Jedediah's father walked out of his life forty years ago. Now he's back. He won't apologise, he doesn't explain - and, impossibly, he hasn't aged a day.

If you asked the folks of Gyrford, they'd tell you Jedediah Smith looked up to his father. After all, Corbie Mackem was the Sarsen Shepherd: the man who saved the Smith clan from Ab, the terrifyingly well-meaning fey who blighted a whole generation with unwanted gifts.

Corbie was a good fairy-smith. And if he wasn't a good father, well, that isn't something Jedediah likes to talk about. Especially since no one knows where Corbie's body lies: the day of his son's wedding, forty-odd years ago, he set off to travel and was never seen again.

These days Jedediah is a respectable elder, more concerned with his wayward grandson John than with his long-buried past, and he has other problems on his mind. There's the preparations for Saint Clement's Day, and the odd fact that birds all over the county have taken to hiding themselves, and the misbehaviour of Left-Lop the pig - which has grown vegetation all over its back, escaped its farm and taken to making personal remarks at folks in alarmingly alliterative verse.

But then disaster strikes. Ab is back. And Corbie, thought long dead, returns to Gyrford - younger than his son . . .