With the arrival of Spring comes a fresh instalment of the Corncrake. Bursting with vitality, this issue offers the scintillating first part of Rogerhath & The Golden Axe by celebrated author Edward White a.k.a. Emperor Penguin. A tale inspired by English folklore and faerie tale, it delves into the dangerous power of dream and desire. Similar themes emerge in the second part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as translated by Jesse Weston, while Luke Gilfedder’s Roses of Shadow continues with its fourth chapter.

The beauty of the English landscape features throughout the artwork of Victorian painter David Cox, as it is in Christina Rossetti’s Spring and the next episode in The Wind in the Willows. An excerpt from James Thomson’s Seasons, an inspiration for artists like William Turner and John Constable, is complemented by a contribution from Philip Wortmann’s House of Noth, where myth and nature entangle one another. Finally, Nathan CJ Hood begins the first in a series of essays on The Lord of the Rings, diving into the pagan and Christian elements which constitute its core narrative.