The Ickabog by JK Rowling, first look review: a fun but lightweight fairy tale that lacks Harry Potter's magic

Fairy tales have a strong hold on J K Rowling’s imagination. Cormoran Strike, the hero of her detective novels, reveals in one of the books that he is named after a giant in an old Cornish tale, who was killed by Jack “of beanstalk fame”. Then in the Harry Potter saga there is The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the book of fairy stories that Dumbledore leaves to Hermione in his will, and which contains clues to how to defeat Voldemort.   

Clearly Rowling sees something valuable in the elemental moral lessons of fairy tales. And now she has written her own: The Ickabog, which she is publishing in daily instalments over the next few weeks, and which she describes as “a story about truth and the abuse of power.”   

The tale is set in the kingdom of Cornucopia, where a horrible monster called the Ickabog lives in the Marshlands at the country’s northernmost tip – parents tell their children that the Ickabog (rather than the bogeyman) will get them if they don’t behave. Everyone agrees that it’s a savage, murderous creature, but nobody quite seems to agree on what form it takes or how it attacks people.  

Chapter 2 ends with the ominous warning that “terrible troubles were about to engulf Cornucopia, all because of the myth of the Ickabog.” Note that it’s the myth, rather than the monster itself, that’s going to cause the troubles: it’s what people believe, rather than the reality, that will lead to mischief. What’s the betting that some unscrupulous journalist, a Cornucopian equivalent of Rita Skeeter from the Harry Potter books, will be fanning the flames of panic with fake news in later chapters?  

Rowling has stressed that The Ickabog was written many years ago and is not a satirical comment on current events, but there are uncanny parallels with the present. In the relationship between the nice-but-dim King of Cornucopia and Lady Eslanda, described by the king’s unscrupulous advisers as “far too serious and bookish for the country to love her as queen”, one sees echoes of those who moan that the Duchess of Sussex has transformed her husband from party animal to po-faced wokester.  

Rowling has said the story is intended to be read aloud, so I tried it out – apologies to my wife trying to work in the next room – and it does read nicely; “Ickabog” is certainly fun to say aloud.   

The arch narrative style, directly addressing the reader – “Think, if you please, of the most delicious cake or biscuit you have ever tasted” – is already getting a bit annoying; Rowling hasn’t found a register that acknowledges the traditional fairytale style without slipping into pastiche. But there is some sly humour to keep parents happy while reading to their children. (King Fred dubs himself “the Fearless”, “because he’d once managed to catch and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t count five footmen and the boot boy”.)

It’s a bit exposition-heavy so far, without the immersive pull of the opening chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. But I’ll be giving it a chance for a few more instalments at least.

Read the first two chapters at theickabog.com