I couldn’t make it to the Heroines festival this year, but right now the new Heroines Anthology is wending its way to me from the wonderful team at Neo Perennial Press. I can’t want to get my hands on it to read this latest crop of stories about amazing women.
The Heroines anthologies contain short fiction and poetry which retells or re-imagines stories about women from history and folklore, fairy tales and legend. They are mythology for the contemporary age. This anthology also presents the outcome of the inaugural Heroines Women’s Writing Prize. From over 350 entries the winner of the short fiction prize was Dasha Maiorova, and the winner of the poetry award was Isabella Luna. Congratulations to them both for reclaiming heroines of the past in a way which strongly resonates with women today.
I was thrilled to make the longlist of 24 authors and poets, because that secured my story’s place in the table of contents for this third anthology.
For the first anthology I wrote Bits and Bolts and Blood – a different kind of Little Red Riding Hood, because a wolf who was better versed in fairy mythology would have known to fear a red cap.
For the second, Melusine’s Daughter considered how that marvelous monster’s daughter would have fared against Heer Halewijn, the original Bluebeard.
This time, I wrote a story called The Tenant of Rookwood Hall. I had started out thinking about fairy ointment and Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market (a different tale altogether) and then wandered off on a literary walking tour of the Fells.
And, yeah, I bumped into those Brontë sisters. I don’t think anyone has ever encapsulated my issues with Charlotte’s and Emily’s novels as well as Kate Beaton did, in her web comic Hark a Vagrant.
Poor Anne! She wrote one of the first feminist novels, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, which was incredibly popular – and shocking – when published, because of its depiction of alcoholism and vice. The sound of the heroine’s bedroom door being slammed against her husband “reverberated through Victorian society”. But, her sister Charlotte was critical of the book and refused to allow it to be republished after Anne’s death, describing it as “a mistake” and Anne as “gentle, retiring and inexperienced”.
Actually, Anne appears to have been the only Brontë with much of a spine and the ability to make a go of things without falling prey to sensibility, romanticism, laudanum, etc, etc. Anyway, back to the Fells…
The lonely wild places of the north of England are notoriously beset with fairies, giants, witches, and malevolent beasts. Charlotte Brontë’s eponymous heroine, Jane Eyre, is fleeing from something which may or may not be the fearsome Gytrash when she first encounters Mr Rochester, arguably a far more dangerous creature.
So, when I wrote of an independent young woman crossing the Fells, where the ruins of the fairy king’s rath can be found, it was inevitable that a Brontë influence would seep into my story. If you want to find out how Miss Grey manages when she has to deal with King Eveling and the Gytrash and three squirrel-tailed hedgehog fairy servants, you’ll just have to read The Tenant of Rookwood Hall.
You can purchase a copy of the Heroines Anthology (vol. 3) from Neo Perennial Press by following this link (and volume 1 and volume 2 as well – I mean, they’re right there…)
And take care when you’re out walking, my dears. You never know what you might encounter.
(The banner image is cropped from a photograph of a Patterdale Terrier by Karin Laurila on Pixabay. I know the Patterdale is one of the Fell Terriers, but I’m pretty sure they’re not directly related to the Gytrash.)
I prefer stories where women get to do some questing, stomping and slaying of their own. 
The other influence on Melusine’s Daughter was the medieval ballad, from the Dutch folk tale, of Heer Halewijn. This thoroughly repulsive, magically powerful bloke was the progenitor of Bluebeard and other horrible mass-murdering chaps in folk stories and songs. The unnamed heroine princess of The Song of Lord Halewijn is a delight. She rescues herself from a dangerous situation and doesn’t take any lip from her would-be killer. Or his mum.