In this epic historical fantasy, two Viking brothers seek glory on a distant isle where magic reigns and betrayal lurks. All young Eyvind ever wanted was to perform honorable deeds as a great Viking warrior. So when his older brother Ulf hears of a magical land across the sea, ready to be conquered by men with courage, they set out in search of glory. What they find is a barren place filled with unexpected beauty, hidden treasures., and a people willing to share their bounty. Ulf's new settlement begins in harmony with the natives, led by the gentle King Engus. And Eyvind finds a treasure of his own in the king’s niece, a seer named Nessa. But there is another newcomer who is not what he seems. Somerled, the strange and lonely boy Eyvind befriended long ago, has a secret—and his own plans for the future. Soon Eyvind must make a terrible choice between loyalty and love . . .
Beautiful, rich short stories, drawing on myth and folklore to bring to life women's remarkable ability to transform themselves in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. 'A book for all the wild women ... Foxfire, Wolfskin is simply the most perfect thing. I love each and every placement of each word. Love the wildness, the shapeshifting, the fearsomeness of it.' Jackie Morris, co-author of The Lost Words ' She lived fully, my fox, and I envied her with all my heart. I wanted to dance with her, sister or lover, across the snow-clad vastness of this land. Together, we'd create the Northern Lights. For that is what foxes do racing over the fells, whipping up the snow with their tails, the friction of it sending up sparks into the midnight sky. This is what makes the aurora's glow. Revontulet , we call it: foxfire.' Charged with drama and beauty, this memorable collection by a master storyteller weaves a magical world of possibility and power from female myths of physical renewal, creation and change. It is an extraordinary immersion into the bodies and voices, mindscapes and landscapes, of the shapeshifting women of our native folklore. Drawing on myth and fairy tales found across Europe from Croatia to Sweden, Ireland to Russia, these stories are about coming to terms with our animal natures, exploring the ways in which we might renegotiate our fractured relationship with the natural world, and uncovering the wildness and wilderness within. Beautifully illustrated by Helen Nicholson, Foxfire, Wolfskin and Other Stories of Shapeshifting Women is Blackie's first collection of short stories. 'Sharon Blackie has wrought a new-old magic for our times: glorious, beautiful, passionate myths. They show who we could have been, and they give us a glimpse of a world-that-could-be.' Manda Scott, author of A Treachery of Spies and Boudica 'A deeply evocative and haunting collection ... Part rally cry, part warning, part manifesto and all parts enchanting, Sharon Blackie's Foxfire, Wolfskin is a deeply evocative and haunting collection. I want to press this powerful book into the hands of everyone I know and say listen. ' Holly Ringland, author of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Foxmask is the second book of a fantasy duet from Juliet Marillier, weaving history and folklore into a saga of adventure, romance, and magic. The Norseman Eyvind, a fierce and loyal Wolfskin, came to a new land on top of the world to find his destiny. With his priestess bride Nessa he saved the land and weathered the treachery that was caused by Eyvind's blood-sworn friend Somerled. After much pain and sorrow the two lovers have managed to create a society where the Norse warriors and the gentle folks of the Orkney Isles live and thrive in contentment at last. A decade and more has passed since the devastating events of the creation of the settlement and Eyvind and Nessa have watched their children grow and thrive in peace. But not all on the islands are content or at peace. Thorvald, the young son of Margaret, widow of the slain king and Eyvind's war leader, has always felt apart and at odds with all he knows. He learns upon his coming to manhood that he is not his father's son but that of the love that Margaret bore for the hated Somerled and that Somerled was not killed for his treachery but sent on a boat, adrift with little more than a knife and skein of water, doomed to the god's will. Thorvald is determined to find a boat and cast off to the West in a desperate bid to find a father he never knew...and to find out if he is made of the same stuff as the heinous traitor. The tragedy of this scheme would be horrific enough...if it were not for the fact that Creidhe, the winsome daughter of Eyvind and Nessa has loved Thorvald since birth and unbeknownst to him conspires to go along on this most perilous of quests. What happens to them on their journey of discovery will ultimately change the lives of all they know and love...and will doom (or redeem) an entire people. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Sofía is thirty-five and her husband has left her. Her father died the year before, and her mother is living in the Canary Islands with a new partner. Sofía flees the city with her young son, seeking refuge in her father's house on the southern coast of Spain, where she spent summers as a girl. Her younger sister, with whom she has a close but uneasy relationship, joins her. Living together again, the sisters face their present as well as their childhood and tangled past. A novel from one of Spain's most remarkable authors, Wolfskin is an intimate meditation on ambivalence and motherhood, eroticism and disappointment, family violence and failure, and ultimately, the possibility—or impossibility—of living with those you love.'Lara Moreno writes with the austerity of a watchmaker: she gives you the impression that her prose reaches the reader after a thousand polishes, where the functionality of each word has been meticulously analyzed.' – Care Santos, El Cultural'Lara Moreno's prose disquiets the reader, not only for the strangeness of reality she describes, but through ellipsis, the gaps and the holes that complete the discourse.' – Sònia Hernández, La Vanguardia
He remembers video games. His mother’s cooking. His father’s awkward sense of humor. He remembers air conditioning and warm beds and graduation. But all of that was before the end of the world. Now he is a survivor, one of them – part of a roving clan of killers that combs through the ruined neighborhoods and towns, looking for things to steal, men to butcher, women to enslave and abuse. Then he meets a woman who could kill him without blinking, and together they escape the world that was...
RADICALLY REIMAGINE THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE “There can be a certain perverse pleasure, as well as a sense of rightness and beauty, in insisting on flowering just when the world expects you to become quiet and diminish.” — from the book For any woman over fifty who has ever asked “What now? Who do I want to be?” comes a life-changing book showing how your next phase of life may be your most dynamic yet. As mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie describes it, midlife is the threshold to decades of opportunity and profound transformation, a time to learn, flourish, and claim the desires and identities that are often limited during earlier life stages. This is a time for gaining new perspectives, challenging and evolving belief systems, exploring callings, uncovering meaning, and ultimately finding healing for accumulated wounds. Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture’s focus on youthfulness. Blackie explores these archetypes in Hagitude, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples as well as modern mentors, you can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and your elder years as a path to feminine power.
Discover the fantastical world of fairy tales in this captivating collection of 28 short stories. From a living man made entirely of wax to a secret cave of gnomes brewing magical beer, to a prince facing a ferocious giant wolf and a joust fought on the backs of donkeys and pigs. Each story is filled with laughter, tears, magic, and morality, featuring daring knights, bold seafarers, and the occasional monster. Perfect for bedtime reading, this enchanting book will captivate young and old alike with its unique and imaginative tales
A princess makes a daring deal with the Queen of the Snakes. A lonely sister weaves stinging plants together in order to save her brothers from their mother. A curious boy suddenly becomes a wolf cub. Discover a worldwide collection of shape-shifter stories, based on folktales and lore from the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. From cursed princes to the first werewolves, things aren't always what they seem!
Every day, over a million images are uploaded to flickr. This is a striking example of the so-called »flood« of images that emerged with the beginning of the digital age. A generation of adolescents has already been socialised with this flood of images and deals with it on a daily basis, both in their networks and elsewhere. Art education thus faces significant challenges: art is the only school subject that deals with the problems inherent in images as images, making them the focus of pedagogic activity. This volume presents both the foundations for engaging with the phenomenon of the »image« in a competent and historically informed manner as well as the perspectives for art education that arise from these foundations. It is based upon the conviction that providing orientation in a world defined by images does not mean following solely a technocratic, functionalist or even neoliberal »concept of education«. Quite the contrary: »providing an orientation« for how to deal with images in a world that is dominated by them is a crucial part of the holistic development of young people's personalities. The volume's main focus lies upon the new functions taken on both by the image and by art more generally. It takes into account aspects of globalisation and participation and also includes more unusual views (often from a cross-media perspective) of art and its historical repertory, which even current image creation is unable to dispense with. The volume also deals extensively with architecture and the images it conveys.
