Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading) Book

This is a rather lovely collection of folk tales and fairy stories, put together by W.B. Yeats. It's organised into chapters by subject; we get chapters focusing on stories about giants, witches, banshees, etc. and even a slightly bizarre chapter on jackdaws of all things.

Don't make the mistake I did in thinking Yeats actually wrote these (I know, I should read the book description and not just buy the book because of the author's name on the cover). Yeats does pen introductions to most of the chapters, writes some footnotes, contributes a couple of poems and translates some of the stories from the original Irish but the vast majority of the content of this book is folklore passed down through the generations, usually by word of mouth.

The only reason I'm not giving this five stars is because some of the tales are quite samey, probably because they're variations of a common root story. Despite this, this is a great read if you're interested in folklore.

My next book: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages