Honestly, you don’t see a Bodach Glas every day. Or a Sidh, for that matter. Raven Dane’s latest, Bailfire and Brimstone, isn’t just another fantasy novel, it’s a grimy pilgrimage into an alternative 17th century where the monsters from Gaelic folklore feel as real and rotten as the people. Forget pristine elves and noble quests. This is the grimdark genre with its boots stuck in the peat bogs of Lothian, a hell-for-leather romp that’s less about chosen ones and more about a man, Munro, sculpted entirely from revenge.

Magic alters his face, but it can’t touch the darkness inside. And you know what? The atmosphere here, that thick Scottish mist of vengeance and dread, it just gets under your skin. It’s the main event. Sure, the plot sometimes marches like a straightforward odyssey south, but the character work, morally compromised, doesn’t even begin to cover it, and that relentless, pulsing fantasy noir vibe? They’ve got you. They hold your attention hostage. It’s a book that force-feeds you an uncomfortable narrative and makes you ask for seconds, even when the protagonist himself doesn’t always hit the spot. Go figure.

Grimdark Gaelic Folklore: A Review of Raven Dane’s ‘Bailfire and Brimstone’

After Raven Dane brought us a folklore-infused tale of the human condition last year in ‘Drwg Stones’, she has this time brought us (the easier to pronounce) ‘Bailfire and Brimstone’, which treads much the same subgenre but with a darker edge.

Set in the Lothian region of Scotland and Northumbria during the 1600s, Dane introduces us to Munro, a man (in a spoiler-free description) using magic to alter his appearance while making a pilgrimage south in the middle of a tumultuous alternative history; his life’s new purpose is an enactment of revenge against those who executed his mother, however when other grimmer and darker forces arise he finds himself needing to be a protagonist as opposed to an antagonist.

From the end of the prologue, the story is the sort which deserves Bruckner’s 9th Symphony bellowing out in the background as the grimdark genre explodes into a mercilessly rotten existence. A lot of the character work is where Dane shines here, making each as morally-compromised (to put it mildly) as possible. However, an effective array of monsters prostrate themselves before the reader too, from Bodach Glas to Sidh (Gaelic folklore, don’t you know!), and so while it never feels like it’s a tacky menagerie of foes there is a volley of both human and non-human entities for you to grind your teeth against.

Actually, how the plot is galvanised and pushed along feels more some 1950s hell-for-leather romp. A version of 1956’s X THE UNKNOWN perhaps, had Hammer Films replaced the hard sci-fi elements with the kind of zestful fantasy noir which squirms and wriggles and pulses and altogether refuses to stay totally within your grasp. Often, this atmosphere and character work manifest better than the actual plot, which on occasion falling into the trap of feeling like a straightforward Odyssey, however it wields the elongated climaxes and almost elaborate antipathy like a seamstress does a needle and thread.

Also, this is personally preference, but something about the character of Munro didn’t always hit the spot for me; however, I’ll just as quickly admit I don’t quite know why! In many ways, it felt like exactly my cup of yea: a lot of his nihilism, torment, and a general dark alluring.

Undoubtedly, I know many avid readers of the darker end of the fantasy spectrum who will eat him up. But this isn’t to say ‘Bailfire and Brimstone’ doesn’t fire on almost all of its cylinders almost all of the time; in fact, the narrative often has you under its thumb and Dane is likewise contorting your attention span just as she desires, through periods of energy and also slow-burning dread.

‘Bailfire and Brimstone’ is a brilliant and gritty read. Despite moments of slightly prosaic plotting and it not being the full-blooded page-turner you want it to be, it nevertheless grabs your attention and force-feeds you a dark and uncomfortable narrative. Yet the atmosphere and character work is reason enough to love this book, and while it might not appeal to those who want a brains-out dark fantasy romp it’s the perfect main course for anyone who loves a macabre monster or two, a richly loathsome POV, or wondered if the 17th century could get any grimmer.

Bailfire and Brimstone

Written by Raven Dane

A dark as pitch tale set in the reign of James Ist and the bloody hysteria over witchcraft. Terrifying folk horror from a Mistress of the art.

169pp. B-format paperback original novel.
ISBN: 978-1-84583-254-4
Published 31 October 2025

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