A BALLAD is a poem or a song that tells a popular story and many traditional British ballads contain fascinating stories - tales of love and jealousy, murder and mystery, the supernatural and the historical. This anthology brings together nineteen original retellings in short story form, written by some of the country's most accomplished storytellers, singers and wordsmiths. Here you will find tales of cross-dressing heroines, lusty pirates, vengeful fairy queens, mobsters and monsters, mermaids and starmen - stories that dance with the form and flavour of these narrative folk songs in daring and delightful ways. Richly illustrated, these enchanting tales will appeal to lovers of folk music, storytelling and rattling good yarns.

Kevan Manwaring is a writer, teacher and storyteller who lives in the Cotswold town of Stroud. Holder of an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing from Cardiff University, he teaches creative writing for the Open University and the Skyros Writers' Lab. He also runs freelance courses in storytelling and has appeared in numerous shows both solo and with Fire Springs in Britain and abroad. His work includes two collections of folk tales for The History Press. Candia McKormack is Deputy Editor of Cotswold Life