Francesca Simon MBE | Local Legends #59: Carmarthenshire

For this week's Local Legends interview, Eleanor is chatting with author Francesca Simon MBE.

We were pretty amazed when Francesca agreed to join us - she's very well known, the author of over 60 books, including the award-winning Horrid Henry series.

Henry and his horrid exploits are hardly the only string to Francesca's bow, though. 

She’s written a lot of other fiction too, often inspired by mythology, like The Sleeping Army and The Lost Gods. One of her books, The Monstrous Child, based on Norse mythology, was adapted into an opera which premiered at the Royal Opera House.

What a lovely coincidence, then, that Francesca’s most recent book, Salka, is a gorgeous retelling of Carmarthenshire’s most famous legend, the tale of the faerie woman of Llyn y Fan Fach.

A tragic romance dealing with the bitter consequences of not being truly understood, Salka is Francesca’s version of a tale which has been told and retold many times, and always in slightly different ways.

Unusually, Francesca first adapted the story as a cantata, 2022’s The Faerie Bride, which premiered at the Aldeburgh Music Festival for two voices, choir and symphony, but the story still had a hold on her - and so Salka was born.

We had an excellent chat about writing, opera, and the magic of the place which inspired Francesca, drawing out the presence of the ocean in her work, which has captivated her since her childhood spent on the beaches of California, to Carmarthenshire’s enchanting fairy lake.

So gather round the Three Ravens fire and listen in, for a chat about a tale with a very long shadow, and the life and career of a true Local Legend: Francesca Simon.

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Three Ravens is a completely independent English myth and folklore podcast where we share stories, celebrate folk culture, and fall backwards through the hedgerows of history.

Hosted by real-life couple Eleanor Conlon and Martin Vaux, and mostly recorded at our home in rural Sussex in southern England, Three Ravens is rated 4.8/5 from over 500 reviews and has grown by word of mouth care of our lovely listener community ‘The Conspiracy of Ravens.’

We release three episodes a week, on Mondays, Thursday and Saturdays, through which we explore folktales, folkways, fairy stories, folk songs, mythology, local heritage, seasonal customs and traditional beliefs.

Our research inspires our retellings of stories from across history and culture, with episodes standing alone but connected together across over 500 chatty, mostly light-hearted, swear-free installments driven by passion, kindness and curiosity.

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