Commissioned especially for Scotland's Year of Stories, Saut an Bluid offers an inspired blend of traditional storytelling with historical fiction to tell this tale that links Scotland and Norway's pasts together. In nine days of drama, the full smeddum of Scotland's Norse saga unfolds in pithy Scots. As Guid King Alexander tumbles to his death, a gutsy backstory comes to the boil. And at the heart of the crisis is Skald the Ferryman, storyteller of Pittenweem. What is his connection with the Maid of Norway, and the Corryvreckan whirlpool?

A beautiful new collection of 36 French fairy tales translated into English by renowned writer and authority on fairy tales, Jack Zipes. Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Sleepy Beauty, Puss In Boots, Bluebeard, and Little Red Riding Hood are some of the classic fairy tales in this amazing book. There are many stories here by Charles Perrault, the most famous author of French conte de fees. Features a new introduction by editor Jack Zipes. Includes a generous number of exquisite illustrations from fairy tale collections."

"After years of wandering around the world of love, I found the truth about it. I met face-to-face with that wonderful fairy Love, and she shared with me that despite the pain that was tearing her apart, she is very happy and didn't want to part with it. In my fantasy, that fairy was standing smiling among the deserted sands and was holding a heart in love. There was blood dripping from her hands, but she looked hard and firm. She split the heart in two and threw the two halves away from her. They fell with ominous strength on the glowing sand, started burning, and burned away. The fairy told me that that had been my heart, and that this evil destiny awaited it. She opened her scarlet lips and said that love hurts and it was like a cloud, which carried many tears to my eyes in love. Nevertheless, I decided to follow my heart, and it was saying: "When Love looks you in the eyes, you will know, I will tell you, and then you take it right away, hold it tight, hide it here with me, to be happy.'"

Historian and folklorist Gerard Besson takes you back in time to the early formative days of when Trinidad was young, and brings the Afro-French Creole cultural traditions to life in this gripping tale of the triumph of good over evil. This novella weaves a story around several generations of beautiful Caribbean women, who in their devotion to the goddess of love must contend with, and eventually destroy, the evil forces of the great deceiver. Follow their adventures in the wake of wars, revolutions, and changing fortunes. See how they find love, and in exploring their own femininity, discover their deeper and perhaps truer selves. Populated with villainous tricksters and stunning "cafe-un-peu-au-lait" beauties, faithful friends and betrayers of trust, this book is a declaration of love to the woman of the Antilles and to the old French culture of these islands. It speaks in different voices-French, English, Patois, depending on the occasion and the speaker-and comes to a highly dramatic end in a final battle. So, does magic still exist in Trinidad and Tobago, or is it all just a thing of the past?

Adolescence hasn't been fun for Liss Lawrence. And after a year in Vancouver, when she's finally adjusted to her new situation, a freak car accident sends her life spinning out of control and crashing into the world of the malions, a hidden race silently helping humanity from secret enclaves underground. Liss's knowledge of the malions endangers her family when Jaredsons Securities takes an interest in her accident. Few know the men of Jaredsons Securities, an international intelligence company specializing in missing persons cases, are actually the Vykhars, ancient malion enemies whose true purpose is the eradication of the malion race. The Vykhars will stop at nothing to discover if Liss is connected with the malions, and if they do, they will exploit her. Perhaps more dangerous still are Liss's growing feelings for Rion, a strong-willed malion scarred by his encounters with Vykhars and carrying a secret that could destroy their relationship. But Liss has a secret and scars of her own, and Rion's fiercely protective nature threatens to tear them back open. Can this pair of unlikely lovers survive the dangers of the Vykhars? And can their love survive their own misconceptions?

In our Fairy Cabinet we have aimed at pleasing children, not 'grown-ups, ' at whom the old French writers directed their romances, but have hunted for fairy tales in all quarters, not in Europe alone. In this volume we open, thanks to Dr. Ignaz Knnos, with a story from the Turks. 'Little King Loc' is an original invention by M. Anatole France, which he very kindly permitted Mrs. Lang to adapt from "L'Abeille." -- from Andrew Lang's Preface to this volume.

Nobody really "wrote" most of the stories. People told them in all parts of the world long before Egyptian hieroglyphics or Cretan signs or Cyprian syllabaries, or alphabets were invented. They are older than reading and writing, and arose like wild flowers before men had any education to quarrel over. The grannies told them to the grandchildren, and when the grandchildren became grannies they repeated the same old tales to the new generation. Homer knew the stories and made up the 'Odyssey' out of half a dozen of them. All the history of Greece till about 800 B.C. is a string of the fairy tales, all about Theseus and Heracles and Oedipus and Minos and Perseus is a "Cabinet des F es," a collection of fairy tales. Shakespeare took them and put bits of them into 'King Lear' and other plays; he could not have made them up himself, great as he was. Let ladies and gentlemen think of this when they sit down to write fairy tales, and have them nicely typed, and send them to Messrs. Longman & Co. to be published. They think that to write a new fairy tale is easy work. They are mistaken: the thing is impossible. Nobody can write a "new" fairy tale; you can only mix up and dress up the old, old stories, and put the characters into new dresses, as Miss Thackeray did so well in 'Five Old Friends.' If any big girl of fourteen reads this preface, let her insist on being presented with "Five Old Friends."