Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

In Silver Hands , Margaret goes on a voyage that takes her from the English coast to the East Indies, feudal Japan and beyond the Edge of the Map.  To celebrate that, I'm launching a special giveaway that will send Silver Hands on a voyage of its own.  Who knows where it might end up? This is how it will work.  I have two copies of Silver Hands to give away.  I will send them to two randomly chosen followers, regardless of where they live in the world.  (If you live beyond the Edge of the Map, that could be tricky, so we'll limit it to non-magical countries! 😉)  It will then be your turn to give the book away to a person of your choice.  They will then give it away to a person of their choice.  And so on and so on.  The idea is to get these two copies of Silver Hands  on the longest voyages possible.   The book will arrive with a special message inside the front cover, welcoming you to Margaret's Voyage.  Read the book.  ...

I recently picked up a second-hand copy of Nigel Cawthorne's The Strange Laws of Old England.   As a source for story ideas, this is a brilliant resource, full of all sorts of strange legal goings-on, not just in Old England, but also in Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man etc. One thing that caught my attention as a fantasist was a short paragraph saying about Henry III - the king responsible for the re-issued version of Magna Carta I was fortunate to see myself this year in Lincoln.  (There is more than one copy, in case you are about to protest that it is somewhere else!)  The book says that Henry signed a law making it a capital offence to kill, wound or maim a fairy. This sounds almost as if Henry III was making the fairy a protected species, as we would do nowadays with endangered animals.  However, although Henry III had a menagerie, I doubt the fairy was considered an endangered species in the 13th century.  In fact, as a super-pious king, and one who passe...