Irish folktales

This latest volume of an already distinguished series maintains and even exceeds the high standards of the previous ones. The texts are taken from published and unpublished sources of the past 200 years and include those Glassie collected himself. They reveal the deep humanity of the Irish people; the commentary and notes reveal the humanity of Glassie. While many folktale collections aimed at a general audience are not useful to folklorists because they lack accuracy, this one will be welcomed. General readers will undoubtedly appreciate Glassie's ability to illuminate subtly the ``storyteller's art.'' Very highly recommended. David S. Azzolina, Johns Hopkins Univ. Lib., Baltimore (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Many of these folk tales are culled from the collections of other folklorists; some have been gathered and first published here by editor Glassie. Divided according to subject (Faith, Wit, Mystery, History, and Fireside Tales), some are from modern times, some traditional; all parts of Ireland are represented. And as one would expect, there is charm aplenty. The language ranges from poetic (""Aye, it's nature breaks through the eyes of a cat, sure enough. When the moon is riding high and the wind tearing the trees, and the shadows black with cold, who is it calls them from the hearth? Tell me that? And obey they must, and obey they do"") to droll (""He was so mean that his soul was as narrow as a knitting needle, and if you had a cold in the head he would grudge it to you""). The tales themselves are eloquent examples of the Irish love of humor and the Irish respect for the powers of the little people and the Good People (the fairies), saints and the devil--as documented in strange tales of banshees and changeling children, beautiful women who are really seals in human form, folks who offend the fairies in some way and suffer fearsome consequences. Though stories of the doings of ancient heroes are longer-winded and less involving than some of the stories on humbler subjects, no collection of Irish folklore would be complete without them. All in all, the tales seem to have been set down from tape recordings, and their charm is their artlessness, the fidelity of their rendering of the language and inflections of the storytellers. (A typical ending: ""He was an old beardy man. I saw him. He's not so very long dead now. That's that."") Glassie's introduction is informative, too, about the tradition and methods of collecting folk tales, and about the problems arising from an outsider's distorting the tale by his presence, as well as by freezing an oral art form in ink. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

This latest volume of an already distinguished series maintains and even exceeds the high standards of the previous ones. The texts are taken from published and unpublished sources of the past 200 years and include those Glassie collected himself. They reveal the deep humanity of the Irish people; the commentary and notes reveal the humanity of Glassie. While many folktale collections aimed at a general audience are not useful to folklorists because they lack accuracy, this one will be welcomed. General readers will undoubtedly appreciate Glassie's ability to illuminate subtly the ``storyteller's art.'' Very highly recommended. David S. Azzolina, Johns Hopkins Univ. Lib., Baltimore Copyright 1985 Cahners Business Information.