English fairy tales

About this book

Traditional English folk tales of enchantment and adventure fill a collection shaped for young readers, with Joseph Jacobs’s retellings keeping the brisk movement of spoken storytelling. In “Nix Nought Nothing,” a hen-wife’s spell leaves the hero asleep in a castle, and a gardener’s daughter mistakes a reflection for her own beauty before trying to wake him. Elsewhere, Jack slips past two griffins in an invisible coat, following an old man’s directions toward a trumpet that can break a spell. At the coast, “The Laidly Worm” gives enchantment physical force as the creature drives Childe Wynd’s ship from shore, while its rowan-wood keel defeats the witch’s attempt to stop him.