Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry

A treasury of classic tales invites readers into the desolate, hallucinogenic twilight world of Celtic myth and legend.

Mischievous fairy people, murderous giants, priests, devils, druidic spells and more. Stories include The Soul Cages, The Kildare Pooka, The Black Lamb, The Horned Women, The Phantom Isle, King O'Toole and His Goose, many more. With an Introduction and Notes by W. B. Yeats.

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.

This compilation remains an influential and beloved anthology of Irish folklore. Many of its tales were recorded by the earliest collectors of Irish folklore and have been told around the hearth for hundreds of years. The cast includes familiar characters such as the Fairy Shoemaker, the Banshee, and Finn Mac Cool. Ghost stories, outlandish adventures, poems, and traditional fairy tales carefully selected and edited by Yeats both amuse and educate, providing a glimpse into the world of Irish folk life and belief at the dawn of modern Irish civilization.