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Margaret Ryan (1944-2019) was a children's writer who lived in St. Andrews, Scotland. She was born and raised in the town of Paisley, Scotland. She went to Glasgow University, where she met her husband, John, at a dance. She and John had two grown-up children, Susie and Jonathan. She was the writer of the Airy Fairy books. She had a long career as a primary school teacher before becoming a full-time writer for children. [1] She shared her name with a young Welsh Baroness.
TamLin is a character in a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. It is also associated with a reel of the same name, also known as the Glasgow Reel. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies. The motif of capturing a person by holding him through all forms of transformation is found throughout Europe in folktales.
Isobel Gowdie was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft at Auldearn near Nairn during 1662. Scant information is available about her age or life and, although she was probably executed in line with the usual practice, it is uncertain whether this was the case or if she was allowed to return to the obscurity of her former life as a cottar’s wife. Her detailed testimony, apparently achieved without the use of violent torture, provides one of the most comprehensive insights into European witchcraft folklore at the end of the era of witch-hunts.
In mythology, folklore and speculative fiction, shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through an inherently superhuman ability, divine intervention, demonic manipulation, sorcery, spells or having inherited the ability. The idea of shapeshifting is in the oldest forms of totemism and shamanism, as well as the oldest existent literature and epic poems such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad. The concept remains a common literary device in modern fantasy, children's literature and popular culture.
Mélusine or Melusina is a figure of European folklore, a female spirit of fresh water in a holy well or river. She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down. She is also sometimes illustrated with wings, two tails, or both. Her legends are especially connected with the northern and western areas of France, Luxembourg, and the Low Countries. Her name can vary depending on the areas such as Merlusse in Vosges, Merluisaine in Champagne.... The French Littré suggests the Latin melus, meaning "melodious, pleasant".
Margaret Mahy was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her "lasting contribution to children's literature".
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the debut novel by British writer Susanna Clarke. Published in 2004, it is an alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Its premise is that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of "Englishness" and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North–South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.
Trina Schart Hyman was an American illustrator of children's books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges.
Caroline Stevermer is an American writer of young adult fantasy novels and shorter works. She is best known for historical fantasy novels.
Gail Carson Levine is an American author of young adult books. Her second novel, Ella Enchanted, received a Newbery Honor in 1998.
Katharine Mary Briggs was a British folklorist and writer, who wrote The Anatomy of Puck, the four-volume A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, and various other books on fairies and folklore. From 1969 to 1972, she was president of the Folklore Society, which established an award in her name to commemorate her life and work.
Disney Fairies is a Disney franchise created in 2005. The franchise is built around the character of Tinker Bell from Disney's 1953 animated film Peter Pan, subsequently adopted as a mascot for the company. In addition to the fictional fairy character created by J. M. Barrie, the franchise introduces many new characters, and expands substantially upon the limited information the author gave about the fairies and their home of Never Land. The characters are referred to within stories as "Never Land fairies." The franchise includes children's books and other merchandise, a website, and the computer-animated Tinker Bell film series, featuring the character and several of the Disney fairies as supporting and recurring characters.
Ruth Manning-Sanders was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. All told, she published over 90 books in her lifetime.
Gwyneth Rees is a British author of children's books. Her novel The Mum Hunt won the Red House Children's Book Award for Younger Readers in 2019, and another, My Mum's from Planet Pluto, was nominated for the Carnegie Medal in the same year. Her other popular books for younger children include the Fairy Dust series, the first of which was an Ottakar's Book of the Month choice, and the Mermaid Magic trilogy.
Théâtre Illuminata is a young adult fantasy trilogy by Lisa Mantchev. The books are Eyes Like Stars (2009), Perchance To Dream (2010) and So Silver Bright (2011). Eyes Like Stars was nominated for the 2009 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and the 2010 Mythopoeic Award for Children's Literature.
Margaret Winifred Tarrant was an English illustrator, and children's author, specializing in depictions of fairy-like children and religious subjects. She began her career at the age of 20, and painted and published into the early 1950s. She was known for her children's books, postcards, calendars, and print reproductions.
Marion St John Adcock Webb was an English writer of novels and poetry for children that presaged A. A. Milne, with her character "The Littlest One".
Susanna Mary Clarke is an English author known for her debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2004), a Hugo Award-winning alternative history. Clarke began Jonathan Strange in 1993 and worked on it during her spare time. For the next decade, she published short stories from the Strange universe, but it was not until 2003 that Bloomsbury bought her manuscript and began work on its publication. The novel became a best-seller.
The Land of Stories is a series of children's fiction, adventure and fantasy books written by American author, actor and singer Chris Colfer. The first book, The Wishing Spell, was released on July 17, 2012. The sixth book was published in July 2017. During a live video chat, Colfer revealed plans for a prequel series, which have now been published. The books are described by Colfer as a "modern-day fairy tale", following twins Alex and Conner Bailey as they fall from the real world into a world full of fairy tales they have only ever read about before and discovering there is more to this world than meets the eye.
Elspeth Reoch was an alleged Scottish witch. She was born in Caithness but as a child spent time with relatives on an island in Lochaber prior to travelling to the mainland of Orkney. At that time the Orkney archipelago was under the legal jurisdiction of Scotland which, with the implementation of the Scottish Witchcraft Act of 1563, made witchcraft a capital offence, therefore punishable by death.
The Bute witches were six Scottish women accused of witchcraft and interrogated in the parish of Rothesay on Bute during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661–62. The Privy Council granted a Commission of Justiciary for a local trial to be held and four of the women – believed by historians to be Margaret McLevin, Margaret McWilliam, Janet Morrison and Isobell McNicoll – were executed in 1662; a fifth may have died while incarcerated. One woman, Jonet NcNicoll, escaped from prison before she could be executed but when she returned to the island in 1673 the sentence was implemented.
Three Tales
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