Old Children's' Book with Medieval Theme [S]

I can't offer a specific book, but "Bluebeard" often has depictions of women (or just their heads) hanging by their hair. I'll do a little search myself and see if I can find anything more specific.

ok I've reread your posts, I had assumed you were describing an anthology, not an entire single story, so it's probably not Bluebeard ^^; I'll still have a look around.

Does it look like any of Arthur Rackham's work?

This sounds really familiar, please notify me once it's found. Reminds me of Deltora Quest

I'm glad the Bluebeard suggestion ended up being helpful after all ^^;

This particular book is illustrated by Walter Crane, who illustrated quite a few children's books, from what I can tell, although I haven't found any in a landscape format, and most seem to be collections rather than a single story, though if your mil remembers buying it new, maybe it was some sort of reproduction?

I don't want to get stuck on Crane as I know there were quite a few artists in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and if it turns out to be a more modern book it could have just been someone emulating the style. Were the pictures in colour or just black and white outlines?

ETA re-reading this after morning brain.... duh of course there were a lot of artists in general then lol

what I meant to say was around that period is known as the golden age of illustration, and quite a lot of artists had a similar kind of style and were producing illustrations specifically for children's books, so there's a lot to work with.

According to him, no. He says the art style is a lot more simple than that. No shadows, solid colors.

Edit:
The art style would be closer to this:
www.ebay.com/itm/256409280874?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=DKg6EJviRH-&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=33rtsulxsbw&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY