Beth's Reviews > The Celtic Twilight Faerie and Folklore

This is Yeats's collection of stories and lore surrounding Celtic fairies, ghosts and spirits. It's available at Librivox.org (audio) and at Sacred Texts.

Most of the chapters are pretty short. My favorites are "The Hosting of the Sidhe" (the poem that opens the book), "A Teller of Tales" (Yeats's description of Paddy Flynn, the storyteller who provided him with many of these tales), "The Untiring Ones" (concerning humans who were enchanted by the fairies) "The Man and His Boots" (a funny story about a man whose boots are haunted), and "A Remonstrance with Scotsmen for Having Soured the Disposition of Their Ghosts and Faeries."

That last one is an essay about the Scottish attitude towards fairies and spirits, contrasted with the Irish attitude. Yeats writes:
"You have discovered the faeries to be pagan and wicked. You would like to have them all up before the magistrate. In Ireland warlike mortals have gone amongst them, and helped them in their battles, and they in turn have taught men great skill with herbs, and permitted some few to hear their tunes. Carolan slept upon a faery rath. Ever after their tunes ran in his head, and made him the great musician he was. In Scotland you have denounced them from the pulpit. In Ireland they have been permitted by the priests to consult them on the state of their souls. Unhappily the priests have decided that they have no souls, that they will dry up like so much bright vapour at the last day; but more in sadness than in anger they have said it. The Catholic religion likes to keep on good terms with its neighbours."