‘Olga Ravn is a master and an alchemist. There's nobody else doing quite what she does' Samantha HarveyIt was a black night in the year 1620 when Christenze Krukow made the wax child, when she melted down beeswax and set it in the image of a small human. For days, she carried it tucked beneath her arm, shaping it with the warmth of her flesh, giving it life.

She fashioned for it eyes and ears that cannot open, and yet – it watches and listens. It looks on as Christenze is haunted by rumour, it hears what the people whisper. It sees how, in the...