Thomas the Rhymer
The old ballad of seven years in Elfland, told partly by the people who stayed behind and waited.
Kushner takes the traditional ballad of the harper carried off by the Queen of Elfland for seven years and grounds it in a real border landscape of farms and hard weather. Four narrators tell it, only one of whom goes to Faerie, which is the point: the book is as interested in the people left behind as in the one who leaves. It won both the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards.
Recommended by 1 Person
Jo Walton
Thomas the Rhymer is one of the books in the fairy tale series that Terri Windling published. By all rights, I shouldn’t like Thomas the Rhymer, but Ellen Kushner is a very, very good writer. It is a book that is set in Fairyland, and it’s taking the Ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, which is a traditional ballad, and putting it into a real moment of history. It’s a very solid, well-thought-through world.
Interview · March 2026
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