OLD SONGS: STORIES OF LOVE AND DEATH/ BALLADS (PB)

A rich collection of ten stories, adapted from traditional ballads for modern readers, with themes of travel, mystery, magic and the essential urges of humanity. Old Songs threads a tapestry of Britain's landscape, history and cultures: at the base of hills we can visit to this day, elf queens kidnap hapless poets and carry them through rivers of blood; at the foot of a tree whose descendants still stand in Northumberland, a girl mimes combing the hairless head of a dragon who was once her brother.