The mythic Hag of Béara reawakens to find older women now ignored and marginalised. Devotional talismans left at her altar unlock fourteen stories:
- a young doctor inherits a strange and troubling patient (‘What Happens At The End,’ winner of the Paul Cave Prize for Literature 2024)
- a pregnant woman becomes enmeshed in a fertility cult (‘Witchwalking,’ on US editor Ellen Datlow’s Recommended Reading List for 2024)
- a domestic abuse survivor finds refuge in water (‘The Women In The Water,’ shortlisted for the London Independent Story Prize 2024).
The Hag listens to these stories, and as she does, her own wounds reopen. Can the narrators – and the Hag herself – find liberation and healing? Ideal for fans of Sharon Blackie’s Hagitude, Kirsty Logan’s A Portable Shelter and Daisy Johnson’s A Retelling.
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe. If you’re unfamiliar with Tracy Fahey, this newest book from her might be a great place to start. It’s a collection of female-centric stories that are threaded with an alluring framing device (it reminds me Lee Murray’s Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud in that regard).
Let’s delve into the stories…
The Night Hag
A nursing home nurse called Paulo bonds with a few women, notably an enigmatic character called Roisin, who believes she is dying soon despite seeming in good health and spirits. It’s a very non-stereotypical look at the process of death and presents different attitudes towards it in a very compelling and senstive way.
Witchwalking
Oh I love this! A young woman wanders into the woods to find a very peculiar carving depicting what is clearly a powerful woman. She feels the energy of the place and soon meets other women who are in the same situation as her (I shan’t give away what that is), who offer her kindship like she’s never known. It’s a ‘harnessing of your inner strength’ kind of story, both as an individual and the strength to be found in a particular kind of community.
Barren
A woman, a relic of her time, is uncovered during a dig. It’s all very exciting until our protagonist realises she has something quite unfortunate in common with her. A short, layered story and another I really enjoyed.
Selling the Winds
This story is about a woman who ventures into a shipwreck against the advice of a nice local old woman, but this story isn’t really about that. It’s a brief delve into a relationship during a strained time. Lovely use of metaphor and parallels here.
Asylum
This one almost made me cry. It’s about a pregnant woman who fled Syria, alone, and is now facing pregnancy without her soulmate, and the hostilities of an increasingly, openly-racist country. She is relieved to meet a midwife who offers to take her on for free to serve as a doula. We’ve got some fae folklore also, and once again this lovely current of women looking after each other.
Are You A Witch, Or Are You A Fairy?
Are you a witch, a fairy, or perhaps…a changeling? This deals with some of my favourite Gaelic folklore in the contemporary setting of a film set. There might be fire. Very entertaining and I’d say this is the most horror-ish story in the collection so far.
The Women In The Water
I thought I knew what to expect from a story with this type of title but I was wrong. It’s a very sensitive, light, and brief window into a mother/daughter relationship and some quite serious inherited issues, handled with care.
Uhripuu
This is interesting because it’s a story about collecting stories. Stories of tradition and – most unexpectedly – certain trees. This is, for sure, a story of loss, but I read it more as a story about healing, in a way. I said ‘story’ too many times, sorry.
The Green Lady
This one has a frightening concept but it’s executed with a calmness that managed to stop me from freaking out. A woman awakes after an accident with no memory of who she is, but who she apparently is just doesn’t feel right to her. Her name, her face, her home, her husband…all of it is just…wrong.
Here Comes the Sun
A very amusing story about a story teller hired to entertain kids, but the story isn’t very…child appropriate. Oh, how I chuckled.
Once Upon A Time (There Was A Wise Woman)
This one explores a woman struggling with endometriosis, a topic not often covered (as far as I’ve read in fiction, anyway), with a more hopeful view to a condition that often feels very hopeless.
Ana Ni Aine
A mysterious woman that ages but seems to be immortal, her story and the story of others with many layers. Kind of hard to describe and talk about, but this one sews together pieces of other things we’ve read throughout the collection.
All The Drowned Women
This again is a few stories that overlap written into one, and adds more to the overall theme and narrative of the collection. It feels peaceful.
What Happens At The End
There’s a new doctor in town and one day, she finds an empty patient file and becomes so curious that she ventures to the top of the hill, where the potential patient lives alone, to check on her. There’s something strange about this seemingly ageless woman who pulls out one of her own teeth only to reveal another fresh one growing through. The most mysterious story in the collection for me.
What I really like about this book is that the women are depicted as strong and powerful without also having to be magical, and being strong because they’re magical. There are magical characters, don’t get me wrong, but it seems they are supernaturally powerful because they were already strong, if that makes sense, not made strong because of their supernatural abilities. There’s also a real feeling of female communion and support that made me feel like a want to join a coven.
Tracy’s writing is beautiful in her use of theme and metaphor, and this is a beautifully presented book with wonderful cover art by Jacob Stack. The stories must be read in order because the further you go in, the more there’s a sense of multiple voices and the stories all leading to one whole. So none of that just dipping in on random stories nonsense, you hear?!
It’s a wonderful read and the only thing I should note for regular visitors to Happy Goat Horror is that in terms of horror, this is extremely light. I’m not sure what genre this more appropriately fits under, but whatever it is, I had a great time reading it.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
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