Irish fireside folktales

Fülszöveg

The fireside stories of the Irish people are part of a heritage unpa'ralleled in the orai literature of the world. Certainly, no other nation has preserved by word of mouth such an exuberance of riddles, sayings, curses, blessings, prayers and ballads. Nowhere has the art of story-telling been more richly developed than in Ireland ; through the centuries-generations of story-tellers have handed down folktalejs of ali kinds. At a time when moderi! life had not yet spfead into the remotest corners of the country side, story-tefling was.a favourite entertainment in the quietness of long country evenings. The voices of Seanchai and wise woman, of wandering pedlar or spalpeen, gathered the people round the fireside and audiences listened to legends and anecdotes, religious, heroic and romantic tales.
The stories in this book were written down by Patrick Kennedy, (1801-1873). a Dublin bookseller, who spent the first twenty years of his life (1801-1821) inWexford. Fifty years after he... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The fireside stories of the Irish people are part of a heritage unpa'ralleled in the orai literature of the world. Certainly, no other nation has preserved by word of mouth such an exuberance of riddles, sayings, curses, blessings, prayers and ballads. Nowhere has the art of story-telling been more richly developed than in Ireland ; through the centuries-generations of story-tellers have handed down folktalejs of ali kinds. At a time when moderi! life had not yet spfead into the remotest corners of the country side, story-tefling was.a favourite entertainment in the quietness of long country evenings. The voices of Seanchai and wise woman, of wandering pedlar or spalpeen, gathered the people round the fireside and audiences listened to legends and anecdotes, religious, heroic and romantic tales.
The stories in this book were written down by Patrick Kennedy, (1801-1873). a Dublin bookseller, who spent the first twenty years of his life (1801-1821) inWexford. Fifty years after he had heard his stories at some fireplace, in some kitchen, he wrote them down as he remembered them, His sources were the people of Wexford; Mrs. K., "a woman of gentle manners who could recite passages from the Iliad and the greater part of the Battle of Aughrim;", Jemmy Reddy, "gardener, horseboy, ploughman", Oweiy Jourdan, "the hereditary faggot cutter," Their voices lead us into the world of magic and marvel, kings and queens, giants and gnomes-; the world where time and place submit • to the rule of fancy.
Colourful, vivid, whimsical, these stories bring alive the fireside scene of bygone days. Everything is told as if it happened to the storyteller himself, and as if these extra-ordinary events could happen to you or anybody. Vissza