My story The Bloody Briar is now available at Swords and Sorcery magazine. It is another folktale mash-up, this time wholly European. Head over there and take a look. 

Everyone will be familiar with some version of “The Briar Rose” (Sleeping Beauty), which I have intertwined with “Tam Lyn,” an originally Scottish story with variants retold throughout Europe. 

For those not familiar with Tam Lyn, there is a thorough background on Wikipedia, or you can listen to a modern version of it, as performed by the late great Benjamin Zephaniah, accompanied by Eliza Carthy and the Imagined Village. It is well worth eight minutes of your time. The key themes are transformation and redemption, which I have blended with a reimagining of the backstory to Sleeping Beauty.

Mt previous folktale mash-up was based on two Sumatran stories. You can find The Hornbill and The Lame Horse in Fairy Tales Punk’d Vol 2

For more about my writing check out my Bibliography.

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