I am delighted to share my review today for Botanical Folk Tales of Britain & Ireland by Lisa Schneidau and narrated by Joan Walker. This was a title that caught my eye while I was scanning through Audible and I do love Folk Tales.

This collection of folk tales takes you on a green and leafy journey around the British Isles. Here are locally sourced and traditional folk tales of wild trees and plants throughout the seasons: from the magical mistletoe to the bad-tempered stinging nettle. Plants shape the British landscape, and they provide food, medicine and inspiration—yet in the middle of our hectic lives, we often take them for granted. Traditional stories, passed down the generations, tell of the complex relationship between people and plants in Britain, in lowlands and uplands, coasts, bogs, forests, and towns.

MY REVIEW

I grew up reading fairy tales and folk tales so when I saw this as an audiobook I knew it would be a good one for me.

The collection of Folk Tales has been collated by Lisa Schneidau and the narrator, Joan Walker is fabulous. Joan has a very listenable voice, she adds good local accents to the various stories depending on which part of the country the tale is from.

As someone who loves her garden and also loves reading, I immediately knew that this would be great to listen to while outside in my own garden.

There are some tales that I knew, and some that I thought I knew from other stories I had read as a child, but actually turned out to be slightly different. As an adult listening to these tales I soo0n realised how dark some of them can be, death of characters is something that occurs quite often in tales, but I never really saw this as a child.

Some of the tales have a modern introduction to them, mentioning things such as phones. This means it will appeal to the younger reader today but lead them nicely into the tale and its past origins.

Each of the stories has a plant at its centre, beanstalk, mossy coat, rosemary, holly and so many others that are well known and some a little more obscure. Each tale has a relevance to a person, people or village, they are a mix of good and bad and lots of warnings. Tales of woodlands, forests, bogs and marshes, mountains and dales. The tales are laid out by season.

This is an audio that I will listen to again as I really enjoyed it. It has a calming feel to it with the gentle voice of the narrator. This is one for those who like to relive childhood tales and to a certain extent you can see how some old wives’ tales, legends and warnings have their origins, it is one I would definitely recommend it.

Many thanks for reading my post, a like or share would be amazing 🙂 xx