ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

The Mab

Bethan Gwanas translator Matt Brown editor Eloise Williams editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Firefly Press Ltd

Published:12th Dec '25

Should be back in stock very soon

The Mab cover

If you think you’ve heard all the fairy tales out there, think again. Inside this book you will find eleven epic Celtic tales from long ago, but not so far away, that are bound to enchant you. The Mab is a collection full to the brim with brand new versions of really, really old stories from the Mabinogi – maybe the oldest written-down stories in the history of Britain.

But as well as being really, really old, the stories in The Mab are strange and funny and thrilling. Alive with mystery and magic, they speak of a time when the gates between the Real World and the Otherworld were occasionally left open. And sometimes, just sometimes, it was possible to step through.

The stories in this illustrated edition have been reimagined by an extraordinary team of writers, and each appears alongside a Welsh-language translation from Bethan Gwanas. Those writers are Matt Brown and Eloise Williams, who have also edited this book, plus Sophie Anderson, P.G.Bell, Zillah Bethell, Darren Chetty, Wales Children's Laureate Nicola Davies, Claire Fayers, Hanan Issa, Rhian Tracey and Alex Wharton. The awesome illustrations are by Max Low!

'These stories make the wall between worlds thrillingly thin. Their enchantment calls to us ever from the other side of the door' Michael Sheen

ISBN: 9781917718400

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 16mm

Weight: 200g

224 pages