This time, in offering them specimens of the rich folk-fancy
of the Celts of these islands, my trouble has rather been one of selection. <...> Ireland
began to collect her folk-tales almost as early as any country in Europe, and
Croker has found a whole school of successors in Carleton, Griffin, Kennedy,
Curtin, and Douglas Hyde. <...> Scotland had the great name of Campbell, and has still
efficient followers in MacDougall, MacInnes, Carmichael, Macleod, and Campbell
of Tiree. <...> Gallant little Wales has no name to rank alongside these; in this department the Cymru have
shown less vigour than the Gaedhel. <...> Perhaps the Eisteddfod, by offering prizes for the collection of
Welsh folk-tales, may remove this inferiority. <...> Meanwhile Wales must be content to be somewhat scantily represented among the Fairy Tales of the Celts, while the extinct Cornish tongue has only contributed one tale. <...> In making my selection I have chiefly tried to make the stories characteristic. <...> It would have
been easy, especially from Kennedy, to have made up a volume entirely filled with "Grimm's Goblins"
à la Celtique. <...> But one can have too much even of that very good thing, and I have therefore avoided as
far as possible the more familiar "formulæ" of folk-tale literature. <...> To do this I had to withdraw from the
English-speaking Pale both in Scotland and Ireland, and I laid down the rule to include only tales that
have been taken down from Celtic peasants ignorant of English. <...> The success of a fairy book, I
am convinced, depends on the due admixture of the comic and the romantic: Grimm and Asbjörnsen
knew this secret, and they alone. <...> But the Celtic peasant who speaks Gaelic takes the pleasure of telling
tales somewhat sadly: so far as he has been printed and translated, I found him, to my surprise, conspicuously lacking in humour. <...> For the more romantic tales I have depended on the Gaelic, and, as I know about as much of
Gaelic as an Irish Nationalist M.P., I have had to depend on translators. <...> In
short, I have tried to put myself into the position of an ollamh or sheenachie familiar with both forms of
Gaelic, and anxious to put his stories in the best way to attract English children. <...> I trust I <...>
Celtic_fairy_tales.pdf
CELTIC
FAIRY TALES
SEL ECT ED AND ED IT ED BY
JOSEPH JACOBS
ED IT OR OF "F OL K-L O R E "
I LLU STRATED BY
JOHN D. B ATTEN
LONDON
DAVID NUTT, 270 STRAND
1892
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CONTENTS
PREFACE ................................................................................................................................................................. 8
CONNLA AND THE FAIRY MAIDEN............................................................................................................... 10
GULEESH............................................................................................................................................................... 12
THE FIELD OF BOLIAUNS ................................................................................................................................ 21
THE HORNED WOMEN...................................................................................................................................... 23
CONALL YELLOWCLAW.................................................................................................................................. 25
HUDDEN AND DUDDEN AND DONALD O'NEARY ...................................................................................... 31
THE SHEPHERD OF MYDDVAI........................................................................................................................ 36
THE SPRIGHTLY TAILOR................................................................................................................................. 38
THE STORY OF DEIRDRE................................................................................................................................. 40
MUNACHAR AND MANACHAR........................................................................................................................ 49
GOLD-TREE AND SILVER-TREE..................................................................................................................... 51
KING O'TOOLE AND HIS GOOSE.................................................................................................................... 54
THE WOOING OF OLWEN ................................................................................................................................ 57
JACK AND HIS COMRADES.............................................................................................................................. 63
THE SHEE AN GANNON AND THE GRUAGACH GAIRE ........................................................................... 67
THE STORY-TELLER AT FAULT..................................................................................................................... 71
THE SEA-MAIDEN............................................................................................................................................... 77
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