Reading Notes: Celtic Fairytales Part A

From Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (1892)

Connla and the Fairy Maiden

• Emphasis on lineage
• Old English-y dialogue
• Long dialogue pieces
• Only tells the parts of the story that take place in the human world - Fairy world is left to the imagination

The Field of Boliauns

• "...that everyone knows to be one of the greatest holidays..."
• Cutesy (or maybe just Irish) descriptions of people and objects
• Longer back-and-forth dialogue than any previous story
• Boliaun = ragwort?

The Horned Women

• Witch invasion!
• Unexplained magic voice - does the protagonist also practice magic? Normalized

The Shepherd of Myddvai

• Very specific location setting
• Bread as important object 
• Fairy woman speaking in verse sometimes

Llyn y Fan Fach by SNappa2006 via Flickr

The Sprightly Tailor

• Laird = Lord?; trews
• Repetition of "I see that, I'll sew this"
• Classic ghost story
• Long stitches - not obscure but you wouldn't necessarily know what he's talking about

Munachar and Manachar

• "cumulative tale"
• Heavy repitition
• The Rattlin' Bog
• GNARLY ending 

Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree

• 0 to 100 in the first 3 paragraphs
• Snow White - jealous woman wants to destroy beautiful daughter
• Are we not concerned about the cannibalism...?
• "I left them there" = introducing the narrator in the last line. Interested in this custom.