Summary
Summary of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 7 h 30 min5 h 55 min fast, 8 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 106,900 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
Key ideas
Key idea 1
The storyteller deserves to be heard
Yeats begins by asking us to listen to country people on their own terms. When they speak of fairies, ghosts and mermaids, he hears a living belief rather than something to explain away. Collectors need tact, friendship and respect for what people hesitate to tell.
His example is Paddy Flynn, a pious old man who says he has seen the Banshee. Yeats also values Douglas Hyde for recording Gaelic tales word for word. The voice of the storyteller matters as much as the story.
Key idea 2
Fairies live by their own rules
Who are the fairies?
Start free to read
Key idea 3
A household can lose its own
Fairy stories bring fear into the home.
Start free to read
Key idea 4
Friendship meets a debt beneath the sea
Jack Dogherty longs to meet a Merrow, and a storm brings him to Coomara.
Start free to read
Key idea 5
A fairy favour can become service
The solitary spirits bring a different kind of encounter.
Start free to read
Key idea 6
The dead still need the living
Ghosts remain between this life and the next because longing, duty or anger holds them there.
Start free to read
Key idea 7
Village troubles call for unseen explanations
When butter will not come or a child seems changed, people turn to the fairy doctor.
Start free to read
Key idea 8
Faith and humour share the stage
Saints, priests and the devil enter the same world of belief.
Start free to read
Key idea 9
The otherworld has manners and obligations
Across these tales, the Irish otherworld becomes a place with relationships as well as dangers.
Start free to read
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest free
Go deeper: the whole of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
About 7 h 40 min to read.Start freeWho it’s for
You will love this book if you enjoy tales told around a fire, ghost stories with a sly smile, fairy lore, and the early work of a poet who listened to village voices.
What this book is
What would you do if twenty little men dropped a dead body on your back and ordered you to bury it before dawn? That is the fate of Teig O'Kane, a wild young man on a lonely Leitrim road. It is one scene among many in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry.
W. B. Yeats edited this collection as a young writer, eager to keep what country people still told. He chose the tales from earlier collectors, added poems, and arranged everything by kind of spirit. You get the whole spirit world of Ireland, from the merry host of the raths to the wailing Banshee on a bridge.
In this summary
- 1Yeats trusts the storyteller over the scientistFree
- 2Fairies are fallen angels or forgotten gods
- 3Fairies punish rudeness and reward good manners
- 4Stolen people and changelings haunt every household
- 5The sea has its own people and its own debts
- 6Solitary spirits are tricksters, shoemakers and shape-shifters
- 7The dead and the Banshee keep faith with the living
- 8Witches steal butter and fairy doctors heal
- 9Saints, priests and the devil share the stage
- 10Giants, kings and notes close the collection
Key point 1 of 10
Yeats trusts the storyteller over the scientist
Yeats opens with a preface that argues for a way of listening. He says Irish country people still live among fairies, ghosts and mermaids, while the English fairies vanished long ago. A man in County Sligo answers a question about fairies by saying he has been troubled by them. Yeats treats such answers as plain facts about a living belief.
He advises any collector to be tactful and to make friends with children and old men. Old women know the most but say the least, because the fairies resent being talked about. His hero is Paddy Flynn, a small bright-eyed old man in a leaky cottage in Sligo. Paddy is deeply pious, yet he says he has seen the Banshee beating the river with its hands.
Yeats trusts Douglas Hyde most of all, because Hyde writes Gaelic tales down word for word. He refuses to explain away a single hobgoblin. These stories are best heard as the living voice of a people, not as specimens in a jar.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Take this summary with you
Send to Kindle downloads the file and opens Amazon's page: drop the file there.
Check yourself
Why does Yeats value Douglas Hyde's approach to collecting tales?
Right. “Yeats trusts Douglas Hyde most of all, because Hyde writes Gaelic tales down word for word.”Not quite. “Yeats trusts Douglas Hyde most of all, because Hyde writes Gaelic tales down word for word.”
What does Jack plan after discovering the souls in Coomara's lobster pots?
Right. “Jack cannot bear the thought and plans to free them without hurting his new friend.”Not quite. “Jack cannot bear the thought and plans to free them without hurting his new friend.”
Why do the dead return in these tales?
Right. “In these tales the dead are people with unfinished business who need the living to finish it.”Not quite. “In these tales the dead are people with unfinished business who need the living to finish it.”
Go deeper: the whole of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
About 7 h 40 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
Questions about Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry
What is Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry about?
It is a collection of Irish fairy tales, ghost stories, witch legends and folk poems, gathered by W. B. Yeats from earlier collectors and sorted by kind of spirit, from fairies and ghosts to saints and giants.
Is this a collection of true stories?
They are folk tales and local beliefs, told as the people told them. Yeats presents them as the living lore of the Irish countryside, and he declines to explain the spirits away.
Cite this edition
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/fairy-and-folk-tales-of-the-irish-peasantry.
Fairy and folk tales of the Irish peasantry. (2026). Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fairy-and-folk-tales-of-the-irish-peasantry
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fairy-and-folk-tales-of-the-irish-peasantry.
@book{anonymous2026fairy,
title = {Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/fairy-and-folk-tales-of-the-irish-peasantry}
}
Free for 3 months
Get the full summary of Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, free
- 200,000+ classics as eBooks, audiobooks and 15-minute summaries, and print and large print at cost
- Up to 5 readers in your home on one plan
