Synopses & Reviews
Treasury of 64 tales invites readers into the shadowy, twilight world of Celtic myth and legend. Mischievous fairy people, murderous giants, priests, devils, and druids star in such stories as "The Soul Cages," "The Black Lamb," "The Horned Women," "The Phantom Isle," and more. Introduction, Notes by W. B. Yeats.
Synopsis
Treasury of 64 tales from the world of Celtic myth and legend: "The Soul Cages," "The Kildare Pooka," "King O'Toole and his Goose," more. Introduction, Notes by W. B. Yeats.
Synopsis
"Even a newspaper man, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for every one is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celts is a visionary without scratching." -- from the Introduction
In this charming collection, readers will find themselves transported to the shadowy, twilit world of Celtic myth and legend -- where the deenee shee (fairy people) work their mischief, where priests and the devil wage an endless struggle for the souls of humankind, where clever wives outwit murderous giants and druids cast geise (spells).
The majority of the tales presented here were collected in the nineteenth century by such folklorists as William Allingham, T. Crofton Croker, Douglas Hyde, and Lady Wilde (Oscar Wilde's mother). From this rich legacy, William Butler Yeats, who drew upon Irish fairy lore for his own poetry and plays, chose an especially interesting and representative selection: "The White Trout; A Legend of Cong," "The Brewery of Egg-shells," "The Soul Cages," "The Kildare Pooka," "The Black Lamb," "The Horned Women," "The Phantom Isle," "King O'Toole and his Goose," "The Demon Cat," "The Giant's Stairs," "The Twelve Wild Geese," and many more -- 64 in all.
Now lovers of myth and legend can immerse themselves in this treasury of time-honored tales brimming with the warmth, charm, and age-old peasant lore of rural Ireland. An Introduction and Notes by W. B. Yeats help elucidate the background of the stories and their meaning and role in Irish life and culture.
Table of Contents
THE TROOPING FAIRIES?
The Fairies
Frank Martin and the Fairies
The Priest's Supper
The Fairy Well of Lagnanay
Teig O'Kane and the Corpse
Paddy Corcoran's Wife
Cusheen Loo
The White Trout ; A Legend of Cong
The Fairy Thorn
The Legend of Knockgrafton
A Donegal Fairy
CHANGELINGS?
The Brewery of Egg-shells
The Fairy Nurse
Jamie Freel and the Young Lady
The Stolen Child
THE MERROW?
The Soul Cages
Flory Cantillon's Funeral
THE SOLITARY FAIRIES?
"The Lepracaun ; or, Fairy Shoemaker"
Master and Man
Far Darrig in Donegal
The Piper and the Puca
Daniel O'Rourke
The Kildare Pooka
How Thomas Connolly met the Banshee
A Lamentation for the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald
The Banshee of the MacCarthys
GHOSTS?
A Dream
Grace Connor
A Legend of Tyrone
The Black Lamb
The Radiant Boy
The Fate of Frank M'Kenna
"WITCHES, FAIRY DOCTORS-"
Bewitched Butter (Donegal)
A Queen's County Witch
The Witch Hare
Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)
The Horned Women
The Witches' Excursion
The Confessions of Tom Bourke
The Pudding Bewitched
TYEER-NA-N-OGE-
The Legend of O'Donoghue
Rent-Day
Loughleagh (Lake of Healing)
Hy-Brasail.-The Isle of the Blest.
The Phantom Isle
"SAINTS, PRIESTS-"
The Priest's Soul
The Priest of Coloony
The Story of the Little Bird
Conversion of King Laoghaire's Daughters
King O'Toole and his Goose
THE DEVIL-
The Demon Cat
The Long Spoon
The Countess Kathleen O'Shea
The Three Wishes
GIANTS-
The Giant's Stairs
A Legend of Knockmany
"KINGS, QUEENS, PRINCESSES, EARLS, ROBBERS-"
The Twelve Wild Geese
The Lazy Beauty and her Aunts
The Haughty Princess
The Enchantment of Gearoidh Iarla
Munachar and Manachar
Donald and his Neighbours
The Jackdaw
The Story of Conn-eda
NOTES