Kate Crackernuts

by Katharine M. Briggs

A high-spirited girl tries to shield her innocent stepsister from a witch's wrath during the turbulence caused by the 17th-century wars between the Scots and English.

Genres: Fantasy, Fairy Tales, Childrens, Fairies, Young Adult, Folklore, Witches

223 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Early Life Katharine Briggs was born in Hampstead, London in 1898, and was the eldest of three sisters. The Briggs family, originally from Yorkshire, had built up a fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries through coal mining and owned a large colliery in Normanton, West Yorkshire. With such enormous wealth, Katharine and her family were able to live in luxury with little need to work. Briggs's father Ernest was often unwell and divided his time between leafy Hampstead and the clear air of Scotland. He was a watercolourist and would often take his children with him when he went to paint the landscape. An imaginative storyteller, he loved to tell his children tales and legends; these would have a great impact on the young Katharine, becoming her passion in later life. When Briggs was 12 her father had Dalbeathie House built in Perthshire and the family moved permanently to Scotland; however, tragedy struck when he died two years later. Briggs and her two sisters, Winifred and Elspeth, developed a close bond with their mother, Mary, after this - all living together for almost fifty years. As Briggs and her sisters grew older their main passion was for amateur dramatics. They wrote and performed their own plays at their home and Briggs would pursue her interest in theatre throughout her education. After leaving school she attended Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, graduating with a BA in 1918 and an MA in 1926. She specialised in the study of traditional folk tales and 17th-century English history.

The Folklorist Briggs continued her studies largely as a hobby, while living with her sisters and mother in Burford, Oxfordshire. She collected together traditional stories from across the country and the wider world, but did not publish them yet. Together she and her sisters performed in plays with local amateur dramatics groups and Briggs wrote historical novels set during the Civil War (also unpublished). When the Second World War started Briggs joined the WAAF and later taught at a school for the children of Polish refugees. After the war Briggs threw herself into her folklore studies, completing her PhD on the use of folklore in 17th-century literature. In 1954, the first Katharine Briggs book was published, titled The Personnel of Fairyland, a guide to the folklore of Great Britain. This was followed by Hobberdy Dick (1955), a children's story about a hobgoblin in Puritan England. Though these books brought a small amount of interest, it was not until the 1960s and 1970s, following the deaths of her sisters and mother, that Briggs became a renowned folklorist. In 1963 she published another children's book, Kate Crackernuts, and became involved with the Folklore Society of the UK, later being elected as its president in 1967. Now a preeminent expert on fairy stories and folklore, she began to lecture across the country and by the 1970s she had been invited to give lectures in the United States and was regularly interviewed on television. In 1971 she published her masterpiece, the four-volume A Dictionary of Folk-Tales in the English Language. This work remains the definitive collection of British folk stories, becoming a vital resource for writers, academics and storytellers. Katharine Briggs died suddenly at the age of 82 on 15th October 1980. At the time of her death she had been working on a memoir of her childhood days in Scotland and Hampstead, where her love of folklore began.

Information taken from http://www.foliosociety.com/author/ka...

Reviews

[Brendan Hodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always interesting to re-read a book that you very much liked a long time ago. It's probably been nearly ten years since I last read this book: a retelling of the Scottish folk tale Kate Crackernuts written by eminent folklorist Katherine Briggs.

I really enjoyed returning to Brigg's 17th century Britain in which the Good People of British folklore are real as described in the traditional folklore which Briggs knew so well.

In theory, this is a novel for young readers, however it's written in heavy Scottish dialect which would be rough going for a lot of modern young readers -- far more so than Briggs other novel (and my favorite) Hobberdy Dick. However, for anyone with an interest in traditional folklore this world of witches, curses, sprites, and the tithe owed to Satan on Halloween is well worth the read.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the story telling in this book. A different take on a Kate Crackernuts fairy tale. This one is set in Scotland. I had a bit of a difficulty with the written speech of the characters, and sometimes could not figure out the conversations, but that may not be a problem for the average reader. Otherwise a really good retelling.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kate Crackernuts is a retelling of the original Scottish fairy tale from the Orkney Islands region (first set down in writing by Andrew Lang in 1889 - fairly faithful to the oral form - and republished with edits in Joseph Jacobs's English Fairy Tales, for example changing one of the Kates to an Anne - apparently two Kates is too many? I first encountered the story in The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales and was instantly invested not only because the heroine shared my name, but also because it subverts the rival-(step)sibling motif, and I found it to closely resemble The Twelve Dancing Princesses - which has been a favourite since childhood - only with a gender swap. I've since met the fairy tale again in Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales and The Anthology of Scottish Folk Tales.)

Katharine M. Briggs's version is much longer, and the author has worked to ground the story in a genuine historical and geographical setting: the early 1640s at Auchenskeoch Tower, Kirkcudbrightshire, and later in Grassington in the Yorkshire Dales. The characters fit into these settings (both familiar areas to Briggs) incredibly well, and whilst I had to keep and add to an improvised dictionary of the Scots terms used throughout, the narrative and speech feels authentic for it. Kate is not a princess but rather a Laird's (step-)daughter, for example. Incidentally, Briggs chose to keep the two Kates, but has one go by Katherine, which I feel is a good compromise, but then I suppose I would.

Knowing the original story, I can appreciate how thoughtfully Briggs has adapted it. Changes are made to fit the longer narrative (and setting) and to lend it continuity. For example, instead of Katherine happening upon some peas on her way to the henwife, she snacks on her stepsister's stash of nuts. More of these nuts play an important role later on when Kate bargains with a fae child for the white stones that will lift Katherine's enchantment, replacing the wand from the fairy tale. A lot of the wackiness remains intact. Katherine still gets her sheep's head, though Briggs cleverly writes this as a sort of psychological projection rather than a literal transplant. And the wonderful ending is included verbatim:

And may they live happy and die happy
And never drink out of a dry cappie!

The narrative also retains the original folkloric motifs, such as the danger of fairy food, the wicked stepmother, a plan succeeding on the third attempt, and overheard secrets - and it applies the Aarne–Thompson types 306 (the danced-out shoes), and 711, (the beautiful and the ugly twin).

There is a lot to love about this work. I love how much agency Kate has; even though the original story is likely many hundreds of years old, and the novelisation more than fifty itself, it feels very feminist, with the female characters very much driving the narrative throughout - not just Kate Crackernuts herself, but her mother Grizel, whose jealousy moves her to lead Katherine into a fellow witch's trap, and even at the end of the tale it is Katherine who proposes marriage to Gideon, in a sensible deviation from the original source material. I love how Kate's excitement at the Hallowe'en festivities is not downplayed; the daughter of a witch, she has an innate affinity for magic, and whilst the coven she encounters is distinctly not well intentioned (the devil is in attendance, after all!) its lure is addressed, and not wholly rejected. The connection Kate feels with nature - with the life of her surroundings on the Sabbat - is not simply dismissed as evil.

For me personally, having lately visited Grassington and the surrounding countryside on a holiday, the familiar setting really brought the story alive for me - we even visited a cave like the one Kate and Will descend into for for the Fairy Revels. With her attention to time and place Briggs has crafted an incredibly real tale.

Overall a true labour of love, and a rare treasure for all lovers of fairy tale retellings.

Content Warning
Regarding the frequent use of the term "gipsie" in the latter part of the narrative - members of the white Gypsy and Roma ethnic group are written as responsible for cursing Will in revenge for a slight by the boy's father; whilst the term is not considered a slur in the UK, the community is done a disservice here in the same way the Scottish witches are. The author plays on negative stereotypes, though this lack of sensitivity should be considered in context: the book was published in 1963 and is set at a time when witchcraft was very much vilified.

Further Reading
As mentioned above, you can read the original Kate Crackernuts in English Fairy Tales, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, and The Anthology of Scottish Folk Tales, no doubt among others.
If you like the danced-out shoes motif, and fairy-tale retellings in general, I'd also recommend Speak Easy by Catherynne M. Valente.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

A retelling of the traditional folktale Kate Crackernuts by the esteemed folklorist Katharine Briggs.

Briggs sets her version in 17th century Scotland amid the witch frenzy. It is quite well done, but heavy dialect at times makes it harder going than a more modern retelling - it's also unclear if this is meant for children - I can't see many kids today ploughing through this!

I felt the setting was entirely apt and the characters were well thought out and constructed. I particularly liked the plucky Kate of the title and her malevolent witch Queen mother. Briggs doesn't shy away from the grotesque, describing the Sabbat in all its hideous glory and later in the novel the abode of local miscreants and witches.

Worth reading if you are a fairytale or folktale fan, or are interested in either Briggs herself or the Scottish witch hunts, it's a unique and now hard to find novel.

[Marsha Valance · Rating 4 out of 5]

One sister saves another from a wicked enchantment.

[Rose Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is catalogued in the children's fiction collection, but I would really put it in the YA group. I enjoyed it very much.