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Irish Folk Tales

Irish Folk Tales

About the Book

Here are 125 magnificent folktales collected from anthologies and journals published from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. Beginning with tales of the ancient times and continuing through the arrival of the saints in Ireland in the fifth century, the periods of war and family, the Literary Revival championed by William Butler Yeats, and the contemporary era, these robust and funny, sorrowful and heroic stories of kings, ghosts, fairies, treasures, enchanted nature, and witchcraft are set in cities, villages, fields, and forests from the wild western coast to the modern streets of Dublin and Belfast.

Edited by Henry Glassie
With black-and-white illustrations throughout
Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library
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Praise for Irish Folk Tales

"Delightful and informative, comfortable and full of wit and fancy. It reminds us why the Irish have been known as great storytellers for a millennium."
—Roger D. Abrahams, editor of African Folktales

"This latest volume of an already distinguished series maintains and even exceeds the high standards of the previous ones. The tales reveal the deep humanity of the Irish people; the commentary and notes reveal the humanity of Glassie. Very highly recommended."
— Library Journal

"A marvelous assortment selected from published (but often out-of-print) collections by the likes of pioneer collectors Lady Wilde, Robin Flower, and Jeremiah Curtin, and from unpublished manuscripts in private and state-owned archives."
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Vivid and surprising  . . . The Irish gift for prolixity and verbal magic glistens throughout Glassie's collection."
—Chicago Magazine
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The Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library Series

African Folktales
African American Folktales
Latin American Folktales
The Victorian Fairy Tale Book
Japanese Tales
Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece
Legends and Tales of the American West
Yiddish Folktales
Irish Folktales
Folktales from India
View more

About the Author

Henry Glassie
HENRY GLASSIE is College Professor Emeritus of Folklore at Indiana University. WIth specializations in oral narrative, folk art, vernacular architecture, and material culture, he has written twenty books on the traditional arts of Ireland, Turkey, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Brazil, and the United States. He is a former president of the American Folklore Society and received the Haskins prize of the American Council of Learned Societies for a distinguished career of humanistic scholarship. More by Henry Glassie
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