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Dark Crescent: Dark and seasonal tales from Scottish Folklore
An omen of spirits dance across the sky. A lonely woman befriends a sea witch as the world ends. The last whale in the world travels north in search of hope. A grandmother seeks revenge on the sea monster that took her family.
DARK CRESCENT is a collection of seasonal tales inspired by Scottish folklore, landscapes, superstitions, and omens. In this book, readers will find reinterpretations of common folklore creatures and phenomenon, like the Kelpie, Selkie, and Will-o'-the-Wisps, as well as lesser known, such as the Sea Mither, Ceasg, Marool, Sluagh, Ghillie Dhu, Nuckelavee, Baobhan Sith, and The Frittening, all with dark and strange lore around them.
Moving through the seasons, from a darker Autumn and Winter to a more optimistic Summer, the often-interconnected stories cover a wide range of genres, including gothic, weird horror, speculative, dark fantasy, and solarpunk. Many of the tales are also inspired by nature, climate, and the environment, with feminist and eco themes throughout.
DARK CRESCENT is a collection of seasonal tales inspired by Scottish folklore, landscapes, superstitions, and omens. In this book, readers will find reinterpretations of common folklore creatures and phenomenon, like the Kelpie, Selkie, and Will-o'-the-Wisps, as well as lesser known, such as the Sea Mither, Ceasg, Marool, Sluagh, Ghillie Dhu, Nuckelavee, Baobhan Sith, and The Frittening, all with dark and strange lore around them.
Moving through the seasons, from a darker Autumn and Winter to a more optimistic Summer, the often-interconnected stories cover a wide range of genres, including gothic, weird horror, speculative, dark fantasy, and solarpunk. Many of the tales are also inspired by nature, climate, and the environment, with feminist and eco themes throughout.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 3, 2025
9 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Lyndsey Croal
28 books43 followersLyndsey is a Scottish author of strange and speculative fiction. Her work has appeared in over eighty magazines and anthologies, including with Apex, Analog, Weird Tales, Flash Fiction Online, Shoreline of Infinity, and PseudoPod. She's a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, and former Hawthornden Fellow. Her novelette Have You Decided on Your Question (2023) and collection Limelight and Other Stories (2024) are published with Shortwave Publishing. Her novelette The Girl With Barnacles for Eyes appeared in Tenebrous Press' Split Scream Volume Five, and her second collection of Scottish folklore-inspired tales Dark Crescent is forthcoming in 2025 from Luna Press. She lives in Edinburgh with her giant kitten Pippin and works in climate change comms in her day job. She's currently working on a number of longer projects in the sci fi, eco fiction, and horror space. Find out more about her and her work via www.lyndseycroal.co.uk.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 5, 2025
Review originally on JamReads
Dark Crescent is a inspired by Scottish folklore short story collection (22 shorts and a novella), written by Lyndsey Croal and published by Luna Press Publishing. A collection articulated around the seasons, which blends genres to play and twist many Scottish myths, all accompanied with a poignant prose that enhances the original concept she's building over.
It is always tricky to write a review on a short story collection, especially when it's so thematically varied as this one; but even in those that are more in the flash fiction style, you can feel a certain grimness mixed with a bit of hope (the collection leans more into horror than I expected, a glad surprise). The use of seasons helps to give a sense of order to the stories, while also acting as a second layer that adds inventiveness to these stories.
Without a particular order, I would like to highlight a few of the stories that were my favourites: The Fiddler and The Muse, an excellent take on inspiration with a darker twist that I absolutely loved; The Wulver's Gift, a tale on trust and that might remember to witch hunt times; and Woman of Ravens, another of the darker ones, but which brings a sense of justice and hope in the end.
This collection of stories is deliciously eerie, showing an impressive ability to adapt to the genre and the length by Croal's side; Dark Crescent is simply excellent, a well-rounded collection perfect if you are curious to learn more about Scottish folklore!
Dark Crescent is a inspired by Scottish folklore short story collection (22 shorts and a novella), written by Lyndsey Croal and published by Luna Press Publishing. A collection articulated around the seasons, which blends genres to play and twist many Scottish myths, all accompanied with a poignant prose that enhances the original concept she's building over.
It is always tricky to write a review on a short story collection, especially when it's so thematically varied as this one; but even in those that are more in the flash fiction style, you can feel a certain grimness mixed with a bit of hope (the collection leans more into horror than I expected, a glad surprise). The use of seasons helps to give a sense of order to the stories, while also acting as a second layer that adds inventiveness to these stories.
Without a particular order, I would like to highlight a few of the stories that were my favourites: The Fiddler and The Muse, an excellent take on inspiration with a darker twist that I absolutely loved; The Wulver's Gift, a tale on trust and that might remember to witch hunt times; and Woman of Ravens, another of the darker ones, but which brings a sense of justice and hope in the end.
This collection of stories is deliciously eerie, showing an impressive ability to adapt to the genre and the length by Croal's side; Dark Crescent is simply excellent, a well-rounded collection perfect if you are curious to learn more about Scottish folklore!
June 13, 2025
This is the second collection I've read by this author and it didn't disappoint. I was worried I wouldn't vibe with the theme as well as I did for the Black Mirror-style volume Limelight, but with the exception of a few stories feeling repetitive, I really enjoyed myself. The highlight was the one novella-length piece, I'd like to see the author tackle more long pieces in the future.
So the first collection was futuristic sci-fi, this second one was old fashioned folklore, I'm guessing the third one will be... current era horror stories? I'll wait and see.
So the first collection was futuristic sci-fi, this second one was old fashioned folklore, I'm guessing the third one will be... current era horror stories? I'll wait and see.
August 16, 2025
This is a deliciously dark modern rendering of Scottish Folklore. Scottish myth is dark! It is also very much connected to the land and to nature. The author has done a great job with continuing this tradition while making it modern- themes like climate change and the impact of plastic waste on our environment.
Some of the tales had some clever twists. In the Fiddler and the Muse, there was a character named Bevan Shea (if you are familiar with Scottish mythology, you will get this!)
There is a brief explanation at the end of the end of the book about which myths have inspired each of the tsles in the anthology. There is also a Bibliography and Further Reading List.
Some of the tales had some clever twists. In the Fiddler and the Muse, there was a character named Bevan Shea (if you are familiar with Scottish mythology, you will get this!)
There is a brief explanation at the end of the end of the book about which myths have inspired each of the tsles in the anthology. There is also a Bibliography and Further Reading List.
June 3, 2025
A great and smart use of Scottish folklore used tp create an engrossing set of fresh tales
Full review https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
Full review https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...
April 17, 2025
Last year, Scottish author Lyndsey Croal gave us the exceptional collection Limelight and Other Stories, a Black Mirror-style set of sci-fi shorts which despite the name was deathly dark, with the odd emotional punch to the gullet. One quick genre side-step later and she’s back with Dark Crescent (Luna Press, out June 3), another enjoyably grim set of tales which reflect her pleasingly obsessive love of Scottish folklore and all its magnificently weird denizens. It’s a consistently haunting ride more chilling than a liquid nitrogen tank but also frequently and bleakly beautiful; a lyrical ode to nature, the seasons, and the sea in all their inevitable and uncompromising glory.
Across the 22 shorts and one novella in Dark Crescent, structured across the four seasons, Croal presents and often reinterprets a host of spirits and creatures from Scottish folklore and Celtic myth. Some you’ll likely have heard of—mermaids, kelpies, selkies, and will-o’-the-wisps—and others with pleasingly unpronounceable Celtic names are, under Croal’s playful interpretations of them, as chilling as they are imaginative. Want to hazard a guess at what the nuckalavee, the frittering, or the boabhan sith are? Good luck. The land of the Celts has always had a dark and delightful imagination and the hybridisation of this with Croal’s midnight-black brain is a pleasure to read. An added bonus is Croal’s explainer at the backend, where she notes each of the folklore entities the stories are based on.
Many of the stories in Dark Crescent are more sinister than a creak in a fog-filled cemetery, filled with characters set on a path of doom we can only watch as they careen towards. Croal’s interpretation of the will-o’-the-wisp, a ghostly countryside light, is particularly grim, as a girl discovers that making friends with it comes at a terrible cost. But the most disturbing for me was the story “The Fiddler and the Muse”, in which a musician rents a room to practice in and finds himself trapped creating the perfect song as the seasons change; for the villain in this story Croal combines two creepy myths to terrifying effect.
But amongst the deep chills in Dark Crescent, Croal has sown messages of, if not outright hope, then the beauty and inescapability of nature and giving in to its form of death. A recurring character is the Cailleach, the Scottish goddess of winter who inevitability gives way to the spring. We also see a human version of the Orkney sea goddess the Sea Mither in the quietly beautiful post-apocalyptic story “The Loneliness of Water” (surely a nod to the del Toro Oscar winner?) which is one of several stories to shows Croal’s eco-side, reminiscent of her spec fic stablemate author Lorraine Wilson. The sea, strong in Celtic myth, is ever present.
Not all the characters are hapless victims too; some stoically face their inevitable fate, as in the woman awaiting something menacing in the sky in the poignant eponymous opener “Dark Crescent”. Some welcome transformation and rebirth, as in the surreal and evocative tale “A Change in the Rain”, where a community hides from the rain, the touch of which makes you translucent, but a daughter dreams of being united with her rain-changed father. And some defiantly face their fate, as in the outcast grandmother in “To Gut a Fish, First Gather its Bones” who strikes out alone to defeat the sea monster who’s killed her family. Many of these are women—as Croal knows, feminism in Celtic myth has strong roots.
True to its name, Dark Crescent is a resplendently pitch-black love letter to Scottish folklore and all the bizarre creatures within it that paints a lyrical canvas of the beauty of nature and rebirth even as it chills your bones till they shatter. Another unmissable Croal collection.
Across the 22 shorts and one novella in Dark Crescent, structured across the four seasons, Croal presents and often reinterprets a host of spirits and creatures from Scottish folklore and Celtic myth. Some you’ll likely have heard of—mermaids, kelpies, selkies, and will-o’-the-wisps—and others with pleasingly unpronounceable Celtic names are, under Croal’s playful interpretations of them, as chilling as they are imaginative. Want to hazard a guess at what the nuckalavee, the frittering, or the boabhan sith are? Good luck. The land of the Celts has always had a dark and delightful imagination and the hybridisation of this with Croal’s midnight-black brain is a pleasure to read. An added bonus is Croal’s explainer at the backend, where she notes each of the folklore entities the stories are based on.
Many of the stories in Dark Crescent are more sinister than a creak in a fog-filled cemetery, filled with characters set on a path of doom we can only watch as they careen towards. Croal’s interpretation of the will-o’-the-wisp, a ghostly countryside light, is particularly grim, as a girl discovers that making friends with it comes at a terrible cost. But the most disturbing for me was the story “The Fiddler and the Muse”, in which a musician rents a room to practice in and finds himself trapped creating the perfect song as the seasons change; for the villain in this story Croal combines two creepy myths to terrifying effect.
But amongst the deep chills in Dark Crescent, Croal has sown messages of, if not outright hope, then the beauty and inescapability of nature and giving in to its form of death. A recurring character is the Cailleach, the Scottish goddess of winter who inevitability gives way to the spring. We also see a human version of the Orkney sea goddess the Sea Mither in the quietly beautiful post-apocalyptic story “The Loneliness of Water” (surely a nod to the del Toro Oscar winner?) which is one of several stories to shows Croal’s eco-side, reminiscent of her spec fic stablemate author Lorraine Wilson. The sea, strong in Celtic myth, is ever present.
Not all the characters are hapless victims too; some stoically face their inevitable fate, as in the woman awaiting something menacing in the sky in the poignant eponymous opener “Dark Crescent”. Some welcome transformation and rebirth, as in the surreal and evocative tale “A Change in the Rain”, where a community hides from the rain, the touch of which makes you translucent, but a daughter dreams of being united with her rain-changed father. And some defiantly face their fate, as in the outcast grandmother in “To Gut a Fish, First Gather its Bones” who strikes out alone to defeat the sea monster who’s killed her family. Many of these are women—as Croal knows, feminism in Celtic myth has strong roots.
True to its name, Dark Crescent is a resplendently pitch-black love letter to Scottish folklore and all the bizarre creatures within it that paints a lyrical canvas of the beauty of nature and rebirth even as it chills your bones till they shatter. Another unmissable Croal collection.
June 10, 2025
Lyndsey Croal's Dark Crescent is Scottish-inspired folklore in a short story collection and one that I couldn't wait to get my hands on once I heard about it - and yes, there's a Wulver.
A few favourites first - The Fiddler and the Muse, Nuckelavee Winter, The Fisherman's Wish, The Loneliness of Water, A Kelpie's Breath and - obviously - The Wulver's Gift. Each of these stories stood out amongst a fantastic collection and I am a massive fan of how poetic Lyndsey's writing is and how they ease you into these stories.
These stories expand upon the original folklore and I enjoyed Lyndsey's own interpretation and addition to these. These aren't just retellings of Scottish myth and legend, these are stories of hope and despair, of courage and bravery. These are stories that chill you to the bone with how human they feel and will have you delving more into Scottish history.
This was a brilliant collection that I know I will be coming back to read time and time again.
A few favourites first - The Fiddler and the Muse, Nuckelavee Winter, The Fisherman's Wish, The Loneliness of Water, A Kelpie's Breath and - obviously - The Wulver's Gift. Each of these stories stood out amongst a fantastic collection and I am a massive fan of how poetic Lyndsey's writing is and how they ease you into these stories.
These stories expand upon the original folklore and I enjoyed Lyndsey's own interpretation and addition to these. These aren't just retellings of Scottish myth and legend, these are stories of hope and despair, of courage and bravery. These are stories that chill you to the bone with how human they feel and will have you delving more into Scottish history.
This was a brilliant collection that I know I will be coming back to read time and time again.
July 16, 2025
Full disclosure, this is my daughter's book, so I'm almost inevitably going to give it 5 stars! And yes, I do, but because this is a beautifully curated group of fantastical stories, spawned by Scottish folklore, deeply grounded in Scotland's sea and landscapes and imaginatively spun. They are indeed, as Joanne Harris describes, lyrical and evocative. I have read some of these stories a few times, but I still enjoy picking up this beautiful book when I have 10 minutes and delving in to be transported into an otherwordly realm. Avid reader and proud Mum!
March 26, 2025
A stunning collection of stories. A dark and delicious treat for fans of Scottish folklore. I delighted in discovering familiar (and sometimes not-so-familiar!) folklore creatures and stories told in Croal's unique, evocative style. The tales within are sometimes hopeful, usually dark, and always quickly devoured. If you love folklore with a dark edge, this is for you!
June 9, 2025
an excellent collection of short stories all revolving around Scottish folklore! lots of dark and creepy tales but also some of hope and love.
August 23, 2025
Short story collections can be hit and miss, but I really enjoyed the vast majority of this collection. The otherworldly imagery is beautiful and really stirs the imagination.
August 31, 2025
Evocative, imaginative, and beautifully written.
January 13, 2026
This is not my typical fare but I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews