Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

Two mermaid dolls 27th January is the feast day of St Muirgen, also known as Li Ban or Liban. She appears in a number of old Irish annals, such as the Martyrology of Donegal and the Annals of the Four Masters. There's nothing unsual about that: the history of Ireland is crammed to bursting with saints and martyrs. But what's unusual about Miurgen is that she is a mermaid. According to the stories, she was three hundred years under the sea, until the time of the saints. At that time, a man called Beoan was on a mission to Rome, at sea in his curragh (ship) when the ship caught a mermaid (liban) in its nets. She told him she was the the daughter of Eochaidh from Lough Neagh, who was changed to a mermaid when her family was drowned. They brought her to land, where she was baptised by St Comhgall under the name Muirgen (traverser of the sea). The calendar of St Oengus says of her: My God loved Muirgen, A miraculous triumphant being. I love it that there is a mermaid saint! That som...

  “The Origin of Love”, Anna Hopkinson 2019. Yesterday, something happened to me that has not happened before. I had to part ways with an editor on moral grounds. The person in question objected to my explicit reveal that the protagonist and his nemesis were conjoined twins in a former life. The reason? Apparently, two pairs of conjoined twins in one story “stretched credulity” and raised distracting questions about “who gets to move the limbs etc.” Couldn’t they just be normal twins or best friends? No, they couldn’t. I felt honour bound to say these comments sounded prejudiced, and I couldn’t accept the edits. I’m sure this editor did not intend to be prejudiced. It was unconscious bias. * This morning, I watched David Harewood’s documentary for the BBC, “Why is Covid Killing People of Colour?” It contained some shocking statistics; not least the grossly disproportionate number of Pakistani people living in deprived areas (something particularly relevant to my home town of Bradfo...

These are my thoughts on the Repeal of the 8th. I don't normally do this sort of thing on the blog, but I felt so helpless in the face of angry, hurtful comments that I had to put something into writing. And as I've written a lot about asexuality and so-called "monstrous births" on here, it didn't seem altogether inappropriate.   I have no desire to condemn women to illegal abortions. In fact, I have no desire to condemn anyone, full stop. I understand that abortion may be necessary in certain, extreme, circumstances, but there are several things that deeply trouble me.  1. The unborn have no human rights. In these days when we know more about the life and development of the embryo/foetus than ever before, and when mothers of miscaried babies are asking for death certificates, this seems both hypocritical and backward. I truly think the UN should convene to discuss what rights the unborn ought to have. I don't believe the unborn are the property of the mother ...

Who doesn't love Lettie Lutz, the Bearded Lady character in The Greatest Showman, who sings   the iconic anthem, This is Me ? Yesterday, my daughter took me to a singalong version of the film for a Mother's Day treat, and we both belted out This is Me at the tops of our voices. Both Lettie and the song have become symbols for anyone who feels marginalised or different. It so happens that last week I watched another film about a hairy woman, the very beautiful Norwegian coming-of-age film,   Løvekvinnen , or The Lion Woman, based on a book by   Erik Fosnes Hanson.   It tells the story of Eva Arctander, who is born in a small town in the early 20th century and struggles to find her place in the world. Especially, it concerns her relationship with her stationmaster father, widowed at her birth. I loved this film - which I watched on Netflix - and I definitely want to see it again. One of my best reads of last year was Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Bi...

Just recently, I read Flame of Sevenwaters by my all-time favourite author, Juliet Marillier .  Juliet is the writer I look up to most in my own work.  She has been very helpful with Silver Hands , giving it a great review on the Top Hat Books site .  When Silver Hands came out, I sent her a copy and she sent me a lovely card, promising to read it.  So it was strange to think that we might both be reading each other's works at the same time, especially as both were about a girl without the use of her hands. This wasn't deliberate.  Although I am a big fan of Juliet, and Silver Hands is in some ways inspired by her writing, I didn't know she was also going to be writing about a handless maiden.  It's interesting to make some comparisons. (Warning: possibly spoilers).  Juliet's Maeve hasn't lost her hands completely, but has had them burned in a fire as a child, so they are scarred and immobile.  She faces some of the same challenges as Marg...