Maggie O’Farrell

And it was really important to me to try and transpose as much of that atmosphere of those tales to this novel.

So in Irish mythology, the land itself is, it's like a character.

It has opinions.

It can change the direction of its human compatriots.

It can change.

The trees can speak.

It has opinions.

You know, it's actually a person that interacts in a say or it's a kind of it's a it's an entity that interacts with the plot.

And I really wanted that to come across in the novel.

And there are certain elements of the novel that are that lean heavily on Irish myth.

There's a fish in the novel, which is quite important.

I did at one point come, I write in a studio at the bottom of the garden and I did come up and I said to my children, I think my novel's going to have a talking fish in it.

I mean, they're teenagers now.

They were a little bit sceptical about that.

But the fish are very important in Irish mythology.

And there's a wolfhound in the novel called Bran and he's called after Finn McCool's dog.

It's a tricky balancing act, I think.

I think in order to create a scene in a cottage in 19th century Ireland on the West Coast, you have to know as much as you possibly can about it.

You've got to know what people are wearing.

You've got to know what the floor's made of, what the windows look like, what might be on the table.