Of Cats and Elfins: Short Tales and Fantasies

by Sylvia Townsend Warner, Greer Gilman (Introduction)

Following the success of Handheld Press's republication of Sylvia Townsend Warner's fantasy collection Kingdoms of Elfin in October 2018, the remaining four Elfin stories are gathered together with the remarkable forgotten tales of The Cat's Cradle Book (1940), eighty years after its first publication.

This is a new selection of Warner's remaining fantasy short stories, collected for a new generation of fantasy enthusiasts and Warner fans. The twenty-three stories in Of Cats and Elfins encompass scholarship (Warner's ground-breaking essay from 1927 on modern Elfinology), black humour, the Gothic, and the bizarrely anthropomorphic cats of The Cat's Cradle Book, which reflect Warner's preoccupation with the dark forces at large in Europe in the later 1930s.

The Cat's Cradle opens with a story about the talking cats that die of a murrain in a manor based on Warner's own Norfolk home with Valentine Ackland. 'Bluebeard's Daughter' narrates the adventures of Bluebeard's daughter by his third wife, and her propensity for locked doors. Warner mixes fables and myths with storytelling traditions old and new to express her unease with modern society, and its cruelties and injustices.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Cats

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 2020

About the author

Sylvia Townsend Warner was born at Harrow on the Hill, the only child of George Townsend Warner and his wife Eleanora (Nora) Hudleston. Her father was a house-master at Harrow School and was, for many years, associated with the prestigious Harrow History Prize which was renamed the Townsend Warner History Prize in his honor, after his death in 1916. As a child, Sylvia seemingly enjoyed an idyllic childhood in rural Devonshire, but was strongly affected by her father's death.

She moved to London and worked in a munitions factory at the outbreak of World War I. She was friendly with a number of the "Bright Young Things" of the 1920s. Her first major success was the novel Lolly Willowes. In 1923 Warner met T. F. Powys whose writing influenced her own and whose work she in turn encouraged. It was at T.F. Powys' house in 1930 that Warner first met Valentine Ackland, a young poet. The two women fell in love and settled at Frome Vauchurch in Dorset. Alarmed by the growing threat of fascism, they were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain, and visited Spain on behalf of the Red Cross during the Civil War. They lived together from 1930 until Ackland's death in 1969. Warner's political engagement continued for the rest of her life, even after her disillusionment with communism. She died on 1 May 1978.

Reviews

[lethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in celebration of the Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week 2020, hosted over at A Gallimaufry (many thanks for hosting, Helen!).

This anthology comprises the whole of The Cat's Cradle-Book (1940), the four stories not collected in Kingdoms of Elfin (1977), and "Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain" (first published 1929). In spite of the wide time range, these fantasy stories fit together very well. Both cats and elfins are heartless creatures, and therefore perfectly suited to STW's sometimes sardonic wit.

Since we had a spell of gorgeous weather, I started off with The Cat's Cradle Book. These stories, by the way, are mostly not about cats, but rather fables as told by generations of cats to their kittens.

I liked them all, but my favourites were "The Phoenix", "The Widow's Portion" (in which a miserly widow comes to riches, much to her dismay), "The Two Mothers" (in which a wild cat and a ewe debate over whose children's deaths are the more honourable), "Popularity" (in which a young wolf goes to great lengths to become popular), and especially "Bluebeard's Daughter". "Bluebeard" has always been one of my favourite fairytales and I enjoyed reading about the life of his forgotten offspring.

The weather turned cooler and rainy just as I was starting the Elfin stories. These were longer than the cat ones. Again, I liked them all (although the end of "Queen Mousie" came rather out of the blue for me), but "The Duke of Orkney's Leonardo" was the best. I also enjoyed "Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain", although I later discovered I had read it once already, in The Music at Long Verney: Twenty Stories. I'm afraid I hadn't remembered it.

The endnotes are not denoted in the text, which I thought rather silly. I didn't see the notes until after I finished the book and since they do not pinpoint to a page, only to the story in question, it was cumbersome to find the passages they referred to.

Otherwise, this is a beautifully produced edition with an interesting introduction and 'further reading' list.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of Sylvia Townsend Warner's Of Cats and Elfins: Short Tales and Fantasies from a dear friend for Christmas. We studied Townsend Warner's fantastic masterpiece of a novel, Lolly Willowes, together whilst postgraduate students, and have both retained a fondness for her inventive work. I was unaware that this collection, printed by Handheld Press, had been published, so it was a lovely surprise to open.

The pieces within Of Cats and Elfins are previously uncollected, and range from between 1927 and 1984, spanning Townsend Warner's entire writing career. It is, says its blurb, a 'forgotten collection of fantasy stories and folk tales about human bravery and dispassionate animals, written in the darkest days of wartime Britain'. It includes Townsend Warner's 1927 essay, 'Elfins', and the entirety of her Cat's Cradle book, which was originally published in the United States in 1940, and the United Kingdom in 1960. Of Cats and Elfins is intended as a companion volume to Kingdoms of Elfin, a collection of Townsend Warner's fantasy stories, which were published by Handheld Press in 2018.

Of Cats and Elfins features a meticulous introduction by fantasy author Greer Gilman. She writes of the diversity collected here: 'Fantasy ran underground with Warner, flashing out like a hidden river, each time in a new landscape: witchlore; myth; folktale; invisible kingdoms. What they share is Warner's worldview, her inimitable voice.' Greer goes on to give a lot of specific critique of the pieces collected here.

The first piece in this collection is 'The Kingdom of Elfin', which sets out Townsend Warner's imagined fantasy world. Here, she writes: 'It is a sad fact, but undeniable; the Kingdom of Elfin had a very poor opinion of humankind. I suppose we must seem to them shocking boors, uncouth, noisy, ill-bred and disgustingly oversized.' There are several Elfin stories to be found here, all set in a vividly imagined and expansive land, which is redolent almost of that in The Lord of the Rings. Townsend Warner's worldbuilding is faultless; there is such a thoroughness to it. I enjoyed this part of the collection to a point, but I did find it a little difficult at times to suspend my disbelief, and feel that I would have got more out of it if I had read Kingdoms of Elfin previously.

Townsend Warner's wicked sense of humour is displayed throughout the Elfin stories, and can also be found at times in her animal stories. These tales have an almost Aesop's Fables-style feel to them; some could be construed as moralistic. There are echoes of the fairytale here too, but Townsend Warner makes the genre something all her own. The unexpected lives in each of these stories, which follow many different animal species - magpies, foxes, phoenixes, a tiger who learns the meaning of 'virtue'... In 'Introduction', as an example, the many cat characters can interact - in clever flourishes of speech, and witty asides - with the humans they live alongside. This piece is my favourite in the entirety of Of Cats and Elfins; I found it quite delightful.

Entwined throughout is the wonder of the natural world, something which feeds into each of these stories. Her descriptions are exquisite. In 'Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain', for instance, she crafts: 'But in the shadow of the wood, where the sun had not penetrated, the thorn trees were at the perfection of their bloom. They were very old trees, gnarled, and tufted with greenish-grey moss, dry and dead-coloured. It did not seem possible that these angular boughs should have pit out the lacework of milky blossoms: each a blunt star, each with its little pointed pink star within it. It seemed rather as though light had rested upon the dead boughs and turned it into blossom.' In 'Introduction', the first piece in the Cat's Cradle collection, she writes: 'The house was handsome too, its good looks sobered by age and usage - a seventeenth-century house with a long façade... It gave an impression of slenderness, of being worn smooth and thin like an old spoon... the general tint of the house was that of a ripening pear with streaks of vague rose and pale madder flushing its sallow skin.'

I must admit that I am not really a fan of fantasy, and it is a genre which I rarely - if ever - reach for. Townsend Warner is a firm favourite of mine, however, and I will gladly read all of her work. This sounded both intriguing and charming, and it was; there is a real otherworldly quality to it. It was a joy to reacquaint myself with Townsend Warner, and I was struck once again by her inventiveness, and the myriad ways in which she was well ahead of her time.

Of Cats and Elfins collects together a full bibliography of Townsend Warner's published work; it reminded me both that I have hardly explored her oeuvre to date, and that a lot of her work is sadly very difficult to get hold of, particularly for an affordable price. This collection is wonderful to have; it provides such wonderful escapism, and I very much appreciated the lively unpredictability of her work.

Of Cats and Elfins is undoubtedly odd, but rather enchanting. It reminded me throughout of Scottish author Naomi Mitchison, whose work has so enchanted and - I admit - mildly confused me in the past. The collection is highly memorable, and whilst I was perhaps a little less enraptured by the Elfin stories than many readers will be, I will certainly be thinking about them in future. I would like to revisit this collection, particularly if I do pick up the Kingdoms of Elfin tales at some point - although unless I make a dramatic U-turn in my reading life and start enjoying fantasy novels, I'm not sure that this will be at the top of my to-read list.

Regardless, Of Cats and Elfins is highly recommended, whether you are a fan of fantasy, or just of Modernism. There is so much to admire here, and a great deal to consider. If you have never read Townsend Warner, and my comments here have enticed you to pick up one of her books, I would point you towards Lolly Willowes as a starting point. Of Cats and Elfins, though, would be a good choice to follow her most famous novel with.

[Alex Sarll]

A book of two halves, opening with a handful of stories which might have been more at home in an expanded edition of Warner's Kingdoms Of Elfin, a collection publishers Handheld did issue not long before this (and it's worth noting, this being the first thing I've read from them, that they seem like a good outfit – the list of other offerings contains plenty that interests me; the book, suiting their name, is a handsome edition which feels happy in the hand). Even the original Elfin stories took a certain perverse delight in how little their fairies differed from humans in many respects, right down to it being considered déclassé for the nobility to use their wings, but in these later pieces that seems to have moved up a notch, with the two peoples lives' overlapping each other much more. An Unlikely Story, in particular, could have been told solely about humans with only the most minimal editing – on top of which, it's obvious far in advance exactly how it will end. And yet somehow neither of these things detracts in the least from the entertainment value. The wry, hyper-refined mood means these will never be popular smashes, but in a world where the still more neurasthenic likes of Firbank and Norman Douglas retain cult audiences, these slightly less hypertrophied examples of a similar sensibility should hopefully find welcoming homes.

And then there's The Cat's Cradle Book. A framing prologue, longer than any of the stories, sees a narrator – implicitly Warner – meet and have an oddly desultory fling with a crazy cat man, who has also been working on collecting feline folklore. His theory is that humans have in fact learned our fairytales from cats, who tell them to human babies in the crib, hence the name of the collection, which then goes on to record them. Now, some of his arguments I can accept, like the oddly detached tone to which many fairytales default. But the idea that cats pass on the stories almost without variation, where humans muck around? That seems unlikely from a species where individuals can't even remain consistent from one week to the next as to which food they like, or how much petting they want. And in general, for all that Warner writes cute cats, I find that slight missing of the point of cats which their loyal servants often betray. Surely the cat versions of familiar stories would see the giant toy with the clever little tailor for a time before eventually crunching him all up, or the two sleek, proud sisters keeping Cinderella exactly where she belongs? Which is not quite what we get here; there is a certain wry cruelty to some of them, but not least in the almost-modern settings, few feel like they could be where human versions began. Still, regardless of whether they quite gel with the framing device, considered as new fables in their own right, something like the vicious little vignettes of Richard Garnett, they're a lot of fun.

[Steven Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Sylvia Townsend Warner until I saw the book in Forbidden Planet. It's delightful! Low key and dark short stories of, as it says on the cover, Cats and Elfins. I will definitely be looking for more!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What he felt was more than a whim; it was an earnest desire, a mental craving somehow to recreate a bright image that Time had once timelessly given, and then by course of time effaced. — ‘Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain’.

This volume of short stories is a collection in two halves which may vary in theme but not so much in style. The first contains an essay by Sylvia Townsend Warner and some tales that weren’t part of her story compilation Kingdoms of Elfin, first published in 1977, the year before she died; the second part was published as The Cat’s Cradle Book in 1940 as a selection of fables purporting to be related by the worldwide community of cats.

Despite the gap in years and the seemingly different subjects the tales have much in common: they’re subtly satirical at times, often upend traditional tropes at their conclusions, and contain some beautiful nature writing while confirming the endless contradictions in human – and even elfin – nature. When the tales in The Cat’s Cradle Book have non-human characters they’re clearly anthropomorphised, whereas the occasional elfin in the first part can almost feel zoomorphised.

This anthology of fairy tales and fables comes over as both tantalisingly ephemeral yet solidly permanent, like parallel worlds that one catches glimpses of that must surely exist in some reality even as they fade away from view. From the author of the haunting Lolly Willowes one can hardly expect otherwise.

‘Cats have chosen to live among us, they have to reckon with us, analyse our motives, trace our weaknesses and peculiarities. The proper study of catkins is man.’

The sequence of feline fables resembles Aesop’s tales, and though somewhat expanded shorn of any moralistic mottos. The fictional William Farthing tells the author in the Introduction to The Cat’s Cradle Book that one of his pets was “an exquisite story-teller, in the purest, most classical tradition of narrative. It was as though she were dictating to Perrault.’ However the French storyteller didn’t shy away from moralising in his own fairytale retellings either, a feature thankfully absent here.

So, what tales have been collected here, selected by humans who – like William and his visitor – can “cat talk”? Drawing themes from Scottish ballads, myth, medieval beast fables and folk tales, the sixteen offerings throw in anachronisms, mixed cultural references, humour and personal tragedies. For example, we’re told a sickly child is also inclined to be intelligent, as though that might be surprising; meanwhile, Apollo Smintheus – the mouse-god – is troubled by a persistent human petitioner who complains about mice affecting his trade; the promoter of a fairground sideshow reaps the results of mistreating the one and only phoenix; the ballad of ‘The Twa Corbies’ becomes more complex and confusing when the protagonists are shown to be Odin’s garrulous ravens.

Some of the pieces naturally involve cats. The heir to the Castle of Carabas is long kept ignorant of the species and, we assume, the legend of Puss-in-Boots; a cat commiserates with a fellow traveller, an Englishman, about their both having “come to grief by loving astray”; and Djamileh, the daughter of Bluebeard, comes across a locked room, the door of which conceals a parchment in Sanskrit inscribed CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT. All the tales lead the reader down unexpected byways, often littered with non sequiturs, much as R L Stevenson’s Fables did in their way. Each is unique and – dare I say it? – purrfect.

The Elfin stories, which tend to be longer than the fables, are preceded by a short essay, ‘The Kingdom of Elfin’; first published in 1927 it assumes fairies are real and gives a brief account of instances cited by William Blake, the medieval poet Robert Wace and traditional lore. Then it’s on to four tales written in the 1970s before finishing with a final story from the 1930s, all with titles that promise mystery: Narrative of Events Preceding the Death of Queen Ermine; Queen Mousie; An Improbable Story; The Duke of Orkney’s Leonardo, and Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain.

Some are set in various Elfin kingdoms – Deuce in the Pennines, Elfhame in Scotland and Elfwick in Caithness – while others refer to Dreiviertelstein in Styria, Tishk in the Urals, the Northern Kingdoms of Thule and Blokula, and of course Broceliande in Brittany. Wherever and whenever the narratives are set the lives of Elfins often intersect with those of short-lived mortals, to whom they might appear in ordinary guise – or else winged and invisible. All are characterised, as with the feline fables, by their magical ability to meld the familiarity of everyday life with unforeseen weirdness that somehow makes sense.

Of Cats and Elfins also displays a delight in arts like painting and music and in wild nature: as Mr Mulready, a Somerset draper in the final Elfin story, believes, ‘Music has a different meaning, a different beauty, out of doors.’ But I’m attempting to avoid further details because these are tales that are best encountered fresh, without gauche spoilers by the likes of me.

It won’t hurt though to suggest they look forward to the uncanny fairytale retellings in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber and the original stories in Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Grace Adieu, collections that also hint at temptations, transgressions and transformations. Like music heard out of doors Of Cats and Elfins too is replete with different meanings and different beauties; these are tales likely to burrow into one’s subconscious, rather like the cats that slyly insinuate themselves onto your lap.

[William Leight · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Of Cats and Elfins”, as the title suggests, contains two varieties of stories, collected together because they both fall under the broad umbrella of fantasy. (There is also the story “Stay, Corydon, Thou Swain”, which takes its title, and in a very loose sense its plot, from the 16th century English madrigal of the same name: this also falls under fantasy — it’s a very broad umbrella — but has nothing to do with any of the other stories.) They are very different types of fantasy, though. The first five stories are Elfin stories much like the ones from the collection “Kingdoms of Elfin”. In fact, it’s a bit strange that they weren’t included in that collection: just like those stories, they are darkly amusing tales of the petty intrigues and minor struggles of Warner’s amoral elves, and there is no difference in quality to explain their exclusion. The cat stories, on the other hand (originally collected in Warner’s “The Cat’s Cradle Book”), are a series of fables and folktales. The “Introduction” is a short story which purports to explain their origin as a collection of stories told by cats to their kittens (thus, a different metaphorical cradle than the usual one), assembled by a person who can speak Cat, but if cats appear in the stories it’s purely coincidental. Instead, they mostly bear a family resemblance to Thurber’s “Fables For Our Time”, as generally dark and/or cynical parables of modern culture, expressed through animals. The exceptions are more like folktales, such as the Arabian Nights-inflected “Bluebeard’s Daughter”, or the vaguely Indian “Virtue and the Tiger”, though these too have fairly obvious morals. As a result, “Of Cats and Elfins” is something of a mishmosh: an enjoyable one, certainly, and absolutely worth reading for the Elfin stories alone, but not really an essential part of Warner’s oeuvre.

[Peter Tillman]

Jo Walton liked it (July 2020):
"Two sets of short stories brought together for this volume, all of it delightful and excellent. She’s just amazing, one of the best writers of the twentieth century, I can’t understand why she is so little known. These are all genre; her mainstream stories are just as good. She’s biting and incisive and wise, and I especially loved the introduction to the cat stories where she explains how these are stories from cat culture without ever being twee or precious or other than solidly grounded. This book is a real treat."
https://www.tor.com/2020/08/07/jo-wal...

[Jewels-PiXie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sylvia Townsend Warner's tales are a wolf in sheep's clothing. You enter, very willingly , to sit down for a civilised afternoon tea only to be whisked off by the purring whispering incantation of her words. Her words are transformative world's ,not just one world but many many worlds and mythical lands -told with charismatic , thoroughly addictive magnetism.
In this collection of stories from The Cat's Cradle and The Kingdom Of Elfdom we get the very unique perspective of what it is to be human - from fairyfolk's damning and unapologetic observation and from generations and generations of fine wily feline eyes.
The fairyfolk you meet here are very different to those you met when you were younger, these fairies have some very dark and murderous motives. They are mischievous in way that has not only spread it's Wings but has become very wickedly naughty and certainly don't care much for us human-folk. We are the fools they do not suffer gladly. My favourite tales from Elfdom were The Duke Of Orkney's Leonardo ,and An Improbable Tale where a fairy , starstruck (and pretentious) but longing to better himself , and hunt down the author whose philosophies have become his obsession - talks himself into a situation he is only too willing to do anything to remain in...

In the tales from The Cat's Cradle , the introduction in itself is poetic sorcery! And through this we are given the door that leads to many many doors ,each surprising ,compelling tinged with STW's sardonic acerbic inimitable wit.
The stories are fables ,about flawed - only too human humans - told by mother cats to their kittens and passed down over the years. You have to 'speak cat' in order to read them , or perhaps STW has translated them for us , as someone who does speak cat ,I couldn't quite tell...
In these fables ,we find ways of escape , STW is the magician willing to reveal the secret of how to be free if we are unhappy with our restrained human predicament. And this can happen by becoming something else entirely ... A changeling or a nymph . Even when it seems like the nymph may just be a fanciful creation of an ordinary man , STW turns the idea of a woman being anything whatsoever about the creation of a man completely on it's head. Because for Warner a woman will be exactly what ,and who she chooses to be.
Her stories are freeing , subversive, brutally honest and hypnotically , wondrously charming.
She is the absolute abracadabra of writers!

[alex]

"The Kingdom of Elfin"
rating: tbd/5

"Narrative of Events Preceding the Death of Queen Ermine"
rating: tbd/5

"Queen Mousie"
rating: tbd/5

"An Improbable Story"
rating: tbd/5

"The Duke of Orkney's Leonardo"
rating: tbd/5

"Stay, Cordon, Thou Swain"
rating: tbd/5

The Cat's Cradle Book

"Introduction"
rating: tbd/5

"Odin's Birds"
rating: tbd/5

"The Castle of Carabas"
rating: tbd/5

"Virtue and the Tiger"
rating: tbd/5

"The Magpie Charity"
rating: tbd/5

"The Fox-Pope"
rating: tbd/5

"The Phoenix"
rating: tbd/5

"Apollo and the Mice"
rating: tbd/5

"The Widow's Portion"
rating: tbd/5

"The Two Mothers"
rating: tbd/5

"The Donkey's Providence"
rating: tbd/5

"The Trumpeter's Daughter"
rating: tbd/5

"Death in the Mouth"
rating: tbd/5

"The Traveller from the West and the Traveller from the East"
rating: tbd/5

"Bread for the Castle"
rating: tbd/5

"Popularity"
rating: tbd/5

"Bluebeard's Daughter"
rating: tbd/5

[Felicity · Rating 4 out of 5]

A disparate collection of leftover fables and fantasies, this volume comprises one part short fictions of elfins to four parts tales told by felines, allegedly translated by a speaker of Cat. The former would have been better reserved for an expanded reprint of the earlier volume of STW's Kingdoms of Elfin. If you have not previously encountered the author's incisive wit and pellucid intellect, and especially if you are a catlover, do not expect a collection of sentimental tales of sweet little kitties. All of the dispatches are short, several of them nasty, brutish and ruthlessly efficient. As with most of the attractively presented but incongruously edited Handheld publications, the unflagged (and probably overlooked) endnotes, seemingly aimed at secondary schoolchildren with a limited vocabulary, underestimate the adult reader's knowledge and literacy, while the publications listed in the Works Cited, most of which are accessible only via a university library database, overestimate their availability to the general reader. STW needs no fawning introduction; I can't speak for her poetry, but her pitch-perfect crystalline prose speaks for itself.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sylvia Townsend Warner was a delightful writer, and this potpourri of a book collects some of her fantasies about fairies (which she calls Elfin) and fables about cats. I say 'fables' because that's how they are described in the clever introduction where the narrator explains how she came to collect these tales from a person who spoke fluent Cat, and collected them from the innumerable cats that frequented his abode. Each short fable has a cat somewhere in it, and has a moral, often humorous.

Warner has a clean, elegant style and is slyly funny. Her matter-of-fact approach to fantasy is quite approachable and welcome. She should be better known, especially among the fans of good fantasy.

[B.J. Sikes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd collection of rather grim little stories

[Laura J · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very humourous collection with really good commentaries on human behaviour.

[Peacefulbookery · Rating 4 out of 5]

A consistently good author.

[James Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of fantastical stories. They're well written, but didn't appeal to me.