Children’s book, enjoyed in ’60’s but probably from ’30’s or 40’s, possibly English. Included a story about young brother and sister in a churchyard (castle yard?), playing with a ball. The brother (possibly named Roland) went to retrieve the ball when it went over a fence, but forgot to go “widdershins” and was taken by a witch. The little girl goes in search of her brother. (It is possible the girl was taken and the boy went to save her, but I remember it as the girl.) Illustrated with sweet old-fashioned colored drawings.
The story “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” may be in the same collection, or may just have been in the same bookcase.
Well, the story is Childe Rowland, included in English Folk and Fairy Tales, by Joseph Jacobs. You may have read it in another collection, though.
That must be it, though the version I owned was very Bowdlerized, I guess.
Thank you!
I read a version of this that also had an early “feminist ” slant. The girl became a knight and looked for the boy and was set adventurous tasks. The boy was in thrall to the witch and became weaker and weaker. She had to rescue him. Pictures were from Pre-raphalite period in the book I read from an old Carnegie library collection.