Ellen Datlow - The Beastly Bride

In the summer of 1997, Vess won the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for best penciler/inker for his work on The Book of Ballads and Sagas (since published as a hardcover collection) as well as Sandman #75. In 1999, he received the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist for his work on Neil Gaiman’s Stardust .

He worked with Jeff Smith on Rose , the prequel to Smith’s Bone ; his collaborations with his friend Charles de Lint include the picture book A Circle of Cats and the illustrated novels Seven Wild Sisters and Medicine Road . His other work includes the illustrations for Emma Bull’s adaptation of the traditional English ballad “The Black Fox” in the anthology Firebirds , and the cover and decorations for Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest, The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm , and The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales.

His Web site address is www.greenmanpress.com.

“Island Lake” copyright © E. Catherine Tobler, 2010

“The Puma’s Daughter” copyright © Tanith Lee, 2010

“Map of Seventeen” copyright © Christopher Barzak, 2010

“The Selkie Speaks” copyright © Delia Sherman, 2010

“Bear’s Bride” copyright © Johanna Sinisalo, 1991; English translation by Liisa Rantalaiho, 2010. Originally published in Finnish as “Metsän Tutu” in Aikakone , No. 3, 1991.

“The Abominable Child’s Tale” copyright © Carol Emshwiller, 2010

“The Hikikomori ” copyright © Hiromi Goto, 2010

“The Comeuppance of Creegus Maxin” copyright © Gregory Frost, 2010

“Ganesha” copyright © Jeffrey Ford, 2010

“The Elephant’s Bride” copyright © Jane Yolen, 2010

“The Children of Cadmus” copyright © Ellen Kushner, 2010

“The White Doe Mourns Her Childhood,” “The White Doe’s Love Song,” “The White Doe Decides” copyright © Jeannine Hall Gailey, 2010

“Coyote and Valorosa” copyright © Terra L. Gearhart-Serna, 2010

“One Thin Dime” copyright © Stewart Moore, 2010

“The Monkey Bride” copyright © Midori Snyder, 2010

“ Pishaach ” copyright © Shweta Narayan, 2010

“The Salamander Fire” copyright © Marly Youmans, 2010

“The Margay’s Children” copyright © Richard Bowes, 2010

“Thimbleriggery and Fledglings” copyright © Steve Berman, 2010

“The Flock” copyright © Lucius Shepard, 2010

“The Children of the Shark God” copyright © Avicenna Development Corporation, 2010

“Rosina” copyright © Nan Fry, 2010

Therianthropy, referring to animal-human transformation, is a controversial term, employed by some mythic scholars and not others. Its origins have been variously dated to the sixteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

Boria Sax, The Serpent and the Swan: The Animal Bride in Folklore and Literature (Blacksburg, Va.: McDonald and Woodward, 1998.)

Translated by Liisa Rantalaiho