The Irish Fairy Book

There was great grief that day in the castle of the King. There was a goat's head on the Queen, and the King's son was going searching for an enchanter, without knowing whether...

"Set it upon a pillar that we may see and hear it," cried they all; and they said, "It is no luck for thee to be like that, Donn-bo, and thou the most beautiful minstrel and the...

The child was growing till he was a year old, and he was beginning to walk, and there was no one caring for him more than I was. He was growing till he was three, and he was run...

"Work for us," says the King, "some of these great wonders." Then Sheen went forth out of the house, and she set herself to work spells on Murtough, so that he knew not whether...

One day, as she and a woman were spinning together, the house suddenly became quite dark; and the door was burst open as if by the blast of the tempest, when in walked a huge bl...

"But you can't cross the ford," says the fox. "And can't you carry me over?" says the cake. "What'll you give me?" says the fox. "A kiss at Christmas and an egg at Easter," says...

"Now, Lawn Dyarrig," said the woman, "this horse will never stop till he stands on the little white meadow in the Eastern World. When he stops, you'll come down, and cut the tur...

Then we there sat down, each of us on a chair of gold. There was laid out for us abundance of food and drinking-horns filled with beer. When we had taken a sufficiency of food a...

So the King said they should put off the marriage, "For," says he, "I see there is no use in thinking of it till my youngest gets her three crowns and is married along with the...

Far Rua, seeing what he had seen, was of the same opinion himself; his knees knocked together with the terror of Finn's return, and he accordingly hastened in to bid Oonagh fare...

"'Becase,' says Jer, 'if it isn't done you'll never be asy agin,' says he, 'or pusillanimous in your mind,' says he; 'so ax no more questions, but do my biddin',' says he.

"My name is Feradach, and my brother's name is Foltlebar; and we are the two sons of the King of Innia. Each of us professes an art; and it has long been a point of dispute betw...

So out marched Tom and away with him, without minding the shouting and cursing they kept up at him from the tops of the walls. And when he got home to the big bawn of the palace...

The three inmates of the cabin had so much to say to one another that, long after cock-crow, when the fairy music had quite ceased, they were talking round the fire.

"'No,' says the saint; 'I'm no tinker by thrade, King O'Toole; I've a betther thrade than a tinker,' says he. 'What would you say,' says he, 'if I made your ould goose as good a...

It was not long after this that Setanta received the name by which he is more generally known. Culain was chief of the black country of Ulla, and of a people altogether given up...

"'Is that all, and is this how you leave me, you brute, you,' says I. 'You ugly unnatural _baste_, and is this the way you serve me at last? Bad luck to yourself, with your hook...

After that all arose and armed themselves and ringed Tara round with horse and foot, and thrice Conn the Hundred-Fighter raised his awful regal voice, enjoining vigilance upon h...

"Now, it so happened that a little below this place the desmesne wall of Colonel Bragshaw was built up to the very edge of the river on each side of its banks; and so, findin' t...

E-text prepared by David Edwards and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Arch...