Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

by Yeats, William Butler; Muldoon, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780812968552
• ISBN10: 0812968557
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-11
• Publisher: Modern Library

Summary

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."

Author Biography

<b>Paul Muldoon</b> is Oxford Professor of Poetry and Howard G. B. Clark Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. His recent works include <i>To Ireland, I; Poems 1968–1998;</i> and <i>Moy Sand and Gravel</i>. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Paul Muldoon
Introduction	xxiii
William Butler Yeats
IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES
The Trooping Fairies	3	(50)
The Fairies	5	(2)
Frank Martin and the Fairies	7	(5)
The Priest's Supper	12	(4)
The Fairy Well of Lagnanay	16	(3)
Teig O'Kane and the Corpse	19	(17)
Paddy Corcoran's Wife	36	(2)
Cusheen Loo	38	(1)
The White Trout; A Legend of Cong	39	(4)
The Fairy Thorn	43	(2)
The Legend of Knockgrafton	45	(6)
A Donegal Fairy	51	(2)
Changelings	53	(15)
The Brewery of Egg-shells	54	(3)
The Fairy Nurse	57	(1)
Jamie Freel and the Young Lady	58	(8)
The Stolen Child	66	(2)
The Merrow	68	(20)
The Soul Cages	68	(15)
Flory Cantillon's Funeral	83	(5)
The Solitary Fairies	88	(52)
The Lepracaun; or, Fairy Shoemaker	89	(3)
Master and Man	92	(7)
Far Darrig in Donegal	99	(4)
The Pooka	103	(1)
The Piper and the Puca	104	(3)
Daniel O'Rourke	107	(8)
The Kildare Pooka	115	(3)
The Banshee	118	(1)
How Thomas Connolly met the Banshee	119	(3)
A Lamentation for the Death of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald	122	(2)
The Banshee of the Mac Carthys	124	(16)
Ghosts	140	(19)
A Dream	141	(1)
Grace Connor	142	(2)
A Legend of Tyrone	144	(2)
The Black Lamb	146	(1)
Song of the Ghost	147	(2)
The Radiant Boy	149	(2)
The Fate of Frank M'Kenna	151	(8)
Witches, Fairy Doctors	159	(58)
Bewitched Butter (Donegal)	162	(2)
A Queen's County Witch	164	(4)
The Witch Hare	168	(1)
Bewitched Butter (Queen's County)	169	(11)
The Horned Women	180	(2)
The Witches' Excursion	182	(3)
The Confessions of Tom Bourke	185	(17)
The Pudding Bewitched	202	(15)
T'yeer-na-n-Oge	217	(16)
The Legend of O'Donoghue	218	(2)
Rent Day	220	(3)
Loughleagh (Lake of Healing)	223	(7)
Hy-Brasail---The Isle of the Blest	230	(1)
The Phantom Isle	231	(2)
Saints, Priests	233	(16)
The Priest's Soul	234	(6)
The Priest of Coloony	240	(1)
The Story of the Little Bird	241	(3)
Conversion of King Laoghaire's Daughters	244	(1)
King O'Toole and His Goose	244	(5)
The Devil	249	(34)
The Demon Cat	249	(2)
The Long Spoon	251	(1)
The Countess Kathleen O'Shea	252	(4)
The Three Wishes	256	(27)
Giants	283	(22)
The Giant's Stairs	283	(6)
A Legend of Knockmany	289	(16)
Kings, Queens, Princesses, Earls, Robbers	305	(42)
The Twelve Wild Geese	305	(6)
The Lazy Beauty and Her Aunts	311	(5)
The Haughty Princess	316	(3)
The Enchantment of Gearoidh Iarla	319	(3)
Munachar and Manachar	322	(4)
Donald and His Neighbors	326	(4)
The Jackdaw	330	(3)
The Story of Conn-eda; Or the Golden Apples of Lough Erne	333	(14)
Notes	347