Irish Folk Tales (81 page)

William Carleton is excellently introduced by Benedict Kiely,
Poor Scholar
(1972.). I also used Patrick Kavanagh’s edition of
The Autobiography of William Carleton
(1968) and Carleton’s autobiographical introduction to
Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry
(1869), 1: i–xxiv, during which, p. iv, he praises Samuel Lover. Carleton as a writer of sketches is represented by tale 70 in this collection, and Carleton as a storyteller is represented by his tale of the blacksmith and the Devil, tale 119 in this collection. W. B. Yeats describes Carleton in his
Stories from Carleton
(1889), pp. xvi-xvii.

William Butler Yeats’ great manifesto for folk art comes from
The Celtic Twilight
(1902), pp. 232–233. Joseph Hone tells of Yeats in the period of the Nobel Prize in
W. B. Yeats
(1943), pp. 366–390. Yeats’ statement that Lady Gregory and Synge should have accompanied him is found at p. 381 in Hone’s biography. For John Millington Synge, I found these books especially helpful: Edward Stephens’
My Uncle John
(1974), edited by Andrew Carpenter; Robin Skelton’s
The Writings of J. M. Synge
(1971); and Daniel Corkery’s
Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature
(1966). Corkery quotes Yeats’ advice to Synge on p. 62, and on p. 66 quotes Synge on the collaborative nature of art. The folktale from which Synge wrote
In the Shadow of the Glen
is tale 25 in this collection.

Douglas Hyde is presented by Dominic Daly in
The Young Douglas Hyde
(1974) and Gareth W. Dunleavy in
Douglas Hyde
(1974). W. B. Yeats describes Hyde in the introduction to
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
(1888); reprinted in
Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland
(1973), p. 7. Douglas Hyde characterizes nineteenth-century work on Irish folktales in
Beside the Fire
(1890), p. x.

The encounter of W. B. Yeats and James Joyce is described and analyzed by Richard Ellmann in
James Joyce
(1959), pp. 102–114. Stanislaus Joyce tells of Joyce’s review of
Poets and Dreamers
in
My Brother’s Keeper
(1958), pp. 220–224. Joyce’s benefactor, Lady Gregory, is rudely mentioned in
Ulysses
(Paris: Shakespeare & Company, 1922), p. 208.

The founding and development of the Irish Folklore Commission is described by Richard M. Dorson in his foreword, pp. xxvi-xxxii, and Sean O’Sullivan in his introduction, pp. xxxiii-xxxix, to O’Sullivan’s
Folktales of Ireland
(1966), and by Séamas Ó Catháin in
The Bedside Book of Irish Folklore
(1980), pp. 32–34. James H. Delargy’s argument can be found in his paper in the
Irish Free State Official Handbook
(1932), pp. 264–266.

Dell Hymes describes the poetic nature of American Indian narrative in his paper in
New Literary History
(1976–1977), pp. 431–457, gathered into his important book, “
In Vain I Tried to Tell You”: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1981), pp. 309–341. See also Dennis Tedlock,
The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983). I describe my treatment of stories in
Passing the Time in Ballymenone
(1982), pp. 36–49.

COMMUNICATION
Thomas Wright evaluates Crofton Croker’s work in the editor’s preface to
Fairy Legends
(1862), p. ii. Croker’s observation on the similarity of legends comes in that volume, p. 21, and his linking of an Irish tale to the East comes on p. 50. Samuel Lover’s warning to scholars appears in the introduction to
Legends and Stories of Ireland
(1834 [1831]), p. xviii. Lover’s comment on the German analogue to “The Devil’s Mill” is in the same volume, p. 156. A version of the tale Lover sketched appears as tale 43 in this collection. Croker states his purpose in
Fairy Legends
(1828), p. vii.

Folklore’s historic-geographic method is presented by Kaarle Krohn,
Folklore Methodology: Formulated by Julius Krohn and Expanded by Nordic Researchers
, trans. Roger L. Welsch (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971; first pub. 1926). Douglas Hyde classifies the stories of Ireland in
Beside the Fire
(1890), pp. xxxiv–xli. In this collection, “Finn and His Men Bewitched” and tales 109, 110, and 111 are Fenian tales, and Aarne-Thompson international tale type 300 is represented by tales 114 and 115.

Lady Gregory is excellently introduced by Elizabeth Coxhead in
Lady Gregory
(1966). I also found helpful Lennox Robinson’s edition of
Lady Gregory’s Journals
(1947) and Colin Smythe’s edition of her autobiography,
Seventy Years
(1974). Lady Gregory tells of her interest in the stories’ beautiful sentences in
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
(1970), p. 15. W. B. Yeats praised her language in his preface to her
Cuchulain of Muirthemne
(1902). She asserted the scientific responsibility of the folklorist in
The Kiltartan Wonder Book
(1910), p. 105. In
The Kiltartan History Book
(1909), p. 49, (1926), p. 152, she wrote that she might have named it “Myths in the Making.”

Jeremiah Curtin is sketched in James H. Delargy’s introduction to
Irish Folk-Tales
(1943). Douglas Hyde’s opinion of Curtin comes in
Beside the Fire
, p. xv.

THE LEGEND OF KNOCKFIERNA
T. Crofton Croker,
Fairy Legends
(1862), pp. 6–9.

FINN AND HIS MEN BEWITCHED
Patrick Kennedy,
Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts
(1866), pp. 206–208. This story blends numbers 2, 29, and 10 from Sean O’Sullivan’s typology of Fenian tales in his
Handbook of Irish Folklore
(1963), pp. 590–595. See tale 110 in this collection.

THE KING OF IRELAND’S SON
Douglas Hyde,
Beside the Fire
(1890), pp. 19–47. This is Aarne-Thompson international tale type 513A, with type 507A added.

Type 513A, Six Go Through the World, is one of the most common
Märchen
in Europe and in Ireland. For a sense of the flexibility of folk themes and structures, compare this tale with numbers 116, 117, and 121 in this collection.

1
THE BAPTISM OF CONOR MAC NESSA
Sean O’Sullivan,
Legends from Ireland
(1977), pp. 104–105. Recorded for the Irish Folklore Commission by Seán Ó hEochaidh. Published in Irish in
Béaloideas
(1951–1952), pp. 26–27. Conor was the king of Ulster in the time of the epic
Táin Bó Cúailnge
, of which Thomas Kinsella has prepared a superb translation for modern readers,
The Tain
(1969).

2
SAINT PATRICK
Lady Gregory,
The Kiltartan History Book
(1926), p. 24. Not in the first edition (1909). The traditional date for Patrick’s arrival in Ireland is 432. The traditional date of his death is March 17, 493. James Carney adroitly weighs the historical evidence in
The Problem of St. Patrick
(1973).

3
SAINT PATRICK ON INISHMORE
Henry Glassie,
Passing the Time in Ballymenone
(1982), p. 170;
Irish Folk History
(1982), pp. 21–22. Mr. Nolan’s account of Saint Patrick’s company accords with the description provided by the Four Masters in the seventeenth century. See John O’Donovan, ed.,
Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland
(1854), 1: 134–141. Inishmore is an island in Upper Lough Erne.

4
SAINT PATRICK AND CROM DUBH
Douglas Hyde,
Legends of Saints and Sinners
(1915), pp. 3–11. Another tale of the encounter of Saint Patrick and Crom Dubh appears in Sean O’Sullivan,
Legends from Ireland
(1977), pp. 109–112. Saint Patrick’s battle seems to be a memory of the saint’s destruction of a ring of stone idols, Cromm Cruiach, at Magh Sleacht in County Cavan. See Douglas Hyde,
A Literary History of Ireland
(1967), pp. 84–88.

5
SAINT BRIGIT
These are stories 1, 2, 3, 8, 18, and 19 from the twenty in the first edition (1906), pp. 1–14, and the twenty-two in the first commercial edition (1907), pp. 1–16, of Lady Gregory’s
Book of Saints and Wonders
. The fourth in this sequence is a version of O’Sullivan-Christiansen Irish folktale type 2400, known widely in Ireland.

6
SAINT COLUMCILLE
Henry Glassie,
Passing the Time in Ballymenone
(1982), pp. 176–178;
Irish Folk History
(1982), pp. 29–32. Adamnan’s seventh-century biography, edited by Alan Orr Anderson and Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson (1961), tells of the battle of Cúl Dreimne in 561, which led to Columcille’s exile, and the Council of Druim Ceat in 575, but it does not include the tale of the dispute over the book. That is found in A. O’Kelleher and G. Schoepperle, eds.,
Life of Columcille Compiled by Manus O’Donnell in 1532
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1918), pp. 176–201. Sean O’Sullivan,
Legends from Ireland
(1977), pp. 106–108, offers another folk text.

7
COLUMCILLE’S COFFIN
Séamas Ó Catháin,
The Bedside Book of Irish Folklore
(1980), pp. 77–78. Columcille died at Iona in June 597.

8
SAINT KEVIN
These three tales were gathered from those included in Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall,
Ireland
(1850), 1: 221–223. The third of the stories, the only one in this book to which I made an addition (the word “O’Toole” in the first sentence), is a popular one, appearing, for instance, as the first sketch in Samuel Lover’s first series of
Legends and Stories of Ireland
(1834 [1831]), pp. 1–16.

9
SAINT FINBAR
Sean O’Sullivan,
Legends from Ireland
(1977), p. 152. Recorded for the Irish Folklore Commission by Nora Ní Chróinín.

10
JAMES MURRAY AND SAINT MARTIN
Jeremiah Curtin,
Tales of the Fairies and of the Ghost World
(1895), pp. 118–121. Three comparable tales in Irish can be found in Sean O’Sullivan’s important collection of religious stories, “Scéalta Cráibtheacha,”
Béaloideas
(1951–1952), pp. 202–207. Two of them are translated in O’Sullivan’s
Legends from Ireland
(1977), pp. 114–116.

11
THE BEST ROAD TO HEAVEN
Lady Gregory,
Poets and Dreamers
(1903), pp. 106–107.

12
THE MAN FROM KILMACOLIVER
Rose Springfield, “Folklore of Slievenamon: The Legend of the Seven Bishops,” in James Maher, ed.,
Romantic Slievenamon in History, Folklore, and Song
(1955), p. 94. The richly carved Ahenny Cross dates to the eighth century.

13
THE PIOUS MAN
Kevin Danaher,
Folktales of the Irish Countryside
(1967), pp. 38–39. This is O’Sullivan-Christiansen Irish folktale type 1848
^*
, known especially in the South and West of Ireland, and related to Aarne-Thompson international tale type 1848, distributed lightly through western Europe.

14
AN ACTUAL SAINT
Lawrence Millman,
Our Like Will Not Be There Again
(1977), pp. 50–51. This story, related to Aarne-Thompson international type 759B, is especially common in the West of Ireland. A comparable story in Irish appears in Sean O’Sullivan’s “Scéalta Cráibtheacha,”
Béaloideas
(1951–1952), pp. 233–235.

15
OLD THORNS AND OLD PRIESTS
Michael J. Murphy,
Now You’re Talking
(1975), pp. 11–12.

16
PRIESTS AND FARMING MEN
Unpublished. Tape-recorded from Peter Flanagan, November 12, 1972. This pair of “bids” comes as a set. Mr. Flanagan also told them to me on January 2, 1974, and December 12, 1983.

17
SAVED BY THE PRIEST
Séamas Ó Catháin,
Irish Life and Lore
(1982), pp. 70–72.

18
THE DOOM
Lady Wilde,
Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland
(1902), pp. 67–69. Assuming “Innismore” to be one of the Arans, I attribute the tale to Galway.

19
THE RIGHT CURE
George A. Little,
Malachi Horan Remembers
(1944), pp. 88–91. Peter Flanagan similarly describes the significance of the curing power of holy wells in
Passing the Time in Ballymenone
(1982), pp. 171–174, 307–310.

20
HELL AND HEAVEN
W. B. Yeats,
The Celtic Twilight
(1902), pp. 77–78. This text, lacking the last paragraph, also appears in Lady Gregory’s
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland
(1970), pp. 200–201.

21
THE WOLF’S PROPHECY
Lady Gregory,
A Book of Saints and Wonders
(1907), pp. 131–133.

22
THE THREE QUESTIONS
Michael J. Murphy,
Now You’re Talking
(1975), pp. 16–17. Murphy presents a slightly different version of this tale (Aarne-Thompson international type 922), which he remembered from his father, in “Folktales and Traditions from County Cavan and South Armagh,”
Ulster Folklife
(1973), pp. 34–35.

23
THE FARMER’S ANSWERS
Lady Gregory,
Poets and Dreamers
(1903), pp. 183–184. Aarne-Thompson international tale type 922 is found commonly and widely in Ireland. See O’Sullivan and Christiansen’s
Types of the Irish Folktale
, pp. 181–182. And it is known in India, throughout Europe from Turkey to Sweden, and in North and South America.

24
HALF A BLANKET
Michael J. Murphy,
Now You’re Talking
(1975), p. 42. This is Aarne-Thompson international tale type 980A, known in China, Japan, and widely in Europe.

25
THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN
John M. Synge,
The Aran Islands
(1911), pp. 57–60. Out of this tale (Aarne-Thompson international tale type 1350, known throughout Ireland), Synge wrote his play
In the Shadow of the Glen
in 1902.