A Bag Of Moonshine - Tapa dura

Boggarts and gowks, fools and hobgoblins are only some of the strange and wonderful creatures in 'A Bag of Moonshine', Alan Garner's collection of stories chosen from the folklore of England and Wales.

Children will be enchanted with these tales – of the Welsh boy who hooked a salmon that pulled him back into the river and demanded to be his sweetheart; of Colloo's baby that bounced out of its cradle and whirled round the kitchen to the tune of Hom Bridson's fiddle. There's the sad, beautiful story of Hewin and his bride Belenay, who came to him out of the lake and the tale of the strange little man, Harry-Cap, who pointed three brothers towards their varying fortunes.

Alan Garner's sensitive ear for language and his feel for a good story make this book ideal for reading aloud to quite young children. Slightly older children will be able to read the stories to themselves, and everybody, young and old, will delight in the marvellous mixture of magic and enchantment, wizardry and trickery which is to be found in this glorious "Bag of Moonshine".

The outstanding black and white illustrations by Patrick James Lynch are uncannily right for this very special book and in 1987 they won the Mother Goose Award.