Crab & Bee's Matter of Britain: Mythlands of Albion, by Helen Billinghurst & Phil Smith

This is an inspired retelling of some of the finest tales and tale tropes of England, at once very old and very modern"
Professor Ronald Hutton author of Pagan Britain

These are not the tales of the medieval manuscripts, or their nationalist retellings for the BBC or the readership of the Times. This is how the old stories tell themselves these days, in their own places, in pubs and on village notice boards, among the quiet characters of Britain’s hallucinations and dreams.

Crab & Bee’s new Matter of Britain is a banishing spell against nostalgia: remaking the treasures of the past, in the ruins of the present, into the bodies of weird future.

"As if Britain's folk-tales were told by the Mighty Boosh." – A Reader

Read reviews of this book from:

• Ruth Nolan at Facts and Fiction magazine
• Dave Lee at Chaotopia
• Ben Graham at The Urban Spaceman
• Poet & author Will Vigar

"In the Matter of Britain, Crab and Bee appear to have casually gathered up the folk consciousness of Britain, laughed at it, stamped on it, and lovingly restored it to our modern landscape. This is a folk masterpiece."
Lisa Schneidau - oral storyteller and author of the Folk Tales of Britain & Ireland series

"I was reminded of Ted Hughes ‘Crow,’ for it’s creation myths and poetry; Snorri Sturlsson’s ‘Elder Edda’ and even tales from the Australian Aboriginal ‘Dream Time.’ ... The sections on Cheddar Gorge particularly resonate with Alan Garner’s work. This Puckish retelling of legendary tropes is delirious, hypnotic, hallucinogenic and utterly compelling ...you wonder how you ever lived not knowing these stories." Will Vigar - author and poet

"For those who do not recognise themselves in the narratives they have been told here is a new set of myths, ancient but future-orientated too. A hallucinatory journey through a re-imagined Albion and its landscapes."
Professor Simon O’Sullivan - author of From Magic and Myth-Work to Care and Repair

"Hallucinatory and hypnotic, grounded and earthy, this is a re-enchantment of the land, its past, present and future, with dirt beneath its nails."
Dr Katy Soar - Senior Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, University of Winchester

"Crab and Bee have this knack of coming at things out of left field, back to front, bottom up or inside out ...the familiar becomes fantastic, grotesque, eldritch or wondrous, the fantastic and mythic revealed in the everyday. In the process they reveal the flecks of gold in the post-industrial muck"
John Constable aka John Crow, author of The Southwark Mysteries

This paperback book is 130 pages long, including 12 full-colour plates.