Books with title Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

Bishop of Oxford and Norwich, lamented long ago the departure of the English fairies. "In Queen Mary's time'" he wrote: "When Tom came home from labor, Or Cis to milking rose, Then merrily, merrily went their tabor, And merrily went their toes." But now, in the times of James, they had all gone, for "they were of the old profession," and "their songs were Ave Maries." In Ireland they are still extant, giving gifts to the kindly, and plaguing the surly. "Have you ever seen a fairy or such like?" I asked an old man in County Sligo. "Amn't I annoyed with them," was the answer. "Do the fishermen along here know anything of the mermaids?" I asked a woman of a village in County Dublin. "Indeed, they don't like to see them at all," she answered, "for they always bring bad weather." "Here is a man who believes in ghosts," said a foreign sea-captain, pointing to a pilot of my acquaintance. "In every house over there," said the pilot, pointing to his native village of Rosses, "there are several." About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology. Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text. Read books online for free at www.forgottenbooks.org

Gathered by the renowned Irish poet, playwright, and essayist William Butler Yeats, the sixty-five tales and poems in this delightful collection uniquely capture the rich heritage of the Celtic imagination. Filled with legends of village ghosts, fairies, demons, witches, priests, and saints, these stories evoke both tender pathos and lighthearted mirth and embody what Yeats describes as “the very voice of the people, the very pulse of life.” “The impact of these tales doesn’t stop with Yeats, or Joyce, or Oscar Wilde,” writes Paul Muldoon in his Foreword, “for generations of readers in Ireland and throughout the world have found them flourishing like those persistent fairy thorns.”From the Trade Paperback edition.

This is a collection of Scottish folklore which will appeal to all ages. There are animal tales, stories of the fairies of Scotland including Brownies, Bogles, Kelpies, Mermaids and others, tales of witchcraft and of Giants. While many of the themes are similar to other European folk-tales, this collection emphasizes specifically Scottish aspects of the stories.--J.B. Hare

Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales is a timeless collection of Scottish folklore, legends, and tales which will appeal to readers of all ages. Here you will find stories of the fantastic, the supernatural, the cunning, the hilarious, and the gifted-all finely representative of the Scottish people in all their mannerisms. Divided into seven sections: Nursery Stories; Stories of Animals; Fairy Tales; The Brownie, The Bogle, The Kelpy, Mermen, Demons; Witchcraft; Comic Tales; and Literary Tales; the reader will delight in each tale, focused as they are upon the specifically Scottish nature of the retelling. Here one can meet the mythical kelpy-a supernatural water horse that was said to haunt Scotland's lochs and lonely rivers. The reader will also meet the bogle ghost, giants, mythical beasts-and a comical lamb which seeks to please its master, even to the cooking pot... The stories in this classic volume were compiled from oral traditions and the oldest Scottish writings. Rarely has such a pleasing and complete overview of traditional Scottish folklore ever seen the light of day. Now fully reset, complete with its original beautiful illustrations.

"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 IntroductionIn 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.

William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin, Ireland on June 13, 1865. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, where he served as its chief playwright until the movement was joined by John Synge. Yeats' plays included The Countess Cathleen, The Land of Heart's Desire, Cathleen ni Houlihan, The King's Threshold, and Deirdre. Although a convinced patriot, Yeats deplored the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist movement, and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1922. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 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 is one of the few writers who completed their greatest works after being awarded the Nobel Prize. His poetry collections include The Wild Swans at Coole, Michael Robartes and the Dancer, The Tower, The Winding Stair and Other Poems, and Last Poems and Plays. He died on January 28, 1939 at the age of 73.

One of the most famous poets of the 20th century, William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was so popular and renowned during his time that he was the leader of what came to be known as the Irish Literary Revival, on the strength of his short stories and vivid poetry. Eventually it would lead to his winning a Nobel Prize in 1923. It is no surprise that Ireland loved its home grown son; the Nobel Prize Committee credited him for “inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation.” Before Yeats won awards, his interest in spirituality and folklore drove him to write at length about Irish mythology and the occult before the turn of the 20th century. In many ways, it was Yeats who popularized the characters of Celtic mythology and medieval Irish folklore for contemporaneous audiences.