Down The Knuckerhole

Instead of cleaning the playroom, Max and Emily visit their friends in Dragon Land and learn that shortcuts are not always the best way to get things done.

Carefully selected stories from the celebrated Folk Tales series have been gathered here for this special volume. Herein lies a treasure trove of tales from a wealth of talented storytellers performing in the country today.From hidden chapels and murderous vicars to travelling fiddlers and magical shape-shifters, this book celebrates the distinct character of England's different customs, beliefs and dialects, and is a treat for all who enjoy a good yarn.

With screaming demons in Wealdon copses and dragons lurking in bottomless ponds, the folk tales of Sussex truly represent the diversity of the area. Meet knuckers and willocks, mawkins and marsh monsters, the Piltdown Man, Lord Moon of Amberley Swamp and the princess of the Mixon Hole. There is also something terrible crawling to Crawley from Gatwick, which develops a degraded appetite in a bin ... From ghosts and madmen to witches and wise women, Michael O’Leary reveals many of the hidden horrors of Sussex – horrors that can be found in the most beautiful places, or that lurk beneath the seemingly mundane. Amid these dark tales are stories of humour and silliness, of love, lust and passion.

Instead of cleaning the playroom, Max and Emily visit their friends in Dragon Land and learn that shortcuts are not always the best way to get things done.

Max and Emmy can't wait to see the fireworks show in Dragon Land. Max insists on taking a "shortcut" through a knuckerhole leading to Zak and Wheezie's home, but their friends aren't there, and the shortcut isn't so short. Friendly glowworms entertain them until Zak and Wheezie return to fly Max and Emmy out--just in time for the grand finale! Illustrations.

Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the identities and psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary and fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee, or water-horse, and even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal. Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world and that of the supernatural grow thin those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors and rock-pools wherein mystery lies the author shows how mythologies of Mermen, Green men and Wild-men have helped and continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love and lust, loss and death and continuity and change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, and ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where Gog, Magog and their fellow giants lie in wait."

New heroes arise to battle the ever changing landscape. Lady Carmen Armenta and Lord Andres Jaimes with her brothers Jerry and Isreal unwillingly embark on an adventure to save time itself. As the first round of the tournament comes to an end, time begins to correct itself with the revelation of the Final One Hundredgood versus evil! Shawneita realizes that she has an important task to save whats left of her family. What will happen when time and existence collide?

“Like the druidic life force Jack taps, this hearty adventure, as personal as it is epic, will cradle readers in the ‘hollow of its hand’ (Booklist, starred review). Jack has caused an earthquake. He was trying to save his sister Lucy from being thrown down a well, but sometimes the magic doesn’t quite work out. Not only does Jack demolish a monastery, but Lucy is carried off by the Lady of the Lake, and Jack has to follow her through the Hollow Road, which lies underground. Aided by Pega, a slave, and the berserker Thorgil, Jack encounters hobgoblins, kelpies, yarthkins, and elves—not the enchanted sprites one would expect, but fallen angels who steal human children for pets. In the eighth century, the world is caught between belief in the Old Gods and Christianity, and what Jack and his companions do will decide the fate of both religions. From National Book Award winner Nancy Farmer, this second book in the Sea of Trolls trilogy brilliantly enlarges the world of the first story. Look for the conclusion in The Islands of the Blessed.