Beneath the grapevine his great-grandfather had planted, Thanos Aposperitis listened to the old shepherd’s stories and proverbs. Old Fotis, born in 1880, carried in his words the experience of a life on the land and the folk wisdom of earlier generations. Those remembered sayings inspire the 110 short stories in this collection. Set in the villages and countryside of an earlier Greece, they follow families and neighbours through quarrels and kindness, hard work and misjudgement, loss and consolation. Their people are imagined; their choices are familiar. A promise kept, a chance neglected, a hand offered at the right moment: each story gives an old saying a human face, and leaves the reader room to reflect.