Once again Toronto librarian and storyteller Ken Setterington demonstrates his storytelling savvy in his retelling of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. And once again, the scherenschnitt (cut paper) black-and-white illustrations by Nelly and Ernst Hofer exhibit their dazzling mastery of this ancient folk art, as they did in The Snow Queen.

With sombre authority and suspense, Setterington relates this tender, terrifying fairy tale about the transformative power of love, faith, and forgiveness. While hunting a stag, a king gets lost in the woods. He stumbles upon an old crone who offers him the classic devil’s bargain – she will help him only if he will marry her beautiful daughter. Suspecting that the daughter too is a witch, the widowed king reluctantly agrees.

Before his new bride arrives, he sequesters, for their safety, his beloved 11 sons and daughter in a castle so deep in the forest that he can only find his way to them by following the path laid by a ball of yarn. However his wicked wife still manages to discover his sons, and with a toss of the 11 white silk hexed shirts she’s made, changes them into swans. Their sister Elise goes in search of her brothers, who return to human form when the sun sets. How to break the spell comes to Elise in a dream: she must weave 11 shirts made of stinging nettles. But her task leads to accusations that she herself is a witch.

The full page and border illustrations by the Hofers have the narrative richness of medieval tapestry, and the delicacy and intricacy of lacework. They are so meticulously detailed that the characters’ emotions are revealed in body posture, and the scenes have a vibrant sense of movement. The artwork thoroughly enchants the eye and stirs the imagination.