Biblio Ireland

Author: YEATS, W. B. (Editor).

Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, 1995 (reprint). xxvi, 390 pages. Paperback.

In this delightful gathering of legendary tales and verse, the familiar characters of Irish myth and folklore come to life: the mercurial trooping fairies, as ready to make mischief as to do good; the solitary and industrious leprechaun and his dissipated relative, 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. Here too are changelings, ghosts, witches, fairy doctors, saints and priests, the devil, giants, kings, queens, princesses, druids and robbers. More than an ambitious and successful effort to preserve the rich heritage of his native land, the volume confirms Yeats’s conviction that imagination is the source of both life and art. It also shows that a world fed on dreaming is much more colourful than one that merely looks at reality.

This volume has a Foreword by the noted poet and Yeats and Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine. The cover illustrations are by Rowel Friers.

FAIRY AND FOLK TALES OF THE IRISH PEASANTRY

Introduction

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
Lepracaun, Cluricaun, Far Darrig
The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker
Master and Man
Far Darrig in Donegal
The Pooka
The Piper and the Puca
Daniel O’Rourke
The Kildare Pooka
The Banshee
How Thomas Connolly Met the Banshee
A Lamentation for the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald
The Banshee of the Mac Carthys

GHOSTS              
A Dream
Grace Connor
A Legend of Tyrone
The Black Lamb
Song of the Ghost
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

TIR-NA-N-OG
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        
Some authorities on Irish Folk-Lore

IRISH FAIRY TALES
Note
Introduction

LAND AND WATER FAIRIES
The Fairies’ Dancing-place
The River Kempers
The Young Piper
A Fairy Enchantment
Teigue of the Lee
The Fairy Greyhound
The Lady of Gollerus

EVIL SPIRITS
The Devil’s Mill
Fergus O’Mara and the Air-demons
The Man Who Never Knew Fear

CATS
Seanchan the Bard and the King of the Cats
Owney and Owney-na-Peak  

KINGS AND WARRIORS
The Knighting of Cuculain
The Little Weaver of Duleek Gate

APPENDICES
1. Classification of Irish Fairies
2. Authorities on Irish Folk-lore
3. A.L. Burt’s edition of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

ISBN: 0861403924

Related titles: Fairies, Folktales, Ghosts
Categories: Folklore.