As a Canadian folklorist and writer, Emily Urquhart has mastered the art of storytelling in her third and most recent book, Ordinary Wonder Tales. Published in late 2022, the book is a collection of essays that invigorates the imagination, warms the heart and fills the mind with melancholic wonder.
Published by the Windsor-based company Biblioasis, Ordinary Wonder Tales explores familiar themes in storytelling such as apparitions and plagues to understand their roles in our lives through history. The book mainly focuses on Western stories such as those from the Grimm brothers, but includes a small degree of influence from Japanese, Mesopotamian and eastern European myths.
The quick, 229-page read begins by redefining the term “fairy tale” into “wonder tale,” a term of Irish origin which, according to Urquhart, captures a sense of awe alongside the narrative.
The book explores the parallels between myths and the “ordinary” tales we tell stories about, including death, dementia and pregnancy. However, Urquhart’s writing makes these experiences seem more wonderful than ordinary.
Urquhart’s doctorate degree in folklore studies from Memorial University evidently informed her writing. While the essay genre usually has a dry, academic tone, Urquhart cleverly redefines it with her compelling storytelling abilities while maintaining the well-researched quality of the genre.
Although each essay describes a different story, they work together to deliver a sense of magical cohesion. The essay collection blurs the distinction between magic and reality with snippets into Urquhart’s personal life that she weaves into stories of chimeras, ghosts and demons.
The haunted quality of her stories will effortlessly pull a reader into the first few paragraphs, as Urquhart describes watching herself sleep as a baby with the eerie apparition of an “inky dark mass,” floating above.
When describing legends, Urquhart sometimes borrows elements such as settings and voices from her memories and she doesn’t shy away from admitting it. Her use of imagery creates a unique version of every legend she tells, where an ancient legend could easily take place in the painting on one of her decorative plates.
This isn’t a book just about the supernatural—it is also heavily based in reality. Her personal additions make the book feel intimate and heartbreaking, as Urquhart describes her experiences with violence, miscarriage and grief.
Chapters such as “Lessons for Female Success” are raw and incredibly real as Urquhart recounts her experiences of being robbed and assaulted. In the chapter, she switches between her memories and descriptions of ballads from 19th-century folklorist Francis James Child to create a unique form of prose.
Overall, the book is a wonderful option if readers want to feel grounded, be comforted and maybe even view their experiences in a new light.
The writer received a press copy of the book to review.
Featured image by Daria Maystruk.
