Reading the stories brought the sense of being trapped in a room, slowly, but very surely, filling up with water. You think: this can't be happening. Meanwhile, hold your breath against the certainty it surely is. " Cynan Jones Overall, Hag is a successful endeavour, in that it brushes the dust off some excellent British and Irish folklore. As professor Carolyne Larrington, the expert who wrote the introduction and chose the stories, says, ‘the last fifty years have seen a remarkable upsurge of interest in Britain’s traditional imaginary’. As recent examples she cites Max Porter, Sarah Hall and Helen Oyeyemi. Clearly folktales are having a moment, one which we can only expect to continue. One likes to think that dredging more tales to the present might inspire some of the writers featured in Hag– or those reading it – to explore the source material deeper.

Some might find the style McBride uses here overwrought ('she's trying too hard' is something that I can imagine some might say), but it worked very well for me. I loved the sly humour, and I like stories that involve the fair folk, so this was an absolute winner for me. Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.

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Here are sisters fighting for the love of the same woman, a pregnant archaeologist unearthing impossible bones, and lost children following you home. A panther runs through the forests of England and pixies prey upon violent men. Definitely one of the weakest stories in here, in my opinion. The grammar was a little all over the place, sentences that should have had commas but just didn't, so the flow was off. The sentence structures were so jarring at times, especially because I had to re-read them to figure out how they made sense/ In terms of the story, it wasn't the most interesting, nor the easiest plot to follow. Kathleen loved a young man and he was lost at sea. When Kathleen is given a chance to see the young man once again by a mysterious figure, Kathleen agrees to all the terms, after all, she'd be able to see her love once again. But there's a catch.

Personally I preferred the unambiguously paranormal stories, like the Selkie boy or The Panther’s Tale, to the more realistic and emotionally wrenching tales (I wanted fae intrigue and creepy horror!), but there is a good mixture in here of something for most tastes. One of the things that set us apart from the other creatures of the planet is our ability to tell stories and to imagine ourselves in the place of others. The stories that we tell are sometimes true and at other times the truth is buried in the legends of the land. Those legends often have a fantastical element that is frequently dark. Ashleigh and George move to George's parents' farm, Sour hall farm after she inherits the farm. They start working on renovating and also how to make a profit from selling cheese and milk and the likes. It is rumored that the farm is haunted by The Boggart. Ashleigh starts to see some strange things that are somehow related to her past. They are all very singular stories with the common theme being they are based on folklore retellings so I found this easier to read in parts as the stories are so distinct in styles and topics. Rather than some short story collections which flow more closely. London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor – a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research – begins to investigate. In doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss – and the foreshadowing of a nation’s worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe, and as Fodor’s obsession with the case deepens, Alma becomes ever more disturbed.

Some general thoughts: these stories are totally accessible even if you have no idea what they are based on (like I did), which I think is no mean feat. For anyone who is interested in the original folk tales: you can find them at the end of the book. Also love the queer elements most of these stories had. Hag is a very varied collection of ten reimagined traditional folk tales. All of the stories are set in and around the UK, but some carry flavours from their author’s cultural experiences and heritage that enrichen the style and content of the stories, and add layers to these stories of female ‘otherness’.