On day four of our blog takeover to celebrate the publication day itself for The Mab we are delighted to welcome back author and the inaugural postholder for the Children's Laureate Wales, Eloise Williams to introduce us to the role of magic in The Mab.

The world of The Mab is steeped in magic. The legends tell of shapeshifters and magicians, witches and giants, spells and curses. Dead people come back to life with the use of a magic cauldron, characters are transformed into animals or can speak to them to gain their wisdom, people disappear into the Otherworld or walk from that world into ours. Anything can happen. Everything is possible. In fact, in The Mab, the only thing which can be expected is the unexpected!

The characters in The Mab live in a landscape where magic happens so often, they unquestioningly believe in it and in its power. The boundaries of this world are moveable, and the linear spaces are filled with strange and wonderful things.

In Follow the Dream, the Emperor of Rome, Maxen Wledig, takes a nap after a day of hunting and has dreams of crossing the sea to find an island where a majestic castle lies. There he sees the most beautiful maiden and immediately falls head over heels in love with her. When Maxen wakes, instead of getting on with his day he decides that his dream should be followed. He sends some of his men to seek out the beautiful maiden and find her they do. In Wales, of course, where the original stories were told.

Three Graces is a story of three terrible plagues. The first is a plague of whispering listeners who have the ability to hear everything everyone is saying, so that people are afraid to speak. The second, an ear shattering screaming which comes from a red dragon and a white dragon in combat. The third plague is caused by a magician who steals people’s food while they sleep, so that the poor go hungry. You might well be able to find parallels between this world and ours.

The stories were originally part of an oral tradition of storytelling. The storyteller would need to keep the listener interested in the tale as they told it. For this reason, they drew heavily on the landscape of Wales, so that an audience would be able to relate to the stories and used magic to spellbind them too. Because of this the stories don’t necessarily follow a linear path. Storytellers would throw in as much drama and mystery as possible to keep listeners on their toes. If they could feel the interest ebbing, they might add in an enchantment, or a curse, a giant, or a hideous monstrous claw. This still works today as you turn the pages. You might gasp in wonder at something magnificent or wrinkle your brow at something strange. Either way, the magic will draw you in as it did those listeners of medieval times.

The characters who populate The Mab find ways to live with magic, sometimes harnessing it for their own gain, or battling against it to find a way through their weird and wonderful world. When you step into the pages you become part of that mythical landscape too. Wild and unpredictable, shimmering and enchanting, you are a magician, and you also walk between the Otherworld and this.

A big thank you to Eloise Williams for writing this fantastic blog feature for us.  You can find out more about The Mab every day this week during our blog takeover and might like to think about attending the YLG Wales Zoom training day Empathy in Your Library which includes a conversation with Eloise Williams and Matt Brown who will be discussing The Mab with librarian extraordinaire Alison King.  Special thanks too, to Max Low, illustrator of the The Mab for use of its brilliant cover and the image from Luned and the Magic Ring.