https://soundcloud.com/susan-defreitas/infloatingfields

The latest story I’ve released to my Patreon subscribers is a retelling of a Russian fairytale I loved as a child, Vasalisa the Brave. Though it’s the heroine whose name appears in the title of the tale, it was always the witch I found fascinating.

Baba Yaga lives in a house that stands on a chicken’s legs, and she herself has none–just an old-fashioned mortar (the better to crush you with, my dear!). As far as witches go, she’s bad, but I wouldn’t necessarily call her evil. More fey, in the sense of true fairies, the kind Susanna Clarke wrote about in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell–which is to say, morally ambiguous.

My retelling of this fairytale takes place on my grandmother’s farm in Northern Michigan, and I had a lot of fun with it. If you enjoy it, consider supporting my work as an emerging author for as little as $1/month.