Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold

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Dark, potent and uncanny, Hag bursts with the untold stories of our isles, captures in voices as varied as they are vivid.

It follows the perspective of a young girl and her brother who watch their father abuse their mother. This wonderful anthology of culture-rich myths and folktales are given a unique feminist makeover and are steeped in the traditions of the United Kingdom. Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold is a collection of ten short stories or I should say re-tellings of ten short stories. She has also judged various literary prizes including the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the BBC National Short Story Award.Mahsuda Snaith is winner of the Bristol Short Story Prize 2014 and SI Leeds Prize 2014, which she won with an early draft of her debut novel 'The Things We Thought We Knew' (Black Swan).

All of the retellings in 'Hag' have been written by women, and featured strong female characters, but they all have been so diverse and timely. Daisy Johnson starts Hag off with a story that poses the question at the heart of any retelling: Is it mine to tell?

Some general thoughts: these stories are totally accessible even if you have no idea what they are based on (like I did), which I think is no mean feat. This is so you can see what the authors had to work from for their inspiration, some are surprisingly short and vague which definitely shows the talents and imagination of the authors. When she demands her share of the money, she experiences something stranger, stranger than fiction as they say. I also liked that at the end of the collection there were the original stories which had inspired these retellings. Without the separation of episodes, it feels a little same-y to have two stories both commenting on the nature of storytelling in this way.