Celtic Fairy Tales: 20 Classic Stories Including the Black Cat, Lutey and the Mermaid, and the Fiddler in the Cave

By Neil Philip

Book Overview

20 Classic Stories Including The Black Cat, Lutey and the Mermaid, and The Fiddler in the Cave

An Irish proverb tells us. "A tale is more precious than the wealth of the world," and judging from the richness of their storytelling traditions, the Celts have always believed this.

In fairy tales, as in music, the romantic artistry of the Celts came to full flower. In this wonderful collection of fairy tales from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, The Isle of Man, and Brittany, we meet heroes and villains, princes and paupers, enchanting creatures and magical mermaids.

Each story has been retold by Neil Philip and display a common Celtic heritage in their love of extravagance and poetry, their quick wit and their daring sense of adventure.

Here, retold much as they were around Celtic peat fires a hundred years ago, are the enthralling tales of 'Fair, Brown, and Trembling', 'The Brown Bear of the Green Glen', and 'The Ship That Went to America'. Some of the stories give familiar tales a Celtic twist: 'Duffy and the Devil' is a comic Cornish take on the Rumpelstiltskin story; 'The Black Cat' is a dark and mysterious Breton Cinderella. Others seem new and strange: the doomed love of 'Lutey and the Mermaid', or the mystic rapture of 'The Little Bird'.

Perhaps most riveting of all is the Irish tale of 'The Soul Cages', in which a fisherman makes friends with one of the sea-people, Coomara, and uses that friendship to free the souls of drowned sailors, kept by Coomara in lobster pots in his house beneath the waves.

Illustrated in watercolor and gold by acclaimed artist Isabelle Brent, these tales are full of Celtic magic.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1861478755
• ISBN13: 9781861478757
• Release Date: February 2021
• Publisher: Anness Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.1" x 10.1"
• Age Range: 17 years and under
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 12

Customer Reviews

content

Full of interesting stories, great art work and enjoyable read. I pick up this book for a friend who was looking for a copy and she loves it.

Best Celtic Fairy Tales book, IMHO

I collect Celtic Fairy Tales. I have Jacobs, Young, and many more. Usually the books are inappropriate for very young children because of their graphic violence or too-abstract artistry. But Philip manages to take the traditional tales, and make them sound better, shorter, and less violent. And the illustrations are simply breathtaking with the gold-leaf papers and thick, gold-edged paper... the book is vaguely reminisent of the old books (e.g. Book of Kells) in that every page is illustrated in some way -- it's absolutely breathtaking. This is an excellent selection of stories as well.