Folktales of England

Folktales of England by Katharine M. Briggs and Ruth L. Tongue

A collection of tales. Many are done in phonetic renditions of dialect, which can be a bit hard to read.

Very few fairy tales. One is a cross between a fairy tale -- kind and unkind girls -- with more anecdotal fairy lore, such as not eating fairy food and being blinded for seeing something they don't want you to see.

A lot of legends. The jocular tales were less to my taste, some were full blown urban legends.

Questland

Questland by Carrie Vaughn

Our narrator is a college professor in literature who is called in to help a team penetrating an island where a magical theme park is being built with futuristic tech, and which is cut off from the world.

( Read more... )

sitting around

The heroine has to do something while sitting around.

Yes, she's not much help for the wordsmiths working their word magic, but she at the very least  needs to think.  Perhaps that the wordsmiths are more competent at her task that she is.  On the other hand, she has to consider whether they are as dedicated to it as she is.  Which is not, perhaps, as high a bar as it might be.  They are obsessed with it as something to learn, but not something to do something about.

Perhaps she will be tempted by dreams of things she could be doing if only she left it in their hands. . .