Irish Lore and Dunnit [selected and edited by] Irish Lore and Barnes & Noble FIRST First Edition Thus, First Printing. Published by Barnes & Noble Books, 1993. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is like new. Dust jacket is like new.Seller 520612 History We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
I picked this up for free somewhere, and was expecting it to be garbage, but honestly, it was surprisingly good. Lots of very archetypal-seeming folktales and fairy tales, and it gave me a bit more understanding of the role that the fairies and giants play in Irish lore. Caveat that I've never read any Irish mythology before, so I'm sure these stories are told much better somewhere else, but I felt that this was a good introduction to the genre. The world feels a little more enchanted now that I've read it.
I enjoyed this quite a bit, but I felt like these stories could have really used some context. There isn't anything to indicate why these particular tales were chosen, or what the history behind them might be, or why they're important, or...anything at all, really. I just feel like this collection really needed that. I think I'll look for something that goes a little more into the hows and whys and wheres of things.
I've read this off and on for the last year and finally finished it today. The tales are wonderful and I enjoyed most of them thoroughly. I love reading myths, legends, and the like and haven't read too many from Ireland, so it was really entertaining to me. I highly recommend this small selection of tales!
The stories are taken from different collections of Irish stories, so there is a great disparity in styles and quality. The well-told stories, like most anthologies, make up for the mediocre ones.