Elven Task

About the Book

Lady Jenyth, Jane to herself and friends, can look back on an adventurous life that has carried her from kitchen maid to baroness in her own right. It is a secret that she replaces the original Jenyth, dead of the summer fever. Her new identity hides her from King Ulrich, who hunts her under threat. She has no idea why this is so, unless he knows of her task set by the elves to find Jessica, who may be a lost princess. But at the moment she is lying awake trying to avoid telling herself horror stories about her guardian’s arranged marriage for her. This turns out to be a justified dread, though her proposed husband, when he turns up, is himself a delightful companion. But the objections are appalling and difficult to overcome. And before Jenyth can get on with her Elven set search she she is ordered to the capital to be presented to King Ulrich himself. However, among all the palace hazards she does manage at last to find Jessica at last. After this, the story is of Jane’s growing up to competent maturity through many adventures. And of Jessica’s learning from the beginning how to be queen.

About the Author

Joan Dudley is a retired psychologist now in her late eighties. Her main preoccupation nowadays is with her five children, all in their sixties, which she finds disconcerting. This story was originally made for her eldest daughter Prue, in exchange for doing the homework while listening to it. But by the time it was decided to publish the book, all the rest had had so much input that it could only be a gift for them all. For Joan, it counts as the last of all the stories she made for them when they were children. For quite a long period, they had invented stories of their own at each bedtime. The appeal of these was that they were stories about themselves with suitably wild adventures. These are all long forgotten now, except for Joan’s lively memory of her discovery of the reality of writer’s block. Some writers regard this as some sailors regard seasickness—unnecessarily imaginary. But Joan declares that she was struck dumb in mid-sentence one evening and was quite unable to produce another word of fiction though she could take her part in the consequent argument. After that, they had real stories from proper books. Joan confesses to embarrassment about the quality of the illustrations. Most of them would never appear in any publication. But one for grown-up children may count as an exception perhaps. They were originally done for Prue to find before or after work for fun, but when Prue’s work grew too long and demanding for evening storytelling, the story became a written one, and Joan still enjoyed sketching for it. Joan now lives in her own small house in the back garden of her second daughter, Beth and son-in-law, Ian. Joan and Beth are going to Iceland before their winter gets too cold.