The more one knows fairy tales the less fantastical they appear; they can be vehicles of the grimmest realism, expressing hope against all the odds with gritted teeth.

There are a range of women not represented in the Western fairy tale tradition. Husband-beaters are particularly interesting, as well as male pederasts. Children are often told in The Arabian Nights, "This man likes to abduct boys, be careful of him." These issues are explored through the medium of the stories, but actually the architecture of the book is such that there are many examples of women who are loyal, brave, devoted - especially to their lovers.

The store of fairy tales, that blue chamber where stories lie waiting to be rediscovered, holds out the promise of just those creative enchantments, not only for its own characters caught in its own plotlines; it offers magical metamorphoses to the one who opens the door, who passes on what was found there, and to those who hear what the storyteller brings. The faculty of wonder, like curiosity can make things happen; it is time for wishful thinking to have its due.

One of the metaphors of the book is the carpet. Not just the flying carpet, but the carpet as a woven surface in which many repetitions and motifs recur and mirror one another. This is very much reflected within the stories: they have borders within borders, repeated motifs which change. They have their feet in oral conventions, and for the mnemonics, the storyteller needs to have a structure in order to remember the stories.

Wonder has no opposite; it springs up already doubled in itself, compounded of dread and desire at once, attraction and recoil, producing a thrill, the shudder of pleasure and of fear.

The female form provides the solution in which the essence itself is held; she is passio, and acted upon, the male is actio, the mover.

When I was young, I did actually model and was much photographed by famous photographers. But I was always a bookworm.