The Night House

Bestselling author, artist, and word-witch Danielle Dulsky returns with a retelling of traditional fairy tales that invites readers to recognize the universal archetypes and transformative wisdom in these tales and to explore and enact the magick and rituals secreted inside

Danielle Dulsky is back with a transcendent and insightful retelling of traditional fairy tales, reconsidered for contemporary readers. Historically kept and transmitted by women, fairy tales are distinguishable from other types of folk tales for their magickal and supernatural elements, and because of this, they were often dismissed as trivial domestic fantasies for women and children. Dulsky illuminates how this chauvinism kept these stories safe from the witch-hunter’s noose and allowed women to safely store and transmit their ancient and sacred wisdom.

Each story is a treasure box of coded knowledge and magickal practice meant for new generations to uncover, open, and explore. The nine chapters of The Night House are then thirteen keys opening thirteen chambers of this box of shadows. Mythic images common to wonder stories emerge, Jungian universal archetypes arise, and “old ways” are made visible, revealing the call to continue the medicinal work of story keeping for the modern world. The underground forest, the rose behind the glass, the red cloak, the candy house . . . Dulsky shows how these mythic images can illuminate the “glamour spells” visible in Little Red Riding Hood or the ancestral protection rites evident in Cinderella, the story of the girl who rose from the ashes.

Dulsky’s fresh and relevant commentary is perfect for helping readers today reconnect with the Earth, ancestors, and their own spirit. The Night House shows how a single fairy tale is actually a grimoire in itself, a spell book of mysteries that has remained largely intact, preserved under the floorboards of the Yaga’s hut for the reader to find.