Celtic Engagement Rings

Irish Fairy Tales Yeats

Irish Fairy Tales Yeats

Ah, the Irish! The original storytellers, they have a rich tradition of myths and legends to share with the rest of the world. In honor of St. Patrick's Day (and because I am married to an Irishman!) I dedicate this article to Ireland's wonderful legends.

The Banshee

The Banshee, or bean-sidhe (woman of the fairy), is one of the best known horror legends. Poets and storytellers refer to the screaming of the banshee as a portent of doom. The original banshee is an ancestral spirit sentenced to forever warn certain ancient Irish families of a pending death in the family. Families such as the O'Neills, the O'Briens, or the O'Gradys have their very own banshee, who will appear often at night, right before someone is about to die.

The banshee can appear in three forms: a young woman, a mother, or an old crone. She wears a grey cloak with a hood, or a winding sheet. If the family doesn't see her, they will certainly HEAR her keening cry across their lands. Her keening has been described as "the cross between an owl and the wail of a woman" or "so piercing, it shatters glass."

Thank goodness my family isn't on the list of 'haunted' Irish families. No banshees for me!

The Dullahan

I wonder where Washington Irving got his inspiration for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

In Ireland, the Dullahan is an undead black-robed horseman sans head. The ghoul rides furiously around the Irish countryside upon a coal- black steed, carrying his head in his hand, or on his saddle. His head glows and lights his way. The Dullahan can see with supernatural sight and pick out mortal victims sleeping in their beds. He uses a human spine as a whip, and when he pulls his fire-snorting horse to a stop, a mortal dies.

The Pooka

The Pooka is another dark horse of a different color. This undead equine likes to gallop around after midnight, damaging farms, tearing down fences and scattering the livestock. It is a black horse, with sulphurous yellow eyes and a long untamed mane. The Pooka can change forms to a goblin that demands a share of the harvest crop. Some country folks will leave a small portion or tribute of their crop for the Pooka to take, and hopefully leave them alone.

Ghosts

If you travel to Ireland you will find every bed and breakfast and every castle has its own ghostly tale. Some are tales of ancient ghosts, some are more modern spirits. The stories probably grew out of a rich mixture of Celtic, Roman and Christian mythology, along with a certain dash of Irish humor. I found a vast selection of compilations of Irish ghost stories on Amazon and at the library. Dig in!

Famous Irish Authors in the Horror/Scary Genre:

Next time you are in the library, check out these Irish authors. No one can tell a spooky ghost story like an Irishman.

Bram Stoker,

James Joyce,

Sean O'Casey,

George Bernard Shaw,

W.B. Yates,

Oscar Wilde,

Joseph LeFanu

Mary Casey is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Love Poetry.

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales By Yeats, W. B. $20.07 Author: Yeats, W. B. Publication Date: 2003/02/01 Number of Pages: 400 Binding Type: Paperback Language: English Depth: 1.00 Width: 5.00 Height: 11.50

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales $23.23 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.”

The Collected Works of W.b. Yeats (Paperback) $40.43 Prefaces and Introductions, Volume VI of The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, brings together for the first time thirty-two introductions by Yeats to the works of such literary greats as William Blake, J.M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Lionel Johnson, and Rabindranath Tagore. The introductions, which span the Nobel laureate`s entire career, reflect the broad reach of Yeats`s literary and cultural interests. Writing of fairies, ghosts, and witches in his introduction to Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, Yeats discovers that they were still extant in Ireland, at least in 1888, "giving gifts to the kindly, and plaguing the surly." In his preface to Stories from Carleton he tells of that sweetest ginger of Gaelic tunes, Mary Carleton, who was once asked to sing the air "The Red-haired Man`s Wife" and replied: "I will sing for you, but the English words and the air are like a quarreling man and wife. The Irish melts into the tune: the English does not." And in distinguishing the Irish from the English poets of his day in A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue, Yeats remarks: "Contemporary Irish poets believe in spiritual life, invisible and troubling, and express their belief in their poetry. Contemporary English poets are interested in the glory, the order, the passion or the pleasure of the world." Always insightful and often charming, Prefaces and Introductions reveals the breadth of Yeats`s talent as essayist, critic, folklorist, and raconteur.

Irish Fairy Tales $3.99 A collection of classic Irish Fairy Tales retold by James Stephens which includes the following: The Story of Tuan Mac Cairill, The Boyhood of Fionn, The Birth of Bran, Oisin's Mother, The Wooing of Becfola, The Little Brawl at Allen, The Carl of the Drab Coat, The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran, Becuma of the White Skin, and Mongan's Frenzy.

Fairy Tales by W. B. Yeats [Paperback] $38.74 This is a facsimile reprint of the original book by W B Yeats, rebuilt using the latest technology. There are no poor, missing or blurred pages and all photographic images have been professionally restored. At Yokai Publishing we believe that by restoring this title to print it will live on for generations to come. Author: W. B. Yeats Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 242 Publication Date: 2010/09/09 Language: English Dimensions: 5.51 x 8.50 x 0.55 inches

The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Vol. VI: Prefaces and Introductions $24.99 Prefaces and Introductions , Volume VI of The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats , brings together for the first time thirty-two introductions by Yeats to the works of such literary greats as William Blake, J.M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Oscar Wilde, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Lionel Johnson, and Rabindranath Tagore. The introductions, which span the Nobel laureate's entire career, reflect the broad reach of Yeats's literary and cultural interests. Writing of fairies, ghosts, and witches in his introduction to Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantr y, Yeats discovers that they were still extant in Ireland, at least in 1888, "giving gifts to the kindly, and plaguing the surly." In his preface to Stories from Carleton he tells of that sweetest ginger of Gaelic tunes, Mary Carleton, who was once asked to sing the air "The Red-haired Man's Wife" and replied: "I will sing for you, but the English words and the air are like a quarreling man and wife. The Irish melts into the tune: the English does not." And in distinguishing the Irish from the English poets of his day in A Treasury of Irish Poetry in the English Tongue , Yeats remarks: "Contemporary Irish poets believe in spiritual life, invisible and troubling, and express their belief in their poetry. Contemporary English poets are interested in the glory, the order, the passion or the pleasure of the world." Always insightful and often charming, Prefaces and Introductions reveals the breadth of Yeats's talent as essayist, critic, folklorist, and raconteur.

Fairy Tales $19.79 Fairy Tales

Irish Folk and Fairy Tales $12.97 No Synopsis Available

Traditional Irish Fairy Tales $10.34 No Synopsis Available

Irish Fairy And Folk Tales $30.18 No Synopsis Available

Mythologies by Yeats, William Butler [Hardcover] $51.13 1893. This is a collection of Irish stories of the supernatural and uncanny, based on country beliefs, traditions and folk tales. Contents: The Celtic Twilight; The Secret Rose; Stories of Red Hanrahan; Rosa Alchemica; Tables of the Law; Adoration of the Magi; and Per Amica Silentia Lunae. This book is essential for all the readers of Yeats poetry and plays. It reveals that Yeats could work unique enchantment in prose, as well as poetry. Author: Yeats, William Butler Binding Type: Hardcover Number of Pages: 378 Publication Date: 2010/09/10 Language: English Dimensions: 8.50 x 11.02 x 0.88 inches

Mythologies by Yeats, William Butler [Paperback] $36.88 This is a collection of Irish stories of the supernatural and uncanny, based on country beliefs, traditions and folk tales. Contents: The Celtic Twilight; The Secret Rose; Stories of Red Hanrahan; Rosa Alchemica; Tables of the Law; Adoration of the Magi; and Per Amica Silentia Lunae. This book is essential for all the readers of Yeats poetry and plays. It reveals that Yeats could work unique enchantment in prose, as well as poetry. Author: Yeats, William Butler Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 376 Publication Date: 2003/03/31 Language: English Dimensions: 11.00 x 8.25 x 0.78 inches

The Yeats Reader, Revised Edition $12.72 Throughout his long life, William Butler Yeats -- Irish writer and premier lyric poet in English in this century -- produced important works in every literary genre, works of astonishing range, energy, erudition, beauty, and skill. His early poetry is memorable and moving. His poems and plays of middle age address the human condition with language that has entered our vocabulary for cataclysmic personal and world events. The writings of his final years offer wisdom, courage, humor, and sheer technical virtuosity. T. S. Eliot pronounced Yeats "the greatest poet of our time -- certainly the greatest in this language, and so far as I am able to judge, in any language" and "one of the few whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them." The Yeats Reader is the most comprehensive single volume to display the full range of Yeats's talents. It presents more than one hundred and fifty of his best-known poems -- more than any other compendium -- plus eight plays, a sampling of his prose tales, and excerpts from his published autobiographical and critical writings. In addition, an appendix offers six early texts of poems that Yeats later revised. Also included are selections from the memoirs left unpublished at his death and complete introductions written for a projected collection that never came to fruition. These are supplemented by unobtrusive annotation and a chronology of the life. Yeats was a protean writer and thinker, and few writers so thoroughly reward a reader's efforts to essay the whole of their canon. This volume is an excellent place to begin that enterprise, to renew an old acquaintance with one of world literature's great voices, or to continue a lifelong interest in the phenomenon of literary genius.

Irish Fairy Tales by Stephens, James [Paperback] $25.43 James Stephens was an early 20th century Irish poet and writer. His humor and lyric writing style are a wonderful addition to the retelling of Irish fairytales. His novels A Crock of Gold and Etched in Moonlight are also based on Irish fairytales. Tales included are: The story of Tuan Mac Cairill The boyhood of Fionn The birth of Bran Oisins mother The wooing of Becfola The little brawl at Allen The Carl of the drab coat The enchanted cave of Cesh Corran Becuma of the white skin and Mongans frenzy Author: Stephens, James Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 196 Publication Date: 2008/04/18 Language: English Dimensions: 7.51 x 9.25 x 0.41 inches

Celtic Fairy Tales $7.95 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 comic relief of this volume I have therefore had to turn mainly to the Irish peasant of the Pale; and what richer...

More Celtic Fairy Tales $20.14 In this volume Joseph Jacobs has proceeded on much the same lines as those which he laid down in compiling Celtic Fairy Tales. In making his selection he attempted to select the tales common both to Erin and Alba. He included, as specimen of the Irish medi eval hero tales, one of the three sorrowful tales of Erin: The Tale of the Children of Lir. For the drolls, or comic relief, of the volume, he drew upon the inexhaustible Kennedy and the great J. F. Campbell, who still stands out as the most prominent figure in the history of the Celtic Fairy Tale. Jacobs attempted to do what the brothers Grimm did for Germany, so far as that was possible. In Jacobs own words The Celtic materials are so rich that it would tax the resources of a whole clan of Grimms to exhaust the field. In this volume you will find 20 Celtic tales of Jack the Cunning Thief, Paddy oKelly and the Weasel, the Dream of Owen OMulready, The Farmer of Liddesdale, The Greek Princess and the Young Gardener, Elidore, the Ridere of Riddles and more. In Jacobs own words, The Celts went forth to battle, but they always fell. Yet the captive Celt has enslaved his captor in the realm of imagination. In an attempt to give a library of the Celts wealthy imagination to his readers, Jacobs has attempted to begin the readers captivity with the earliest recordings of these tales. And captivate he doesMore Celtic Fairy Tales not only preserves a cultural history, but is also richly entertaining. We invite you to curl up with this unique sliver of Celtic folklore not seen in print for over a century; immerse yourself in the tales and fables not heard in homes for many a year. A percentage of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to the Princes Trust for their work with youth across the United Kingdom. Author: Jacobs, Joseph/ Batten, John D. Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 274 Publication Date: 2009/11/30 Language: English Dimensions: 4.99 x 7.99 x 0.61 inches

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