In the old Scottish ballad, Tam Lin, a girl named Janet is warned by her family not to go near the well at Carterhaugh. There lurks an elfin knight who will take the virginity of any golden-haired maiden who passes through. The next day Janet, who is possessed of golden hair and a rebellious spirit, sets off for Carterhaugh. At the well, she picks a double rose which summons Tam Lin. Janet visits him daily and she learns how he was stolen by the Fairy Queen who cursed him to remain in Elfland as her vassal. Months later she realises she is with child. Refusing to forsake her lover, she hatches a bold and dangerous plan to free him from the curse.

This is just one of the ancient tales featured in Old Songs, a treasure trove of short stories inspired by traditional ballads from the British Isles. Stretching from the Classical period and the early 20th century, these richly imagined stories feature sibling murder, infanticide, kidnapping, abandonment and a man who is turned into a worm by a witch. “Not all the stories are happy and that is the way of the world,” notes author Amy Jeffs in the foreword.

An art historian and medievalist, Jeffs narrates these interconnected tales with warmth, intimacy and a subtle undercurrent of menace. After each story, she provides analysis and traces the ballad’s evolution through literature, spoken word and song. This audio edition comes with gorgeous musical excerpts courtesy of composer and musician Natalie Brice. There is also a digital booklet featuring Gwen Burns’s haunting illustrations.

Available via Riverrun, 4hr 18min

Further listening

Nesting
Roisín O’Donnell, Simon & Schuster Audio, 10hr 11min
Derry Girls’ Louisa Harland narrates this moving novel about Ciara, a mother who leaves her abusive husband with their two daughters and attempts to start over while navigating a broken housing and social care system.

Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found
Andrew Graham-Dixon, Penguin Audio, 15hr 1min
The art historian explores the life and work of the 17th-century Dutch artist Vermeer in a scholarly work that speculates on the identity of the young woman depicted in Girl With a Pearl Earring. Read by the author.

Christmas nowadays tends to revolve around family, food and a furtive visit from a pot-bellied stranger down the chimney. But in The Dead of Winter, the historian and folklorist Sarah Clegg reveals a lesser known side to the festive season, unearthing unsettling midwinter traditions and stories that fell out of favour in the Victorian age.

Subtitled The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas, the book opens with Clegg embarking on a pre-dawn walk to a graveyard on Christmas Eve. She is recreating an old Swedish tradition called årsgång, or “year walk”, which is said to offer glimpses into the walker’s future along with “shadowy enactments of the burials of anyone who will die in the village this coming year”.

Elsewhere, Clegg tells of horned figures rampaging through the streets in Salzburg on Krampus night; dawn solstice rituals at Stonehenge; and horse’s skulls mounted on sticks in Chepstow, their cloaked carriers engaging in a battle of rhyming insults. There are chilling stories of an Icelandic ogress who kidnaps people and turns them into stew as her Yule cat looks on, and witches who find children who haven’t done their chores, cut open their bellies and stuff them full of straw.

The narrator is Antonia Beamish, who delights in the mischief and menace of these outre seasonal happenings. In the 19th century, Christmas became a more sedate, domestic affair as a twinkly figure based on Saint Nicholas caught the public imagination. But, as Clegg notes, “look a little closer, you’ll find that Christmas teems with monsters”.

Further listening

Night People
How to Be a DJ in ‘90s New York
Mark Ronson Penguin Audio, 6hr 56min
The celebrated music producer blends memoir and cultural history as he embarks on a nocturnal journey around his native New York. Ronson documents the city’s thriving club scene where he found his calling as a DJ. Read by the author.
Mother Mary Comes to Me
Arundhati Roy, Penguin Audio, 11hr 28min
The author of The God of Small Things reads her memoir about her complicated relationship with her mother, Mary, an avowed feminist who fought for women’s rights but rarely had a kind word for her children.