Celtic Fairy Tales

In fairy tales, as in music, the romantic artistry of the Celts is in full flower. In this collection, stories from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, and Brittany show their common Celtic heritage in their love of extravagance and poetry, their quick wit, and their daring sense of adventure.

Here, retold much as they were around Celtic peat fires a hundred years ago, are the enthralling tales of "Fair, Brown, and Trembling," "The Brown Bear of the Green Glen," and "The Ship that Went to America." Some of the stories give familiar stories a Celtic twist: "Duffy and the Devil" is a comic Cornish take on the Rumpelstiltskin story; "THe Black Cat" is a dark and Breton "Cinderella." Others seem new and strange: the doomed love of "Lutey and the Mermaid," or the mystic rapture of "The Little Bird."

Perhaps most riveting of all is the Irish tale of "The Soul Cages," in which a fisherman makes friends with one of the sea-people, Coomara, and uses that friendship to free the souls of drowned sailors, kept by Coomara in lobster pots in his house beneath the waves.

Illustrated in watercolor and gold leaf by acclaimed artist Isabelle Brent, these tales are full of Celtic magic.

CONTENTS:

Introduction

• The Battle of the Birds
• Fair, Brown, and Trembling
• The Brown Bear of the Green Glen
• The King of Ireland's Son
• The Three Blows
• Rory the Fox
• Lutey and the Mermaid
• Give Me a Crab, John
• The Black Bull of Norroway
• Finn MacCool and the Scottish Giant
• Duffy and the Devil
• Molly Whuppie
• The Black Cat
• The King and the Workman's Daughter
• The Soul Cages
• The Fiddler in the Cave
• The Well at the World's End
• The Ship That Went to America
• The Little Bird
• The Tail