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Damar
A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories
Stories from the world of The Hero and the Crown and other magical places by a New York Times–bestselling Newbery Medal winner.
Robin McKinley returns to the mythical setting of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword in this “thrilling, satisfying, and thought-provoking collection” featuring two stories set in the world of Damar, plus three other fantasy tales featuring adventurous, pragmatic, and heroic young women (Publishers Weekly).
There’s mute Lily, in “The Healer,” who has the power to help others, and receives a startling opportunity to find her voice when a mysterious mage stumbles into town. And Queen Ruen, who is at the mercy of a power-hungry uncle until she encounters a shape-changer in “The Stagman.” In “Touk’s House,” a maiden who has grown up with a witch and a troll has a chance to become a princess, but she must decide whether she would really live happily ever after. When a curse follows Coral to her new husband’s farm in “Buttercups,” the pair has a choice: Succumb to defeat or find a way to turn a disastrous enchantment into a fruitful new venture.
Finally, travel to upstate New York with Annabelle. In the title story, her family moves shortly after her sixteenth birthday, and just as she starts to adjust to her new life in a small town, a plan to build a superhighway threatens her new home. But a strange box hidden in a secret attic in the new house may be the answer. This is a delightful assortment of tales from an author with “a remarkable talent for melding the real and the magical into a single, believable whole” (Booklist).
Robin McKinley returns to the mythical setting of The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword in this “thrilling, satisfying, and thought-provoking collection” featuring two stories set in the world of Damar, plus three other fantasy tales featuring adventurous, pragmatic, and heroic young women (Publishers Weekly).
There’s mute Lily, in “The Healer,” who has the power to help others, and receives a startling opportunity to find her voice when a mysterious mage stumbles into town. And Queen Ruen, who is at the mercy of a power-hungry uncle until she encounters a shape-changer in “The Stagman.” In “Touk’s House,” a maiden who has grown up with a witch and a troll has a chance to become a princess, but she must decide whether she would really live happily ever after. When a curse follows Coral to her new husband’s farm in “Buttercups,” the pair has a choice: Succumb to defeat or find a way to turn a disastrous enchantment into a fruitful new venture.
Finally, travel to upstate New York with Annabelle. In the title story, her family moves shortly after her sixteenth birthday, and just as she starts to adjust to her new life in a small town, a plan to build a superhighway threatens her new home. But a strange box hidden in a secret attic in the new house may be the answer. This is a delightful assortment of tales from an author with “a remarkable talent for melding the real and the magical into a single, believable whole” (Booklist).
178 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 1994
218 people are currently reading
3161 people want to read
About the author
Robin McKinley
43 books7,260 followersBorn in her mother's hometown of Warren, Ohio, Robin McKinley grew up an only child with a father in the United States Navy. She moved around frequently as a child and read copiously; she credits this background with the inspiration for her stories.
Her passion for reading was one of the most constant things in her childhood, so she began to remember events, places, and time periods by what books she read where. For example, she read Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book for the first time in California; The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time in New York; The Lord of the Rings for the first time in Japan; The Once and Future King for the first time in Maine. She still uses books to keep track of her life.
McKinley attended Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, and Dickinson College in 1970-1972. In 1975, she was graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. In 1978, her first novel, Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to, and she began her writing career, at age 26. At the time she was living in Brunswick, Maine. Since then she has lived in Boston, on a horse farm in Eastern Massachusetts, in New York City, in Blue Hill, Maine, and now in Hampshire, England, with her husband Peter Dickinson (also a writer, and with whom she co-wrote Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits in 2001) and two lurchers (crossbred sighthounds).
Over the years she has worked as an editor and transcriber (1972-73), research assistant (1976-77), bookstore clerk (1978), teacher and counselor (1978-79), editorial assistant (1979-81), barn manager (1981-82), free-lance editor (1982-85), and full-time writer. Other than writing and reading books, she divides her time mainly between walking her "hellhounds," gardening, cooking, playing the piano, homeopathy, change ringing, and keeping her blog.
Her passion for reading was one of the most constant things in her childhood, so she began to remember events, places, and time periods by what books she read where. For example, she read Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book for the first time in California; The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time in New York; The Lord of the Rings for the first time in Japan; The Once and Future King for the first time in Maine. She still uses books to keep track of her life.
McKinley attended Gould Academy, a preparatory school in Bethel, Maine, and Dickinson College in 1970-1972. In 1975, she was graduated summa cum laude from Bowdoin College. In 1978, her first novel, Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher she sent it to, and she began her writing career, at age 26. At the time she was living in Brunswick, Maine. Since then she has lived in Boston, on a horse farm in Eastern Massachusetts, in New York City, in Blue Hill, Maine, and now in Hampshire, England, with her husband Peter Dickinson (also a writer, and with whom she co-wrote Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits in 2001) and two lurchers (crossbred sighthounds).
Over the years she has worked as an editor and transcriber (1972-73), research assistant (1976-77), bookstore clerk (1978), teacher and counselor (1978-79), editorial assistant (1979-81), barn manager (1981-82), free-lance editor (1982-85), and full-time writer. Other than writing and reading books, she divides her time mainly between walking her "hellhounds," gardening, cooking, playing the piano, homeopathy, change ringing, and keeping her blog.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 281 reviews
April 21, 2018
Full review first posted on www.FantasyLiterature.com:
I’m not sure if I bought this fantasy short story collection by Robin McKinley when I first saw it in the mid-1990s because McKinley was one of my favorite fantasy authors or because I was entranced by the cover art on the paperback, with the colorful contrast between the girl in a brilliant sapphire dress and the bright gold background of buttercups. Actually, at that time I was pretty much automatically buying everything McKinley wrote. Regardless, I very much enjoyed the collection of five fantasy short stories, and have reread them several times since. These tales are set in different lands and, for the most part, different worlds, but they are bound together by the fantasy element and their young women protagonists. As a whole, I rate this collection 4 stars, but I’ve given each story its own rating below.
“Healer” is set in same fantasy world as Damar, the desert land explored more deeply in The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. Lily, a gifted healer apprentice, has been mute since birth, and feels some bitterness toward her inability to communicate. When she is twenty, she meets Sahath, a jaded wizard who has lost almost all of his powers, but retains the ability to mindspeak. Lily is entranced with him, the first person she has ever been able to truly communicate with, although her teacher and friend Jolin fears him:
The quiet pace of this story fits its subject matter; not just Lily’s physical silence, but also Sahath’s slowly learning to love and hope again. For readers who love the character of Luthe and the world of Damar, it’s also a pleasure to revisit them again, however briefly. 3.5 stars.
*****
In “The Stagman,” the princess Ruen has been raised in the shadow of her uncle, who became Regent over their kingdom when Ruen’s parents died. Her uncle is a man who has grasped power and does not wish to relinquish it to Ruen. So he isolates her, with no friends or family or even servants that she can rely on, and sees to it that she is given only instructions and lessons that are too difficult to comprehend. Ruen grows up passive, dazed and inadequate.
On Ruen’s name day when she is supposed to be named queen, her uncle announces that magical portents warn against it. Instead Ruen is left chained to stones outside the city, to die as a human sacrifice to the half-man, half-beast monster that lately has been sighted in the kingdom. What happens thereafter that is not at all what either Ruen or her uncle had expected.
“The Stagman,” like “Healer,” is set in the world of Damar: Luthe once again makes a brief but critical appearance in the tale. The titular stagman is a mysterious shapeshifter that Ruen meets at a couple of key points in her life. Ruen’s name is indicative of her bittersweet life; she’s a solemn character who floats along letting other make decisions for her, and her passivity and emotional isolation makes her difficult to empathize with. Ruen remains passive until the very end, when she suddenly makes an understandable but controversial choice. 2 stars.
*****
“Touk’s House” is a variant on the Rapunzel fairy tale: a woodcutter’s youngest daughter falls ill, and the local doctor suggests that an herb from a nearby witch’s garden might heal her. In desperation, the woodcutter steals the herb, is caught by the witch, and given the herb (a different one than the one he was trying to steal) that will heal his daughter. But in return he is forced to give the witch his wife’s unborn child, their fifth daughter. At this point the tale veers off in a somewhat different direction: the witch Maugie raises baby Erana with love and teaches her the healing arts, and Maugie’s son Touk, half-troll with green skin and fangs, falls in love with Erana as she grows older. But Erana has to follow her own path first to decide what she wants in life.
This is another quiet tale, simply told, but with some unexpected insights into the various forms that love may take, and showing that winning a kingdom and the hand of a handsome prince might not be the optimal place to find personal happiness and peace. 3.5 stars.
*****
Perhaps appropriately because of my cover love for this book, my favorite story in this collection is “Buttercups.” Pos, an older widowed farmer, sees a chestnut-haired young woman at the market each week and falls in love. Awkwardly, he begins to court her, hardly believing that she can be interested in a man twenty years older than she. But Coral treats him with great affection, and agrees to be his wife when he eventually asks her. Transcendently blissful at first, Pos soon discovers two holes in the weave of his happiness: First, he overhears a servant’s spiteful gossip that Coral only married him to get away from her family’s poverty. The second is a troublesome hillock on his farm that stubbornly refuses to be cultivated and will grow only buttercups. When Pos and Coral discover that their horses’ shoes temporarily turn to gold when they ride their horses on Buttercup Hill, Pos begins to think that his second dilemma might be the answer to his first. He decides to try taking the horseshoes off the horse while they are gold, hoping that they’ll then remain gold, and thinking that Coral might be more content to stay if he is a richer man. But the wild magic of Buttercup Hill reacts in a way Pos never expected, and suddenly he has other major troubles to deal with.
In “Buttercups,” magic touches ordinary lives in a fascinating way. The interplay between the magical events and the characters’ lives, and the understanding Pos gains not only about Coral, but about his own heart and the need for honest communication, make this a wonderful moral tale as well as an unusual fantasy. 5 stars.
*****
The final story, “A Knot in the Grain,” is set in our modern world, with just a touch of magic. High school junior Annabelle has moved with her family to a new town, and Annabelle is feeling rather lost and adrift as the new kid in town, missing her old friends, and wanting to make new friends but feeling too shy and awkward to do so. In her attic bedroom one day, she touches a knot in a wooden beam in the low ceiling, which opens a crack to reveal a narrow set of stairs leading to a tiny hidden room. And in the hidden are shelves, and books, and a mysterious wooden box. The box seems to exude some kind of power, and it somehow seems very anxious to help Annabelle with any problems and concerns in her life.
“A Knot in the Grain” is the most overtly young adult story in this collection, with its teenage main character and her high school concerns, but I still found myself pulled into Annabelle’s world and interested in the outcome. It’s a fairly straightforward magical realism type of tale, but it takes an unexpected and thought-provoking turn in the end. 4 stars.
*****
These fantasies turn more on the internal lives of their characters than exciting adventures, but their quieter and thoughtful approach has its own appeal. McKinley’s recent works are sometimes frustrating in their lack of clarity and resolution, particularly with her penchant for including nightmarish and incomprehensible magical clashes. These stories from earlier in her career have a refreshing simplicity in comparison, evocative of classic folk and fairy tales.
I’m not sure if I bought this fantasy short story collection by Robin McKinley when I first saw it in the mid-1990s because McKinley was one of my favorite fantasy authors or because I was entranced by the cover art on the paperback, with the colorful contrast between the girl in a brilliant sapphire dress and the bright gold background of buttercups. Actually, at that time I was pretty much automatically buying everything McKinley wrote. Regardless, I very much enjoyed the collection of five fantasy short stories, and have reread them several times since. These tales are set in different lands and, for the most part, different worlds, but they are bound together by the fantasy element and their young women protagonists. As a whole, I rate this collection 4 stars, but I’ve given each story its own rating below.
“Healer” is set in same fantasy world as Damar, the desert land explored more deeply in The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown. Lily, a gifted healer apprentice, has been mute since birth, and feels some bitterness toward her inability to communicate. When she is twenty, she meets Sahath, a jaded wizard who has lost almost all of his powers, but retains the ability to mindspeak. Lily is entranced with him, the first person she has ever been able to truly communicate with, although her teacher and friend Jolin fears him:
What, she asked herself in fear, might this man do to her, in her innocence, her pleasure in the opening of a door so long closed to her, and open now only to this stranger? Mages were not to be trusted on a human scale of right and wrong, reason and unreason. Mages were sworn to other things. Jolin understood that they were sworn to ― goodness, to rightness; but often that goodness was of a high, far sort that looked very much like misery to the smaller folk who had to live near it.When Sahath offers to take Lily to his old master, the great mage, to see if he can give Lily her voice, all three ― Jolin, Lily and Sahath ― must face their fears.
The quiet pace of this story fits its subject matter; not just Lily’s physical silence, but also Sahath’s slowly learning to love and hope again. For readers who love the character of Luthe and the world of Damar, it’s also a pleasure to revisit them again, however briefly. 3.5 stars.
*****
In “The Stagman,” the princess Ruen has been raised in the shadow of her uncle, who became Regent over their kingdom when Ruen’s parents died. Her uncle is a man who has grasped power and does not wish to relinquish it to Ruen. So he isolates her, with no friends or family or even servants that she can rely on, and sees to it that she is given only instructions and lessons that are too difficult to comprehend. Ruen grows up passive, dazed and inadequate.
On Ruen’s name day when she is supposed to be named queen, her uncle announces that magical portents warn against it. Instead Ruen is left chained to stones outside the city, to die as a human sacrifice to the half-man, half-beast monster that lately has been sighted in the kingdom. What happens thereafter that is not at all what either Ruen or her uncle had expected.
“The Stagman,” like “Healer,” is set in the world of Damar: Luthe once again makes a brief but critical appearance in the tale. The titular stagman is a mysterious shapeshifter that Ruen meets at a couple of key points in her life. Ruen’s name is indicative of her bittersweet life; she’s a solemn character who floats along letting other make decisions for her, and her passivity and emotional isolation makes her difficult to empathize with. Ruen remains passive until the very end, when she suddenly makes an understandable but controversial choice. 2 stars.
*****
“Touk’s House” is a variant on the Rapunzel fairy tale: a woodcutter’s youngest daughter falls ill, and the local doctor suggests that an herb from a nearby witch’s garden might heal her. In desperation, the woodcutter steals the herb, is caught by the witch, and given the herb (a different one than the one he was trying to steal) that will heal his daughter. But in return he is forced to give the witch his wife’s unborn child, their fifth daughter. At this point the tale veers off in a somewhat different direction: the witch Maugie raises baby Erana with love and teaches her the healing arts, and Maugie’s son Touk, half-troll with green skin and fangs, falls in love with Erana as she grows older. But Erana has to follow her own path first to decide what she wants in life.
This is another quiet tale, simply told, but with some unexpected insights into the various forms that love may take, and showing that winning a kingdom and the hand of a handsome prince might not be the optimal place to find personal happiness and peace. 3.5 stars.
*****
Perhaps appropriately because of my cover love for this book, my favorite story in this collection is “Buttercups.” Pos, an older widowed farmer, sees a chestnut-haired young woman at the market each week and falls in love. Awkwardly, he begins to court her, hardly believing that she can be interested in a man twenty years older than she. But Coral treats him with great affection, and agrees to be his wife when he eventually asks her. Transcendently blissful at first, Pos soon discovers two holes in the weave of his happiness: First, he overhears a servant’s spiteful gossip that Coral only married him to get away from her family’s poverty. The second is a troublesome hillock on his farm that stubbornly refuses to be cultivated and will grow only buttercups. When Pos and Coral discover that their horses’ shoes temporarily turn to gold when they ride their horses on Buttercup Hill, Pos begins to think that his second dilemma might be the answer to his first. He decides to try taking the horseshoes off the horse while they are gold, hoping that they’ll then remain gold, and thinking that Coral might be more content to stay if he is a richer man. But the wild magic of Buttercup Hill reacts in a way Pos never expected, and suddenly he has other major troubles to deal with.
In “Buttercups,” magic touches ordinary lives in a fascinating way. The interplay between the magical events and the characters’ lives, and the understanding Pos gains not only about Coral, but about his own heart and the need for honest communication, make this a wonderful moral tale as well as an unusual fantasy. 5 stars.
*****
The final story, “A Knot in the Grain,” is set in our modern world, with just a touch of magic. High school junior Annabelle has moved with her family to a new town, and Annabelle is feeling rather lost and adrift as the new kid in town, missing her old friends, and wanting to make new friends but feeling too shy and awkward to do so. In her attic bedroom one day, she touches a knot in a wooden beam in the low ceiling, which opens a crack to reveal a narrow set of stairs leading to a tiny hidden room. And in the hidden are shelves, and books, and a mysterious wooden box. The box seems to exude some kind of power, and it somehow seems very anxious to help Annabelle with any problems and concerns in her life.
“A Knot in the Grain” is the most overtly young adult story in this collection, with its teenage main character and her high school concerns, but I still found myself pulled into Annabelle’s world and interested in the outcome. It’s a fairly straightforward magical realism type of tale, but it takes an unexpected and thought-provoking turn in the end. 4 stars.
*****
These fantasies turn more on the internal lives of their characters than exciting adventures, but their quieter and thoughtful approach has its own appeal. McKinley’s recent works are sometimes frustrating in their lack of clarity and resolution, particularly with her penchant for including nightmarish and incomprehensible magical clashes. These stories from earlier in her career have a refreshing simplicity in comparison, evocative of classic folk and fairy tales.
October 16, 2012
I've always loved fairytale retellings, and I really like what McKinley does with fairytales, whether she's making them up or bending them to suit her own stories. This little collection is no different: I'm told the stories are set in the world of some of her novels, Damar, but to be honest I rather preferred them to the Damar novels. I couldn't say why, but...
They're all rather quiet stories, mostly people living in a world with magic where it's really best if that magic doesn't touch them, and when it does, they have to live with it. The first story reminded me of Ursula Le Guin's writing, too, which is always gonna be a good thing. That and the fourth were my favourites, I think.
They're all rather quiet stories, mostly people living in a world with magic where it's really best if that magic doesn't touch them, and when it does, they have to live with it. The first story reminded me of Ursula Le Guin's writing, too, which is always gonna be a good thing. That and the fourth were my favourites, I think.
August 5, 2021
Out of the four stories collected here, the one I liked best was "The Stagman," which gives off Erlkönig vibes and has an old fairy tale-like mood and storyline, plus genuinely likable characters.
April 11, 2017
I see the word 'quiet' a lot with reviews of this short story collection, and certainly that is an accurate word. The plots of these stories are often muted, the characters quietly rebelling against expectations.
In "Healer," the protagonist Lily is literally quiet in that she is born mute and has never uttered a word. Yet she rebels against expectations by becoming a successful healer in her village. When she meets a former mage, both are changed.
In "The Stagman," the princess Ruen's voice and freedom is quieted by her uncle when her parents die, and then her choice is taken away by a mage she thought would help her. But again there is a quiet rebellion that occurs, though only after many decades of acquiescence.
"Touk's House" combines many fairy tales. When a father steals an herb from a witch's garden to save one of his daughters, he promises to give his pregnant wife's child to the witch to raise. But unlike Rapunzel, the witch is not cruel, and she raises her child, Eranu, like she would her own, along with her son a half-troll. Both the troll and Eranu are quieted by the way society treats them--the troll as a monster, Eranu as a poor woman incapable of choice.
"Buttercups" also contains fairy tale elements with a fae-flowered field on an otherwise productive farm. When a farmer marries a younger woman, at first they live a happy, productive life together, until the secrets they're hiding from one another threaten their relationship. This story illustrates the power and need of speech in relationships, of not letting the unspoken things come between love.
In "A Knot in the Grain," the final story, 16-year-old Annabelle is forced to move to a new town and home, leaving behind her friends and boyfriend. She's silenced in that she's too young to make decisions in the family, but she's also silenced by her shyness and her unwillingness to make others unhappy. But she finds agency in an unexpected place when she discovers a secret room in her new home. This may be my favorite of the stories.
The title "A Knot in the Grain" speaks for all the stories--the grain is smooth until the knot appears--a choice made, a quiet rebellion.
In "Healer," the protagonist Lily is literally quiet in that she is born mute and has never uttered a word. Yet she rebels against expectations by becoming a successful healer in her village. When she meets a former mage, both are changed.
In "The Stagman," the princess Ruen's voice and freedom is quieted by her uncle when her parents die, and then her choice is taken away by a mage she thought would help her. But again there is a quiet rebellion that occurs, though only after many decades of acquiescence.
"Touk's House" combines many fairy tales. When a father steals an herb from a witch's garden to save one of his daughters, he promises to give his pregnant wife's child to the witch to raise. But unlike Rapunzel, the witch is not cruel, and she raises her child, Eranu, like she would her own, along with her son a half-troll. Both the troll and Eranu are quieted by the way society treats them--the troll as a monster, Eranu as a poor woman incapable of choice.
"Buttercups" also contains fairy tale elements with a fae-flowered field on an otherwise productive farm. When a farmer marries a younger woman, at first they live a happy, productive life together, until the secrets they're hiding from one another threaten their relationship. This story illustrates the power and need of speech in relationships, of not letting the unspoken things come between love.
In "A Knot in the Grain," the final story, 16-year-old Annabelle is forced to move to a new town and home, leaving behind her friends and boyfriend. She's silenced in that she's too young to make decisions in the family, but she's also silenced by her shyness and her unwillingness to make others unhappy. But she finds agency in an unexpected place when she discovers a secret room in her new home. This may be my favorite of the stories.
The title "A Knot in the Grain" speaks for all the stories--the grain is smooth until the knot appears--a choice made, a quiet rebellion.
September 15, 2022
I loved this so much. It made my heart feel whole. Sometimes books can do that. After all of the excitement and explosions of the Finder series ( which I also adored) the quietness and slowness of these stories was really appealing.
June 26, 2016
I think i am...... underwhelmed.
I have never read anything by Robin Mckinley before but i have heard a lot of praise, so i had high hopes of liking this collection of short stories. But i didn't.
The short stories are not exactly bad, but they are not remember able either. They didn't leave a lasting impression.
"The Stagman" was the only story i was excited to read. Other than that, i wasn't impressed.
But i do plan to read The Blue Sword sometime. *fingers crossed*
I have never read anything by Robin Mckinley before but i have heard a lot of praise, so i had high hopes of liking this collection of short stories. But i didn't.
The short stories are not exactly bad, but they are not remember able either. They didn't leave a lasting impression.
"The Stagman" was the only story i was excited to read. Other than that, i wasn't impressed.
But i do plan to read The Blue Sword sometime. *fingers crossed*
November 21, 2018
While each of the stories was kinda neat in its own way, only 1 of the 5 felt like a complete story. The other four were all vague, snippets of story, without a proper ending. 2 of the stories tied together via a common character. They all left me feeling like I wanted to know more, I wanted more completeness out of them.
September 23, 2025
Read for the first time via book.
First rating, 4 stars
Read for the second time via audiobook
Second rating, 5 stars
I truly think that there is no better feeling than picking up a favorite book by a favorite author and rediscovering why you loved it so much in the first place. That is very much the case here. Gorgeous writing, well-crafted short stories and wonderful worldbuilding.
First rating, 4 stars
Read for the second time via audiobook
Second rating, 5 stars
I truly think that there is no better feeling than picking up a favorite book by a favorite author and rediscovering why you loved it so much in the first place. That is very much the case here. Gorgeous writing, well-crafted short stories and wonderful worldbuilding.
October 6, 2017
Robin McKinley has always been a favorite of mine (Deerskin is a book I reread every few years), so when I saw this on sale, I leapt at the opportunity, and I was not disappointed. Every single story I found myself getting hopelessly sucked into. If you enjoy her books you'll enjoy this little collection!
February 28, 2024
This was a delight. I loved every single one of these stories. Typical Robin McKinley writing, but I also thought the characters in these particular stories were SO interesting. The marriage between the old farmer and the young woman, the mute girl and the mage, Ruen and the stag man, and the 15 year old girl from modern times - they were all such specific and different people and I cared a lot about their individual stories. What a pleasure of a book!!
July 11, 2024
Every time I read Robin McKinley I'm delighted all over again like it's the first time--I just like her writing so much.
March 6, 2009
Reading Robin McKinley's blog, as I do, has given me a rather acute sensitivity to her prose style. In the case of this book, this is acutally rather an asset, as it renders the prose nearly transparent, letting me appreciate the stories more than I think I did when I first read them fifteen years ago. I do still get a little irritated with Luthe's tendency to show up and solve everyone's problems--it might not be so conspicuous if it didn't occur in two successive stories--but the entire book is redeemed for me by the wonderful ending of the final story. To have a teen girl, uprooted by a move, discover and use a powerful and deeply mysterious magic to save her new town from development, and then set that magic firmly aside so that she might live a normal life...what a wonderfully unconventional story. And how utterly delightful. I love it.
The characters are of course the main attraction here for me--the middle aged farmer and his lovely young wife in "Buttercups", the mute healer Lily in the first story, and of course Annabelle in "A Knot in the Grain." The other two stories are more overlty fairy-tale, with somewhat less engaging characters; the stories are fairy tales, rather than being tales of the numinous breaking in on otherwise normal people with their lives and preoccupations. Even a McKinley story that I don't adore, however, is a good use of my time.
The characters are of course the main attraction here for me--the middle aged farmer and his lovely young wife in "Buttercups", the mute healer Lily in the first story, and of course Annabelle in "A Knot in the Grain." The other two stories are more overlty fairy-tale, with somewhat less engaging characters; the stories are fairy tales, rather than being tales of the numinous breaking in on otherwise normal people with their lives and preoccupations. Even a McKinley story that I don't adore, however, is a good use of my time.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2012
The title story is the only one set in the modern day, and it falls a bit flat. The other four, set in fantasy lands, are excellent. A light-handed, non-syrupy touch prevails in these moving stories of love lost and found. My favorites are "Buttercups," about a middle-aged farmer, the young woman he falls in love with, some unusual magic, and a lot of realistic details of daily life on a farm, and "Healer," a moving tale about a mage and a young woman who cannot speak.
December 31, 2014
Pretty good writing and clean, too. These were earlier stories that have hints of Beauty, Sunshine, Chalice, and others, all whispering between the lines of these stories. My favorite was Buttercups, because of the theme of turning bad into good. Good YA, good fantasy, good short stories, good McKinley.
December 3, 2017
I always enjoy McKinley’s writing. It’s obvious she draws so much inspiration from fairy tales and I love that about her as an author. I grew up reading them myself and whenever I read her books, I think about how one day, I’d like to be someone like her: a quite understated but also entirely relatable imagination stuck in a body that has to write to be free.
November 12, 2019
Robin McKinley is a hit or miss for me. Nothing offensive and the writing is decent as always, but I was underwhelmed by these short stories.
All I want to do is read fairytales and I can’t get this mood to stop in order to tackle some arcs. 😭
All I want to do is read fairytales and I can’t get this mood to stop in order to tackle some arcs. 😭
September 21, 2007
All of McKinley's stories are good, and this is a nice collection of them.
February 12, 2018
I really loved this book! Each story was intriguing and pulled me in. This book reminded me of why I love reading.
July 5, 2021
My rating says it all - I'm pretty sure this is my first two-star rating I've ever given a book on Goodreads.
Healer is my favorite story in this collection. Buttercups wasn't terrible, but not a favorite. A Knot in the Grain was okay, though there was somewhat of a plot hole - where on earth did the box come from? Touk's House and The Stagman tied for last place, as I didn't enjoy either at all.
I love Robin McKinley's style and prose, but sometimes the content, thematic elements, or certain unbiblical aspects force a lower rating, which was the case with this one. Besides, I didn't enjoy it, and I prefer to read books I enjoy.
Healer is my favorite story in this collection. Buttercups wasn't terrible, but not a favorite. A Knot in the Grain was okay, though there was somewhat of a plot hole - where on earth did the box come from? Touk's House and The Stagman tied for last place, as I didn't enjoy either at all.
I love Robin McKinley's style and prose, but sometimes the content, thematic elements, or certain unbiblical aspects force a lower rating, which was the case with this one. Besides, I didn't enjoy it, and I prefer to read books I enjoy.
April 21, 2019
All the stories were delightful. One story told about a girl who could not speak and the man who could hear her. The next about a girl who did not wish to rule, but did so because she had to. The middle story about a girl who had to find her future by leaving it. The fourth about a woman and a man being honest to each other, and lastly a girl who saved a town. Over all mom and I loved these tales.
April 15, 2025
A really really solid collection of short fairy tales if that's your thing, but a little too classic for me. These kinds of stories aren't nostalgic for me at all, so they tend to come off more overplayed than pleasantly familiar. But I was absolutely still entertained, and "Buttercups" especially was a beautiful love story.
January 3, 2019
I actually liked all the stories. They were well written and interesting. I'm trying to pick a favorite but I just can't. The Stagman ending wasn't my fav yet it was still good. I think I like McKinley's short stories better than I liked her full length books I have read.
January 3, 2022
I was enjoying the fairy tale stories so much--I love that her heroines are always strong and that people for the most part mean well--and then that last modern-day story was so awful and endless and boring and pointless. It felt like a rough draft that she was planning to throw out and then decided she could use to pad the other stories to a book length.
December 1, 2024
Almost four stars. I preferred the first few stories, but I would enjoy reading them all again.
June 9, 2025
I don't know if it's because I read The Hero and The Crown dozens of times during my formative years, but even at 47, I love how RM tells a story
August 31, 2022
Robin McKinley's writing is something that fits with my likes, however I have to admit I enjoy her books more than I do short stories. Her writing style works best, at least for me, if I have time to absorb the story in more than 20-30 pages. I need something more like 200-300 pages.
This was a collection of short stories I hadn't had the chance to read before. They were lovely stories, but I would've wanted more. Of each story.
This was a collection of short stories I hadn't had the chance to read before. They were lovely stories, but I would've wanted more. Of each story.
February 29, 2012
A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley 4 outof 5 stars
I just finished reading this collection of short stories by Robin McKinley. Within are included five tales. The first tale: Healer tells the story of Lily, a child born with the magic to heal, but without the gift of speech. Lily, kind and loving, is apprenticed to Jolin to learn the ways of healers. Jolin and Lily become like family to one another, but Lily still feels the loneliness of never finding a love. Then one day a mage named Sahak who has lost his powers comes across Lily and they are able to communicate with each other through mind-speech. Their interactions will teach them about love, courage, and honor. I enjoyed this tale immensely; I’m a sucker for fairy tales and happy endings- and this one filled that perfectly. I give this tale 5 out of 5 stars.
The next tale: The Stagman tells the story of Ruen, an orphan princess mistreated by her uncle. I liked this tale, but the ending drove me to distraction. I couldn’t understand (spoilers coming!) why Ruen disappeared- was it because she was unhappy? Did she go back to stay with Luthe and the Stagman? Ambiguous endings like this drive me nuts! I have to give this tale 3 out of 5 stars.
The third tale: Touk’s House was a very nice twist on Rapunzel. I enjoyed this tale, although, I couldn’t help but feel that Erana ended up making the decision she made because of her bad experience with the prince. I give this tale 3.5 out 5 stars.
The fourth tale: Buttercups, I truly liked. Pos, an old widowed farmer, meets and falls in love with Coral. The two marry and live happily until Pos overhears one of his workers commenting that he thinks Coral just married him for his wealth. This starts a grain of doubt in Pos who begins to wonder if Coral truly loves him. His doubt causes him to do something that seemingly brings tragedy to their farm, but eventually ends in an ending that reaffirms the love they have for one another. I liked this tale a lot and I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
The fifth and last tale: A Knot in the Grain, is a modern tale. Annabelle and her family move to a small town. Her forays into the attic reveal a box which magically fulfills her wishes. This tale is a warm story of the possibilities of good coming from sad or difficult situations. I give this tale 4 out of 5 stars.
Overall, the collection is a wonderful read- I would recommend it to readers of all ages. I give the whole collection 4 out of 5 stars.
I just finished reading this collection of short stories by Robin McKinley. Within are included five tales. The first tale: Healer tells the story of Lily, a child born with the magic to heal, but without the gift of speech. Lily, kind and loving, is apprenticed to Jolin to learn the ways of healers. Jolin and Lily become like family to one another, but Lily still feels the loneliness of never finding a love. Then one day a mage named Sahak who has lost his powers comes across Lily and they are able to communicate with each other through mind-speech. Their interactions will teach them about love, courage, and honor. I enjoyed this tale immensely; I’m a sucker for fairy tales and happy endings- and this one filled that perfectly. I give this tale 5 out of 5 stars.
The next tale: The Stagman tells the story of Ruen, an orphan princess mistreated by her uncle. I liked this tale, but the ending drove me to distraction. I couldn’t understand (spoilers coming!) why Ruen disappeared- was it because she was unhappy? Did she go back to stay with Luthe and the Stagman? Ambiguous endings like this drive me nuts! I have to give this tale 3 out of 5 stars.
The third tale: Touk’s House was a very nice twist on Rapunzel. I enjoyed this tale, although, I couldn’t help but feel that Erana ended up making the decision she made because of her bad experience with the prince. I give this tale 3.5 out 5 stars.
The fourth tale: Buttercups, I truly liked. Pos, an old widowed farmer, meets and falls in love with Coral. The two marry and live happily until Pos overhears one of his workers commenting that he thinks Coral just married him for his wealth. This starts a grain of doubt in Pos who begins to wonder if Coral truly loves him. His doubt causes him to do something that seemingly brings tragedy to their farm, but eventually ends in an ending that reaffirms the love they have for one another. I liked this tale a lot and I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
The fifth and last tale: A Knot in the Grain, is a modern tale. Annabelle and her family move to a small town. Her forays into the attic reveal a box which magically fulfills her wishes. This tale is a warm story of the possibilities of good coming from sad or difficult situations. I give this tale 4 out of 5 stars.
Overall, the collection is a wonderful read- I would recommend it to readers of all ages. I give the whole collection 4 out of 5 stars.
February 16, 2019
“The Healer” is set in Daria, presumably around the time of “The Hero and the Crown”, and gives us a chance to see Luthe again, if not to learn anything more about him. Instead the focus is on Sahath, a former mage, and Lily, a healer who was born without a voice, though the peaceful and slightly melancholy mood is almost as important as either character. The ending teases a sequel that I would be glad to read, but though such a thing is almost certainly not forthcoming it’s nonetheless nice to have a chance to meet Luthe again.
Luthe also appears in “The Stagman”, showing his more human side: the princess Ruen, who may not have really wanted the happy ending she receives, is perhaps the most interesting character in the book.
“Touk’s House” may or may not be set in Daria (it doesn’t feature Luthe), but it has a similar theme, of a quiet young woman who prefers a quiet and peaceful life — and, incidentally or not, a non-human lover — to being Queen. McKinley overplays her hand a bit, though, making the royal court that Erana decides against staying in almost entirely unpleasant, while Touk is representative of the life she knows best: Ruen, who was raised to be a Queen, and has a pleasant husband and a not unhappy life at the court where she has always lived, is a better and subtler achievement.
“Buttercups” is also set in generic fantasy-world: the point of a story is that a younger woman marries an older man and everything turns out ok. Since McKinley herself married an older man, it’s hard to avoid seeing this as a form of self-reassurance. (In fact, all the women in the first four stories marry older men, or stagmen or trolls.)
The title story is a sharp contrast, being set in modern-day New York (well, modern-day when the story was written in the early '90s or so). The story is simply about a girl trying to adjust to moving to a new town, and anybody (from the U.S., at least) whose family moved while they were between the ages of 12 and 18 will recognize and empathize with at least some of what Annabelle goes through here. The fantastic aspect is carefully woven in so as not to disturb the fabric of what is, all in all, the best story here.
Luthe also appears in “The Stagman”, showing his more human side: the princess Ruen, who may not have really wanted the happy ending she receives, is perhaps the most interesting character in the book.
“Touk’s House” may or may not be set in Daria (it doesn’t feature Luthe), but it has a similar theme, of a quiet young woman who prefers a quiet and peaceful life — and, incidentally or not, a non-human lover — to being Queen. McKinley overplays her hand a bit, though, making the royal court that Erana decides against staying in almost entirely unpleasant, while Touk is representative of the life she knows best: Ruen, who was raised to be a Queen, and has a pleasant husband and a not unhappy life at the court where she has always lived, is a better and subtler achievement.
“Buttercups” is also set in generic fantasy-world: the point of a story is that a younger woman marries an older man and everything turns out ok. Since McKinley herself married an older man, it’s hard to avoid seeing this as a form of self-reassurance. (In fact, all the women in the first four stories marry older men, or stagmen or trolls.)
The title story is a sharp contrast, being set in modern-day New York (well, modern-day when the story was written in the early '90s or so). The story is simply about a girl trying to adjust to moving to a new town, and anybody (from the U.S., at least) whose family moved while they were between the ages of 12 and 18 will recognize and empathize with at least some of what Annabelle goes through here. The fantastic aspect is carefully woven in so as not to disturb the fabric of what is, all in all, the best story here.
January 9, 2012
This book is a short story collection of Middle Grade fantasy stories. I enjoyed Robin McKinley's novels set in Damar ("The Blue Sword" and "The Hero and the Crown") so I bought this book hoping to learn more about Damar. Two of the stories were set in Damar, but you won't know it from any other generic fantasy world if Luthe (a character from the novels) didn't briefly appear in them. We don't learn anything new about him, either.
Most of the stories follow the plot line of: a character has a problem, magic help comes along, the problem is fixed. The heroine generally doesn't have a difficult obstacle to overcome so much as a decision to make.
I felt like needed information was missing in some of the stories. The heroine in "The Stagman" was very passive, and the characters' weren't developed (or their motives really explained). "The Healer" was interesting and had a developed setting and characters, but I felt like too many things were left unresolved at the end. I've never really understood the magic part of "The Knot in the Grain."
"Buttercups" started well, but the conflict resolved too quickly and easily. "Touk's House" was the best written of the five: it had some conflict as well as good setting and character development. And it resolved everything at the end.
There was a minor amount of explicit bad language. There were no sex scenes. Overall, the stories were a mixed bag. Robin McKinley's fans might enjoy reading these stories, but I wouldn't recommend buying the book.
Most of the stories follow the plot line of: a character has a problem, magic help comes along, the problem is fixed. The heroine generally doesn't have a difficult obstacle to overcome so much as a decision to make.
I felt like needed information was missing in some of the stories. The heroine in "The Stagman" was very passive, and the characters' weren't developed (or their motives really explained). "The Healer" was interesting and had a developed setting and characters, but I felt like too many things were left unresolved at the end. I've never really understood the magic part of "The Knot in the Grain."
"Buttercups" started well, but the conflict resolved too quickly and easily. "Touk's House" was the best written of the five: it had some conflict as well as good setting and character development. And it resolved everything at the end.
There was a minor amount of explicit bad language. There were no sex scenes. Overall, the stories were a mixed bag. Robin McKinley's fans might enjoy reading these stories, but I wouldn't recommend buying the book.
August 13, 2009
I have always loved fairy-tales, and I have enjoyed McKinley's various attempts at re-telling both some old beloved and forgotten ones. I enjoyed more, however, these original tales by McKinley. She has a lovely facility for creating worlds of fantasy and wonder, and I especially enjoyed revisiting an old friend, Luthe, the mage, in a couple of these stories. I was especially taken by the last, title, story that was set in a modern world. I was so caught up in the set up of the story that I dismayed at the quickly diminishing number of pages left in the book. Indeed if I have one recurring complaint about McKinley's stories, it is that they sometimes end too soon and abruptly.
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