HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland

by W. B. Yeats (Editor)

Other authors: William Allingham (Contributor), William Carleton (Contributor), T. Crofton Croker (Contributor), Samuel Ferguson (Contributor), Gerald Joseph Griffin (Contributor)9 more, Douglas Hyde (Contributor), Patrick Kennedy (Contributor), Lady Wilde (Contributor), Samuel Lover (Contributor), Letitia Maclintock (Contributor), Standish O'Grady (Contributor), Kathleen Raine (Foreword), Mary Helen Thuente (Contributor), J. Todhunter (Contributor)

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,660145,437 (3.87)45
A collection of Irish fairy tales, with a concentration on the fairies themselves, including "The Stolen Child," "The Witches' Excursion," and "The Horned Women."
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 45 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 14 (next | show all)
A worthy collection of tales, short stories, snippets, and even a few poems covering all manner of magickal types from Ireland: Trooping Fairies and Solitary Fairies, Ghosts, Tir n'an Og, and Saints and Priests. Some are told in the Irish dialect, others in a more straightforward language, and all have a different flavor to them. They're not so much morality tales, unless the moral is "Do good unto the faeries, for they will know if you wish them ill. And by all the saints, keep your wits about you when you encounter them!" ( )
  threadnsong | Apr 9, 2022 |
The book is fine. It's all readings from their time. A great snap shot.

As someone who studies mythology as well as folk stories I can see the bulk of them were degrading the old religious beliefs and new church being elevated.

Not my cup of tea, but that's okay. It's stories as they were. ( )
  anthrosercher | Jul 11, 2021 |
Considering how many times I stalled while trying to read this book, I wasn’t sure that I was going to actually finish the whole thing, but I stuck it out and soldiered on, and I’m glad that I did. Yeats is obviously one of the foremost authorities and collectors of Irish folk and fairytales of the modern era, and did much in attempt to document a largely oral tradition, and I would say that his efforts paid off - even if some of the stories are a bit rough about the edges. Collected seemingly at random from personally conducted interviews and borrowed from other Irish writers of his time, Yeats groups these two collections of stories into rough groups based on the type of fairy or supernatural being they are about, ranging in topic from tales of the trouping fairies (the fairy courts, if you will) to stories in which the great Irish heroes battle the largest of supernatural beings: giants. I personally prefer the stories which Yeats retells himself, as some of the verbatim copied stories lack his writerly talents and the Irish jargon can be a bit much without a decent translator. Overall, a decent collection of tales, and a good addition to my traditional fairytale collection. ( )
  JaimieRiella | Feb 25, 2021 |
The works were all post-Christian. I was hoping for mythology but these were ghost and saint stories. ( )
  pmtracy | Dec 17, 2019 |
It’s certainly of very diverse authorship, more like a radio station or something if that sort, than an ordinary book.

Some of the stories seem very moral, like “Teig O’Kane and the Corpse”, which seem more true than any merely realistic story about working as a newspaper boy or whatever.

Occasionally they make me wonder about where the magic turns into something more like mental illness, like “The Breweey of Eggshells”. I suppose that most people wouldn’t bother to think in this way because most modern fantasy stories are pretty secular, you know. “I got a great job working for the wizard king: now I can go on vacation!” In other words, you’re in information technology. But some stories are more like getting delusional, especially if you can’t figure out what in the name of God and Mary the story is trying to say.

Maybe the question is whether the fairies are “the good people” exclusively, or, you know, the baby-snatchers, sometimes, too. A fairy who assigns you tasks to work off your bad deeds is clearly doing good. (Jack Lewis liked to say that Aslan was “not a tame lion”.) A fairy that steals your child and lies about it is not really good, however.

The one shaman type book I read so far that I liked, Harner’s “The Way of the Shaman”, talks about how some animal spirits are noble and so on— your typical lion king— but others look at you like food. So maybe that’s the issue at work here.

But as troubling as that can be, the farther you go from nature and reality, the further you go into addiction, I think. That’s ultimately more important, I think, than certain nebulous ideas of culture. “This video game reminds me of the peasants from County Cork who were my ancestors.” “The countryside around Vivec City is much nicer than this suburban nonsense.”

So.... I don’t know. Sometimes I just look at things and I say, “That’s very different from my experience.”

........................

But I liked the one about the priest.

...........................

It’s hard not to see the pagans as being like moral children: “Woman’s fraud, and Man’s force— O what marvelous power!”

........................

Some of them were very light; I feel if I were part of the culture they would be very entertaining. Not that they’re boring.

I used to think that people were stupid for just re-reading “Harry Potter”, you know.

.........................

Although the treatment given to the devil is beautiful.
  smallself | Feb 14, 2019 |
Showing 1-5 of 14 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review

» Add other authors (16 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Yeats, W. B.Editorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Allingham, WilliamContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Carleton, WilliamContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Croker, T. CroftonContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Ferguson, SamuelContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Griffin, Gerald JosephContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Hyde, DouglasContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Kennedy, PatrickContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Lady WildeContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Lover, SamuelContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Maclintock, LetitiaContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
O'Grady, StandishContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Raine, KathleenForewordsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Thuente, Mary HelenContributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Todhunter, J.Contributorsecondary authorall editionsconfirmed
Dadd, RichardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Froud, BrianCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lynch, P. J.Illustratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Philip, NeilEditorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Raine, KathleenForewordsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Ter-Avanesyan, DavidCover designersecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Thuente, Mary HelenContributorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

A collection of Irish fairy tales, with a concentration on the fairies themselves, including "The Stolen Child," "The Witches' Excursion," and "The Horned Women."

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Nobel Prize winning writer and poet W.B. Yeats included almost every sort of Irish folk in this marvelous compendium of fairy tales and songs that he collected and edited for publication in 1892.
-- Yeats was fascinated by Irish myths and folklore, and joined forces with the writers of the Irish Literary Revival. He studied Irish folk tales and chose to reintroduce the glory and significance of Ireland's past through this unique literature.
Haiku summary

Legacy Library: William Butler Yeats

William Butler Yeats has a Legacy Library. Legacy libraries are the personal libraries of famous readers, entered by LibraryThing members from the Legacy Libraries group.

See William Butler Yeats's legacy profile.

See William Butler Yeats's author page.

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.87)
0.5
1 2
1.5 1
2 5
2.5
3 44
3.5 13
4 70
4.5 2
5 44

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 202,659,258 books! | Top bar: Always visible