Spirited Away: Fairy Stories of Old Newfoundland

Now in paperback

In this companion volume to An Old Man's Winter Night, Tom Dawe and Veselina Tomova present a fascinating, tantalizing, and chilling collection of fairy lore. No benign tooth fairies here; these fairies are amoral, tricky, dangerous, and beguiling.

A young school teacher learns about strange lights in a foreboding marsh; a nurse in a remote outport visits the baby she delivered weeks before to find a devastating change; a woman meets a mysterious funeral procession late one evening; a musician falls thrall to a group of strange little people and can't stop playing; a young girl is entranced by an odd green butterfly. The pages of Spirited Away are populated by those who wander onto fairy paths or fall under the spell of mysterious music; by the fairy-led; by changelings; by people who stray onto fairy turf and experience unnerving events.

These liteary renderings of stories and anecdotes Dawe has collected from across the province offer an accessible and engaging introduction to one of Newfoundland and Labrador's most powerful and peculiar folk traditions. Tomova's darkly poetic wood-cut illustrations plumb the fascinating heart of thse strange and affecting tales.