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.

  This collection of stories based on traditional folksongs will be out in September 2025!

 

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.

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.