 2004
    Or was it just the odd light of dusk or dawn playing tricks? As Lise Lunge-Larsen’s magical, timeless stories reveal and Beth Krommes’s enchanting scratchboard illustrations capture, the hidden folk are there, all right: you just have to know where—and how—to look.

Gypsy Folk Tales


Diane Tong - 1986
    That tradition continues vigorously to the present day.The 80 stories published in this volume, many for the first time in English, some for the first time in any language, are gathered from 31 countries, including India, France, England, the U.S., Greece, Sweden, Syria, Argentina, Russia, and Turkey. Here are tales in which young mothers become vampires and wolves become lawyers; where ostracism, poverty, hunger, and death are countered by resourcefulness, hospitality, and magic. Here are tales that offer imaginative explanations of why the Gypsies live all over the world, why they have no church and no alphabet, why they love music; tales that link the Gypsies' past to their recent successful efforts to organize against oppression.As varied as the tales are the tellers - factory workers, musicians, novelists, shopkeepers, dancers, professors, lacemakers, political activists - who are identified in the headnotes to individual stories. In these notes and in their introduction, Diane Tong discusses, among much else, Gypsy values, beliefs, and customs as revealed in the tales. The vivid storytelling and Tong's perceptive annotation combine to show how the Gypsies see themselves and the world.

The Snow Child: A Russian Folktale


Freya Littledale - 1978
    Each spring the snow child must leave, but every winter she returns with the first snowfall and comes to life with a kiss.

The Mash House


Alan Gillespie - 2021
    In the same village, Donald is the aggressive distillery owner, who floods the country with narcotics alongside his single malt; when his son goes missing, he becomes haunted by an anonymous American investor intent on purchasing the Cullrothes Distillery by any means necessary. Schoolgirl Jessie is trying to get the grades to escape to the mainland, while Grandpa counts the days left in his life.This is a place where mountains are immense and the loch freezes in winter. A place with only one road in and out. With long storms and furious midges and a terrible phone signal. The police are compromised, the journalists are scum, and the innocent folk of Cullrothes tangle themselves in a fermenting barrel of suspicion, malice and lies.The Mash House uses multiple narratives to weave together the parallel lives of individuals in the village. Each fractured by the fears and uncertainty in their own minds.

Bearwallow: A Personal History of a Mountain Homeland


Jeremy B. Jones - 2014
    He takes a job alongside his former teachers in the local elementary school and sets out on a search to understand how this ancient land has shaped its people—how it shaped him. His search sends him burrowing in the past—hunting buried treasure and POW camps, unearthing Civil War graves and family feuds, exploring gated communities and tourist traps, encountering changed accents and immigrant populations, tracing Wal-Mart's sidewalks and carved-out mountains—and pondering the future. He meshes narrative and myth, geology and genealogy, fiddle tunes and local color about the briskly changing and oft-stigmatized world of his native southern Appalachians.Somehow, these journeys continually lead him back to the mystical Bearwallow Mountain, a peak suddenly in flux.

Scabby Queen


Kirstin Innes - 2020
    And, as practical as she is, Ruth doesn't know what to do. Or how to feel. Because knowing and loving Clio Campbell was never straightforward.To Neil, she was his great unrequited love. He'd known it since their days on picket lines as teenagers. Now she's a sentence in his email inbox: Remember me well.The media had loved her as a sexy young starlet, but laughed her off as a ranting spinster as she aged. But with news of her suicide, Clio Campbell is transformed into a posthumous heroine for politically chaotic times.Stretching over five decades, taking in the miners' strikes to Brexit and beyond; hopping between a tiny Scottish island, a Brixton anarchist squat, the bloody Genoa G8 protests, the poll tax riots and Top of the Pops, Scabby Queen is a portrait of a woman who refuses to compromise, told by her friends and lovers, enemies and fans.As word spreads of what Clio has done, half a century of memories, of pain and of joy are wrenched to the surface. Those who loved her, those who hated her, and those that felt both ways at once, are forced to ask one question: Who was Clio Campbell?

When the Sea Turned to Silver


Grace Lin - 2016
    However, the peace is shattered one night when soldiers of the Emperor arrive and kidnap the storyteller.Everyone knows that the Emperor wants something called the Luminous Stone That Lights the Night. Determined to have her grandmother returned, Pinmei embarks on a journey to find the Luminous Stone alongside her friend Yishan, a mysterious boy who seems to have his own secrets to hide. Together, the two must face obstacles usually found only in legends to find the Luminous Stone and save Pinmei's grandmother--before it's too late.A fast-paced adventure that is extraordinarily written and beautifully illustrated, When the Sea Turned to Silver is a masterpiece companion novel to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Starry River of the Sky.

The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends, from Spring-Heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys


Jennifer Westwood - 2005
    Where can you find the 'Devil's footprints'? What happened at the 'hangman's stone'? Did Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, ever really exist? Where was King Arthur laid to rest? Bringing together tales of hauntings, highwaymen, family curses and lovers' leaps, this magnificent guide will take you on a magical journey through England's legendary past.

The Back Country


Gary Snyder - 1967
    Gary Snyder worked as a logger and forest ranger; "Far East"—poems written between 1956 and 1964 in Japan where he studied Zen at the monastery in Kyoto; "Kali"—poems inspired by a visit to India and his reading of Indian religious texts, particularly those of Shivaism and Tibetan Buddhism; and "Back"—poems done on his return to this country in 1964 which look again at our West with the eyes of India and Japan. The book concludes with a group of translations of the Japanese poet Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933), with whose work Snyder feels a close affinity. The title, The Back Country, has three major associations; wilderness. the "backward" countries, and the “back country" of the mind with its levels of being in the unconscious.

Bengali Folk Tales (Illustrated)


Lal Behari Day - 1883
    A collection of Bengali folk tales with 32 color illustrations by Warwick Goble.

Anansi and the Magic Stick


Eric A. Kimmel - 2001
    Warthog, Lion, and Zebra laugh so hard at his messy house that they wake him up. Anansi stomps off in a huff--right into an amazing secret! Hyena has a magic stick that follows his orders. If Anansi steals the stick, he'll never have to work again, and his home will be the neatest one in town. Is the magic stick his secret for success? Or the beginning of disasters he can't even imagine?

Folktales from India


A.K. Ramanujan - 1992
    Gods disguised as beggars and beasts, animals enacting Machiavellian intrigues, sagacious jesters and magical storytellers, wise counselors and foolish kings--all inhabit a fabular world, yet one that is also firmly grounded in everyday life. Here is an indispensable guide to India's ageless folklore tradition.With black-and-white illustrations throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

Why The Sky Is Far Away: A Nigerian Folktale


Mary-Joan Gerson - 1974
    The sky was once so close to the Earth that people cut parts of it to eat, but their waste and greed caused the sky to move far away.