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A Bag of Moonshine
This collection of magical tales brings to life the boggarts, gowks, fools, hobgoblins, and other strange and wonderful creatures that populate English and Welsh folklore
144 pages, Hardcover
First published February 5, 1986
7 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
Alan Garner
76 books754 followersAlan Garner OBE (born 17 October 1934) is an English novelist who is best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. His work is firmly rooted in the landscape, history and folklore of his native county of Cheshire, North West England, being set in the region and making use of the native Cheshire dialect.
Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).
Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Born into a working-class family in Congleton, Cheshire, Garner grew up around the nearby town of Alderley Edge, and spent much of his youth in the wooded area known locally as 'The Edge', where he gained an early interest in the folklore of the region. Studying at Manchester Grammar School and then Oxford University, in 1957 he moved to the nearby village of Blackden, where he bought and renovated an Early Modern building known as Toad Hall. His first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published in 1960. A children's fantasy novel set on the Edge, it incorporated elements of local folklore in its plot and characters. Garner completed a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), but left the third book of the trilogy he had envisioned. Instead he produced a string of further fantasy novels, Elidor (1965), The Owl Service (1967) and Red Shift (1973).
Turning away from fantasy as a genre, Garner produced The Stone Book Quartet (1979), a series of four short novellas detailing a day in the life of four generations of his family. He also published a series of British folk tales which he had rewritten in a series of books entitled Alan Garner's Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), Alan Garner's Book of British Fairy Tales (1984) and A Bag of Moonshine (1986). In his subsequent novels, Strandloper (1996) and Thursbitch (2003), he continued writing tales revolving around Cheshire, although without the fantasy elements which had characterised his earlier work. In 2012, he finally published a third book in the Weirdstone trilogy.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garner
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 1, 2017
Sometimes collections of folktales can be heavy reading as a volume, as they are often a brew of poems, some stories can be less than a page long and they may traverse everything from complete nonsense to terror.
However, this is not a curation of "short stories". These are tales crafted by Garner from oral story telling tradition into words. It is a difficult craft and Alan Garner is just a master at this. Like the blacksmith able to forge a witches voicebox (who you'll meet in these pages) here is the crafstman at work in Garner, able to preserve the beauty of dialect in a turn of phrase that flows from off the page into your ear and heart, without bellowing so much word-smoke as to emerge unreadable. This really is a bag of moonshine, and will enchant you if you let go of any preconceived expectations of short story collections.
The inclusion of little black and white illustrations by Patrick Lynch are helpful in reading these to younger children, providing little clues to help their envisioning and they add to the readability.
If you are new to the wellspring of English folklore, this would be quite a magical place to begin your adventure.
However, this is not a curation of "short stories". These are tales crafted by Garner from oral story telling tradition into words. It is a difficult craft and Alan Garner is just a master at this. Like the blacksmith able to forge a witches voicebox (who you'll meet in these pages) here is the crafstman at work in Garner, able to preserve the beauty of dialect in a turn of phrase that flows from off the page into your ear and heart, without bellowing so much word-smoke as to emerge unreadable. This really is a bag of moonshine, and will enchant you if you let go of any preconceived expectations of short story collections.
The inclusion of little black and white illustrations by Patrick Lynch are helpful in reading these to younger children, providing little clues to help their envisioning and they add to the readability.
If you are new to the wellspring of English folklore, this would be quite a magical place to begin your adventure.
January 27, 2018
I found in an old Guardian article this quote from Garner"My background is deep and set in deep time, and in a narrow space, oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis." So its easy to understand how he could write this book.
It is the kind that children should be helped to enjoy. It won't take much but it is a little strange and it is not contemporary. The language is not flowery or sweet - its rich and tangy with the smell of boots drying after working all day in the field and the yard. You just need to imagine what it would be like sitting round the fire after sunset, before bed, in the half-light from a candle or perhaps just the fire itself, listening to the storyteller. And be curious and willing to try and guess what the odd turn of phrase or piece of dialect means. Jack and the Beekeeper is typical: "If you don't like don't listen: but there was once three brothers; two were clever and one was Jack." Jack it transpires is the cheeky, clever one - "...and he slapped the beekeeper on his bald patch with his glove". - who succeeds where his brothers failed and tricks the beekeeper whilst " he sat with his bald patch to the sun ... I'm listening, youth...I'm listening my light...", into interrupting his story - ""but who should come next by my grandad riding piggy on your grandad!" "No, he never! No, he did not! It was my grandad riding piggy on yours!"" whereupon Jack gets fire for his porridge.
It is the kind that children should be helped to enjoy. It won't take much but it is a little strange and it is not contemporary. The language is not flowery or sweet - its rich and tangy with the smell of boots drying after working all day in the field and the yard. You just need to imagine what it would be like sitting round the fire after sunset, before bed, in the half-light from a candle or perhaps just the fire itself, listening to the storyteller. And be curious and willing to try and guess what the odd turn of phrase or piece of dialect means. Jack and the Beekeeper is typical: "If you don't like don't listen: but there was once three brothers; two were clever and one was Jack." Jack it transpires is the cheeky, clever one - "...and he slapped the beekeeper on his bald patch with his glove". - who succeeds where his brothers failed and tricks the beekeeper whilst " he sat with his bald patch to the sun ... I'm listening, youth...I'm listening my light...", into interrupting his story - ""but who should come next by my grandad riding piggy on your grandad!" "No, he never! No, he did not! It was my grandad riding piggy on yours!"" whereupon Jack gets fire for his porridge.
September 13, 2019
I loved this collection of fairy tales, rewritten from the folklore of England and Wales. The author has an uncanny ability to mimic the story-telling style of old folk tales, with whimsy and ingenuity.
The black and white illustrations add to the ghoulish atmosphere of the tales, and they are true to the art style I see in so many old fairy tale books from the late 1800s.
The enchantment of these stories lies in the excellent word-craft, and the weird and eccentric characters who populate the world of magic and mayhem. Full of changlings, witches, ogres who spin gold, and the clever youngest brother named Jack, these stories captivate the reader with the magnetic words and witty narrative style.
The black and white illustrations add to the ghoulish atmosphere of the tales, and they are true to the art style I see in so many old fairy tale books from the late 1800s.
The enchantment of these stories lies in the excellent word-craft, and the weird and eccentric characters who populate the world of magic and mayhem. Full of changlings, witches, ogres who spin gold, and the clever youngest brother named Jack, these stories captivate the reader with the magnetic words and witty narrative style.
May 30, 2022
Ooh, I really didn't care for it. But then, that's folktales: in my mind half-baked skeletons of stories, needing a confident author to use them as fodder and flesh them out into something digestible. I don't know why Garner left these as they are. Perhaps he's fond of their structure, or wanted to remain true to their memory.
I honestly think that I might only enjoy these tales, and only somewhat, if I was on my third or fourth pint of stout in a very atmospheric pub, and a jolly Celtic sort was reciting these aloud. Or someone Hobbit-like, in a pub like Bree's The Green Dragon. Then I'd be much more forgiving.
Learned a few things, though. A Foawr is a giant (Manx, Isle of Man) of sorts. And "a plate of black seam" is, I think, some sort of tripe dish. Still don't know what a Backerlash is, and Google won't tell me, other than to redirect me to this text.
"Alice of the Lea" was my favourite of the lot, because it felt a complete and balanced tale (with a moral and all), and I thought a milk-skinned, raven-haired, blue eyed beauty wearing black velvet and amethysts was a very appealing image indeed. :)
Speaking of imagery - some of the illustrations would be DISTURBING to youngsters (I think in particular the witches's throat about to be hammered on the anvil by the Blacksmith - grim!). Or maybe the evil inn-keeper's daughter getting beaten by an enchanted stick while the third brother looks on, grinning, from his bed (I personally enjoyed the Schadenfreude here, but it was a bit violent).
I was also disappointed that these regional tales weren't better delineated for me - obviously the story with a coracle would be Welsh, and the one with the Foawr is explicitly set on the Isle of Man. I needed footnotes or introductions for each of these, I think. Out of context, some of them were just idiotic.
All in all, not one I will likely re-read.
I honestly think that I might only enjoy these tales, and only somewhat, if I was on my third or fourth pint of stout in a very atmospheric pub, and a jolly Celtic sort was reciting these aloud. Or someone Hobbit-like, in a pub like Bree's The Green Dragon. Then I'd be much more forgiving.
Learned a few things, though. A Foawr is a giant (Manx, Isle of Man) of sorts. And "a plate of black seam" is, I think, some sort of tripe dish. Still don't know what a Backerlash is, and Google won't tell me, other than to redirect me to this text.
"Alice of the Lea" was my favourite of the lot, because it felt a complete and balanced tale (with a moral and all), and I thought a milk-skinned, raven-haired, blue eyed beauty wearing black velvet and amethysts was a very appealing image indeed. :)
Speaking of imagery - some of the illustrations would be DISTURBING to youngsters (I think in particular the witches's throat about to be hammered on the anvil by the Blacksmith - grim!). Or maybe the evil inn-keeper's daughter getting beaten by an enchanted stick while the third brother looks on, grinning, from his bed (I personally enjoyed the Schadenfreude here, but it was a bit violent).
I was also disappointed that these regional tales weren't better delineated for me - obviously the story with a coracle would be Welsh, and the one with the Foawr is explicitly set on the Isle of Man. I needed footnotes or introductions for each of these, I think. Out of context, some of them were just idiotic.
All in all, not one I will likely re-read.
May 13, 2022
This is a book of folk-tales from all over Britain, some of which have migrated and mutated to North America, all entertaining and clearly meant to be read aloud. The art is charming and the stories all satisfying. Probably evenmoreso when read by someone who can do the accents, but even read silently by this American reader, they are enjoyable.
May 5, 2015
I was completely surprised by how much I liked this one. told as little mini stories, they are twisted fairy tales and other stories. It must have been just what I was ready to read, because I enjoyed it and I was surprised and sad when I hit the last page (because it was so short).
June 15, 2025
At first I was a bit disappointed when I realised it was short stories, but I quickly adjusted. These were perfect for bedtime reading to youngsters, or bathroom reading (I have a book for every occasion, even "waiting for water to boil" reading, which is different from "waiting for coffee to be made" reading).
I liked all but one chapter (the poem). The tone was perfect, and took me back to that time when the world was strange and interesting and unknowable, where woods were dark, and things lurked in them, and correctly-used magic could work wonders. I miss that world. Reading "once upon a time there was a queen" is all it would take to catapult me into this land of mystery, and my main beef with fantasy nowadays is how pedestrian and real it all seems, the sort of thing LeGuin complained of in "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie." But I digress.
There's none of that here. These are proper stories, evoking the oral tradition, not too long (mostly very short, really), which is just the right length. We don't need to know about Jack's haircut, opinion about the neighbours, living room decor, etc., to be able to appreciate his story, we just need to know he's smart (or dumb), plucky (or timid), and he goes into the woods. Let's gone on with it! And Garner does.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
I liked all but one chapter (the poem). The tone was perfect, and took me back to that time when the world was strange and interesting and unknowable, where woods were dark, and things lurked in them, and correctly-used magic could work wonders. I miss that world. Reading "once upon a time there was a queen" is all it would take to catapult me into this land of mystery, and my main beef with fantasy nowadays is how pedestrian and real it all seems, the sort of thing LeGuin complained of in "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie." But I digress.
There's none of that here. These are proper stories, evoking the oral tradition, not too long (mostly very short, really), which is just the right length. We don't need to know about Jack's haircut, opinion about the neighbours, living room decor, etc., to be able to appreciate his story, we just need to know he's smart (or dumb), plucky (or timid), and he goes into the woods. Let's gone on with it! And Garner does.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
April 7, 2020
This book contains a bunch of short stories. Some of the stories I enjoyed - many I did not. However that criticism should be tempered by noting I am not a huge fan of the short story form - I find them very hit and miss, and for me that summed this book up too.
On the plus side though, and the reason why you might buy this book despite any criticism - Garner writes very well, and he has a big imagination. What is more, by their nature, short stories can be dipped into and read quickly, which could make this an excellent book for stretching and engaging less confident readers.
On the plus side though, and the reason why you might buy this book despite any criticism - Garner writes very well, and he has a big imagination. What is more, by their nature, short stories can be dipped into and read quickly, which could make this an excellent book for stretching and engaging less confident readers.
September 10, 2025
This is fantastic. It's a collection of folk tales from Cheshire, Cornwall, Wales and the Isle of Man told in a sparse way with a touch of dialect that makes it feel as though they are being spoken to you. And that's what folk takes are, of the oral tradition. Yeah, some have a bit of a moral, but there's also sad ends and gruesome ends, and just endings and the story just shrugs it's shoulders and says yes, this is how life is. There are also supernatural beings in some, beggars, hobs and witches. A wonderful slice of old rural storytelling.
March 4, 2018
I think this book has the effect on me, that Neil Gaiman's prose has target demographic (who is not met).
Very clever and skillfully told fairy tales, with an eye on the language. These are the kind of stories that are meant to be read out loud, and the words have a purposeful nuance to them.
Very clever and skillfully told fairy tales, with an eye on the language. These are the kind of stories that are meant to be read out loud, and the words have a purposeful nuance to them.
October 24, 2022
En samling på knappa två dussin engelska folksagor, berättade av Alan Garner. Vissa berättelser är ganska trevliga och finurliga, medan andra är lite mindre intressanta. En brokig skara historier, helt enkelt.
June 30, 2021
Entertaining selection of tales, some with a streak of black humor.
October 5, 2024
Meh, cute little stories but none really captured me.
Perhaps if I'd grown up with them I'd feel differently.
Perhaps if I'd grown up with them I'd feel differently.
January 12, 2017
An nice little collection of folk tales, made more interesting by the author's unfailing grasp of dialect, evident in all of his works. Some of the stories had familiar elements but departed from the folk tales that I know. I would have found the book even more interesting if it had contained the provenance of each tale, and details of how, or whether, Garner had adapted it. That said, this is clearly a work written for the sake of the stories, not their origins, and aimed at children. You can almost hear them spoken aloud at bedtime as you read...
January 30, 2022
A funny, bittersweet and uncanny collection of English and Welsh folk tales, vividly told with rhythm and poetry. I read this when I was about twelve years old, a teacher borrowed it and I forgot about it until I was already at high school. I recently tracked down a copy and was pleased to discover that adulthood has not dulled the magic of stories of wily foxes, cunning boggarts or strange women in the water.
November 21, 2013
I flicked in and out of this for a few days, enjoying the odd mix of fairytales. The style wasn't as good as his longer novels and for me, the best bit was the illustrations, which has an unusally dark slant to them. I would probably have enjoyed it more if I was nearer the target age!
July 22, 2013
Excellent language and quality illustrations by Patrick James Lynch.
Read
April 18, 2013Brilliant lots of great tellings of some very short stories my fav is Harry Cap and the Three Brothers
"Stick Thump Em!"
"Stick Thump Em!"
December 11, 2013
I would have rated it 3.8 if I could. The stories were completely bonkers!
November 7, 2014
I really enjoyed this book the story's was short but funny will be reading alan garner books.
March 22, 2014
A collection of folk tales/fairy stories. Quick to read - none of them really wowed me, but I do like Garner's use of language.
March 30, 2015
A nice collection of short fairy tales, with many familiar elements. The stories themselves were funny, but I was most impressed by the language and the beautiful illustrations.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews