Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill
Genre: fantasy
I read it as a(n): pb
Length: 279 pp 
Her Grace’s rating: 5 out of 5 magic tasks

Jenny Greenteeth is a water fae of British folklore. As history would have it, she likes to eat people who wander too close to her pond. She is usually depicted as a hag-like creature with sharp teeth, green skin covered in algae and duckweed, and long tangled hair with water weeds in it. As with many myths, parents invoked her to keep their kids away from ponds and lakes, which was only smart advice. You don’t want your kids wandering off and drowning, naturally.

In O’Neill’s novel, though, Jenny Greenteeth is far more interesting than that. While she’s absolutely a character who will eat whatever or whomever gets chucked into her pond, Jenny is surprised when a village throws its iron-manacled witch into her pond. Instead of eating her – humans are an awfully big meal, after all – she decides to help the witch, Temperance, to get revenge against the pastor who has harmed her. He’s not really a pastor anyway, he’s the Erl King, a purely evil spirit who inhabited the villagers who tried to kill Temperance. Along the way, Temperance and Jenny find themselves on an epic quest to fulfill three magic tasks for the King of the Fae so that he will help them defeat the Erl King. Joining them is Brackus, a goblin merchant and Jenny’s oldest friend, though she would be loathe to admit it, and Cavall, the Fae Queen’s beloved hound and all-around Good Boi, as they travel by magic paths all across Britain in an effort to fulfill the tasks they’ve been set before the Erl King is too strong to be defeated at all.

I loved everything about this book! Jenny Greenteeth has long been one of my favorite bits of folklore ever since I first encountered her in Brian Froud’s Faeries. She has always seemed underused, never cast as the protagonist until now. O’Neill gives her that center and allows her to be a complex character. Jenny is gruff, hungry, territorial, and also fiercely devoted. Watching her navigate friendship and purpose is one of the novel’s greatest pleasures.

On the surface, this is an epic quest filled with impossible tasks and ancient magic. But it is really all about found family. A swamp hag and a human witch are not an obvious friendship pairing. Add a goblin merchant and a royal hound and you have the makings of chaos. What happens instead is something that is hard-won, and all the more beautiful for its imperfection. 

There’s also a great space in this story to think about empathy and inclusivity. Temperance’s persecution is rooted in religious zealotry and fear as well as the patriarchal obsession with control over women. Jenny herself exists on the margins of every society, human and fae alike. Their friendship challenges the systems that harmed them. O’Neill doesn’t preach, but she makes it clear that we create our own monsters through the stories we tell about them, and then we persecute them for it. It’s not fantastic.

Similarly, the book’s theme of perseverance and grit are always timely. Even heroes have bad days and none of these characters are heroes. They fail, they fight with each other, they doubt themselves, and they’re each participating in the quest mainly for their own self-interest. The only real hero is Cavall. He is, as I’ve mentioned, a Good Boi. 

This book goes some way toward filling the Neil-Gaiman-shaped hole in my heart, a balm that I was greatly in need of. I very happily recommend it.