I used to have this section labeled “retellings,” because when I first began dividing my short fiction into categories, most of the things that went here recognizably built on the plots of existing stories. But over time they’ve grown more wide-ranging in their approach: some of them are sequels, or mashups, or riffs, or just use some existing piece of folklore or mythology as a springboard to tell a related tale. Now it seems more appropriate to simply nod in the direction of my academic background and call them my “folklore stories.”

 

• A Breviary of Fire
  “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

  The words of composer Gustav Mahler animate this collection of sixteen tales from award-winning author Marie Brennan, inspired by mythological and folkloric traditions around the world. Here you will find flames of revenge, immortality, and grace, as a valkyrie seeks peace, a queen weaves and unweaves her own fate, and a goddess vanishes from mortal memory — but never from the page.

• A Songbook of Sparks
  Sing a tale in a different key . . .

  “Tam Lin.” “Tom O’Bedlam.” “The Cruel Sister.” Ballads both well known and obscure lie behind this collection of folklore-based short stories from award-winning author Marie Brennan. Whether set in historical Scotland or a modern nightclub, an academy for mages or a psychiatric hospital, these tales strike chords with the past and the present, resonating long after the final page is turned.

 

Ballads and folksongs | Fairy tales | Darker fairy tales | Germanic lore | Greek lore | Near Eastern lore | Japanese lore | Chinese lore | Other sources

 

Ballads and folksongs

• “The Twa Corbies”
  Understanding the language of birds isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
• “What Still Abides”
  He died at harvest, and rose again in spring.
• “Mad Maudlin”
  Even the experienced nurses didn’t want to deal with her.
• “Vīs Dēlendī”
  Vīs faciendī is the most difficult of the three degrees, and the most rarely bestowed.
• “Cruel Sisters”
  The harp is a gruesome thing.
• “And Ask No Leave of Thee”
  I’m the kind of person who, soon as you tell me not to do something, I do it.
• “Then Bide You There”
  The storyteller has ways of dealing with the blacksmith.
• “Oh, My Cursed Daughter”
  You cannot trust him; you cannot trust them. You cannot ever trust them.
• “Any Rose My Mother Raised, Any Lane My Father Knows”
  Two cages I have escaped so far, though my parents strove to keep me safe within.

Fairy tales

• Never After: Thirteen Twists on Familiar Tales

An ebook collection of flash-length retellings.

• “The Princess and the . . .”
  Sixty years on, I’m amazed at what they’ve done to the truth.
• “Two for the Path”
  Two strokes of luck bring a chance for a new life.

Fairy tales, with a darker twist

• Monstrous Beauty
  An ebook collection of the following seven stories:
• “The Wood, the Bridge, the House”
  She has come this way many times before.
• “Shadows’ Bride”
  Their laughter is the silence of empty rooms, the hush of dust lying decades thick.
• “Kiss of Life”
  In faraway lands, the tale is a romantic one.
• “Tower in Moonlight”
  The hart leads them far into the woods.
• “The Snow-White Heart”
  “Cut out her heart and bring it to me,” the queen said, and so the huntsman did.
• “Footprints”
  She stands out like a rose, red-black as venous blood.
• “Waiting for Beauty”
  He wakes before dawn to prepare her breakfast.

Germanic lore

• “Silence, Before the Horn”
  In the end, we all chose sleep.
• “The Waking of Angantyr”
  She was lucky to have made it this far.
• “Serpent, Wolf, and Half-Dead Thing”
  Only two of Loki’s children have a fate.
• “This Is How”
  This is how a valravn is made.

Greek lore

• “For the Fairest”
  For the fairest, the inscription read . . . .
• “The Wives of Paris”
  They offered him a beautiful woman, power over men, victory in war.
• “Daughter of Necessity”
  The strands thrum faintly beneath her fingertips, like the strings of a lyre.
• “Your Body, My Prison, My Forge”
  I will use every piece of you I can in order to craft what I require.

Near Eastern lore

• “Salt Feels No Pain”
  She did not mourn the cities in their fates, for they were full of wicked men.
• “The Gospel of Nachash”
  The bekhorim were made from air, and their spirits were more subtle than that of man.
• “The Me of Perfect Sight”
  Having seen the trap laid for his feet, how could he fail to avoid it now?
• “At the Heart of Each Pearl Lies a Grain of Sand”
  Two stories have been told. The third has not.

Japanese lore

• “Centuries of Kings”
  For thousands of years I have brought chaos with me wherever I go.
• “Speak to the Moon”
  In Kemuriyama’s heart, a poem.
• “A Tale of Two Tarōs”
  This not the Tarō you’ve heard of.
• “999 Swords”
  Neither has long to live. Both know it. Listen as they speak.
• “In the Paradise of the Pure Land”
  In the paradise that is the Pure Land of the Amida Buddha, there is beauty.
• “I Cut Off a Monster’s Arm. AITA?”
  After a bizarre experience, a young man turns to Reddit for reassurance.
• “How to Get a Head”
  A simple farmer has a solution for a dreadful problem.

Chinese lore

• “The Old Woman and the Tea”
  Who would be so impolite as to refuse her hospitality?
• “Ghost and Fox”
  The doctor could save your life, but not your memories.

Other sources

• “Sankalpa”
  However long I searched, the one for whom I was reborn would still be there.