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The Peninsula
Wild Marjoram Tea
May your pockets be deep in dust,
for each mote is a star, little one,
and your right pocket holds one world
and your left holds another.
Wild Marjoram Tea is one of the stand-alone texts that grow out of the peninsula’s world of weird fiction and strange tales.
As with The Night of Turns, the new book explores folklore and folk horror, yet it is also a deeply moving exploration of growing up, change and the nature of being.
Beautiful, strange and terrifying, Wild Marjoram Tea draws on a wide range of British folklore sources—from the myriad treasures of English and Scottish song to the disquieting cruelty of legend—to create a distinctive world of unsettlement.
As ever, it might not be for you...
for each mote is a star, little one,
and your right pocket holds one world
and your left holds another.
Wild Marjoram Tea is one of the stand-alone texts that grow out of the peninsula’s world of weird fiction and strange tales.
As with The Night of Turns, the new book explores folklore and folk horror, yet it is also a deeply moving exploration of growing up, change and the nature of being.
Beautiful, strange and terrifying, Wild Marjoram Tea draws on a wide range of British folklore sources—from the myriad treasures of English and Scottish song to the disquieting cruelty of legend—to create a distinctive world of unsettlement.
As ever, it might not be for you...
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
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109 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 8, 2021
Yet another great read from the Broodcomb Press Penninsula by another author entirely new to me who seems to have sprung ‘fully formed’ (as it were) from nowhere citing folklore expert Katherine Briggs and Sylvia Townsend Warner as influences. Is it merely a coincidence that the author has elements of both those just referenced in her own name? It is certainly just a coincidence I had just read Warner’s ‘Lolly Willowes’ just prior to buying this volume. See my review of that here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Perhaps unsurprisingly his novella/long short story is situated very firmly in ‘folk horror’ territory and concerns two friends who come into contact with a somewhat hippy-ish couple living in a woodland. The couple have a very curious child who may (or may not) be a changeling of some sort and it is he that may (or may not!) deliberately drug the friends. This action has very far-reaching consequences, both mental and physical, but whether the experience is a hallucination or some sort of timeslip is unclear. Certainly some sort of altered state (and I mean the latter word in at least two senses) occurs.
How the subsequent consequences are dealt with forms the second half of the story but when it emerges that there is something similar to a Carlos Castanada cult involved you realize that there are not going to be any easy answers.
Although there are a lot of ambiguities in the tale there are also some very powerful realistically described moments. As someone who is mildly claustrophobic (developed by my mind replaying a very stupid night out in the middle of the countryside) I found some of the narrative pretty disturbing. I am not sure if was in a particularly ‘good’ way, but let's say it added some frisson to proceedings! In this respect, the book seems plausibly true to life and it is this dichotomy that made it really work for me.
I have yet to read a poor Broodcomb book. See my other reviews for my comments on them. If you have liked any of their previous offerings I imagine you will like this one as well. They are handsome items, this book is one of 100 dust jacketed h/bs). This volume, and the others, are definitely worth your money.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Perhaps unsurprisingly his novella/long short story is situated very firmly in ‘folk horror’ territory and concerns two friends who come into contact with a somewhat hippy-ish couple living in a woodland. The couple have a very curious child who may (or may not) be a changeling of some sort and it is he that may (or may not!) deliberately drug the friends. This action has very far-reaching consequences, both mental and physical, but whether the experience is a hallucination or some sort of timeslip is unclear. Certainly some sort of altered state (and I mean the latter word in at least two senses) occurs.
How the subsequent consequences are dealt with forms the second half of the story but when it emerges that there is something similar to a Carlos Castanada cult involved you realize that there are not going to be any easy answers.
Although there are a lot of ambiguities in the tale there are also some very powerful realistically described moments. As someone who is mildly claustrophobic (developed by my mind replaying a very stupid night out in the middle of the countryside) I found some of the narrative pretty disturbing. I am not sure if was in a particularly ‘good’ way, but let's say it added some frisson to proceedings! In this respect, the book seems plausibly true to life and it is this dichotomy that made it really work for me.
I have yet to read a poor Broodcomb book. See my other reviews for my comments on them. If you have liked any of their previous offerings I imagine you will like this one as well. They are handsome items, this book is one of 100 dust jacketed h/bs). This volume, and the others, are definitely worth your money.
December 1, 2021
Another incredible book from the peninsula!
March 13, 2022
Another great book from the Peninsula. Wild Marjoram Tea is a short novel in two parts, a contemporary fairy tale with strong infusions of anti-rationality (I mean it in a very good way - a subtle revolt against the cold gaze of science and its desire to catalogue, compartmentalize and analyze everything), altered states, and folklore motifs.
The first part concerns two children, Tom and Polly, some tragic events in their lives, their visit to a nearby forest cottage and their otherworldly experiences; the second half fast forwards 15 years or so.
The writing is excellent, prone to whimsical metaphors and connections, corporeal flights of fancy. You can literally smell (and feel) lots of phrases in here. As for flaws, two things tired me: the sheer extravagant opulence of Faerie/the Other Side (I suspect that the problem lies with Faerie itself, not its particular manifestation, for I remember me having problems with almost every literary foray into It), and the focus on the protagonist's personality in a somewhat larger degree than I would like. Still, an excellent book with some amazing prose.
The first part concerns two children, Tom and Polly, some tragic events in their lives, their visit to a nearby forest cottage and their otherworldly experiences; the second half fast forwards 15 years or so.
The writing is excellent, prone to whimsical metaphors and connections, corporeal flights of fancy. You can literally smell (and feel) lots of phrases in here. As for flaws, two things tired me: the sheer extravagant opulence of Faerie/the Other Side (I suspect that the problem lies with Faerie itself, not its particular manifestation, for I remember me having problems with almost every literary foray into It), and the focus on the protagonist's personality in a somewhat larger degree than I would like. Still, an excellent book with some amazing prose.
June 27, 2024
What a strange, haunting little book! Part dark fairytale, part coming of age story, Wild Marjoram Tea deftly weaves folklore with reality, creating a dreamy, horror-filled world barely separated from our own.
It's unsettling, beautifully written and brimming with dark magic. I loved every page!
It's unsettling, beautifully written and brimming with dark magic. I loved every page!
September 23, 2021
A truly incredible book. The further you travel in, the deeper you plunge into realities that our ancestors were far more familiar with than us.
Beautifully written and intensely magical.
My favourite book so far this year.
Beautifully written and intensely magical.
My favourite book so far this year.
November 12, 2024
“Polly breathed, aware of her lungs and their thousandfold branches. The scents were getting inside her. Tom was right: she was a swot. She knew the smells of the earth, soil microorganisms snoozing out geosmin and, underneath, one of her favourite ever words: petrichor. The smell of rain, except the aroma was more than this. Petrichor was an expression of how rain made the whole world new in every sensory way.”
Absolutely stunning book, both a coming-of-age tale about exploring the world of adulthood, but also about the thin barrier of our reality. And the writing. Oh my god, the writing. Though it’s a short book, I felt myself taking my time, tracing back over sentences just to enjoy how well crafted they were.
At its heart, it seems to be a faerie story, but it feels altogether more like a story about trying to access someone else’s consciousness. There are innumerable books and stories about how we can never truly know someone, it’s a theme I find myself returning to over and over in my choice of reading material, but this feels like it’s gotten to the heart of the problem through a unique lens. Experience is individual, though we can relate actions and words and feelings, we can’t fully translate something into words.
Oh, and if you’re looking for the typical faerie story elements, they’re here too: doubles, changelings, weird science, encroaching modernity, places out of time, etc etc. I’ll be rereading soon, I can feel it.
Absolutely stunning book, both a coming-of-age tale about exploring the world of adulthood, but also about the thin barrier of our reality. And the writing. Oh my god, the writing. Though it’s a short book, I felt myself taking my time, tracing back over sentences just to enjoy how well crafted they were.
At its heart, it seems to be a faerie story, but it feels altogether more like a story about trying to access someone else’s consciousness. There are innumerable books and stories about how we can never truly know someone, it’s a theme I find myself returning to over and over in my choice of reading material, but this feels like it’s gotten to the heart of the problem through a unique lens. Experience is individual, though we can relate actions and words and feelings, we can’t fully translate something into words.
Oh, and if you’re looking for the typical faerie story elements, they’re here too: doubles, changelings, weird science, encroaching modernity, places out of time, etc etc. I’ll be rereading soon, I can feel it.
September 17, 2024
I felt like I'd found lost treasure. This book arrived way back in the first plague year in a package from Broodcomb and somehow got separated from its brothers and sisters until I ran across it in a stack of books a few days ago. Unread Broodcomb is like the good kind of cursed gold.
Most of Broodcomb's works are about transitions across realities and this one is a distillation of the concept, a series of hallucinatory nightmares that tell an excellent story. I almost wish I'd read this before OLD CHILDREN, but now I have reason to enjoy Sylvia's second book again.
Most of Broodcomb's works are about transitions across realities and this one is a distillation of the concept, a series of hallucinatory nightmares that tell an excellent story. I almost wish I'd read this before OLD CHILDREN, but now I have reason to enjoy Sylvia's second book again.
May 9, 2025
A terrifying hallucinogenic trip through English folklore with a side of gardening
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews