For a hundred generations the badgers of Cilgwyn had lived as one with nature, digging their sets and reciting their ancient lays to their young amongst the bluebells and blackthorn flowers of their ancestral valley home – until a dying stranger limped into their midst. Bamber told of the coming of men to his own home, many miles away, men whose scent had inexplicably terrified him, men armed with rifles and poison gas, who had slain his beloved Dainty and were advancing yet, destroying without mercy any badger colony in their path…Cover art by Jill Clement.