Publisher: Colin Smythe Copyright: 1888/1892 Publication date: 1995 In print by several publishers.

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 leprechan and his dissipated relative, the cluricaun; the fearsome Pooka, who lives among ruins and `has grown monstrous with much solitude'; and the Banshee, whose eering 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 Foreward by the noted poet and Yeats and Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine. The cover illustrations are by Rowel Friers.

--Description on back of book

Return to Folklore Sources

HOME § TALES AND STORIES § POEMS § DICTIONARY
BALLADS § ART § WEB RESOURCES § WEB RINGS