“I am a bit unsure of just how to rate this book. On one hand, for such a well-known and renowned work, its author shows, in his introduction alone, a remarkable ignorance of and naivete about folklore, folk tales, folk tradition, and his own culture's traditional inheritance. His fancies seem at once romantic, and harshly skeptical. Fortunately, the tales contained in this book are not of his own authorship and therefore show a quite accurate rang of folk motifs. The book is a very curious mix of lore and literature, of poetry and prose, of fairy tales and legends. Much of the contents seems to have been drawn from literary collections, and to have been embellished into literature (in which case it is no longer folklore). Yeats seems, as well, to be somewhat ignorant of the difference between legend, folktale, and fairy tale; and this is doubly bewildering because the book portends to be a book of legends, but has in reality a good deal of all three types. Yeats scatters these three types indiscriminately through the book, ordering its contents instead by the most prominent subject (fairies, both trooping and solitary, puca, witches, ghosts, the devil, kings and princesses, etc.).
On the other hand, the stories themselves are wonderful, both in terms of conveying a good range of accurate folk motifs and themes, and of sheer enjoyability. The proper way to read this book is probably to read for the purpose of enjoyment, which is the best way possible to read any story at any rate. It should be noted that this is not a book for a folklorist. But it is a great read nonetheless, filled with wondrous things, chilling tales, the earthy texture of Irish peasantry, and clever wit. It is well worth having on your shelf: so long as you firstly enjoy it, and secondly take it with a grain of salt. ”
Michael wrote this review Tuesday, April 28 2009.
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