Contains three short stories set before the first novel in the series.The first one is interesting because it explains how Cadfael came to join the monastery, although his reasons are only briefly explored. The other two are more like the usual detective stories, but I found the shorter length less satisfying. Each of the three is also available separately, and they are listed by Goodreads as 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 in the series, so if you have read those you won't need to read this volume as well,bor vice versa.