I'm glad I skipped Marina Warner's introduction and went back to read it to contextualize the stories once I finished, since I think it might've spoiled some of the charm to know the fairytale parallels or the intended social critiques. I still didn't spend much time reading some of the more obscure stories (and mostly skimmed the poetry, including the songs within the Kate Crackernuts play), but I enjoyed enough of the stories to merit somewhere around four stars for pretty prose, female-led fantastical adventures, and interesting retellings of some classic fairy tales. My favorites:
*The Fourth Pig: I

didn't see the WWII foresight that Warner mentioned in her introduction, but I

enjoyed the extended metaphor of the pig's fear of the wolf (with the pig as a sort of stand-in for humanity).
*Hansel and Gretel: Sadly realistic and not too similar to the story it gets its title from, but recognizable in a way other stories (and poems) weren't.
*The Snow Maiden: Maybe too sad, but not at all unrealistic

in its portrayal of a woman who gave up her passion for academics in order to fulfill an expected role as wife/mother

. Probably could use a trigger warning because

the protagonist ends up with the man who assaulted her

, but it's pretty clear that it's going to be a dark story about the limitations placed on women's lives so it's not exactly surprising.
*Soria Maria Castle: Up there with The Fourth Pig when it comes to lovely and kind of brutal nature-focused prose. A better witch than Hansel and Gretel, and I loved the descriptions of the transformations and the playful frame

of the sand castle

.
*Kate Crackernuts: I

didn't notice the Twelve Dancing Princesses frame that Warner pointed out in the introduction, but I could definitely see the Goblin Market parallels. I

liked the female-led adventuring and the foregrounding of sisterly love

, and I didn't really feel like the heterosexual happy endings undermined the female agency the way Warner somewhat implied (or at least the way I might have interpreted Warner's parallel to the Goblin Market with the caveat about Mitchison adding heterosexuality, had I read the intro before the story)

.
*Adventure in Debateable Land: Kind of reminded me of Shrek and The Phantom Tollbooth, but a little less accessible. Could be worth rereading with less skimming.
*The Little Mermaiden: One of the more recognizable fairy tale retellings, and probably the only way I'll ever be able to stomach the "original" little mermaid story

(with the walking-on-glass and the turning-to-seafoam elements)

. I liked the perspective she chose to tell the story from, and appreciated the appropriately monstrous mermaids.