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Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle — John Shaqi

Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald IsleMcAnally, D. R. (David Russell)

General

Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle

Name: Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle
Author: McAnally, D. R. (David Russell)

McAnally, D. R. (David Russell)

Folk literature, Irish; Folklore -- Ireland; Legends -- Ireland; Mythology, Celtic -- Ireland; Tales -- Ireland

[Illustration: "GOD SAVE YER HOLINESS." Frontispiece.]

                  "GOD SAVE YER HOLINESS." Frontispiece.

Irish Wonders

by D. R. McAnally, Jr.

Edition 1, (October 7, 2006)

THE GHOSTS, GIANTS, POOKAS, DEMONS, LEPRECHAWNS, BANSHEES, FAIRIES,
WITCHES, WIDOWS, OLD MAIDS, AND OTHER MARVELS OF THE EMERALD ISLE

Popular Tales as told by the People

WEATHERVANE BOOKS - NEW YORK

                              [Illustration]

Copyright © MDCCCLXXXVIII

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-72113

All rights reserved.

This edition is published by Weathervane Books

a division of Imprint Society, Inc., distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc.

a b c d e f g h

                    IN MEMORY OF YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP,

                               This Volume

                             IS INSCRIBED TO

                         MR. JOSEPH B. McCULLAGH,

                          AS A MODEST TRIBUTE OF

                            PERSONAL RESPECT.

PREFACE.

The wonderful imaginative power of the Celtic mind is never more
strikingly displayed than in the legends and fanciful tales which people
of the humbler walks of life seldom tire of telling. Go where you will in
Ireland, the story-teller is there, and on slight provocation will repeat
his narrative; amplifying, explaining, embellishing, till from a single
fact a connected history is evolved, giving motives, particulars, action,
and result, the whole surrounded by a rosy wealth of rustic imagery and
told with dramatic force an actor might envy. The following chapters
comprise an effort to present this phase of unwritten Celtic literature,
the material having been collected during a recent lengthy visit, in the
course of which every county in the island was traversed from end to end,
and constant association had with the peasant tenantry. As, however, in
perusing a drama each reader for himself supplies stage-action, so, in the
following pages, he is requested to imagine the charms of gesticulation
and intonation, for no pen can do justice to a story told by Irish lips
amid Irish surroundings.

                [Illustration: "She ’ll get all me Turf"]

CONTENTS

PREFACE.
THE SEVEN KINGS OF ATHENRY.
TAMING THE POOKA.
THE SEXTON OF CASHEL.
SATAN’S CLOVEN HOOF.
THE ENCHANTED ISLAND.
HOW THE LAKES WERE MADE.
ABOUT THE FAIRIES.
THE BANSHEE.
THE ROUND TOWERS.
THE POLICE.
THE LEPRECHAWN.
THE HENPECKED GIANT.
SATAN AS A SCULPTOR.
THE DEFEAT OF THE WIDOWS.

                 [Illustration: "Divil roast ye wid it"]

              [Illustration: "Is it spilin’ me wall he is?"]

ILLUSTRATIONS

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle

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