When Caitlin King’s father collapses on the eve of the summer solstice, she’s drawn back into the tangled web of her already fragile family – and strange visions begin to haunt her. Visions of another life, another time and a woman who looks uncannily like herself. In Iron Age Britain, Cordelia is the third daughter […]
Why do we tell stories? Finding Cordelia
While writing her latest book, a reimagining of the story of Cordelia, Alexandra Walsh was struck by the way some figures reappear in different tales through the ages. Why, she wondered, do we tell and retell these stories? So she set about finding Cordelia. Towards the end of my new novel Daughter of the Stones, my […]
The real Doctor Faustus
Anna Legat was delighted to discover that the – or a – real Doctor Faustus was in Kraków at the same time as the fictional hero of her latest novel, A Pact with the Devil, was in the Polish university city. Of course, she had to find out more… Although made of smoke and mirrors, […]
The Living Legend: Ramayana Tales from Far and Near by Vayu Naidu
Rama is all of 16 when Sage Viswamithra takes him to the Dandaka forest, with Lakshmana accompanying them. At first, the spirit of adventure fills the two teenage brothers, but when they enter the forest in broad daylight, it is a curtain of pitch darkness. The smell of decaying flesh, flashes of fire, and the […]
Arthur by Giles Kristian
Years have passed since the clash of shield-walls echoed across the land. The Saxons are now the lords of Britain. And yet the bards still sing of Arthur — ‘In our darkest time, when we need him most, shall he come again.’ Ageing mercenary Beran has no love of bards’ songs. Nor of people. Unless […]
Arthur will come again… and again…
Giles Kristian, acclaimed bestselling author of Lancelot, tells us about the timeless appeal of King Arthur’s legend and the thinking behind his Arthurian trilogy. As foretold, Arthur will come again – with the third book in the series, Arthur, published on 6 June. The legend of Arthur has been told in countless ways over centuries, […]
The 5th century: the fall of Rome, the birth of legends
What links the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, the invasions of Attila the Hun and many Norse sagas? The first half of the 5th century, says Tim Hodkinson, a time of tumult when legends were born; stories which still inspire us 1,600 years later. It was a time of legends… Of […]
The Fairy Tellers by Nicholas Jubber
Who were the Fairy Tellers? In this far-ranging quest, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy tales: inventors, thieves, rebels and forgotten geniuses who gave us classic tales such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast and Baba Yaga. From the Middle Ages to […]