Irish Fairy and Folk Tales

 Irish Fairy and Folk Tales by Various, 134 pages

I picked up a copy of this book and Barnes and Noble years ago (because it was beautiful) and had never gotten around to reading it. So when Saint Patrick's Day came around this year it seemed like a good time to finally get around to it. 

The stories in this book are simultaneously older and less old than I had expected. The collection consists of mostly 19th and early 20th century sources (including a few from Lady Wilde, although surprisingly none from Yeats), and many of the stories seem to be more or less contemporary to their recording. 

Some of the tellers are more talented than others. I enjoyed in particular the stories of Lady Wilde, and was not nearly as impressed by T. Crofton Crocker, who sprinkles small snippets of quotations randomly throughout his recordings. I enjoyed many of the stories, although there were less fairies than the title would have led me to believe.