Elizabeth Hopkinson's Hidden Grove

It's Easter, the happiest time of the church year.  And I've discovered a lovely correlation between the traditional Three Magi of Christmas and the traditional Three Marys of Easter.  It makes for a beautiful balance, particularly in Matthew's Gospel, where the story of the Magi is recorded. The Three Magi... Came from the east Brought incense and myrrh "Where is the boy born King of the Jews?"  Went to the wrong place first (Jerusalem) Real answer was in Bethlehem, "for this is what the prophet has written" "When they saw the star, they were overjoyed" Bowed down and worshipped him Sent back to their country by another route The Three Marys... Came at sunrise (east) Brought myrrh and spices "Tell me where you have put him" "Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here" Real answer had been foretold by Jesus. "Remember how he told you..." They were "afraid yet fil...

She asked for a rose.  Her father reaches out to pluck one.  Suddenly, a Beast appears, furious, accusing him of theft.  The penalty is death.  Or the surrender of his daughter. But why such a harsh penalty for plucking a rose?  Much has been said - or invented - on the possible meaning of the rose.  When the last petal falls, the Beast's fate is sealed eternally.  It is the first thing he has learned to love.  It symbolises virginity; the plucking of the rose mirrors the deflowering of the daughter; the aristocratic Beast is excercising his  droit du seigneur  over Beauty, the merchant's child. But why should the plucking of a flower carry such a heavy penalty?  And why does the same motif occur in other fairy tales?  For example, Rapunzel , in which the father must sacrifice his child as payment for picking herbs from the Witch's garden. One answer may lie in ancient mythology.  Most ancient polytheistic religions have s...

https://www.mothersmilkbooks.com/index.php/shop/product/218-the-forgotten-and-the-fantastical-3-edited-by-teika-bellamy Last Saturday, I had a wonderful night out in Nottingham, at the launch of The Forgotten and the Fantastical 3, an anthology of fairy tales for grown-ups. As one of the contributing authors, it was great to meet my fellow writers, sign books together and listen to readings from each other's stories.  It was particularly special for me, as I missed last year's launch for The Forgotten and the Fantastical 2 due to illness.  It was also great to spend Sunday's journey home reading everyone else's stories, along with notes on the inspiration behind them, and of course the wonderful illustrations by Emma Howitt. I'm not going to go through every story here, but I will mention some of my favourites: The Web and the Wildwood by Lynden Wade I LOVE the Lady of Shalott, and medieval romance, so this story was ideal for me.  It has a woman in a tower, a unico...

This week I read Bradford: A Centenary City by Tom Montgomery  , written 20 years ago in 1997.  Tucked away between the familiar tales of Lister's Mill, Saltaire and the Bradford Pals were less familiar stories from the history of Bradford - stories ripe to be retold, adapted and used as springboards for fiction. I can't possibly write them all myself.  And, even if I did, I wouldn't write the same story you would.  So, for your delight and delectation - and for your inspiration too - here are 10 stories from the history of Bradford that deserve to be told: 1770s-90s: The move from the piece-work of cottage industry (spinning, weaving and wool-combing) to the very first machines and mills.  A key player here is the Quaker John Hustler, after whom the street Hustlergate is named. The "Wild West Riding" of the 1820s-40s, when Bradford was a "lawless frontier town."  Before the Incorporation Act of 1847, Bradford was a squalor of mills and slums,...

King Kong: RKO pictures, 1933 I have recently finished reading Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga , an excellent book, which accompanied a BBC TV series of the same name.  I can't praise this book enough, and I'm not going to say everything that is to be said about it here.  Instead, I'm going to talk about something that came out of my reading of this and another book: The Anatomical Venus by Joanna Ebenstein.   It concerns a recurring image of paranoia, racism and sexism that ends up as the much-remade RKO film, King Kong. Before I start, let me warn you that this blog contains images and text that some people may find distressing and/or offensive. It begins with a painting: The Nightmare by  Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli.  The Nightmare: Henry Fuseli, 1781 There are several versions of this painting, but it basically depicts a beautiful young woman, asleep or swooning, with an ape-like incubus perched on top of he...

I don't normally write about stuff like this on my blog - I hate controversy and arguments of every kind, which I find distressing - but I felt I must respond to the many adults I read of who have expressed the opinion that educating children about gender diversity somehow amounts to "child abuse." To that end, I would like to share with you some extracts from The Fieldway Five , a story I wrote when I was about nine years old.  It is my homage to the Famous Five stories, an improbable tale of gypsies and gold mines, which ends with the children triumphantly pushing enormous slabs of gold home to their parents. In my very un-subtle homage to Enid Blyton, Timmy the dog is replaced by Ann the cat, and tomboy Georgina, who you will remember dresses as a boy and insists on being called George, is replaced by Philip, who prefers to wear a dress while being addressed as Philipa.  As a child, I saw nothing sinister in this; I was just being creative.  Also, my best fr...

Looking back on the year that's almost gone, I've been struck by just how many anthologies my short stories have appeared in this year.  In fact, it's been a bumper crop! I'd like to celebrate with a festive roundup of all my anthology appearances of 2016 (including the title of the short story featured in each). And I've even put up some links, so if you need some last minute Christmas presents, or even somewhere to spend your Christmas money, you know where to look!  https://twitter.com/UnstapledPress/media Venn Unstapled Press, March 2016 "The Ice Queen and the Mer-King" http://18thwall.com/product/those-who-live-long-forgotten-ii/ Those Who Live Long Forgotten II 18th Wall Productions, March 2016 "Claire de le Lune" The Forgotten and the Fantastical 2  Mother's Milk Books, March 2016 "Reve/Revival" Incandescence Transcendent Oloris Publishing, September 2016 "The Spirit of the Underground...