'Lore of the Witch World' (223 pp) is DAW Book No. 400 / UE1634. It was published in September, 1980 and has cover art by Michael Whelan.
This is a compilation of novelettes and short stories Norton wrote from 1972 - 1972 and published in anthologies like the Flashing Swords series.
I won't give a synopsis of each entry in the compilation, save to say it includes 'Spider Silk', 'Sand Sister', 'Falcon Blood', 'Legacy from Sorn Fen', 'Sword of Unbelief', 'The Toads of Grimmerdale', and its sequel, 'Changeling'.
The women protagonists in these stories often are introverts and outcasts of one sort of another, and unsure about how to use their ESP gifts; plots usually hinge on a confrontation of some kind which forces the heroine to free her latent psychic powers in the face of grave peril.
Perhaps reflecting the fact that much of Norton's fiction primarily was intended for the Young Adult market, these confrontations are completely bloodless (any violence that takes place is either simply alluded to in a vague manner, or depicted off-screen). The contests between the protagonist and her enemies are waged psychically, and often are rather tedious.
The stories are well-written, although the reader will need to be prepared for sometimes stilted language (women are not impregnated, but 'Filled'; people are 'wrath-hot'; ESP is referred to as a Talent; etc.). To be fair, this was commonplace in fantasy writing during the 70s, and Norton was not the worst offender.
Summing up, while there is a note of mildness in these stories, they work well as examples of fantasy writing from a time when the genre was starting to gain momentum and move into styles more varied than the pastiches of sword-and-sorcery, or Tolkein, that were the mainstays of most published material. Fans of Norton's Witch World realm will want to have a copy of this book in their library.
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