There is a place where the door is always open, where Old Oak keeps the years in his heart, and where an owl with spectacles reads aloud from the Great Book of All Things while the ivy waits, patiently, to be climbed. This is The Glen. Step through, and slow down for a while.

Where It Began

Tales of the Glen grew from a real garden — a wild, overgrown one, behind a flint vicarage in the south of England, where a child spent whole afternoons noticing things: the particular silence before rain, the way roots hold a hill together, the small dramas of moss and mouse-holes. That habit of noticing never left. It followed the author, Victoria Beata, to the Isle of Man, an island where folklore isn't kept in books but in the land itself — in the Manx Gaelic names for hills and streams, in stories passed down about giants and herring kings and a cat with no tail. The Glen is what happens when a childhood garden meets an island steeped in myth.

 

 

A Gentle Kind of Story

The Glen is the world you already know, looked at more closely: a rabbit family's burrow with a cosy rug on the floor, an owl's study with a stained-glass window, the sun himself, a little vain and enormously kind, letting his cloud-quilt slip as he settles in for the night. It's a gentle folk tale, a piece of comfort fiction, a work of nature writing dressed in fur and feathers — written for the adult reading aloud as much as the child listening.

Two books are out in the world now, finding readers across more than a dozen countries, with a third — and a good deal more of the Glen's mythology — still to come.

Why We Made This Shop

Everything here carries a piece of that world with it — official artwork drawn straight from the books and online media. Mouse in her floral dress, Rabbit in his travelling cloak, Old Oak standing where he's always stood, made into something you can hold, wear, or set on a shelf where you'll catch sight of it in passing. Every purchase helps keep The Glen growing — new stories being written, new illustrations being created, and the far-off hope of seeing these characters move and speak on screen one day.

The Heart of It

At its heart, the Glen is for something quieter than escape. It's the place people come back to when they want reminding how much delight lives in the smallest of things — steam rising off a mug, a hedgerow after rain, a story read slowly instead of rushed through. Readers often say it's given them back parts of themselves they'd lost track of: an imagination folded away and left in a drawer, a sense of wonder, a softer way of looking at an ordinary day. Many have found each other here too, in comment threads and shared favourite characters, a whole online community of Glenlings who understand exactly why a rabbit making soup can make a person cry a little. However someone arrives — through a book, a card, or something small worn close — what's waiting for them is a gentle place to land.

About the Author

Victoria Beata is the Isle of Man author and artist behind Tales of The Glen — a fine artist, illustrator, and creative producer with nearly forty years of practice behind her, trained in painting and drawing at Liverpool John Moores University. The Glen is where all of it comes together: the eye of a painter, the patience of a folklorist, and a lifelong belief that a story can be a place to rest.

Come In, Best Beloved

Have a look around. Take something small home with you. And if you find yourself back here often — well, that's rather the point.