Reading Notes: Celtic Fairy Tales, Part A

 Bibliography: Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by John D. Batten (1892).

Connla and the Fairy Maiden

            Connla of the Fiery Hair is taken to the land of the fairy by a fairy maiden. His father, the King, Conn of the Hundred Fights, tried to get a Druid to stop it but couldn’t.

 

The Field of Boliauns

            Tom Fitzpatrick took a leprechaun captive and made said leprechaun show him where gold was buried. Tom tied a red garter to the spot the leprechaun had indicated and went home to get a spade after making the leprechaun swear not to touch the garter. When he came back, the leprechaun was gone but had tied red garters over all the trees in the fields.

 

The Horned Women

            Twelve witches, the first with one horn and the last with twelve, came into a rich woman’s house and sat carding and weaving wool. When the witches demanded a cake, the woman tried to make it, only to find that the sieve was broken. She sat next to the well and wept. The Spirit of the Well told her how to get rid of the witches and how to stop them from entering her house if they came back.

 

The Shepherd of Myddvai

            There once was a shepherd who took to wife a maiden of the lake, who said she would be as good a wife as an earthly woman could be, unless he struck her thrice without cause. Over the years, the shepherd tapped her on the shoulder three times, and she left.

 

The Sprightly Tailor

            A tailor was given the task of sewing clothes in a haunted church. When a great spirit came upon him, he kept sewing. He finished just as the spirit started to chase him.

 

Munachar and Manachar

            Munachar was picking raspberries and Manachar was eating them. Munachar did a whole bunch of things to get a rod to hit Manachar with, only to find that Manachar had burst!

 

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

            There was a king whose wife was named Silver-Tree and their daughter Gold-Tree. When Silver-Tree asked if she was the fairest of them all, Gold-Tree was given as the answer instead. Gold-Tree is married off, the King gives the wife the heart and liver of an animal, and all is well. But Silver-Tree finds that Gold-Tree is still alive, makes her way to her daughter, and stabs her with poison. The Prince that Gold-Tree married eventually married again, but kept Gold-Tree in a room to which only he had the key. The new wife entered the room when he forgot to take the key, and woke Gold-Tree by pulling the poison out. The Prince married both of them. Silver-Tree found out Gold-Tree was still alive and went after her again. The second wife tricked her into drinking the poison she had brought. Silver-Tree died.


                                                                       Gold-Tree

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