GRAMARYE

I'm more than happy to tell you all that this fifth issue of Gramarye,  journal of the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairytales and Fantasy, contains  a brand new short story by me called  'By Fynnon Ddu'.  Much of it is told as a dialogue between a water spirit  and a hearth-hob or brownie - and it takes place in an imaginary part of the Welsh Marches towards the end of the 11th century. It's a prequel to my novel 'Dark Angels',  in which these same characters reappear a century later.  (You can do this with supernatural characters: it's fun!)  This is how it begins...



The hearth-hob of the place called Hen Gaer crouched in long soaking grass at the edge of the old well, Fynnon Ddu, watching for frogs.

Hen Gaer wasn't much.  It was a tumble of stones, a cluster of hawthorns growing on a rise between the river ford and the old stone road the Welsh called  Sarn Helen. It was brambles, and sudden pockets of bog, and the sound of hidden water.  It was parched lines in the turf on a summer day.  For a thousand years folk had come here and built their huts and houses, lived and left and been forgotten. 

And now new people had arrived and set to work.



As always happens, this story owes much to other writing which I've grown up with and loved - Harold Monro's poem 'Overheard On a Salt Marsh' is one - but especially Rudyard Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill' and 'Rewards and Fairies'.  Like Kipling I was interested in trying to suggest, as well as magic, a sense of deep time: the layers upon layers of history that lie thick as centuries of  leaf mould in the British landscape.

And one of those delightful things happened while I was writing it: I found out something I hadn't known before. I found out the reason why the sad, ghostly White Lady in 'Dark Angels is so obsessed with her inability to enter the Christian chapel of the early Norman castle, La Motte Rouge.

Besides my story (perfectly matched with a beautiful illustration  by Brian Froud) there is much else in this journal to fascinate, educate and amuse - including a piece by my fellow-editor and partner in crime at Unsettling Wonder,  John Patrick Padziora - see below.  Here's the list of contents, and the link in case you feel you'd like to buy!

Issue 5 of Gramarye, the Centre’s journal for folklore, fairy tales and fantasy, is now available to purchase here. The journal is designed to appeal to both academics and the interested public.
This issue’s contents include:

• ‘The Case of the Ebony Horse’ (Part I), Ruth B. Bottigheimer
• ‘By Fynnon Ddu’, Katherine Langrish
• ‘Fairy-Tale Adaptation in Jim Henson’s “The Storyteller”‘, John Pazdziora
• ‘Two Tales from Odds and Sods‘, Stephen Badman
• ‘”Iron is Stronger than Grief, but Love is Stronger than Iron”: Reading Fairy-Tale Emotions through Words and Illustrations’, Maria Nikolajeva
• ‘My Favourite Rhymes and Stories when I was Young: Idaho Folklore in the 1940s’, D.L. Ashliman
• A review of Fairy Tales Transformed? Twenty-First-Century Adaptations and the Politics of Wonder and Reading, Translating, Rewriting: Angela Carter’s Translational Poetics, Sadhana Naithani
• A review of The Legend of Spring-heeled Jack: Victorian Urban Folklore and Popular Cultures, Scott Wood
  
• A review of The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang, Lili Sarnyai
  
• A review of xo Orpheus: Fifty New Myths, Catriona McAra
  
  Not to mention images by Walter Crane, Edmund Dulac, Charles Folkard, Brian Froud, Warwick Goble, Arthur Rackham and Binette Schroeder.
  

"Strange Neighbours" by Masha du Toit

Strange Neighbours is a collection of ten illustrated fantasy short stories set in Cape Town, South Africa.  Meet a hitch hiking troll with a taste for pepper-spray and a homeless witch with a trolley full of secrets. Discover a book hoarding mermaid and a fridge full of frogs. And learn how to greet a witch – politely, of course.

Now here's a lovely and unusual collection.  Masha du Toit is a South African artist and writer, who has written and illustrated an e-book of delicate fantasy stories for adults (though there is nothing actually unsuitable for younger readers, these are not aimed at children) called 'Strange Neighbours'.  In them, quiet, ordinary people come face to face with all kinds of weird situations - and often behave with inspiring humanity and aplomb. 

In 'In the Backyard' a young man who's inherited a small house begins to wonder why the back door has been so very securely locked and barred 'like Fort Knox', when all that's out there is a weedy yard and a broken manhole cover.  And why is the shed so full of various poisons and traps?

'Kelp' is a moving tale about a lonely young woman who comes to visit the seaside in Cape Town, falls ill and is helped in by an old woman who scratches a living selling old books and magazines, and who lives in a shack under the pier.  But there's something very strange and sad about her...

Aletta drifted in and out of consciousness.  A small paraffin lamp glowed in a corner.  The sea made deep sounds beyond the walls. Then she had to sit up and clutch at a glass and drink bitter liquid. 

She woke, or dreamed she woke, in the dark.  

Sea air breathed over her, cold and wet.  A gap had opened in the wall opposite her bed. Something moved there.  A figure, barely visible in glints of dim light. Something like a scarf was wrapped about its neck. Long fringes stirred against its shoulders.  Then it ducked down and stepped through into the night beyond.  The dream darkened and sucked Aletta back  into sleep.


In 'The Ink Witch' an ostracised schoolgirl - who may have strange powers - appears to deal with her chief tormentor in a decisive and final way - and even if it's all only 'strong imagination', the story is a warning to those who crush the imagination and teach their victims to hate.   In 'Troll Patrol' a woman driver helps a very unusual fugitive to escape the police.  And in 'In The Oven' a young girl visits her grandmother and bakes gingerbread men which come to life in the oven.  Trying to save them, she drops one:

The man had lost a leg now, but it was still alive, twitching sideways along the floor.  Why couldn't he just lie there in his baking tray like he was supposed to?  Now he'd made her hurt him.  Maybe she could put its leg back on.  But it was quite crushed, just a little pile of doughy crumbs.  The man flipped himself over and lay on his back. 

She knew what she had to do.  It was like that time she had found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest...

There are more.  I enjoyed every one of them.  Whilst recognizing and acknowledging cruelty and pain, these sour-sweet stories offer hope and refuse to despair.  You can buy the e-book if you click on this link:  Strange Neighbours  and visit Masha's website to find out more about her writing and see more of her beautiful art.

Teaset with dragon - Masha du Toit

Masha du Toit is an artist and writer living in Cape Town, South Africa. She illustrates stories that don't exist yet, and writes about unexpected magic in every-day situations. She’s inspired by folk- and fairy tales, puppetry, and spur-of-the-moment bed time stories. She’s about to publish a full length e-book “The Story Trap”.

All pictures copyright Masha du Toit