The Corn King and the Spring Queen

By Naomi Mitchison

Book Overview

Introduced by Naomi Mitchison. Set over two thousand years ago on the calm and fertile shores of the Black Sea, Naomi Mitchison's The Corn King and the Spring Queen tells of ancient civilisations where tenderness, beauty and love vie with brutality and dark magic. Erif Der, a young witch, is compelled by her father to marry his powerful rival, Tarrik the Corn King, so becoming the Spring Queen. Forced by her father, she uses her magic spells to try and break Tarrik's power. But one night Tarrik rescues Sphaeros, an Hellenic philosopher, from a shipwreck. Sphaeros in turn rescues Tarrik from near death and so breaks the enchantment that has bound him. And so begins for Tarrik a Quest - a fabulous voyage of discovery which will bring him new knowledge and which will reunite him with his beautiful Spring Queen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0862412870
• ISBN13: 9780862412876
• Release Date: July 2010
• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.9" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A magical book which is as brutal as it is dreamy

Naomi Mitchison¹s masterful recreation of ancient Scythia must surely stand as one of the most enduring historical novels of the century. In clear, pristine prose (which reminds me of Ursula LeGuin), Mitchison describes the mystical, sometimes horrible, world of her protagonist Erif Der (Red fire backwards). I first stumbled across this long novel in 1988 while at university. Rereading it last year was a sheer pleasure. The old-fashioned, very British, tone of the writing is not in the slightest bit off-putting. Here is a remarkable writer at the height of her powers. Like Ursula LeGuin, again, Mitchison has the uncanny ability to transport her readers to alien cutures and to make these foreign worlds, and the people who live there, as relevant as they are mesmerising. If you haven¹t experienced Naomi Mitchison before, then I can¹t think of a better place to start than with The Corn King and the Spring Queen.