Amy Jeffs – författare

'A gorgeous book' New StatesmanOld Songs fuses short stories, histories, lyrics and illustrations in an enthralling reimagining of traditional folk ballads. Sunday Times Bestselling historian Amy Jeffs and Illustrator Gwen Burns combine forces to create a rich compendium, singing of travel, mystery, magic and the essential urges of humanity.Featuring iterations of fairy tales and sinister descendants of Greek myths and bible stories, as well as a cast of lesser-known characters with names like Tam Lim, Child Wynd and Maisery, Old Songs threads a tapestry of Britain's landscape, history and cultures. At the base of hills we can visit to this day, elf queens kidnap hapless poets and carry them through rivers of blood; and at the foot of a tree whose offspring still stand in the forests of Northumberland, a girl mimes combing the hairless head of a dragon who was once her brother.In spellbinding tales of brown-skinned girls who danced on their lovers' graves, of golden-masted ships captained by the Devil, of fiddles that cried "Murder!", of men kidnapped by fairies and boys married at fourteen, we find narrative motifs as ancient as humanity itself.In the histories interconnecting the stories, we find the fantastical rooted in the everyday, bringing to light the real experiences of great swathes of people to whom such story-songs were not only familiar, but a way of escaping into the extraordinary and returning gratefully home. Bringing enchantment to familiar landscapes, ballads were created anew by each singer and passed down from fireside to fireside, at the knees of childhood nurses, in manuscripts and in early printed pamphlets. Now, ten stories are gathered here, beautifully recreated for modern readers.Praise for Amy Jeffs'This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from' The Times'A beautiful retelling of British myths and exquisitely illustrated too' Daily Express'I have fallen so completely in love with this book... just one of the finest, most covetable things around' Katherine Rundell'A thing of beauty' The Herald

"Enchanting, breathtaking and beautiful... If you need me, I'll be in Storyland" - Ben Miller DREAM OF THE HEROES AND MONSTERS RIGHT ON YOUR DOORSTEP. THIS IS WHERE WE BEGAN. . .You will have heard of Thor, Medusa and Hercules. But what about the myths of Britain? Have you heard of the powerful sisters who first lived on these isles? Or the Trojan heroes who wrestled giants? Perhaps you know about the dragons who slept in hollow hills? And the kings who could talk to the dead . . . In this vivid and beautifully illustrated mythology of Britain, children will discover enchanting tales of magic and adventure, giants and demons, princesses and prophecies, from their own home. Travelling across the wildest of landscapes - as far north as Orkney and south as Cornwall - young readers will build Stonehenge with the young Merlin, chase hounds up the mountains of Wales, ride stags into the forests of Scotland and sail with Trojans along the rivers of Britain, discovering a land steeped in myth.Adapted from Amy Jeffs' bestselling Storyland, this is a definitive children's introduction to Britain's lost myths and legends, and a beautiful, timeless gift.

"Enchanting, breathtaking and beautiful... If you need me, I'll be in Storyland" - Ben MillerENTER A MAGICAL WORLD OF DRAGONS, GIANTS, HEROES AND MONSTERS RIGHT ON YOUR DOORSTEP . . .You will have heard of Thor, Medusa and Hercules. But what about the myths of the British isles? The Trojan heroes who wrestled giants. The Syrian sisters who found safety. The dragons who slept in hollow hills. And the kings who talked to the dead . . .In this vivid and beautifully illustrated mythology of Britain, children will discover tales of magic and adventure, giants and demons, princesses and prophecies.Travelling across the wildest of landscapes - as far north as Orkney and south as Cornwall - young readers will build Stonehenge with the young Merlin, ride stags into the forests of Scotland, and sail with Trojans along the rivers of Britain, discovering a land steeped in myth, monsters and heroes.This children's adaptation of Jeffs' bestselling Storyland, is a spell-binding adventure into Britain's lost myths and legends. With beautiful illustrations this is the perfect book for all the family.

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER, January 2022A TIMES HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEARA BBC HISTORY MAG BOOK OF THE YEARA DAILY EXPRESS BOOK OF THE YEARSoaked in mist and old magic, Storyland is a new illustrated mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes.It begins between the Creation and Noah's Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants from an age when the children of Cain and the progeny of fallen angels walked the earth, to the founding of Britain, England, Wales and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans.These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape and the yearning to belong, inhabited with characters now half-remembered: Brutus, Albina, Scota, Arthur and Bladud among them. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning artworks and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary. We visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy, spanning the length of Britain from the archipelago of Orkney to as far south as Cornwall in a vivid, beautiful tale of our land steeped in myth. In Storyland, Jeffs reimagines these myths of homeland, exile and migration, kinship, loyalty, betrayal, love and loss in a landscape brimming with wonder.PRAISE FOR STORYLAND'Expressive, bold and quite beautiful' The Lady'[a] delight of a book' Antonia Senior, The Times'ravishingly lovely' The Times Ireland'[a] lively retelling of British myths' Apollo Magazine

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Storyland and Wild, comes a sweeping new legendary of miracles, magic, human frailty and heroic strength. Illustrated with over thirty original paper cutouts by the author.'Jeffs writes beautifully, erring just on the right side of florid, and her linocut prints make for attractive illustrations . . . This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from' The Times on Storyland'I have fallen so completely in love with this book; Storyland, by Amy Jeffs, just one of the finest, most covetable things around' Katherine RundellSaints' legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes' suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws.In Saints, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints. She draws on 'official' lives, vernacular romances, artworks and obscene poetry, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends' heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. Saints includes such enduring super saints as Brigid, George, Patrick and Michael, as well as some whose legends are less well known (Scoithín, Euphrosyne and Ia) or else couched in prejudice (William of Norwich).The commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and, together, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. And all this maps onto the passing year: from St Mungo in January to St Thomas Becket in December.Jeffs guides her readers from images high on the walls of medieval churches, through surviving treasures of the elite and into the shifting silt of the Thames, where lie the lowly image-bearing badges once treasured by pilgrims. She opens manuscripts that hold wondrous stories of the lives and deaths of wayfaring monks, oak-felling missionaries and mighty martyrs. With tales of demons and dragons, with the stubborn skull of a giant, with stories of sleepers in a concealed Greek cave, Saints will enchant and transport readers to other worlds.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Storyland and Wild, comes a sweeping new legendary of miracles, magic, human frailty and heroic strength. Illustrated with over thirty original paper cutouts by the author.'Jeffs writes beautifully, erring just on the right side of florid, and her linocut prints make for attractive illustrations . . . This gorgeous book should live on the bookshelves in every house that cares about the idea of Britain, what is was and where it came from' The Times on Storyland'I have fallen so completely in love with this book; Storyland, by Amy Jeffs, just one of the finest, most covetable things around' Katherine RundellSaints' legends suffused medieval European culture. Their heroes' suffering and wonder-working shaped landscapes, rituals and folk beliefs. Their tales spoke of men raised by wolves, women communing with flocks of birds and severed heads calling from between bristling paws.In Saints, Amy Jeffs retells legends born of the medieval cult of saints. She draws on 'official' lives, vernacular romances, artworks and obscene poetry, all spanning from the fourth to the sixteenth centuries. The legends' heroes originate from as far east as Turkey and North Africa and as far west as Britain and Ireland. Saints includes such enduring super saints as Brigid, George, Patrick and Michael, as well as some whose legends are less well known (Scoithín, Euphrosyne and Ia) or else couched in prejudice (William of Norwich).The commentaries following the stories offer a history of each saint and, together, trace the rise and fall of the medieval cult of saints from the first martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. And all this maps onto the passing year: from St Mungo in January to St Thomas Becket in December.Jeffs guides her readers from images high on the walls of medieval churches, through surviving treasures of the elite and into the shifting silt of the Thames, where lie the lowly image-bearing badges once treasured by pilgrims. She opens manuscripts that hold wondrous stories of the lives and deaths of wayfaring monks, oak-felling missionaries and mighty martyrs. With tales of demons and dragons, with the stubborn skull of a giant, with stories of sleepers in a concealed Greek cave, Saints will enchant and transport readers to other worlds.

'Inspiring' Waterstones'Thrilling' Guardian'Marries words and images to create a special echo of this country's rich past' The Times In Wild, Amy Jeffs journeys - on foot and through medieval texts - from landscapes of desolation to hope, offering the reader an insight into a world at once distant and profoundly close to home. The seven chapters, entitled Earth, Ocean, Forest, Beast, Fen, Catastrophe, Paradise, open with fiction and close with reflection. They blend reflections of travels through fen, forest and cave, with retelling of medieval texts that offer rich depictions of the natural world. From the Old English elegies to the englynion and immrama of the Celtic world these are stories that largely represent figures whose voices are not generally heard in the corpus of medieval literature: women, outcasts, animals.Illustrated with original wood engravings, evoking an atmospheric world of whales, wolves, caves, cuckoos and reeds, Wild: Tales From Early Medieval Britain will leave readers with a feeling of 'westendream': delight in the wilderness.Saints: Medieval Legends of Heroes Humans and Magic is now available!

It is said that a monument now stands before the high church of Caerleon: an anvil pierced through with a sword. It is said that the sword can only be taken by the Britons' rightful king...From Sunday Times bestseller Amy Jeffs', Arthur: A New Life mines the deep, elusive seams of a story we think we all know: the legend of King Arthur.But here he is anew: a larger-than-life warlord, a hero raised by fairies, a leader of the wild hunt, a monster-slayer, lying wounded under the ash cloud, longing to rise again. Tracing an epic story from Merlin's conception and the building of the Round Table to the abduction of Guinevere and King Arthur's ambitious quest for Empire, this Arthur is as real as any other, brought back to life from the earliest sources. Drawing out the dark and beautiful stories from the original medieval and early-modern texts, Amy guides the reader from citadels through forests, into volcanoes, caves and riverbanks and beyond, even as far as Hell and the Otherworld. Going further than merely the stories, she provides incisive commentary about each tale, emphasising the legends' crafted nature and their symbiotic relationship with the political cultures of contemporary medieval Europe.Thirty original linocut illustrations map the inky Arthurian myth-scape, darkened by time, familiar as a dream.