“Never thought there’d be a worse way to die than a shark attack. Having my head ripped off never occurred to me.”

14. The Cunning Man – Celia Rees

Finn and her family visit her aunt’s summer cottage at the seaside and find out about the Viper Rocks, which wreck ships and the mysterious folk who know about all the superstitions surrounding seafaring life. Finn just happens to be scared of the ocean and has regular nightmares about drowning. There are knots tied with magic and cleavers involved in scavenging and a lot of wrecked boats. A lot of them. The nephew of the man sent to do a lot of work on the cottage, Mike, tells Finn and her brothers a lot about the local family quarrels throughout time and to stay away from the dude with the serious moustache and snide look, a cunning man if ever there was one. And Finn actually does for the most part stay away from him, but, sometimes the cunning man comes to you and sometimes he’s just constantly stalking around laughing at jokes no one else can hear, like Griffiths in this book.

 

My own Finny has a seafaring theme himself, it’s “Fiskarens Fiende” by his namesake, Finntroll.

 

If there are cunning men hiding in the neolithic stone tombs, Finny will find them. First up, Pembrokeshire.
Threadless
Redbubble