She lives in an old oak tree at the bottom of a garden with the rest of the fairy folk. Never has she known a time when life hasn’t been hard, with many dangers and much adversity. But when she becomes the Hunter of the group and learns to do battle in the outside world, her adventures really take off...Don’t read this book if you’re expecting fairy dust – the last thing Knife is likely to wield is a magic wand...

    From the great Celtic myths featuring the bard Taliesin, the terrible Morrigan, the heroic Cuchulain, or the noble and cunning Sidhe to strange and mysterious tales of today, the stories and traditions of the Emerald Isle hold a strong attraction for many. Stories are told in cottage hearths from Galway to Dublin, and from the windblown rocky Cliffs of Mohr to the seaside villages where fishing boats still roam the oceans. Tall tales and town stories are as much a way of life as a pint and good conversation at the local pub.Emerald Magic brings together today's best fantasy authors to explore the myths of the Irish, telling their own versions of these ancient tales of luck, love, and honor, or drawing upon centuries of Irish myths and folktales and updating them into brand-new stories. Edited and with an introduction by bestselling author Father Andrew M. Greeley, Emerald Magic contains fourteen wonderful stories of legend and lore, including:"A Woman Is a Fast Moving Picnic" by Ray Bradbury. A group of pub regulars set out to discover the truth behind a local song and answer that age-old question: Just how fast does a person sink in a bog?"The Isle of Women" by Jacqueline Carey. In an age long ago, a warrior sailing for vengeance happens upon an island ruled by a woman like no other. But if he is to continue his quest, he must choose between her and his duty. "Speir-Bhan" by Tanith Lee. A woman who finds and reads her grandfather's diary unleashes the specter of an old debt that, even in today's modern age, must be paid---one way or the other."A Drop of Something Special in the Blood" by Fred Saberhagen. In the late eighteenth century, an Irish author encounters a being that he will turn into his greatest literary creation."The Cat with No Name" by Morgan Llywelyn. A lonely girl neglected by her parents finds an unexpected friend in the alley behind her home---one that may be more than it first seems."The Butter-Spirit's Tithe" by Charles de Lint. Even in twenty-first-century America, it is still not wise to anger the spirits of the world, as a young musician discovers when a butter-spirit who had cursed him nine years earlier comes to claim his soul. "Land of Heart's Desire" by Elizabeth Haydon. A young man discovers the magical truth about his parents' marriage, and sets a chain of events in motion that will force him to choose between the life he has always known---and another life he could have."The Swan Pilot" by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. In the far future, spaceship pilots travel through interdimensional portals from planet to planet---and the only thing more important than knowing how to fly is knowing how to handle the strange hallucinations that appear during the journey.Filled with the spirit and magic of the stories of Ireland, Emerald Magic is a collection of fantasy stories that will delight and captivate from the first page to the last.

    Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’d dare to fall for.Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myth and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.My name is Ethan Chase.And I may not live to see myeighteenth birthday.

    Illustrator Emma SanCartier captures the bizarre and hilarious elements of 17 monsters from around the world in a light, tongue-in-cheek tone, from the Japanese dream-eater Baku and the Persian carnivorous unicorn Shadhavar to the Eastern-European Shurale, a literal tickle monster. Packaged in a textured three-piece case and illustrated in lush watercolor, Monsters You Should Know is a perfect primer for the many strange, frightening, and compelling things that go bump in the night.

    The Classic Fairy Tales focuses on six tale types: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Beauty and the Beast," "Snow White," "Cinderella," "Bluebeard," and "Hansel and Gretel," and presents multicultural variants and sophisticated literary rescriptings. Also reprinted are tales by Hans Christian Andersen and Oscar Wilde."Criticism" gathers twelve essays that interpret aspects of fairy tales, including their social origins, historical evolution, psychological drama, gender issues, and national identities.A Selected Bibliography is included.

    But beware! Surprises lurk at the turn of every page. . . .Discover a time line of ALIEN LIFE on earth--beginning 4 billion years ago! Meet a man recruited by the U.S. government to become a PSYCHIC SUPERSPY. Spend a dark and stormy night with professional GHOSTBUSTERS. Visit a mysterious library in search of DRACULA's shocking origins. Witness new photos of the actual sea monster that inspired the mythical KRAKEN. And much more!

    The tales are bawdy and irreverent but also tender and whimsical, acute in psychological characterization and encyclopedic in description. They are also evocative of marvelous worlds of fairy-tale unreality as well as of the everyday rituals of life in seventeenth-century Naples. Yet because the original is written in the nonstandard Neopolitan dialect of Italian—and was last translated fully into English in 1932—this important piece of Baroque literature has long been inaccessible to both the general public and most fairy-tale scholars.Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” is a modern translation that preserves the distinctive character of Basile’s original. Working directly from the original Neopolitan version, translator Nancy L. Canepa takes pains to maintain the idiosyncratic tone of The Tale of Tales as well as the work’s unpredictable structure. This edition keeps the repetition, experimental syntax, and inventive metaphors of the original version intact, bringing Basile’s words directly to twenty-first-century readers for the first time. This volume is also fully annotated, so as to elucidate any unfamiliar cultural references alongside the text. Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” is also lushly illustrated and includes a foreword, an introduction, an illustrator’s note, and a complete bibliography.The publication of The Tale of Tales marked not only a culmination of the interest in the popular culture and folk traditions of the Renaissance period but also the beginning of the era of the artful and sophisticated “authored” fairy tale that inspired and influenced later writers like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” offers an excellent point of departure for reflection about what constitutes Italian culture, as well as for discussion of the relevance that forms of early modern culture like fairy tales still hold for us today. This volume is vital reading for fairy-tale scholars and anyone interested in cultural history.

    Now, he will not rest until he wins back the heart of his childhood love and reclaims the life that was stolen from him. However, locked safely in his cellar at night, in his dreams Lonan finds himself looking through the eyes of a young prince…Adahy has a destiny, and it terrifies him. How can he hope to live up to the legend of the Magpie King, to become the supernatural protector of the forest and defender of his people? But when the forest is invaded by an inhuman force, Adahy must rise to this challenge or let the Wolves destroy his people.Watching these events unfold in his sleep, Lonan must do what he can to protect his village from this new threat. He is the only person who can keep his loved ones from being stolen away after dark, and to do so he will have to earn back their trust or watch the monsters kill everyone that he holds dear.They Mostly Come Out At Night is a Dark Fantasy novel from Benedict Patrick’s Yarnsworld series. If you like Neil Gaiman and Patrick Rothfuss then you will love this captivating, dangerous world in which ordinary people struggle to find their place in a land ruled by stories.Start reading today to discover this epic tale of dreams, fables and monsters!

    In this collection, stories from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, and Brittany show their common Celtic heritage in their love of extravagance and poetry, their quick wit, and their daring sense of adventure.Here, retold much as they were around Celtic peat fires a hundred years ago, are the enthralling tales of "Fair, Brown, and Trembling," "The Brown Bear of the Green Glen," and "The Ship that Went to America." Some of the stories give familiar tales a Celtic twist: "Duffy and the Devil" is a comic Cornish take on the Rumpelstiltskin story; "The Black Cat" is a dark and mysterious Breton "Cinderella." Others seem new and strange: the doomed love of "Lutey and the Mermaid," or the mystic rapture of "The Little Bird."Perhaps most riveting of all is the Irish tale of "The Soul Cages," in which a fisherman makes friends with one of the sea-people, Coomara, and uses that friendship to fee the souls of drowned sailors, kept by Coomara in lobster pots in is house beneath the waves.Illustrated in watercolor and gold leaf by acclaimed artist Isabelle Brent, these tales are full of Celtic magic.

    Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories.Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity.

    Bridei is a young nobleman fostered at the home of Broichan, one of the most powerful druids in the land. His earliest memories are not of hearth and kin but of this dark stranger who while not unkind is mysterious in his ways. The tasks that he sets Bridei appear to have one goal-to make him a vessel for some distant purpose. What that purpose is Bridei cannot fathom but he trusts the man and is content to learn all he can about the ways of the world.But something happens that will change Bridei's world forever...and possibly wreck all of Broichan's plans. For Bridei finds a child on their doorstep on a bitter MidWinter Eve, a child seemingly abandoned by the fairie folk. It is uncommonly bad luck to have truck with the Fair Folk and all counsel the babe's death. But Bridei sees an old and precious magic at work here and heedless of the danger fights to save the child. Broichan relents but is wary.The two grow up together and as Bridei comes to manhood he sees the shy girl Tuala blossom into a beautiful woman. Broichan sees the same process and feels only danger...for Tuala could be a key part in Bridei's future...or could spell his doom.

    Each of the four fairy tale has been translated and retold to reflect the original dark magic of the earliest versions of these works. Full color.Hansel & GretelSnow WhiteCinderellaSleeping Beauty

    This work features ten stories from the 'Tales of a Thousand and One Nights' including the well-known ones of 'Aladdin and the Lamp', 'Ali Baba and the forty thieves', and 'Sinbad the Sailor'.

    Brimming with ballads, riddles, and magical transformations, here is the timeless tale of a charismatic bard whose talents earn him a two-edged otherworldly gift.A minstrel lives by his words, his tunes, and sometimes by his lies. But when the bold and gifted young Thomas the Rhymer awakens the desire of the powerful Queen of Elfland, he finds that words are not enough to keep him from his fate. As the Queen sweeps him far from the people he has known and loved into her realm of magic, opulence—and captivity—he learns at last what it is to be truly human. When he returns to his home with the Queen’s parting gift, his great task will be to seek out the girl he loved and wronged, and offer her at last the tongue that cannot lie.

    Yeats wrote of his own people “...even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.” This introduction to Celtic Mythology will serve the novice well – for it is a complicated history with the earliest written records destroyed by the marauding Vikings. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Arrival of the Tuatha dé Danann ✓ Hibernia ✓ The Main Gods of the Celtic Pantheon ✓ Celtic Life and Rituals ✓ Sources of Celtic Mythology ✓ The Effect of Christianity and Beliefs and Superstitions The oral tradition harks back to 4000BCE and is a compilation of myths and cultures of many different peoples including the Indo-Iranians, Slavs, Greeks, Germans, Austrians and finally, the Gauls, who washed up on the shores of the Emerald Isle. Whatever aspect of this rich, mystical and lavishly embellished heritage you would like to investigate further you will find the author has supplied a marker to guide you on your way.