Description:
While it's true that fairy folk love a good garden and take great pleasure in a tulip, there are dozens of beasties who fall under the fairy domain that are not quite as delightful as the quintessential flower fairy. This book is an exploration of the many things that go bump in the night near the fairy mound. Along with an exploration of folklore and historical literature, readers will delight in fairy tales that demonstrate everything from striking a bargain with a fairy to staving off changelings to laughing with the dwarves.
Included are fairy tales and myths from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia plus classic stories by Thomas Crofton Croker, Joseph Jacobs, Clara Stroebe, the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Yei Theodora Ozaki, and others on goblins, trolls, gnomes, pookas, changelings, banshees, and more!
Chapters include:
- A Fear of Little Men: Elves, Trolls, Leprechauns, Tree Spirits, Brownies, Coblyns, Dwarves, Goblins, Bonga, Trolls and Other Fairy Folk of Glen, Forests and Hearth
- The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: Changelings and Other Greedy Kidnappers of the Fairy Kingdom
- I'm Not Drunk, It's Just My Pooka: Tales of the Trickster Fairy and Its Wild Counterpart
- Is That All There Is? Faries Who Give, or The Barter System
- Whoops, There It Is: How to Enter the Fairy Kingdom (or How Not To)
If you think fairies are merely delicate beings who follow you about on gossamer wings, you are in for quite a shock: the kingdom of the fairy is one of vengeance, thievery, trickery, and wild creatures. Consider yourself warned!
Brief description:
Varla A. Ventura is the author of several books, including Enchanted Plants, Among the Mermaids, and The Book of the Bizarre. As a lover of all things strange, Varla's interests extend into the weirdness and magic of the plant kingdom. With a deep fascination with folklore and medicinal plants, she has been studying herbalism and botany for more than thirty years. Her plant knowledge comes from a combination of experimentation, formal classes in botany, and working in the horticultural industry for fifteen years. She ran a retail nursery in Portland, Oregon, as well as in San Francisco, California, and operated her own landscaping business for more than ten years. She is also the botanical brain behind Rotten Botany, a website dedicated to unusual plants. When not writing, she can be found wandering around the Minnesota woods or tending her poison garden.