The perils of scoffing at the fairy world are … brought home hard to Thomas the blacksmith [in Thomas and the Warlock]. A story in the true Gaelic manner, this book is more impressive in some startling individual vignettes—there is a wonderful description of Thomas, with the aid of all the village boys and their watering-cans, fixing a hot iron rim to the smouldering wooden wheel of the warlock's carriage—than in its sum. For will children really believe—and does the author want them to—that through Thomas's power over iron and his true love for his wife not only was the sinister warlock Henry Gifford overwhelmed, but also all the witches and wizards in the whole of Scotland?

"Over the Dream Wall," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1967; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3404, May 25, 1967, p. 451.