A selection of oral tales collected by the great Eddie Lenihan, all from a geographical area familiar to me - Ferenka gets a mention, and Doon, and Kilaloe, so yay for familiarity. It's a cracking set of stories, though variable. Some are masterfully crafted, absolutely perfect exemplars of the form. Others are a bit more ragged and fragmented, and if you're in it purely for the craft it's a let down, but they all build up to a satisfying survey of folkloric beliefs and tales associated with the Good Folk. My favourite was the laugh-out-loud Skeptic's Tale, which isn't even a fairy story proper. The most arresting was one of the opening tales which came off at moments like a Wim Winders film, and the whole thing is rounded off with a gruesome tale of bloodcurdling horror, just in case you were getting in any way complacent. ( )

All of these stories about fairies were told to the author by the older generations that are now grandparents. These were stories never written down but told by word of mouth.

There were only a few I really enjoyed. The rest of them seem to tell the same story over and over. A lot of the stories were similar to the last. That being said it is still cool to have the stories written down so generations can see the stories that some of the kids and adults grew up believing about fairies. ( )