Tanya Robyn Batt

New Zealand children's author and professional storyteller Tanya Robyn Batt gathers folktales and poems about fairies in this lovely collection from Barefoot Books, illustrated by English artist Gail Newey. Poems (and quotations from longer poems, songs and plays) by Robert M. Bird, Francis James Child, Thomas Hood, William Shakespeare and William Allingham are interspersed with four traditional folktales, each introduced by Batt in a two-page discussion of whichever fairy theme they exemplify. Selections include:

The Magic Cooking Pot, a Scottish folktale in which an old couple possess and then lose a fairy-blessed cooking pot that never runs out of food, when the old man fails to thank the fairies properly. It falls to the old woman to steal back the pot, fleeing from the fairies and their hounds, and aided in her escape by the pot itself.

The Fairies and the Cake Baker, another Scottish tale, in which a clever baker named Margaret, kidnapped by the fairies because they wish her to bake them her delicious cakes, manages to free herself from captivity through her understanding of her captors distaste for noise. Generous at heart however, she bakes that cake for the fairies, once freed.

Only Me, an English folktale in which a disobedient young girl, never willing to go to bed when her mother tells her to do so, has a night of play with a fairy child, only to be terribly frightened when her playmate is injured, and the fairy's mother arrives.

Leprechaun Gold, an Irish tale in which a farmer thinks he has come into great fortune, when he captures a leprechaun and forces that little being to reveal the location of his treasure. Little does the farmer know that the leprechaun is more cunning than he...

Originally published in 2002 as A Child's Book of Faeries, and then again in 2008 as The Barefoot Books of Faeries, this is the second collection of folk and fairytale that I have read from Batt, following upon her excellent The Fabrics of Fairytale: Stories Spun from Far and Wide. While that collection has a thematic focus on fabric and clothing, the focus here is on fairies, and stories about them. I enjoyed reading the selections here, I appreciated the accompanying watercolor artwork from Newey, and came away with a few new reading ideas. Recommended to young folklore enthusiasts, and to anyone interested in fairy lore.… (mais)

New Zealand storyteller and children's author Tanya Robyn Batt presents seven folktales taken from diverse cultural sources in this lovely collection of stories, arranged around the theme of fabric and articles of clothing. Selections include:

Clever Anaeet, an Armenian story in which the humble daughter of a shepherd refuses the marriage proposal of Prince Vachagan unless he learns a trade—something all men should have. Her wisdom is revealed many years later, when his mastery of weaving saves his life, and delivers him and many others from imprisonment. This story has also been retold in Robert D. San Souci's picture book, A Weave of Words: An Armenian Tale.

The Cloth of the Serpent Pembe Mirui, a Swahili tale from East Africa, in which the merchant Amadi undergoes many trials in order to find and win the eponymous cloth for his beloved wife, Fatima. Amadi is aided in his quest by a magical black cat, belonging to an old woman to whom he has been generous. In her brief source note, Batt observes the similarity here with Puss-in-Boots. The story is taken from Roger D. Abrahams' 1983 collection, African Folktales.

The Silk Brocade, a story from the Chinese tradition, in which a widow creates the most extraordinarily beautiful silk brocade, only to see it stolen by a rogue wind. Each of her three sons sets out in turn to retrieve it, but only the youngest has the wherewithal to follow it all the way to the palace of the maidens of the Sun, there to insist on its return. The conclusion of the tale sees his mother restored to health, and she and her son (as well as one of the sun maidens) living in happiness in the very house and garden depicted in the brocade. This story has also been retold in picture book format in Sue Arengo and Nancy Lane's The Magic Brocade, as well as in Aaron Shepard and Xiaojun Li's similarly titled The Magic Brocade.

The Feather Cloak, a Hawaiian tale concerning the adventures of the "kukini" (a trained runner) and "tohunga" (someone able to see the spirit world) Eleio, who is dispatched by Kakaalaneo, the chief of Maui, on an errand to fetch some kava root. Distracted on his journey by a beautiful, fleet-footed maiden, Eleio discovers that the person he is pursuing is Kanikani-aula, a ghost who is unable to rest peacefully, because the feather cloak she was creating was never finished. Through his wisdom and skill, Eleio restores Kanikani-aula to life, and the feather cloak—the first of its kind—is completed. This story can be found in a number of anthologies, most recently, in the 2023 Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa, from Chronicle Books.

The Three Fayes, a Swedish story about a young woman with absolutely no interest in spinning, weaving or sewing, who resists her mother's efforts to make her learn these skills. When an argument between the two is interrupted by the queen, and the mother lies about her daughter's prowess, in order to save face, poor May is taken to the palace, and made to spin a room of flax into thread, weave her skeins of thread into cloth, and sew a beautiful shirt—all with the promise of marriage to the prince. In this process she is aided by three old women, each with a different deformity, whose price is that they be called Aunt, and invited to the young woman's wedding. As Batt notes, this is a Scandinavian variants of the Brothers Grimm tale about The Three Spinners, and also has strong similarities to the classic Rumpelstiltskin.

The Patchwork Coat, an eastern European Jewish tale concerning a poor man, Khaim Yankl, who leaves his family in order to find work and to earn his fortune. After many years of wandering, and turning his hand to all manner of job, he returns home a wealthy man, with all of his money sewn into the dirty patchwork coat in which he initially set out. When his wife mistakenly gives this coat (complete with all of Khaim Yankl's money) to a beggar, it seems that disaster has struck, but fortunately our hero manages to make a trade that is very much in his favor. This tale was taken from Leonard Wolf's 1988 Yiddish Folktales.

The Crocodile's Blessing, an Indonesian variant of the Cinderella tale type, in which kindhearted Damura is aided by the magical river crocodile, when she loses her stepmother's best sarong in the waters. Caring for the mother crocodile's child, she is rewarded not only with the return of the sarong, but with a shower of diamonds, when she first returns home. Needless to say, the experiences of her rude and unkind stepsister, when she ventures to the river to win the crocodile's favor, do not go as well. When the family are invited to the village head man's house for a great feast, and Damura is left behind, the crocodile again steps in to help, providing her with the beautiful raiment she needs to attend. The lost slipper and the young man's quest for his beautiful beloved, conclude the story. This tale can also be found in Judy Sierra and Reynold Ruffins' picture book retelling, The Gift of the Crocodile: A Cinderella Story.

I enjoyed The Fabrics of Fairytale: Stories Spun from Far and Wide immensely, both for the stories themselves, and for Tanya Robyn Batt's two-page introductions to each story, giving more information on the type of fabric featured in the tale—its history, and how it is produced. I also greatly enjoyed British illustrator Rachel Griffin's accompanying mixed media artwork—created using papers, fabrics, beads, stamps, maps and "oddments"—which felt very appropriate to the theme of the collection. Recommended to young folklore lovers in general, and to any readers interested in fabric and clothing, and the important role they play in traditional storytelling.… (mais)

Dreaming of a glorious golden crown one night, a beautiful princess awakens, and cannot be satisfied by any of the crowns created by her indulgent father's craftsmen. Then she meets a white bear in the woods, who possessed such a crown, but will only exchange it for her, the princess. Going to live with him in a beautiful palace, the princess is happy, until she is misled by her mother's advice, and attempts to pry into the white bear's secret. Revealed as an enchanted prince, the bear departs, and the princess sets out after him, embarking on a quest for her love that will lead her to the land east of the sun and west of the moon...

Cobbling together elements from three northern European folktales—the Norwegian East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon and The White Bear King, and the Scottish The Black Bull of Norroway—New Zealand author and storyteller Tanya Robyn Batt spins an engrossing and magical tale, one which features a heroine who is both courageous and compassionate. The accompanying acrylic, pencil and oil pastel artwork of Italian illustrator Nicoletta Ceccoli, who also worked on Batt's The Faerie's Gift, is quite lovely, with a beautiful palette and elegantly stylized figures. Recommended to young folk and fairy-tale lovers.… (mais)