Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

In my on-going quest to learn more about Iceland before I travel there in the fall, I picked out Hjorleifur Helgi Stafansson's collection of Icelandic Folk Tales as a follow-on to the biography of Thurídur Einarsdóttir . It made a nice complement, as some of the tales and their settings resonated nicely with the history I learned from the first book.   Title: Icelandic Folk Tales Author: Hjorleifur Helgi Stefansson Publication Info: History Press, 2020. 192 pages. Source: Library (Libby)  Publisher's Blurb: Iceland is a land where stories are as important as history. When Vikings settled the island they brought their tales with them. Every rock, hot spring and waterfall seems to have its own tale: cruel man-eating trolls rub shoulders with beautiful elves whose homes are hidden from mortal view, whilst vengeful ghosts envy the living, seeking to drag lost loves into their graves. Many of the stories in this collection are classic Icelandic tales, while others are comp...

Damsels in distress, curses, echoes of faery tales and tragic love affairs swirl together in sixteen stories found in a dragon’s lair by a curious half-fae. Unexpected changes to reality causes more than one damsel to turn into a strong, independent woman who takes charge of her own life. A collection of short stories about Faerie and the fae that live in the human realm. A few of the stories had won competitions and all of them had enchanted readers. Learn their secrets and enter the realm of the fae… Title: Once... Tales, Myths and Legends of Faerie Author: Ronel Janse van Vuuren ISBN EPUB: 978-0-6399476-2-4 ISBN Paperback: 978-0-6399476-3-1 Out today! Available on most online retailers. Also available in Afrikaans as “Eens…”. Excerpt: Mortals cannot perceive the veil unless they are invited to – or extremely gifted. For centuries, Man and Fae have been kept apart, for nothing good ever comes from them mixing. The collection of The Adventures of Saphira the Faery Dog is proof of this...

One more Halloween story from the archives, to celebrate the holiday. This one's from 2013, in 970 words. Be Careful What you Read on Halloween Don’t read fairy tales on Halloween.  Just don’t.  Trust me on this; I know what I’m talking about. My name is Cara, I’m ten years old, and I like fairy tales. Correction: I used to like fairy tales. Mom is always saying fairy tales are good clean, safe reading for a kid like me, and things half the books out there are too violent, and half are too mushy. I kind of agree about the mushy part. Yuck. But none of the books she rants about is half so violent as Grimm’s fairy tales, and Mom ought to try reading them sometime.  But not on Halloween. Let me tell you. It was while I was reading Cinderella that things began getting weird. I took a break to light my jack-o-lantern, and when I opened the lid a bunch of mice jumped out and took off, then sort of vanished. That was bad enough. I mean, mice are kind of cute, but not in my room,...