8 h 36 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a familiar road leads you close to beings who do not follow human rules?
In Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs gathers stories where roads, fields, houses, and wild places bring everyday life close to another world. Fairies offer more than harmless wishes. Help can carry conditions, and a careless promise or an unexpected kindness can change everything. Each tale begins afresh, with its own people, troubles, and possibilities.
These short adventures move between wonder and unease, with strange dangers, impossible tasks, and clever escapes. Alongside the enchantment come rivalry, foolishness, greed, and sharp answers. Jacobs brings together folk tales rather than one continuous adventure, so each new beginning offers another chance to watch ordinary people face extraordinary trouble—and sometimes outwit an opponent.
What you’ll discover
- The familiar turns strange Step into roads, fields, and houses where everyday life brushes against the fairy world.
- Help with a catch Discover supernatural encounters where help comes with conditions and promises carry unexpected weight.
- Wits against danger Enjoy the satisfaction of clever escapes and sharp answers when an opponent seems hard to beat.
- Earthy folk humour Find foolishness, greed, and rivalry woven through tales of enchantment and impossible tasks.
- Patterns that draw you onward Follow repeated actions that invite you to anticipate what might happen next.
Who will love it
Readers who love fairy tales, giants and clever tricksters, and anyone curious about Irish, Scottish and Welsh storytelling and the roots of tales like Cinderella and Snow White.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Fairy folk call mortals to another world
- Quick wits beat greed in trickster tales
- Witches, lake maidens and monsters in the dark
- A beautiful girl hidden away cannot stay hidden
- Stories nest inside stories to buy a life
- Heroes face giants, beasts and hungry hounds
- Clever wives and cruel sisters shape the plots
- Wise advice and strange quests from Wales and Cornwall
- Where the stories come from and how they travel
Who’s who
- ConnlaA king's son with fiery hair who is called by a fairy maiden to the Plain of the Ever-Living.
- GuleeshA boy from County Mayo who follows the fairy host to France and meets the king's daughter.
- DeirdreA girl raised in secret in a green hill who loves Naois, the son of Uisnech.
- Conall YellowclawA tenant farmer sent with his sons to steal a horse, who tells tales of hard times to save them.
- OonaghThe wife of Finn M'Coul, who uses wit and loaves of bread to protect her husband from Cuhullin.
- Tom with the Goat-SkinA widow's son dressed in a goatskin who sets out to make a sad princess laugh.
- TremblingThe youngest of three royal sisters, kept at home to cook, who goes to church in splendid dresses.
- Donald O'NearyA poor man with one cow who outwits the two rich farmers who envy his strip of grass.
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- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read today.
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Keltische Volks- und Märchen in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Keltische Volks- und Märchen
by Joseph Jacobs (Herausgeber) · 1892
A tailor sews trews in a haunted church while a giant rises through the floor, piece by piece.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you do if a fairy host swept past you in the night and offered you a horse and bridle? Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales gathers twenty-six stories from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, retold by Joseph Jacobs for young readers.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Fairy folk call mortals to another world
The book opens with Connla, son of King Conn, who sees a maiden that nobody else can see. She comes from the Plain of the Ever-Living, a land without death or sin, and she begs him to come away with her. Fairy lands pull on people all through these tales.
The king calls his druid Coran, who drives her voice away with chanting. But she leaves Connla an apple. For a month he eats nothing else, and the apple always grows whole again, while his longing for her grows too. Guleesh meets the fairy host in another way. He wishes aloud to be like the moon, then shouts for a horse and bridle with the little people, and he finds himself riding to France to steal a king's daughter on her wedding night.
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What is Celtic Folk and Fairy Tales about?
It is a collection of twenty-six stories from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, retold by Joseph Jacobs. They include fairy abductions, giants, tricksters, ghost stories and the saga of Deirdre, with notes on each tale's source.
Who was Joseph Jacobs?
Joseph Jacobs was a folklorist who collected and retold folk tales for children. He published English Fairy Tales before this book and added notes explaining where he found each Celtic story and where similar tales appear.
Are these tales true or ancient?
They are folk tales, not histories, though some are very old. Connla is traced to an Old Irish manuscript from before 1106, and Deirdre appears in versions across about eight centuries. Jacobs's notes give the details.
The author
Joseph Jacobs
1854–1916 · Australian folklorist and historian
Joseph Jacobs was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1854. He moved to England in 1872 and to the United States in 1900. He was a folklorist, historian, and writer. He published English Fairy Tales in 1890 and More English Fairy Tales in 1894. He died in Yonkers, New York, in 1916.
More by Joseph Jacobs (Herausgeber)
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