Celtic Fairy Tales

From the Dust Jacket: The success that met Joseph Jacob's edition of English Fairy Tales when it was first published in 1890 encouraged him to follow it with a collection of folk tales of Celtic origin. Jacobs published his two books of Celtic tales in 1892 and 1894. The stories represent every aspect of Celtic folklore from the comic "drolls" about acts of stupidity or cunning, such as the traditional Irish "Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'Neary", to heroic legends, such as "The Wooing of Olwen" taken from the Welsh Mabinogion. Jacobs made his collections primarily for the enjoyment of young readers. In telling the stories he retained as far as possible the style of the Irish, Scottish, or Welsh originals and they still read aloud beautifully. However, for the benefit of folklore specialists he added notes giving his sources for the stories. These were sometimes extant manuscripts, but more often the oral traditions of country people. He distinguished between those tales that are peculiarly Celtic and those with parallels in other parts of Europe. This is a complete edition of the forty-six stories in Jacobs' two Celtic collections together with both his prefaces and all his notes and references. It has been newly illustrated by Victor Ambrus.