From the first edition dust jacket:Here are goblins and demons, ghost, boggarts and dragons, dream creatures and wondrous beings from folklore, myth and legend; some heroic, some monstrous, some eerie, and some absurd - but all of them fascinating. Alan Garner, deservedly renowned as one of the most imaginative of all writers for young people, has explored widely in the realm of the magical, the supernatural and the inexplicable to assemble this distinctive collection of poems and stories. He has retold many of the traditional tales himself and complemented them with several modern poems. Perhaps the most unusual item of all is the story from the great Hindu epic Ramayana, so full of vivid happenings and fantastic characters that it sweeps the reader into a new and exotic world.The book includes stories from all over the world, from Russia, Wales, India, Japan, America and many other countries. Alan Garner provides riches indeed in a collection which is unfailingly entertaining and full of good things, discerningly chosen, and embellished with his own introduction, comments and notes.The many moods of the stories are reflected by the artist, Krystyna Turska, who has matched the remarkable range of the anthology with equally remarkable and distinguished illustrations.