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Fairy & Folk Tales of Ireland
THE CLASSIC ONE-VOLUME INTRODUCTION TO IRELAND'S RICH FOLKLORE: WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS'S MAGICAL SELECTION OF TRADITIONAL IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES
Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland combines two books of Irish folklore collected and edited by William Butler Yeats -- Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, first published in 1888, and Irish Fairy Tales, published in 1892. In this delightful gathering of legend and song, the familiar characters of Irish myth come to life: the mercurial trooping fairies, as ready to make mischief as to do good; the solitary and industrious Lepracaun and his dissipated cousin, the Cluricaun; the fearsome Pooka, who lives among ruins and has "grown monstrous with much solitude"; and the Banshee, whose eerie wailing warns of death. More than an ambitious and successful effort to preserve the rich heritage of his native land, this volume confirms Yeats's conviction that imagination is the source of both life and art. As Benedict Kiely observes in his foreword, Yeats was seeking "not for the meaning of any mystery but for what he had already determined to find...a world of the imagination...a world that fed on dreaming and not on the painted toy of grey truth."
Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland combines two books of Irish folklore collected and edited by William Butler Yeats -- Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, first published in 1888, and Irish Fairy Tales, published in 1892. In this delightful gathering of legend and song, the familiar characters of Irish myth come to life: the mercurial trooping fairies, as ready to make mischief as to do good; the solitary and industrious Lepracaun and his dissipated cousin, the Cluricaun; the fearsome Pooka, who lives among ruins and has "grown monstrous with much solitude"; and the Banshee, whose eerie wailing warns of death. More than an ambitious and successful effort to preserve the rich heritage of his native land, this volume confirms Yeats's conviction that imagination is the source of both life and art. As Benedict Kiely observes in his foreword, Yeats was seeking "not for the meaning of any mystery but for what he had already determined to find...a world of the imagination...a world that fed on dreaming and not on the painted toy of grey truth."
408 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1888
About the author
W.B. Yeats
2,034 books2,610 followersWilliam Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored. Yeats is generally considered one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize; such works include The Tower (1928) and The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1929).
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
--from Wikipedia
Yeats was born and educated in Dublin but spent his childhood in County Sligo. He studied poetry in his youth, and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. Those topics feature in the first phase of his work, which lasted roughly until the turn of the century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and those slow paced and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as to the Pre-Raphaelite poets. From 1900, Yeats' poetry grew more physical and realistic. He largely renounced the transcendental beliefs of his youth, though he remained preoccupied with physical and spiritual masks, as well as with cyclical theories of life.
--from Wikipedia
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November 11, 2021
This surprised me – I was suspecting this to be very much like the Grimm or Calvino efforts. You know, lots of familiar fairy tales but told in a tippering way with a fetching Irish brogue. If you are after such then you’ll have to jump nearly to the very end of this collection. These stories would possibly come closer to ghost stories in a way. The relationship between the natural and supernatural is more dreamlike in these stories than in what I am used to in fairy tales. There is something much less comfortable about these – something much less supernatural about their fairies and even giants. There is a real sense that the non-human beings discussed are actually believed in, in much the way people today might believe in ghosts, and that changes the telling of the stories.
But really, to explain the difference between these fairy stories and your common or garden variety we really need a good metaphor. And to me it is like trying to tell someone who has only ever eaten apples the difference between apples and pears. Now, clearly they are from the same family of fruit, but no one who has eaten a pear would be likely to confuse it with an apple. There is a perfume or fragrance to pears that isn’t exactly sweet, and that is subtle, but not so subtle that it goes unnoticed. And pears are ephemeral in ways apples aren’t. Apples are either ripe or they are not - fit to eat or not fit to eat. Pears are totally different. There is a ripeness to them that means eating them today is never the same as deciding to leave them till tomorrow or what they would have been like if they had been eaten yesterday. Irish folktales are like pears. There is a real sense that hearing them today is simply not the same thing as it would have been when this book was first published. But there is still wafting about these the smell of a peat fire and the howl of the wind outside - a fragrance and flavour to them. That is, like pears again, a sense that there really was a perfect time and place to share these but even so that perfect time and place still lingers about these stories, in the very air of them.
Many of these tell of deeply troubling and truly horrible beliefs and (one can only assume) events. They tell of fairies coming to take away perfect children and of them replacing them with changelings, horrible gurney things. The solution being to put the changeling on the open fire or to ram a red-hot poker down its throat.
“Come away, O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
There are tales of magical priests and saints. There are also stories of Irish chieftains and even literal ghost stories. Of corpses that need dragged about the countryside for a place to bury them. And, this being Ireland, there are plenty of stories of men being redeemed from the evils of the drink.
Still, my favourite is The Soul Cages. I’ve a preference for stories where power (in this case, supernatural power) is outwitted by the clever and the patient. This one too is based around the horrible fact of sailors drowned at sea and then their lost souls desperately looking for any shelter only to be trapped in a kind of purgatory. But there are layers to this story – almost made explicit by the surface level of life on the land and the world undersea where quite different rules apply. And there are questions posed by this story that I've amused myself with since reading it. Coomara, a Merrow (a mermaid, but in this case, a male one) is portrayed as the fooled party by a man called Jack (not unlike Jack and the giant at the top of the beanstalk, in many ways). However, in this story I can’t help getting the feeling that Coomara wasn’t as unaware as he is made out to be and that, even if it makes no sense to the literal story, that he intended Jack to steal his treasure all along. And the fact that this ends with Coomara just disappearing one day never to be seen again and with Jack having become fond of him was also interesting. A very human story for that, I think. You know, the Irish aren’t normally as happy as all that about those who come from the sea.
“The sea, oh the sea is the gradh geal mo croide
Long may it stay between England and me
It's a sure guarantee that some hour we'll be free
Oh thank God we're surrounded by water.”
I think it is fair to say that the English don’t come out of all of this well. But then, as the world’s first negroes, the Irish were likely to get their own back in their dreams and dream-like stories, weren't they? Many of the stories of outwitting others are of outwitting the English or of outwitting their Irish representatives and frequently this is done with the help of Saints or Priests. The politics being clear and transparent in any case.
Like I said, I was really quite surprised by these – they were not at all what I was expecting, in fact, they were much more than I would have even hoped.
But really, to explain the difference between these fairy stories and your common or garden variety we really need a good metaphor. And to me it is like trying to tell someone who has only ever eaten apples the difference between apples and pears. Now, clearly they are from the same family of fruit, but no one who has eaten a pear would be likely to confuse it with an apple. There is a perfume or fragrance to pears that isn’t exactly sweet, and that is subtle, but not so subtle that it goes unnoticed. And pears are ephemeral in ways apples aren’t. Apples are either ripe or they are not - fit to eat or not fit to eat. Pears are totally different. There is a ripeness to them that means eating them today is never the same as deciding to leave them till tomorrow or what they would have been like if they had been eaten yesterday. Irish folktales are like pears. There is a real sense that hearing them today is simply not the same thing as it would have been when this book was first published. But there is still wafting about these the smell of a peat fire and the howl of the wind outside - a fragrance and flavour to them. That is, like pears again, a sense that there really was a perfect time and place to share these but even so that perfect time and place still lingers about these stories, in the very air of them.
Many of these tell of deeply troubling and truly horrible beliefs and (one can only assume) events. They tell of fairies coming to take away perfect children and of them replacing them with changelings, horrible gurney things. The solution being to put the changeling on the open fire or to ram a red-hot poker down its throat.
“Come away, O, human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
There are tales of magical priests and saints. There are also stories of Irish chieftains and even literal ghost stories. Of corpses that need dragged about the countryside for a place to bury them. And, this being Ireland, there are plenty of stories of men being redeemed from the evils of the drink.
Still, my favourite is The Soul Cages. I’ve a preference for stories where power (in this case, supernatural power) is outwitted by the clever and the patient. This one too is based around the horrible fact of sailors drowned at sea and then their lost souls desperately looking for any shelter only to be trapped in a kind of purgatory. But there are layers to this story – almost made explicit by the surface level of life on the land and the world undersea where quite different rules apply. And there are questions posed by this story that I've amused myself with since reading it. Coomara, a Merrow (a mermaid, but in this case, a male one) is portrayed as the fooled party by a man called Jack (not unlike Jack and the giant at the top of the beanstalk, in many ways). However, in this story I can’t help getting the feeling that Coomara wasn’t as unaware as he is made out to be and that, even if it makes no sense to the literal story, that he intended Jack to steal his treasure all along. And the fact that this ends with Coomara just disappearing one day never to be seen again and with Jack having become fond of him was also interesting. A very human story for that, I think. You know, the Irish aren’t normally as happy as all that about those who come from the sea.
“The sea, oh the sea is the gradh geal mo croide
Long may it stay between England and me
It's a sure guarantee that some hour we'll be free
Oh thank God we're surrounded by water.”
I think it is fair to say that the English don’t come out of all of this well. But then, as the world’s first negroes, the Irish were likely to get their own back in their dreams and dream-like stories, weren't they? Many of the stories of outwitting others are of outwitting the English or of outwitting their Irish representatives and frequently this is done with the help of Saints or Priests. The politics being clear and transparent in any case.
Like I said, I was really quite surprised by these – they were not at all what I was expecting, in fact, they were much more than I would have even hoped.
March 17, 2024
The fairy tales and folktales of Ireland have had a vast cultural influence throughout the world. It is all the more fortunate, therefore, that Ireland’s greatest poet, William Butler Yeats, undertook in the late 19th century to collect those tales and present them in an accessible and engaging format. Yeats’s Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland provides a splendid look at one of the great folkloric traditions of the world.
This edition, as published by the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster in 1998, is actually a bringing-together of two separate Yeats works, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1889) and Irish Fairy Tales (1891). In a helpful foreword, Benedict Kiely relates Yeats’s compilation of these tales to Yeats’s well-known affinity for mysticism generally, and relates this collection to a thematic question Yeats would ask “To the end of his days…what if the irrational should return?” (p. x). The return of the irrational here, of course, is not the grim worldwide breakdown of reason depicted in Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” but rather a pre-rationalistic worldview in which the supernatural is a routine part of everyday life – a variant of the irrational that some readers may find attractive.
Yeats is admirably thorough in setting forth not only the basics of different Irish folktale traditions, but also specific stories that somehow illustrate those traditions. When it comes to the well-known lore of the banshee, for example, Yeats provides a suitably scholarly definition – “The banshee (from ban [bean], a woman, and shee [sidhe], a fairy) is an attendant fairy that follows the old families, and none but them, and wails before a death. Many have seen her as she goes wailing and clapping her hands. The keen [caione], the funeral cry of the peasantry, is said to be an imitation of her cry. When more than one banshee is present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some holy or great one” (p. 99).
Yeats provides not only this helpful definition of the banshee, but also an authentic folktale of “How Thomas Connolly Met the Banshee,” rendered in the kind of phonetic English that was highly popular for writers in the 19th century. The frightened Mr. Connolly reports to us that the banshee’s face was “as pale as a corpse, an’ a most o’ freckles on it, like the freckles on a turkey’s egg; an’ the two eyes sewn in wid thread, from the terrible power o’ crying the’ had to do; an’ such a pair iv eyes as the’ wor…as blue as two foget-me-nots, an’ as cowld as the moon in a bog-hole of a frosty night, an’ a dead-an’-live look in them that sent a cowld shiver through the marra o’ me bones” (p. 101). Yeats is clearly enjoying the musicality of this Irishman’s language as he tells this story of terror; and if you find the phonetic misspellings not to be to your taste, just try reading it aloud. That musical quality of Thomas Connolly’s testimony does come through.
If someone’s always after your Lucky Charms, then you’ll be pleased to know that the leprechaun or Lepracaun gets his fair share of attention here. Yeats is happy to let us know that “The name Lepracaun…is from the Irish leith brog – i.e., the One-shoemaker, since he is generally seen working at a single shoe” – and that “The Lepracaun makes shoes continually, and has grown very rich. Many treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time, has he now for his own” (p. 75). Those treasure-crocks are about as close as we get to the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
And fans of the Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey (1950) – a whimsical tale of the Stewart character’s friendship with a six-foot-tall, invisible rabbit known as a “pooka” -- will no doubt enjoy reading Yeats’s chapter on “The Pooka, rectè Púca, [who] seems essentially an animal spirit” – a mischievous spirit who “has many shapes – is now a horse, now an ass, now a bull, now a goat, now an eagle” (p. 87). Not a rabbit in sight, I’m sorry to say.
Saint Patrick, that English-born lad who escaped from slavery in pre-Christian Ireland but then returned to Christianize the island, is here as well, in stories such as that of the conversion of the two young daughters of King Laoghair of Connaught. As Yeats tells it, the two girls, on their way to take their bath at a well in the Rath of Croghan, see Patrick and his priests there. “The young girls said to Patrick, ‘Whence are ye, and whence come ye?’ and Patrick answered, ‘It were better for you to confess to the true God than to inquire concerning our race’” (p. 202).
Patrick is not one for small talk, apparently.
The two girls do accept conversion and baptism, “and Patrick asked them would they live on or would they die and behold the face of Christ? They chose death, and died immediately, and were buried near the well Clebach” (p. 202). King Laoghair’s response to learning that his young daughters had responded to Patrick’s ministry by choosing to die is not recorded.
Yeats’s own preface to the 1891 publication of Irish Fairy Tales reveals much regarding the great poet’s own attitude toward these tales and their importance. Yeats, writing within the context of the modern age and all its industrialization and mechanization, acknowledges that “I am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe in fairies. People think that I am merely trying to bring back a little of the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats and tumblers of water, have driven away the goblin kingdom and made silent the feet of the little dancers” (p. 301).
But Yeats is having none of that. Citing the testimony of one “Old Biddy Hart,” a passionate believer in the fairies and all they represent, Yeats closes his preface by asking, “Do you think the Irish peasant would be so full of poetry if he had not his fairies? Do you think the peasant girls of Donegal, when they are going to service inland, would kneel down as they do and kiss the sea with their lips if both sea and land were not made lovable to them by beautiful legends and wild sad stories? Do you think the old men would take life so cheerily and mutter their proverb, ‘The lake is not burdened by its swan, the steed by its bridle, or a man by the soul that is in him,’ if the multitude of spirits were not near them?” (p. 303)
Yeats’s pride in these stories is rooted not only in the cultural richness of Irish storytelling traditions, but also in a mode of knowledge that resists the cold mechanistic impulses of the modern era. One who reads this volume of Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland in that spirit will find much to savor here.
This edition, as published by the Touchstone imprint of Simon & Schuster in 1998, is actually a bringing-together of two separate Yeats works, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1889) and Irish Fairy Tales (1891). In a helpful foreword, Benedict Kiely relates Yeats’s compilation of these tales to Yeats’s well-known affinity for mysticism generally, and relates this collection to a thematic question Yeats would ask “To the end of his days…what if the irrational should return?” (p. x). The return of the irrational here, of course, is not the grim worldwide breakdown of reason depicted in Yeats’s “The Second Coming,” but rather a pre-rationalistic worldview in which the supernatural is a routine part of everyday life – a variant of the irrational that some readers may find attractive.
Yeats is admirably thorough in setting forth not only the basics of different Irish folktale traditions, but also specific stories that somehow illustrate those traditions. When it comes to the well-known lore of the banshee, for example, Yeats provides a suitably scholarly definition – “The banshee (from ban [bean], a woman, and shee [sidhe], a fairy) is an attendant fairy that follows the old families, and none but them, and wails before a death. Many have seen her as she goes wailing and clapping her hands. The keen [caione], the funeral cry of the peasantry, is said to be an imitation of her cry. When more than one banshee is present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some holy or great one” (p. 99).
Yeats provides not only this helpful definition of the banshee, but also an authentic folktale of “How Thomas Connolly Met the Banshee,” rendered in the kind of phonetic English that was highly popular for writers in the 19th century. The frightened Mr. Connolly reports to us that the banshee’s face was “as pale as a corpse, an’ a most o’ freckles on it, like the freckles on a turkey’s egg; an’ the two eyes sewn in wid thread, from the terrible power o’ crying the’ had to do; an’ such a pair iv eyes as the’ wor…as blue as two foget-me-nots, an’ as cowld as the moon in a bog-hole of a frosty night, an’ a dead-an’-live look in them that sent a cowld shiver through the marra o’ me bones” (p. 101). Yeats is clearly enjoying the musicality of this Irishman’s language as he tells this story of terror; and if you find the phonetic misspellings not to be to your taste, just try reading it aloud. That musical quality of Thomas Connolly’s testimony does come through.
If someone’s always after your Lucky Charms, then you’ll be pleased to know that the leprechaun or Lepracaun gets his fair share of attention here. Yeats is happy to let us know that “The name Lepracaun…is from the Irish leith brog – i.e., the One-shoemaker, since he is generally seen working at a single shoe” – and that “The Lepracaun makes shoes continually, and has grown very rich. Many treasure-crocks, buried of old in war-time, has he now for his own” (p. 75). Those treasure-crocks are about as close as we get to the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
And fans of the Jimmy Stewart movie Harvey (1950) – a whimsical tale of the Stewart character’s friendship with a six-foot-tall, invisible rabbit known as a “pooka” -- will no doubt enjoy reading Yeats’s chapter on “The Pooka, rectè Púca, [who] seems essentially an animal spirit” – a mischievous spirit who “has many shapes – is now a horse, now an ass, now a bull, now a goat, now an eagle” (p. 87). Not a rabbit in sight, I’m sorry to say.
Saint Patrick, that English-born lad who escaped from slavery in pre-Christian Ireland but then returned to Christianize the island, is here as well, in stories such as that of the conversion of the two young daughters of King Laoghair of Connaught. As Yeats tells it, the two girls, on their way to take their bath at a well in the Rath of Croghan, see Patrick and his priests there. “The young girls said to Patrick, ‘Whence are ye, and whence come ye?’ and Patrick answered, ‘It were better for you to confess to the true God than to inquire concerning our race’” (p. 202).
Patrick is not one for small talk, apparently.
The two girls do accept conversion and baptism, “and Patrick asked them would they live on or would they die and behold the face of Christ? They chose death, and died immediately, and were buried near the well Clebach” (p. 202). King Laoghair’s response to learning that his young daughters had responded to Patrick’s ministry by choosing to die is not recorded.
Yeats’s own preface to the 1891 publication of Irish Fairy Tales reveals much regarding the great poet’s own attitude toward these tales and their importance. Yeats, writing within the context of the modern age and all its industrialization and mechanization, acknowledges that “I am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe in fairies. People think that I am merely trying to bring back a little of the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats and tumblers of water, have driven away the goblin kingdom and made silent the feet of the little dancers” (p. 301).
But Yeats is having none of that. Citing the testimony of one “Old Biddy Hart,” a passionate believer in the fairies and all they represent, Yeats closes his preface by asking, “Do you think the Irish peasant would be so full of poetry if he had not his fairies? Do you think the peasant girls of Donegal, when they are going to service inland, would kneel down as they do and kiss the sea with their lips if both sea and land were not made lovable to them by beautiful legends and wild sad stories? Do you think the old men would take life so cheerily and mutter their proverb, ‘The lake is not burdened by its swan, the steed by its bridle, or a man by the soul that is in him,’ if the multitude of spirits were not near them?” (p. 303)
Yeats’s pride in these stories is rooted not only in the cultural richness of Irish storytelling traditions, but also in a mode of knowledge that resists the cold mechanistic impulses of the modern era. One who reads this volume of Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland in that spirit will find much to savor here.
November 29, 2024
This is a rather lovely collection of folk tales and fairy stories, put together by W.B. Yeats. It’s organised into chapters by subject; we get chapters focusing on stories about giants, witches, banshees, etc. and even a slightly bizarre chapter on jackdaws of all things.
Don’t make the mistake I did in thinking Yeats actually wrote these (I know, I should read the book description and not just buy the book because of the author’s name on the cover). Yeats does pen introductions to most of the chapters, writes some footnotes, contributes a couple of poems and translates some of the stories from the original Irish but the vast majority of the content of this book is folklore passed down through the generations, usually by word of mouth.
The only reason I’m not giving this five stars is because some of the tales are quite samey, probably because they’re variations of a common root story. Despite this, this is a great read if you’re interested in folklore.
Don’t make the mistake I did in thinking Yeats actually wrote these (I know, I should read the book description and not just buy the book because of the author’s name on the cover). Yeats does pen introductions to most of the chapters, writes some footnotes, contributes a couple of poems and translates some of the stories from the original Irish but the vast majority of the content of this book is folklore passed down through the generations, usually by word of mouth.
The only reason I’m not giving this five stars is because some of the tales are quite samey, probably because they’re variations of a common root story. Despite this, this is a great read if you’re interested in folklore.
December 6, 2024
4.25 ⭐️ (round ⬇️) — Witches, Giants & Banshees.. Oh my! This was a delightful read that I really enjoyed reading in very small 5-10 page bites, across the weeks since August. This serial reading I think really help make the lose all the more elegant, impactful & helped it stay with me as often I’d read this pages before getting out of the car at work, meaning the magical wonder of fairies & folklore was permeating my consciousness throughout the day, lingering, adapting and often finally clicking in many cases where I’d thought I’d never quite crack the allegorical message or the sentiment being expressed.
As a collection, Irish Fairy and Folk Tales is a masterful ode to the oral traditions of Ireland. This book is not just a series of stories—it’s an echo of a culture steeped in myth, magic, and a kind of wistful melancholy that lingers long after you turn the final page. While uneven in places (some tales feel more like fragments than fully realized narratives), the raw, uninhibited beauty of the prose & visceral sense of Ireland’s folklore make this a treasure worth savouring, with marginalia-a-plenty a must for an intoxicant lien moi!
What struck me most is how these tales influenced literary giants like W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and even contemporary writers. The storytelling tradition captured here forms the backbone of so much Irish literature, intertwining nature, history, and the supernatural. In “The Brewery of Eggshells,” the line between the ordinary and the magical is paper-thin. The prose crackles with life: “‘You have done what I bid you,’ said the wise woman. ‘And now you have proved that you were right to doubt. Your child is gone, stolen by the fairies.’” That quiet devastation feels timeless, a reminder of how folklore reflects human fears and resilience.
The poetry interspersed throughout also deserves praise. Lines like these from “The Fairy Host” struck me: “But the mystery and the gloom have fled from the woods and the streams; / The music is low in the glens, and faint in the mountain dreams.” It’s this tension between beauty and loss that gives these tales their enduring power.
My one quibble lies in the lack of consistency; some entries feel overly cryptic or underdeveloped. Still, there’s magic here—layered, ancient & endlessly evocative. For anyone who wants to hear the heartbeat of Irish myth, this is a book to cherish. You may find yourself reading it aloud, as it was surely meant to be shared.
Reading this has only strengthened my desire to visit Ireland and Northern Ireland someday. I dream of wandering the lush, green countryside, soaking in the misty fog of Belfast’s historic shipyards, steeped in lore and industry. This book captures the soul of a land I long to see—and you might, too.
As a collection, Irish Fairy and Folk Tales is a masterful ode to the oral traditions of Ireland. This book is not just a series of stories—it’s an echo of a culture steeped in myth, magic, and a kind of wistful melancholy that lingers long after you turn the final page. While uneven in places (some tales feel more like fragments than fully realized narratives), the raw, uninhibited beauty of the prose & visceral sense of Ireland’s folklore make this a treasure worth savouring, with marginalia-a-plenty a must for an intoxicant lien moi!
What struck me most is how these tales influenced literary giants like W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, and even contemporary writers. The storytelling tradition captured here forms the backbone of so much Irish literature, intertwining nature, history, and the supernatural. In “The Brewery of Eggshells,” the line between the ordinary and the magical is paper-thin. The prose crackles with life: “‘You have done what I bid you,’ said the wise woman. ‘And now you have proved that you were right to doubt. Your child is gone, stolen by the fairies.’” That quiet devastation feels timeless, a reminder of how folklore reflects human fears and resilience.
The poetry interspersed throughout also deserves praise. Lines like these from “The Fairy Host” struck me: “But the mystery and the gloom have fled from the woods and the streams; / The music is low in the glens, and faint in the mountain dreams.” It’s this tension between beauty and loss that gives these tales their enduring power.
My one quibble lies in the lack of consistency; some entries feel overly cryptic or underdeveloped. Still, there’s magic here—layered, ancient & endlessly evocative. For anyone who wants to hear the heartbeat of Irish myth, this is a book to cherish. You may find yourself reading it aloud, as it was surely meant to be shared.
Reading this has only strengthened my desire to visit Ireland and Northern Ireland someday. I dream of wandering the lush, green countryside, soaking in the misty fog of Belfast’s historic shipyards, steeped in lore and industry. This book captures the soul of a land I long to see—and you might, too.
July 20, 2016
سلسلة مثيرة للاهتمام
كتاب متميز جدا جدا لكل من يهتم بالقصص الشعبية و حكايات الجنيات
that was a good read :)
كتاب متميز جدا جدا لكل من يهتم بالقصص الشعبية و حكايات الجنيات
that was a good read :)
May 22, 2022
"وما الحكاية إلا تلفيقات عجائز خرافية لتسلية الأطفال الرضع "
رغم خوفي من الجن ، واعترف بأن هذه القصص أثارت قلقي قليلاً قبل النوم لكن هذا لم يقلل من متعتها
رغم خوفي من الجن ، واعترف بأن هذه القصص أثارت قلقي قليلاً قبل النوم لكن هذا لم يقلل من متعتها
February 11, 2018
If you think the Grimm brothers were macabre, wait till you get a load at these clever tales.
July 17, 2018
Excellent collection of the various folk lore of Ireland.
Yeats divides up the various types of folk tales from fairies (changlings, merrow, solitary fairies like the lepracaun, the pooka and banshee), to ghosts and also witches and fairy doctors.
He also has a collection of stories about saints, priests, the devil, giants and the royal leaders and the fairy tales about them. My personal favorite is the Twelve Wild Geese, which is a variation of the Twelve Swan Brothers with the same plot. The one sister has to make jackets out of nettles for her brothers and cannot speak until they are all made.
All the stories are embued with irrepressible Irish wit and humor and also gives the reader not only the delight of becoming absorbed by ancient fantasy but gain a deeper insight into the culture and mores of one of the oldest surviving cultures dating back to Greek and Roman times.
Yeats divides up the various types of folk tales from fairies (changlings, merrow, solitary fairies like the lepracaun, the pooka and banshee), to ghosts and also witches and fairy doctors.
He also has a collection of stories about saints, priests, the devil, giants and the royal leaders and the fairy tales about them. My personal favorite is the Twelve Wild Geese, which is a variation of the Twelve Swan Brothers with the same plot. The one sister has to make jackets out of nettles for her brothers and cannot speak until they are all made.
All the stories are embued with irrepressible Irish wit and humor and also gives the reader not only the delight of becoming absorbed by ancient fantasy but gain a deeper insight into the culture and mores of one of the oldest surviving cultures dating back to Greek and Roman times.
January 26, 2024
Jedna jedina bajka ovdje nije imala smisao ili pouku! Ili sam ja navikla na naše bajke u kojima uvijek nešto naučiš ili sam prosto očekivala više, uglavnom, 2⭐️!
March 29, 2023
Великолепная антология, один из лучших сборников сказок, что я вообще помню. В переводе Шаши, когда тот выйдет, она и на русском станет классической драгоценностью, сами убедитесь. Там всякий текст, что прозаический, что поэтический, играет своими особыми красками, блещет гранями, а в целом от книги - ощущение ларца с сокровищами, каким его обычно рисуют. Все они блестят и радуют при том. Шедевр. (Удивительно, что на русском его целиком никогда не существовало.)
May 26, 2015
Questo libro racchiude la migliore tradizione fiabesca irlandese, tra fate, folletti, streghe, sirene e giganti, raccolti dal grande poeta in due volumi, che qui si trovano in edizione integrale. Molto interessante e piacevole nella lettura anche perchè la maggior parte dei racconti sono corti. Per chi ama l'Irlanda e la cultura Irish è il libro ideale!
March 2, 2017
TO SOME I HAVE TALKED WITH BY THE FIRE
"WHILE I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
…
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet."
They’re prevalent in the Irish poetry and music; I mean, the ghosts and the fairies [“SHEEHOGUE”]; those “fallen angels who were not good enough to be saved”, wrote Yeats in the introduction. Even the baroque, German musician Haendel adopted, for some of his oratorios, some of these Celtic legends.
Though he had part of his childhood (15 years) in the company of his father (a painter) in London, Yeats was an expert in the fairy tales this book is a collection of. Maybe due to the influence of his mother’s stories; one who raised him in Sligo, Ireland, as if intermittently.
His Celtic vein would never cease to appear in his later literary production. “A Celt is a visionary without scratching”.
March 12, 2023
Удивительный многогранный опыт восприятия (трип, я бы даже сказала) того, как воспринимали ирландскую фольклорную ткань те, кто в XIX веке ее, в свою очередь, высматривал в толще еще более предыдущего времени. Такая тройная призма — переживание редкое, и переводчик, возясь с такими текстами, конечно, чувствует себя разом в нескольких параллельных реальностях. Ирландцев я напереводила в ненулевом количестве, но тут в отличие от Стивенза, например, голосов много, они разные совершенно во всём, и от этого получается не сокровенный тет-а-тет с пространством ума одного конкретного автора, а ченнелинг целого камерного хора.
January 27, 2011
A rich collection of beguiling tales of encounters between Irish peasant-folk and the Daoine Sidhe, the Fairy People, or “fallen angels who are not good enough to be saved, nor bad enough to be lost” as quoted by Yeats in his commentary. Here you will find merrows, changelings, leprechauns, the Banshee, the Pukka, Tir na Nog…..
The stories have been translated or transcribed, quite beautifully, from authentic oral sources by Gaelic specialists who have an imaginative sympathy with this world of mischievous spirits, who are sometimes spiteful but rarely truly malevolent. Some of the contributions are superb – the macabre story of Teig O’Kane and the Corpse could easily claim to be one of the best short stories ever created.
This isn’t a book to be read from cover to cover, but one or two stories each night at bedtime might just give you pleasantly unsettled dreams.
The stories have been translated or transcribed, quite beautifully, from authentic oral sources by Gaelic specialists who have an imaginative sympathy with this world of mischievous spirits, who are sometimes spiteful but rarely truly malevolent. Some of the contributions are superb – the macabre story of Teig O’Kane and the Corpse could easily claim to be one of the best short stories ever created.
This isn’t a book to be read from cover to cover, but one or two stories each night at bedtime might just give you pleasantly unsettled dreams.
October 24, 2008
I love how creepy and morbid so much of this stuff is. Mermen who keep people's souls in cages under the sea? Yes please! Heroic priests! Drunken escapades! Witches and swans! And the most sadistic fairies you'll ever know!
January 6, 2012
This collection of Irish lore by Nobel laureate W. B. Yeats is extremely thorough. What most intrigues me about folk and fairy tales is their role as modern-day fables, offering advice about life and how to live it. Great for people interested in the nuances of Irish culture.
June 18, 2022
4,5 stars - English hardcover
These folk-tales are full of simplicity and musical occurrences, for they are the literature of a class...who have steeped everything in the heart: to whom everything is a symbol."
--William Butler Yeats--
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult.
Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past.
These writings helped secure for Yeats recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. Originally published in two separate books near the end of the nineteenth century, these tales have preserved a rich and charming heritage in a charmingly authentic Irish voice.
In this volume, extraordinary characters of Irish myth are brought to life through the brilliant poetic voice of W.B. Yeats. These legendary stories of capricious Trooping Fairies, the frightful Banshee, Kings and Queens, Giants, Devils and the ever popular Leprechaun will delight and entertain readers of all ages.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.........
A must have for any library collection whether for pure curiosity or for getting insight, a sense/feel of the ancestral home to be found in these stories, from which some of our forbearers traveled. There is a deep current of history flowing through the tales of these pages.
These folk-tales are full of simplicity and musical occurrences, for they are the literature of a class...who have steeped everything in the heart: to whom everything is a symbol."
--William Butler Yeats--
Born and educated in Dublin, Ireland, William Butler Yeats discovered early in his literary career a fascination with Irish folklore and the occult.
Later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past.
These writings helped secure for Yeats recognition as a leading proponent of Irish nationalism and Irish cultural independence. Originally published in two separate books near the end of the nineteenth century, these tales have preserved a rich and charming heritage in a charmingly authentic Irish voice.
In this volume, extraordinary characters of Irish myth are brought to life through the brilliant poetic voice of W.B. Yeats. These legendary stories of capricious Trooping Fairies, the frightful Banshee, Kings and Queens, Giants, Devils and the ever popular Leprechaun will delight and entertain readers of all ages.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.........
A must have for any library collection whether for pure curiosity or for getting insight, a sense/feel of the ancestral home to be found in these stories, from which some of our forbearers traveled. There is a deep current of history flowing through the tales of these pages.
September 4, 2014
دعنا نبدأ بما أزعجني أولًا -_-
حينما تجد المترجم يورد في أحدى هوامش المقدمة أن هذا الكتاب يعد مختصرًا لتلك الحكايا بسبب شدة طولها ، فهذا أعزجني كثيرًا ..أعني إن لم يكن مشروع مثل مشروع "كلمة " هو من سيقدم الترجمة الكاملة لهذه النصوص..فمن الذي سيترجمها كاملة يومًا ما XD
،
علي أيًا هذا لم يكن ليزعجني لولا أنني وبحق وجدت أن جنيات لاجيني أفضل بمراحل ومراحل ومراحل -لا حاجة لإكررها للمرة الرابعة - من الكتاب السابق الذي قرأته في تلك السلسلة " شجرة الكرز"
..
في الريفيو الخاص بشجرة الكرز المقدسة قلت أنني لن أتذكر شيء حينما يمر 4 أيام - وقد كان لقد نسيت أمرها تمامًا - أما مع " جنيات لاجناني" فأعتقد أنني لن أنساها لفترة طويلة.
..
حسنًا ضع نفسك مكاني..أنا لم اقرأ حكايات عن الجن بمثل هذه البراعة والجودة وهذا القدر من الامتاع والإلهام..
..
الكتاب يضم 21 قصة وترنيمة تتراوح مستواياتها بين الجيد جدًا والممتاز..
,,
هناك 9 قصص حازوا على إعجابي أكثر من أي شيء أخر.
1- تيجوكان والجثة
2- الأطفال المستبدلون
3- جيمي فريل والسيدة الشابة
4- أقفاص الروح
5- جنازة فلوري كانتليون
6- الرجل والسيد " قصة بيلي ماك دانيال"
7- فاردارنج في دونجال .. الآن لديك قصة رائعة لترويها
8- الجن المحتشدون
9- فرانك مارتن والجن
..
قصص ملهمة :3 :3
حينما تجد المترجم يورد في أحدى هوامش المقدمة أن هذا الكتاب يعد مختصرًا لتلك الحكايا بسبب شدة طولها ، فهذا أعزجني كثيرًا ..أعني إن لم يكن مشروع مثل مشروع "كلمة " هو من سيقدم الترجمة الكاملة لهذه النصوص..فمن الذي سيترجمها كاملة يومًا ما XD
،
علي أيًا هذا لم يكن ليزعجني لولا أنني وبحق وجدت أن جنيات لاجيني أفضل بمراحل ومراحل ومراحل -لا حاجة لإكررها للمرة الرابعة - من الكتاب السابق الذي قرأته في تلك السلسلة " شجرة الكرز"
..
في الريفيو الخاص بشجرة الكرز المقدسة قلت أنني لن أتذكر شيء حينما يمر 4 أيام - وقد كان لقد نسيت أمرها تمامًا - أما مع " جنيات لاجناني" فأعتقد أنني لن أنساها لفترة طويلة.
..
حسنًا ضع نفسك مكاني..أنا لم اقرأ حكايات عن الجن بمثل هذه البراعة والجودة وهذا القدر من الامتاع والإلهام..
..
الكتاب يضم 21 قصة وترنيمة تتراوح مستواياتها بين الجيد جدًا والممتاز..
,,
هناك 9 قصص حازوا على إعجابي أكثر من أي شيء أخر.
1- تيجوكان والجثة
2- الأطفال المستبدلون
3- جيمي فريل والسيدة الشابة
4- أقفاص الروح
5- جنازة فلوري كانتليون
6- الرجل والسيد " قصة بيلي ماك دانيال"
7- فاردارنج في دونجال .. الآن لديك قصة رائعة لترويها
8- الجن المحتشدون
9- فرانك مارتن والجن
..
قصص ملهمة :3 :3
March 23, 2020
Not what I expected. Many of the stories are legends with no moral and some are completely opaque. Sometimes it was fun, other times dull, but almost always interesting in some way.
My favorite was "The Soul Cages" in which a man meets a merman and learns that he's been keeping the souls of drowned sailors in jars in his home under the sea. The man tricks the merman into getting drunk on poitín and then sneaks into his house to free the souls. There is a German version of this story collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Another story that I found kind of beautiful was "The Story of the Little Bird" in which a monk is lured away from the monastery by the beautiful song of a bird and when he returns at dusk he learns that 200 years have passed and he immediately dies.
My favorite was "The Soul Cages" in which a man meets a merman and learns that he's been keeping the souls of drowned sailors in jars in his home under the sea. The man tricks the merman into getting drunk on poitín and then sneaks into his house to free the souls. There is a German version of this story collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Another story that I found kind of beautiful was "The Story of the Little Bird" in which a monk is lured away from the monastery by the beautiful song of a bird and when he returns at dusk he learns that 200 years have passed and he immediately dies.
October 24, 2019
I read this collection on a holiday in Ireland and the tales completely matched Ireland's mystical, mysty landscapes. Highlight of which was camping in a field of a farmer, who told us not to get too close to the middle, so as not to disturb the fairy fort.
I loved the stories in the beginning, but towards the end begun to grow tired of some of them. Didn't like most of the witches' tales, because of the superstituous/Christian morale.
Some of the tales are written in dialect, which makes for a challenging, albeit fun, read.
I loved the stories in the beginning, but towards the end begun to grow tired of some of them. Didn't like most of the witches' tales, because of the superstituous/Christian morale.
Some of the tales are written in dialect, which makes for a challenging, albeit fun, read.
December 3, 2025
What can I say about a collection of stories passed down through the ages?
Instead I shall comment on the book design.
This cover is absolutely gorgeous in a rich kelly green leather-bound celtic scroll and title. in gold leaf, with gold edged pages, and spankingly attractive end papers. This picture really doesn't do it justice.
Instead I shall comment on the book design.
This cover is absolutely gorgeous in a rich kelly green leather-bound celtic scroll and title. in gold leaf, with gold edged pages, and spankingly attractive end papers. This picture really doesn't do it justice.
June 16, 2013
Ottima raccolta di racconti popolari, divisa per sezioni dedicate ai protagonisti (dal piccolo popolo ai giganti) e con grande varietà
May 23, 2026
Fairies in authentic Irish folklore
I need to bone up on Irish folklore for a thing I'm working on. When I saw W.B. Yeats's name on this collection, it seemed an obvious choice. Alas, it was a less good choice than I thought, because very little of the contents were written by Yeats. It's a compilation of stories and a few poems by other Irish authors. Yeats himself supplied an Introduction and two poems, as well as short introductions to each of the main sections.
The stories are different from the Irish folklore I was most familiar with. The stories I know best are what might be called the Epic Irish stories: stories of the Fianna and what I might call the High Fae, like Niamh and the Tuatha Dé Danann. There is very little of that -- one story of Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn.
Aside from that, the stories are mostly of the sidhe, the little people of the hills, the good people or the gentry. They are the kind of fairies spoken of in the famous song "The Fairies," by William Allngham
These stories struck me as (and probably are) more authentic Irish folklore than the epics, which come to us distorted by the Christian priests who wrote them down.
Some of the stories are entertaining -- some are not. Many are tedious Shaggy Dog Stories that go on and on and never arrive anywhere. (That's the joke -- these are stories that make fun of the reader.)
Blog review.
I need to bone up on Irish folklore for a thing I'm working on. When I saw W.B. Yeats's name on this collection, it seemed an obvious choice. Alas, it was a less good choice than I thought, because very little of the contents were written by Yeats. It's a compilation of stories and a few poems by other Irish authors. Yeats himself supplied an Introduction and two poems, as well as short introductions to each of the main sections.
The stories are different from the Irish folklore I was most familiar with. The stories I know best are what might be called the Epic Irish stories: stories of the Fianna and what I might call the High Fae, like Niamh and the Tuatha Dé Danann. There is very little of that -- one story of Fionn mac Cumhaill and Cú Chulainn.
Aside from that, the stories are mostly of the sidhe, the little people of the hills, the good people or the gentry. They are the kind of fairies spoken of in the famous song "The Fairies," by William Allngham
Up the airy mountain,That song is included in full. If you have read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, think of the Nac Mac Feegle.
Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
These stories struck me as (and probably are) more authentic Irish folklore than the epics, which come to us distorted by the Christian priests who wrote them down.
Some of the stories are entertaining -- some are not. Many are tedious Shaggy Dog Stories that go on and on and never arrive anywhere. (That's the joke -- these are stories that make fun of the reader.)
Blog review.
Read
February 14, 2013From Yeats' end notes [note Paracelsus' opinion of scientists]:
"It has been held by many that somewhere out of the void there is a perpetual dribble of souls; that these souls pass through many shapes before they incarnate as men - hence the nature spirits. They are invisible - except at rare moments and times; they inhabit the interior elements, while we live upon the outer and the gross. Some float perpetually through space, and the motion of the planets drives them hither and thither in currents. Hence some Rosicrucians have thought astrology may foretell many things; for a tide of them flowing around the earth arouses there, emotions and changes, according to its nature.
"Besides those of human appearance are many animal and bird-like shapes.... Though all at times are friendly to men - to some men - 'They have,' says Paracelsus, 'an aversion to self-conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogmatists, scientists, drunkards, and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and childlike, innocent and sincere, and the less there is of vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals.'"
Kindle location 4889-4899
From Yeats' introduction:
"Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the earth, who have no inherent form but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The visible world is merely their skin. In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them. They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible - these creatures of whim."
Kindle location 235-244
Yeats' collection includes one of the most frightening ghost stories I have read, "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse." Teig, a spoiled only son of a rich man, has compromised a good & decent girl but will not marry her. So at midnight, on a lonely road:
"... the fairies caught him, some by the hands and some by the feet, and they held him tight, in a way that he could not stir, with his face against the ground. Six or seven of them raised the body [of a dead man] then, and pulled it over to him, and left it down on his back. The breast of the corpse was squeezed against Teig's back and shoulders, and the arms of the corpse were thrown around Teig's neck. Then they stood back from him a couple of yards, and let him get up. He rose, foaming at the mouth and cursing, and he shook himself, thinking to throw the corpse off his back. But his fear and his wonder were great when he found that the two arms had a tight hold round his own neck, and that the two legs were squeezing his hips firmly, and that, however strongly he tried, he could not throw it off, any more than a horse can throw off its saddle."
Kindle location 513-523
"It has been held by many that somewhere out of the void there is a perpetual dribble of souls; that these souls pass through many shapes before they incarnate as men - hence the nature spirits. They are invisible - except at rare moments and times; they inhabit the interior elements, while we live upon the outer and the gross. Some float perpetually through space, and the motion of the planets drives them hither and thither in currents. Hence some Rosicrucians have thought astrology may foretell many things; for a tide of them flowing around the earth arouses there, emotions and changes, according to its nature.
"Besides those of human appearance are many animal and bird-like shapes.... Though all at times are friendly to men - to some men - 'They have,' says Paracelsus, 'an aversion to self-conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogmatists, scientists, drunkards, and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and childlike, innocent and sincere, and the less there is of vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals.'"
Kindle location 4889-4899
From Yeats' introduction:
"Many poets, and all mystic and occult writers, in all ages and countries, have declared that behind the visible are chains on chains of conscious beings, who are not of heaven but of the earth, who have no inherent form but change according to their whim, or the mind that sees them. You cannot lift your hand without influencing and being influenced by hoards. The visible world is merely their skin. In dreams we go amongst them, and play with them, and combat with them. They are, perhaps, human souls in the crucible - these creatures of whim."
Kindle location 235-244
Yeats' collection includes one of the most frightening ghost stories I have read, "Teig O'Kane and the Corpse." Teig, a spoiled only son of a rich man, has compromised a good & decent girl but will not marry her. So at midnight, on a lonely road:
"... the fairies caught him, some by the hands and some by the feet, and they held him tight, in a way that he could not stir, with his face against the ground. Six or seven of them raised the body [of a dead man] then, and pulled it over to him, and left it down on his back. The breast of the corpse was squeezed against Teig's back and shoulders, and the arms of the corpse were thrown around Teig's neck. Then they stood back from him a couple of yards, and let him get up. He rose, foaming at the mouth and cursing, and he shook himself, thinking to throw the corpse off his back. But his fear and his wonder were great when he found that the two arms had a tight hold round his own neck, and that the two legs were squeezing his hips firmly, and that, however strongly he tried, he could not throw it off, any more than a horse can throw off its saddle."
Kindle location 513-523
August 27, 2012
I read this as part of my research for a short story I was writing, and it ended up taking up taking longer to read than the story did to write! That doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on the book, though, as I found it quite interesting. Engrossing in parts, even.
Here, Yeats gathers and edits stories and myths from Ireland, largely from the translations and collections of other folklorists. It focuses mainly on the faeries, though it also includes water creatures (i.e. the merrow), witches, ghosts, and various mythical creatures. If you're wanting a lot on the mythic heroes, there's some but not a great deal. (You'd want to supplement in this area, I should think.) It does, however, include a good mixture of "traditional Irish" tales and "Irish Catholic" lore, which I found fascinating, such as discussions of the souls of faeries, folk tales about saints and the devil, and so forth. Too many studies are apt to separate "pagan" and "Catholic" beliefs artificially, in my opinion, and this synthesis feels more authentic to Irish culture.
If you're studying Irish folklore for scholarly or academic reasons, I think you can find better sources, though this might be useful as a historical look. The stories are largely anecdotal, and I didn't always know what was regional and what was widespread. Academic sources generally have more specificity to them, which would be necessary to avoid generalizing local legend. However, for a writer or an interested reader, this collection is very nice. I found it highly readable, with a nice feel of the local dialects, and the price was outstanding, if I recall correctly. My one major criticism of this book, in terms of usefulness, is that I'd love to have an edition with an index. Without one, the book is really only useful for a read, and not as a reference.
Finally, it's exciting to read such a record from the pen of such a famous writer, and as a piece of national literature or history of ethnography, it has become something of a classic.
I found it very interesting, and it was useful for my purpose. I'd recommend it, considering its price and classic status, to anyone wanting casual reading or light research on the topic of Irish folklore, with the caveat that it is comparatively light in the hero legends, as well as a bit lacking in the rich cryptozoology of Ireland (aside from the pooka and a few other common ones).
I enjoyed it, though it was a bit of a long haul. It made excellent before-bed reading, one or two stories at a time.
Here, Yeats gathers and edits stories and myths from Ireland, largely from the translations and collections of other folklorists. It focuses mainly on the faeries, though it also includes water creatures (i.e. the merrow), witches, ghosts, and various mythical creatures. If you're wanting a lot on the mythic heroes, there's some but not a great deal. (You'd want to supplement in this area, I should think.) It does, however, include a good mixture of "traditional Irish" tales and "Irish Catholic" lore, which I found fascinating, such as discussions of the souls of faeries, folk tales about saints and the devil, and so forth. Too many studies are apt to separate "pagan" and "Catholic" beliefs artificially, in my opinion, and this synthesis feels more authentic to Irish culture.
If you're studying Irish folklore for scholarly or academic reasons, I think you can find better sources, though this might be useful as a historical look. The stories are largely anecdotal, and I didn't always know what was regional and what was widespread. Academic sources generally have more specificity to them, which would be necessary to avoid generalizing local legend. However, for a writer or an interested reader, this collection is very nice. I found it highly readable, with a nice feel of the local dialects, and the price was outstanding, if I recall correctly. My one major criticism of this book, in terms of usefulness, is that I'd love to have an edition with an index. Without one, the book is really only useful for a read, and not as a reference.
Finally, it's exciting to read such a record from the pen of such a famous writer, and as a piece of national literature or history of ethnography, it has become something of a classic.
I found it very interesting, and it was useful for my purpose. I'd recommend it, considering its price and classic status, to anyone wanting casual reading or light research on the topic of Irish folklore, with the caveat that it is comparatively light in the hero legends, as well as a bit lacking in the rich cryptozoology of Ireland (aside from the pooka and a few other common ones).
I enjoyed it, though it was a bit of a long haul. It made excellent before-bed reading, one or two stories at a time.
December 23, 2015
عانت المخلوق السحرية والاسطورية من الفيري والايلف في ايرلندا وشمال اوروبا في الدول الاسكندنافية من الشيطنة بعد دخول الديانة المسيحية فقد قامت بتحويل كل الكائنات الاسطورية الي شياطين او ملائكة ساقطون حيث يهربون من القساوسة او عند سماع اسم الرب ولا يطيقون سماع صوت اجراس الكنائس، في حين أن الايلف مثلا في الاساطير الشمالية القديمة مثل "الايدا الشعرية" كانوا في صف الييسر أو الالهة مثل اودين وثور ضد العمالقة الزرق او اليوتنز الذين سيقفون بجوار لوكي في معركة راجناروك عند نهاية العالم
ولم يستعيد بعض الأجناس الاسطورية والسحرية مكانتهم مرة أخرى إلا في العصر الحديث عند ابرازهم في الروايات الفانتازية الحديثة على انهم ابطال مثل كتابات لورد دونساني وخاصة كتابه "إبنة ملك الايلف" ورواية السيف المكسور لباول أندرسن وبالطبع روايات تولكن الغنية عن التعريف، حيث نمت شعبية الايلف والدوارف بعد ذلك وأصبحوا أبطال في عديد من الملاحم الفانتزية الحديثة
تمثل الحكايات الشعبية في هذا وجهة النظر المسيحية تجاه المخلوقات السحرية فتصورهم على انهم شياطين وانهم سبب الامراض والشر الخ، ويتضح ذلك في مثلا قصة عشاء القس حيث يطلب "الفيري" من الصياد ان يسأل القس ان كان من الممكن ان يدخلوا الجنة وعندما يدعوهم القس لان يسألوه بأنفسهم عما يريدون يهربون من أمامه.
القصص عموما أعجبتني كثيرا بالرغم من الطابع المظلم والكئيب للعديد من القصص ولكنا تمثل مصدر الهام عظيم لأي شخص محب للفانتازيا
الكتاب الاصلي يستحق تقييم 4 نجوم اما هذه النسخة المترجمة فبها العديد من الاخطاء في الترجمة ويبدو ان المترجم غير ملم بالثقافة الايرلندية ومصلطحاتها
Sidhe فمثلا كلمة
وهي مخلوقات اسطورية ايرلندية قديمة يكتبها المترجم "سيدهي" في حين ان النطق الصحيح للكمة في الايرلندية هو "شي" وأيضا ترجم الايلف إلى أقزام وغيرها
وكلمة فيري ذاتها في الاساطير القديمة لا تشير إلى الجنيات بل تشير إلى المخلوقات السحرية التي لا يستطيع البشر رؤيتهم في الظروف العادية ويشملون الجوبلنز والدوارفز وغيرهم من المخلوقات
واعجبني ما فعله المترجم عند شرحه لمخلوقات الليبركن في الهامش قبل ترجمتها لاسم الجن الاسكافي واتمنى لو فعل ذلك طوال القصة عند تعرضه لاي مخلوق سحري جديد
بشكل عام فالكتاب جيد ويستحق القراءة وخاصة لمحبين الحكايات الشعبية والفانتازية
ولم يستعيد بعض الأجناس الاسطورية والسحرية مكانتهم مرة أخرى إلا في العصر الحديث عند ابرازهم في الروايات الفانتازية الحديثة على انهم ابطال مثل كتابات لورد دونساني وخاصة كتابه "إبنة ملك الايلف" ورواية السيف المكسور لباول أندرسن وبالطبع روايات تولكن الغنية عن التعريف، حيث نمت شعبية الايلف والدوارف بعد ذلك وأصبحوا أبطال في عديد من الملاحم الفانتزية الحديثة
تمثل الحكايات الشعبية في هذا وجهة النظر المسيحية تجاه المخلوقات السحرية فتصورهم على انهم شياطين وانهم سبب الامراض والشر الخ، ويتضح ذلك في مثلا قصة عشاء القس حيث يطلب "الفيري" من الصياد ان يسأل القس ان كان من الممكن ان يدخلوا الجنة وعندما يدعوهم القس لان يسألوه بأنفسهم عما يريدون يهربون من أمامه.
القصص عموما أعجبتني كثيرا بالرغم من الطابع المظلم والكئيب للعديد من القصص ولكنا تمثل مصدر الهام عظيم لأي شخص محب للفانتازيا
الكتاب الاصلي يستحق تقييم 4 نجوم اما هذه النسخة المترجمة فبها العديد من الاخطاء في الترجمة ويبدو ان المترجم غير ملم بالثقافة الايرلندية ومصلطحاتها
Sidhe فمثلا كلمة
وهي مخلوقات اسطورية ايرلندية قديمة يكتبها المترجم "سيدهي" في حين ان النطق الصحيح للكمة في الايرلندية هو "شي" وأيضا ترجم الايلف إلى أقزام وغيرها
وكلمة فيري ذاتها في الاساطير القديمة لا تشير إلى الجنيات بل تشير إلى المخلوقات السحرية التي لا يستطيع البشر رؤيتهم في الظروف العادية ويشملون الجوبلنز والدوارفز وغيرهم من المخلوقات
واعجبني ما فعله المترجم عند شرحه لمخلوقات الليبركن في الهامش قبل ترجمتها لاسم الجن الاسكافي واتمنى لو فعل ذلك طوال القصة عند تعرضه لاي مخلوق سحري جديد
بشكل عام فالكتاب جيد ويستحق القراءة وخاصة لمحبين الحكايات الشعبية والفانتازية
June 11, 2018
“Occultists from Paraclesus to Elephas Levi, divide the nature spirits into gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, undines; or earth, air, fire, and water spirits. Their emperors, according to Elephas, are named Cob, Paralda, Djin, Hicks respectively The gnomes are covetous and of the melancholic temperament. Their usual height is but two spans, though they can elongate themselves into giants. The sylphs are capricious and of bilious temperament. They are in size and strength much greater than men, as becomes the people of the winds. The salamanders are wrathful and in temperament sanguine. In appearance they are long, lean, and dry. The undines are soft, cold, fickle and phlegmatic. In appearance they are like a man. The salamanders and sylphs have no fixed dwelling.
“It has been held by many that somewhere out of the void there is a perpetual dribble of souls; that these souls pass through many shapes before they incarnate as men--hence the nature spirits. They are invisible--except at rare moments and times; they inhabit the interior elements, while we live upon the outer and the gross. Some float perpetually through space, and the motion of the planets drives them hither and thither in currents. Hence some Rosicrucians have thought astrology may foretell many things; for a tide of them flowing around the earth arouses there, emotions and changes, according to its nature.
“Besides those of human appearance are many animal and bird-like shapes. […] Though all at times are friendly to men--to some men--‘They have,’ says Paraclesus, ‘an aversion to self-conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogmatists, scientists, drunkards and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and child-like, innocent and sincere, and the less there is of vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals’.”
“It has been held by many that somewhere out of the void there is a perpetual dribble of souls; that these souls pass through many shapes before they incarnate as men--hence the nature spirits. They are invisible--except at rare moments and times; they inhabit the interior elements, while we live upon the outer and the gross. Some float perpetually through space, and the motion of the planets drives them hither and thither in currents. Hence some Rosicrucians have thought astrology may foretell many things; for a tide of them flowing around the earth arouses there, emotions and changes, according to its nature.
“Besides those of human appearance are many animal and bird-like shapes. […] Though all at times are friendly to men--to some men--‘They have,’ says Paraclesus, ‘an aversion to self-conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogmatists, scientists, drunkards and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and child-like, innocent and sincere, and the less there is of vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals’.”
August 25, 2018
William Butler Yeats nacque a Dublino nel 1865 e faceva parte di quel gruppo di scrittori del Rinascimento Celtico ma proveniva anche da quelle famiglie la cui storia era molto legata alla cultura della chiesa irlandese ed è evidente la sua grande sensibilità di stampo cristiano nei racconti che ha raccolto in questo volume. Questa opera racchiude e raccoglie due sue raccolte, ovvero Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry e Irish Fairy Tales , pubblicate assieme la prima volta col titolo Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland nel 1973 dall'editore irlandese Colin Smithe, edizione che verrà aggiornata nel 1977 e corredata da un elenco delle fonti di Yeats. In questo volume vi troviamo, data la varietà degli autori dei racconti, una grande disparità di stili narrativi. Ci sono rielaborazioni letterarie di racconti tradizionali, traduzioni dall'irlandese, trascrizioni di fiabe raccolte dalla viva voce dei narratori. Grazie a questo straordinario lavoro di raccolta dell'autore possiamo, ai giorni nostri, leggere le fiabe che hanno da sempre caratterizzato la cultura irlandese come: folletti, sirene, spettri, streghe, diavoli, giganti, re e regine, ballate e leggende.
February 15, 2009
This is one of my favorite folktale books. This work bring alive the legends and ghost tales of the people of Ireland in the 1900th century and back. My favorite being the Tale of ' Teig O'Kane and the Corpse.'Some of the best ghost stories can be found in these Irish legends and folk tale books.
March 25, 2025
I am glad Yeats collected these, but his mastery of poetry did not extend to prose.
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