The Bedside Book of Irish Folklore

by Seamas O'Cathain

Book by Ocathain, Seamas

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[David Campton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim volume with an eclectic assortment of folk tales culled from the huge repository of Irish Folklore at UCD where O'Cathain lectured. The anthology is grouped thematically, and some of the tales are better than others, but that reflects their diverse origins, as all are verbatim accounts (some translated from the original Irish, told by different people, some seanchais but most simply ordinaroy people who were passing on the tales told to them. It could perhaps have benefited from the intervention of an editor and sadly this edition of the book was badly produced with pages misprinted, but within its pages are stories I have never heard or read anywhere else, and, with the loss of an oral culture in the western world, might never be heard again without books such as this. Some would be missed more than others...