Customer Reviews

Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent collection. All sorts of creatures and strange happenings are described, and a good number of the stories are told in the dialect of the person who the story was gotten from (Yeats & his friends traveled around Ireland collecting stories from the people they met - recording the oral traditions, if you will.)

These stories that Yeats collected are as deeply moving as his poetry. You have the feeling that this collection is a part of the deep well that Yeats' created his earlier 'Celtic Twilight' poetry from. These stories are faery tales, but there is an element of realism to them for, as you read, you doubt not the truth of the tales, and immediately want to escape to Ireland and dance on the hills with the fey folk. Read this in the winter by the fire with a copy of Yeats' early poetry and prepare for a twilight wandering amongst shadowy woods, quiet country roads and green green hills. This is one of those books which you hold up to your heart upon completion, and sigh deeply from the experience of reading it - more of a journey than the act of turning pages and interpreting words...

In this delightful volume, first published in 1892, William Butler Yeats has collected all manner of Irish folklore (mostly short stories, with a few poems) from a wide variety sources. He has divided the works into categories as follows: the "Trooping Fairies" (fairies, changelings, and the "merrow" or mermaids); the "Solitary Fairies" (the lepracaun, the pooka - an animal spirit, and the banshee); "Ghosts"; "Witches & Fairy Doctors"; "T'yeer-na-n-Oge" or "Tir-na-n-Og" (a legendary island said to appear and disappear); "Saints & Priests"; "The Devil"; "Giants"; and "Kings / Queens / Princesses / Earls / Robbers." Yeats introduces each section with background information on the creature the stories in that category will concern. He also includes numerous footnotes of interest, making this book a valuable resource for anyone seeking to learn about the tradition of Irish folklore.

While I have given this anthology a five-star rating based on it's value as a source of information on Irish mythology, it would probably be worth only four stars for entertainment value alone. Some of the stories are very short and/or don't have much of a point, and are less interesting. These tend to serve more as testimony to the nature of a particular mythical being rather than being an actual story with a plot and message for the reader. Nevertheless, the book as a whole offers a very comprehensive look at just what defines Irish folk culture. The stories that do have a point sometimes take the form of "how things came to be this way" tales, or provide a moral lesson, etc. Many of the stories are rather dark, as that tends to be the nature of lore from this region, but there are also some lighthearted and cheerful pieces.

Despite the book having been compiled more than one hundred years ago, most of the stories are quite easy to read. Yeats makes things even more simple for the reader by making footnotes where old Irish words or phrases are used, giving us their meaning. However, there are a few stories that have been left in a more archaic form, which is distracting and a bit harder to decipher. Take, for example, the following excerpt:

". . . the minit he puts his knife into the fish, there was a murtherin' screech, that you'd the life id lave you if you hurd it, and away jumps the throut out av the fryin'-pan into the middle o' the flure; and an the spot where it fell, up riz a lovely lady - the beautifullest crathur that eyes ever seen, dressed in white, and a band o' goold in her hair, and a sthrame o' blood runnin' down her arm."

One of the things I enjoy most about literature is finding connections with other works I've read, and "Irish Fairy & Folk Tales" does not disappoint in this regard. Many of the pieces are derivations of other, more common fairy tales. For instance, "Smallhead and the King's Sons" (Ghosts) incorporates some elements from both "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel," while "The Giant's Stairs" (Giants) has some similarities to the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk." There are more connections like this. On the whole I found this book to be very enjoyable, and also a valuable read from a literary / academic standpoint. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone interesting in the history of Irish culture, the study of fairy tales and folklore, or both.

While Yeats relied on mostly 19th century literary versions of folktales, which often distorted the stories somewhat in the interest of catering to the Victorian English-speaking cities, the stories themselves are well chosen to represent a wide range of common Irish folk tales and mythical creatures. The stories themselves, moreover, are indeed more literary than perhaps more authentic collections, such as Kevin Danaher's, and are therefore a little more interesting to read. I plan to use this text in a course on Irish literature both because the tales are a good introduction to Irish folklore and because the tales demonstrate how the early-twentieth-century Irish Renaissance adopted, adapted, and remolded the Irish Gaelic tradition.

This book was fascinating to read because it is about the fairy and folk tales of another country. Although, a lot of the wording was difficult to read and or to understand, it was very humorous and fun to read. I enjoyed especially the stories with a moral to the story. I love it when the wrong doers get what is coming to them!Sometimes they get worse punishments than we would have imagined doing ourselves! I recommend this book to those who enjoy these type of stories and to those who want to know about foriegn cultures.

A wonderful collection of tales handed down for generations. A rememberence of a time near forgotten, a simpler time when families would sit by the fire telling stories. These are such tales and well be remembered. A must for all.
Donnie R. Walley

This is a reprint of the original volume published by W.B. Yeats in 1892. There have been several other versions, under different titles, notably one published by Barnes & Noble, and another from Modern Library with a forward by Paul Muldoon. Both of the latter go under the title "Irish Fairy and Folk Tales." All three are collected and edited by William Butler Yeats, arguably the greatest poet the island ever produced. They are essentially the same collection, with the exception that the B&N version also contains an account of the Fate of the Children of Lir, together with beautiful engravings illustrating the entire volume.
Both Yeats and Lady Gregory were especially concerned that the best of the tales from the Irish countryside be preserved before their main purveyors, the Shenaches (storytellers) vanished. Those collected here are a varied lot, and not all of them will appeal to every reader. That, however, does not affect their value at all, for here a way of life is preserved and we can look through a small window into the beliefs and habits of the Irish people in the days when the "Fairy Faith" was still common amongst them. It is probably best not to read the collection straight through, but rather peruse it, selecting from it that which most appeals.
Yeats's singular contribution is the dividing the denizens of the Irish Enchanted Countryside into categories: The Trooping Fairy, The Solitary Fairy, the Sociable Fairy, etc, together with Ghosts, Witches, Giants and the like. Within each "type" there are essays, songs, poems, hearsay, histories ... in short, something to appeal to every taste, as long as that taste has a goodly sampling of fancy about it.
These fairies are not the gossamer winged, luminous beings of Victorian paintings. These fairies are as likely to curse as to bless and it does not benefit the unwary or skeptical to offend them. Here are pookas, leprechauns, far darrig, Ban-Shees, and lanawn-shees.
These creatures were ever present to the Irish peasantry, and were forgotten with the industrialization of modern times. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Yeats and others like him, much of this world was preserved for us.
Some of the stories and poems retain their Irish intonation and syntax and may be difficult for some to follow, but patience will be rewarded; One can almost "hear" the storyteller and the bard.
This is a volume well worth going back to again and again.

The road to hell... well that's what this is. Yeats wanted to create quaint traditions to revive a sense of nationalism and singlhandedly strip mined a culture. Read "In Search of Ancient Ireland" or other scholarly work. The truth of Ireland is as magical as Yeat's babble. Don't waste your time unless you need this book to write a report for school. And even then, use your library.