Irish Folktales

This is an amazing collection of folk and fairy tales, featuring everything from historical figures and bog men to ghosts and the fae folk. There are sections for "Faith" ("Saints" and "The Priest and His People"), "Wit" ("The Wise and the Foolish," "Wits and Poets") and "Mystery" ("Death and Tokens," "Ghosts," "Away").

Each tale has been well-documented both as the teller, what County, and who collected it. Many of the collectors are well-known Irish folklorists, including Lady Gregory and Henry Glassie, and the tales range from the 1830's to the 1970's. I found it especially poignant to read the earliest ones or the ones recorded just in the early years of the Famine.

Another thing that kept me drawn into these tales is the dialect that show more is recorded, or at least the way of speaking. An example is from "Daniel Crowley and the Ghosts" from 1892 in Kerry:

"There lived a man in Cork whose name was Daniel Crowley. He was a coffinmaker by trade and had a deal of coffins laid by, so that his apprentice might sell them when himself was not at home."

There was also a Cinderella-like tale towards the end called "Fair, Brown, and Trembling" that features two older sisters who consign the youngest (and most beautiful) to be a scullery maid. They are the daughters of the King Aedh Curucha. When Trembling is aided by the henwife, she goes to the door of the church three different Sundays wearing three different gowns and riding three different horses. But the similarities are quite striking between the two tales. show less

As a basic guide to Irish folklore, you could do a lot worse than this. The introduction gives a nice overview of the history of folklore collection and its development from the early days of good old T Crofton Croker to the current folklore collection in UCD. Then a marvelous selection of stories big and small, from all over the country, from the many collectors and of many varieties. If you're reading this kind of thing, you have to make allowances for the repetitions that arise from oral telling which translates poorly to the written form, but enough of the stories come perfectly formed, whether through the work of the collector or the skill of the teller, to arouse nothing but respect and admiration. There's a long version of the show more the old King Of The Cats story that is perfect despite the familiarity. There is a flabbergasting epic about a wicked blacksmith who makes a deal with the devil that must have kept entire communities snowed in for months crowded eagerly round the storyteller to hear what happened next. A useful and enjoyable handbook. show less

I loved the stories, but I wanted more in the way of an explanation for most of them. Some were so strange that I wanted to know the significance. Why was this story included?
Overall, it is a great collection, though.

These stories are certainly not polished. Most are obviously written down directly from the oral telling, which may be part of its charm. However, it may also cause a reader to roll their eyes. I found some of the stories down right boring and others obsure. I give it 3 stars.

A fine collection of tales from the Emerald Islands. Not the best out there, but worth reading if you love Ireland or Fairy Tales.

1. Robust and funny, sorrowful and heroic, this collection of 125 lively tales tells the story of Ireland. Spanning the centuries from the first wars of the ancient Irish kings through the Celtic Renaissance of Yeats to our own time, they are set in cities, villages, fields and forests from the wild Gaelic western coast to the modern streets of Dublin and Belfast. Source: GoodReads
2. Here are 125 magnificent folktales collected from anthologies and journals published from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with tales of the ancient times and continuing through the arrival of the saints in Ireland in the fifth century, the periods of war and family, the Literary Revival championed by William Butler Yeats, and the show more contemporary era, these robust and funny, sorrowful and heroic stories of kings, ghosts, fairies, treasures, enchanted nature, and witchcraft are set in cities, villages, fields, and forests from the wild western coast to the modern streets of Dublin and Belfast. Source: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group eBook show less

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